Episode 38: Mailbag Transcript
Mailbag Transcript for Episode 38
Hosts: wook77, emmagrant01, elanorofcastile, chaeche
Emma: Welcome to the mailbag segment for episode 38. This is emmagrant01 and I’m here with Rachel and Elenorofcastile and Wook and we are going to talk about the comment we got on the previous episode and then we are going to talk a little bit about The Hobbit which is sort of the big thing everyone is talking about in fandom right now. So first of all we got a comment on our last episode which was the Breaking the Fourth Wall episode from trinity_clare she says “Did anybody talk about bandom? Because the time Vicky-T commented on a pornfic about herself is my favorite fourth wall moment of all time.” And I don’t know what that’s about but I think Elanor I think, you do.
Elanor: Well you know on reading it again I did a little googling and I couldn’t find the one where she talks about it, about herself but I found a video that we’ll link in the post show post about Alex and Vicki - T talking and they have like an interview with this person or whatever and they are asked like what’s the craziest rumour you ever hear and then Alex starts talking about fanfiction and about him and one of his bandmates and some other people from other bands that I’m not super familiar with and then they talk about that yeah they read it and they know about it and stuff. But that was kind of quite interesting too but you know they’re like what’s they craziest rumour and so then they start talking about fanfic and they talked about how about how weird it was to read about yourself having sex with someone you’re friends with.
Wook: Ahh yeah I guess that would be kind of weird.
Rachel: That would be weird, I can’t relate, but I imagine that would be weird.
Emma: I have to say I really enjoyed that interview that Rachel did with the ladies from AO3 about the DMCA exemption. I wasn’t a part of that interview, but I did editing for it and it was so amazing when I was editing it I felt like I making a documentary or something. I mean it was just really such an incredible story you know. The fact…I love the idea of these 4 women, 3 of them are fangirls, who basically went up against really the entire entertainment industry and said look, we are ripping these for fair use and we need to have this good quality and made this case and then won the exemption. I mean, it’s like this crazy David and Goliath thing with the added benefit of having this whole feminist layer of these 4 women and these guys are like trying to like “oh honey you are doing it wrong” and I mean the whole thing just blew my mind. I like sent copies of like that interview, like even people IRL that I don’t necessarily want them to know about the fandom stuff I like sent people copies of just the file of the interview. I’m like you have to listen to this, this is amazing.
Rachel: Rebecca and Tish are just pretty amazing in general. I feel so honored to have done the interview and then also to be able to work with them in OTW, because they are just like rockstars in so many ways. And Francesca too she wasn’t part of the interview but she’s been on Slashcast before and she’s been an awesome force and then (inaudible name) is BFF attorney. So follow these people’s blogs they rock.
Emma: Ok so now we are going to talk about the Hobbit so if for some reason, you are listening to this podcast, if you haven’t seen it yet you might just want to end the podcast and come back to it after you’ve seen it because there’s going to be spoilers probably. First of all reactions.
Elanor: - Thranduil you sassy-ass top your elk.
Emma: Oh my god the elk!
Wook: I actually laughed out loud in the theater and this uber-nerd dad looked at me like he wanted to elbow me in the face. I laughed so had at his stupid ass crown. I was like WTF is on his head!
Elanor: And Lee Pace’s eyebrows, I mean come on!
Wook: Hey he (inaudible) harder than Emma Watson ever did!
Elanor: It’s true. He starred in two big franchise movies this year. Him and his eyebrows. Good on him. Cause he was in the twilight movies. I’m sure he had more fun in this than on that.
Elanor: Oh wow. I have to say, I went, I mean I was going to go anyway cause I love the original trilogy. But you know part of it too for me is the Martin Freeman love and he was amazing. Oh my god. I saw it again today and I was trying to think about what is it about the way that he portrays Bilbo that I love so much, I think what I came away from it with, he’s almost childlike in so many way there’s this sense of wonder and amazement and innocence about the world. And all these scenes you know where he’s like terrified, and you know starting death he doesn’t ever really look, I mean there’s not any sort of overdramatized horror or anything on his face. He’s always just got this kind of like dear in the headlights look or something but it really worked. I really loved that.
Wook: I love the scene, I mean it was in all the trailers and stuff too but, where he’s talking to Sméagol and Sméagol is like if the Bagginses loses we eat them whole and he’s like Oh OK that sounds fair. That scene was awesome.
Emma: Yeah that was great!
Elanor: And that was the first one that they filmed together. They did that scene and he was just started to learn the character and everything. And yet it felt so consistent with everything else, cause you know they always shoot out of order and everything. It was really interesting to see, to know that, that’s how he figured out the character through working with that.
Wook: Well I’ll probably be snotty about it, and I mean it in a funny sort of way. Really how much did he have to learn about this character because he’s every character that Martin Freeman has ever played.
Elanor: It’s true.
Wook: It’s like, oh the confused traveller. Oh wait what was this movie called again? Oh the Hobbit oh I’m sorry I thought it was Hitchhiker’s Guide. Oh I’m sorry. It was like Martin Freeman plays every character Martin Freeman ever played in a way.
Elanor: Yeah, cause he gets put in the everyman sort of role a lot
Wook: And he does a great job at it!
Rachel: I have to push back on Arthur Dent and Bilbo are kind the same character cause even though they have a lot of similarities, Arthur kind of remains bumbly and confused whereas even within this first movie you see Bilbo go from the guy that’s freaking out when all the dwarves are messing up his doilies to busting out a sword and taking on this pale ork at the end. He really grows to this level, that Arthur Dent just remains a comic foil. Yeah it’s the same character but I love watching him play it again and again and again.
Elanor: Oh I definitely love watching him play this character. I just I’d like to see him branch out cause I think he could do an extremely great job doing something other this typecast role.
Emma: I mean it could be interesting to see where it goes in the next couple of films. I guess I came out of the first viewing of this film just completely in love with Martin. I mean I kind of was anyway but there was just something about the way he portrayed Biblio that just oh my Gosh. I just wanted to picked him up and hug him and squish him. I think part it of was just that he was so little compared with everyone else. He’s little anyway. He’s shorter than me, he’s like a little guy. There’s just something about him, just so cute and squishable. Oh man, I just loved him.
Wook: See and I came out of the movie with the same feelings about Richard Armitage. I love him anyway.
Rachel: He was great!
Wook: Thorin Oikenshield, alright here comes major spoilers, when he’s marching out of the fucking burning ass tree and he’s like I’m gonna fuck your shit up. I was like oh my god I love him.
Emma: It’s like I’m not falling on my death on this tree. I’m going on my death like a hero. Oh my god
Wook: I swooned. I actually swooned. I had to put my hand over my heart and it just was racing. My sister who was watching it with me elbowed me and was like can you please breathe? That scene. Oh my god. I love Richard Armitage so much. You can have Martin Freeman I’ll take Richard Armitage, I don’t who the other two would like.
Elanor: I’d like Aiden Turner please! It was so adorable, so the second showing I came out of it and this group of like, I want to say they were high school girls, they stayed through the credits to make sure and get Aiden Turner’s name. And they wrote it down and they were ok and it is A-I-D-E-N, ok we’ve got it. And I’m like oh look at you, you’re adorable. But his smile, oh I had the same thing.
Wook: And Dean O’Gorman, oh my god. I’m gonna weep ugly tears in movie 3, I’m quite certain. But Fili, Kili and Thorin have always been my favourites so I knew kinda coming out of it that I’d love them.
Elanor: And see and I had totally forgotten that. Because it’s been so long since I’ve read the book. So I was like Oh god!
Wook: See I never read the book. Does this make me a bad fangirl? I hate Tolkien’s writing.
Emma: Oh god me too. I can’t read him.
Wook: When he took 80 bazillion pages to describe leading into the mines of Moria I actually just calmly closed the book and threw it against the wall. I went through college classes cliff notes version of the Hobbit. I never actually read it. I cheated my way through that exam. I still fell in love with the whole concept of the maternal uncle. The scene with the giant things in the mountains. (inaudible). Giant rock guys and they get separated by the knees you should see me I’m actually gesturing and making the scene with my hands BTW. And Fili and Kili they look at each other and they’re like we haven’t been separated ever what are we going to do now? I loved it, loved it so much.
Elanor: I know gingerhaze has been doing some really awesome comics on tumblr about the Hobbit and Oh my god she just did this one recently which was, and I’m going to link it, that they’re on two different rocks and My Heart will go on is playing in the background. And it’s just beautiful. But I will say I did go into the movie tempered by the fact that it was rated 65% on rotten tomatoes, but I came out of it totally loving it so. But maybe people were, I don’t know, expecting something else but I’m like, umm it hit all my buttons so… Especially Aiden Turner, cutie!
Emma: You know actually I know a lot about that because my husband and I read a lot of those reviews and I thought. Oh man I don’t know what’s going to happen I really want to like this. And we came out of the theater and we kind of looked at each other and he said I loved that and I said oh my god I did too. And I went back and read some of those reviews and realized that I disagreed with a lot of them, but I think the reason I disagree with a lot of them, like for example a lot of the bad reviews talked about the fact that it was too long and they worked in too much stuff and it was too different from the book - I haven’t read the book- I tried like Wook and didn’t get very far cause I hated the writing but one of the things that I realized was, you know one of the thing they’ve done is they’ve pulled in all this extra information from other sources and that as a fan, that’s what I want. That’s why I read fanfiction because I don’t want the story to end. If it’s all bloated and goes on forever and I want all the deleted scenes, I want all of it. I want more. And so that worked for me, and that worked for him not because he’s like me in that respect but he loves epics he loves these long journeys that really test characters. It worked for both of us for different reasons. But the thing that most of the reviewers were picking up and saying is bad about it is exactly the thing that I loved.
Elanor: Yeah well the interesting thing too is that even though by all the reviewers and stuff it’s 65%, the audience rating is 81% so you know it’s totally like fine. And actually I’m that girl I read all of the appendixes of The Return of the King and so I recognized some of the things they pulled in. Granted I haven’t read the Unfinished Tales I know they also pulled stuff from. Knowing that, knowing that they expanded the world around so it’s not just a kid’s movie, to be able to make a richer world and everything and show that there all these machinations to really tie it to the Lord of the Rings trilogy made me happy. There’s a super awesome web comic called Sheldon that they talked about that in their post, well today is of when we are recording but the 17th. So that was really hilarious with the comparison between viewer, a person who is not familiar with it and a person who is a Tolkian person.
Wook: Well I wouldn’t say a Tolkian person, but a fan of the world itself, because I’m definitely not the ultimate Tolkian person, but a fan. I love the Lord of the Rings movies so much and then have this one - I loved it. And I have to agree with the Sheldon comic and we’ll link it in the port show post, but it basically says they are reading the phonebook, that’s fantastic! And I was like yeah, I would totally be ok if it was the phonebook. Especially if they were singing it. Because Richard Armitage’s singing, I know I keep coming back to him, but his singing in that, holy god!
Emma: When I came out of the theater the first time, there was some guy in the audience the was singing that song he was making up the words because he didn’t know them but he had the tuning exactly right and them everyone else started singing along so the was this procession coming out of the theater doing that (sings). It was amazing.
Wook: That’s awesome. See I had a bunch of teeny little kids and like really really old people cause I went 9.15 in the morning on a Saturday when you know everybody like my age and younger had been drinking and they are not going to be out in the movies at that time. Plus it was cold and rainy and gross and that means nobody leaves their house ever! So it was just the hardcore people. So people actually started cheering and stuff but during that singing it was fantastic.
Elanor: Yeah my first viewing, this was the first time since I was in college that I was in a theater full of college kids so it was so weird. But yeah everyone cheered and clapped and laughed. It was like so great having a really involved audience.
Wook: And then at the end, where they get dropped off by the eagles. I was like ok A - really the eagles couldn’t have dropped them off a couple of miles down the road they had to drop them off at some rock in the middle of nowhere they have to climb down. Oh wait Thorin is hugging him great, I’m glad the eagles dropped them there.
Emma: There was a cartoon or something on tumblr that was talking about that too. Where they have the group of them standing on top of the rock and Bilbo is looking up and the next time he’s looking up at Gandalf and he looks back out and says couldn’t the eagles have drooped us off a little closer. It was really cute.
Wook: So who’s exited to see legolas in the next movie?
Elanor: And some Cumberbatch dragon action.
Rachel: I’m more excited about that. I thought, I mean he was in the credits for this movie so I was confused cause I didn’t hear him talk.
Emma: I think probably part of it was The Necromancer appearance.
Elanor: Yeah he was in for the Necromancer. Cause the Necromancer did sort of make some sort of sounds.
Rachel: He made some noises.
Elanor: It was hard to tell it was him.
Emma: That really true when that shadow kind of appeared and the Necromancer, oh look it’s Benedict. And I thought it before I remembered that he was playing it. That looks familiar like I’ve started at enough pictures of this naked body that I could identify
Elanor: Yeah I recognized his shoulders I’m not gonna lie.
Wook: I had no idea it was him, so now when I drive 5 hours round trip to go see the movie tomorrow I will be looking for that.
Elanor: You’ll get a triple batch of him then.
Emma: Triplebatch!
Elanor: You get him in the trailer for Star trek, as the Necromancer and I’m just pretending that they used his breathing for the dragon.
Wook: (inaudible) 9 minutes that’s why I’m driving 5 hours to go see it.
Emma: so I read a lot of reviews that talked about different things so one of the funny things that I read, somewhere I can’t remember where it was now, this person said well at least the good thing about it being 9 hours of The Hobbit is that in the future when kids are assigned a book report on the Hobbit they’ll actually read it because it’s shorter than watching all the movies. I thought that’s probably true! It takes less effort to read the book than it takes to watch all these movies.
Elanor: Plus with all the extra stuff they’ll be stuck trying to guess which correct for the book.
Wook: Can you imagine if they release an extended edition of this in addition to the theatrical version? Like they did with the original Lord of the Rings where they added like 8 million extra hours. Can you imagine? It will be like Bilbo picks out his socks. Bilbo decides what jacket to wear when he runs out and says I’m on an adventure. Thorin brushes his hair. What-his-face checks the ax on this head in a mirror. It’ll be awesome! If it gets me more Bofur I will be very happy, because dude I did not expect to love Bofur as much as I did. I don’t know if there’s a character you guys came out and went huh I didn’t know I would love him.
Emma: I loved all of them honestly. I did. I mean I kinda went into it not knowing anything except Martin Freeman, I’m a bad fangirl in the sense that I kinda vaguely knew what was going to happen, but yeah going in I was so surprised at how much I really liked all the characters.
Wook: Can I just say one complaint about the movie?
Rachel: No you have to only say good things
Wook: Im gonna say it anyway. Where were the fucking women? Like, there was one actress with a damn line and the rest of the women that the we saw we weren’t even supposed to really see dwarven women are supposed to look exactly like dwarven men, hence why Gimli says that there’s that rumour that they pop out of the rock. And it’s like really? Where are the women? That’s my only complaint about the whole movie.
Elanor: Yeah and you know I was actually, I don’t remember where I read it, but I was reading an article about that and yeah same sort of thing.
Emma: that’s really true.
Rachel: (inaudible) Big celebrities to change the story but not others
Elanor: I think that there will be more next movie, but you know still how much of it is..
Wook: Evageline lili is going to be a made up character who is supposed to be like a conglomeration of a couple of different characters like an elven warrior lady.
Elanor: Yeah Tauriel.
Wook: So yeah Aiden Turner will be getting some of that action.
Elanor: As long as we get to see Legolas’s beautiful face. An seriously to go back to gingerhaze the reason Im excited to see him is because we get to see him with his dad and we get to see all of the gingerhaze (inaudible) Legolas and Thranduil will ever come to fruition. Oh my god I will link to that those are hilarious. Cause he’s like argh dwarves and super preppy. Oh my god I love her art sorry.
Wook: Oh man. So the other thing about the hobbit is like made me fall in love with the Lord of the Rings realm and middle earth. I immediately went home and started watching Fellowship of the Rings and I have never teared up in fellowship of the rings cause, I was like ah yeah Gandalf comes back yeah it’s sad he falls over, and this time Gimli frikking jumps on Balin’s tomb and I was like I know who that is and then like Gandalf grabs the book out of Ori’s hand and I’m like that’s Ori you bastard why don’t you say something to him you went on an journey with him. And I’m like he doesn’t even mention Ori, I actually like, probably cause I’m fake tearing now, but I was really upset I actually cried at that point and I was like that the first time I’ve ever cried at the Fellowship of the Rings.
Emma: I didn’t know that until I saw something about it, I saw the tumblr post about it. And I went Ohhh. So yeah.
Wook: It just made me more emotional watching The hobbit, putting those two together bacause then I was like wait that’s Balin oh my gosh and then everytime Gloin was on the TV I was elbowing my sister going that’s Gimli’s dad. So did you guys some out of it with any slash pairings?
Emma: I really didn’t I thought I would and I didn’t. I thought oh I’m gonna slash Biblo with somebody but no I came out of it and my reading of the way Bilbo was portrayed was very childlike so I just didn’t go there. I don’t know, nothing else really kind of happen for me. I mean it was so obvious in the first one, in the trilogy.
Rachel: I didn’t either, but I felt the same way after I came out of Avengers and then I started reading fic and look at the deep hole that I’m in. The happy place of Avengers fannishness I am in. So who know maybe I just need to crack the first fic and it will click. But I didn’t have any immediate slashy feelings no.
Elanor: I totally came out of it with Fili/Kili I don’t even care that they’re brothers, I just want them to make out.
Emma: No that’s true. That (inaudible)
Elanor: I’m totally on that.
Rachel: And hey it’s usually better when they’re brothers.
Emma: Supernatural person
Wook: Yeah I wanted to come out of it slashing Fili/Kili but I just I couldn’t maybe the next one I’ll get more of it. I just want to keep them all to myself so I’m not gonna write Mary Sue self insert. That’s what I’m gonna do.
Emma: Cause hey there were no women so you might as well.
Wook: Exactly. The sad part is I know what happens to the three favorite characters. So it’s line anybody that I would actually slash. Why, why you just know it’s gonna happen. You know. Hopefully people that are listening to this will have awesome fic recs that will sway me to a pairing or not. I'll take any slash out of this if they can get me. Especially if it involves Bofur.
Emma: I’m going to have to go look. I’m looking on AO3 now. Oh there’s a lot of Bilbo/Thorin. Oh here’s some Fili/Kili. The Hobbit 2012 tag. Oh god there’s a lot of Bilbo/Thorin I’m gonna end up reading it. But nothing really explicit yet. Oh no there’s some.Ok I’m gonna have to read that. Oh god I know what I’m doing tonight. Explicit sexual content. That’s great that’s exactly what I want. I need some hobbit porn apparently.
Wook: Bilbo Baggins and Thorin already have a ship name of Bagginshield. Oh so I lied earlier when I said I only have one complaint about the movie. My other complaint is why do I have to wait until July 2014 to get all three of these because they were that good. So, I don’t know about the rest of you guys.
Emma: What is the Schedule? Is it three Christmases in a row?
Elanor: This Christmas, nest Christmas and then July. Cause there is a shorter time between the last two I guess since they did not plan originally to have three.
Wook: Yeah I bet he knows there’s gonna be a giant revolt in his hands. Because you know that he’s gonna end movie number two on the middle of a battle or something and you’ll be like shit what happens next. And he’s like I can put up with the hate for seven months and let’s face it he ended The Fellowship of the Rings on a pretty big cliffhanger. So I don’t know that I can actually happily wait until July 2014 cause I did love this movie so much.
Emma: Well on that note Slashcast staff big thumbs up, to steal from a certain movie reviewer. We all love it.
Rachel: Slashcast approved.
Emma: Slashcast approved and we’re all gonna go look for slashy fic.
Elanor: Involving Thranduil and his Elk!
Wook: And if we find any we’ll link it to you.
Elanor: Oh you betcha.
Emma: Consider that a challenge then. Right that’s it for episode 38. So if any of our listeners want to drop us comments about your reactions to the Hobbit or your reactions to any fic you’ve seen coming out or anything else about our podcast. Suggestions, comments, criticism we love it all. You can email us at islashdoyou @ gmail.com you can leave a comment in our LJ, you can leave an Ask in our Tumblr, you can leave a comment on our website, you can tweet us. We’re everywhere so please leave a comment wherever you like. That’s it for now. Bye.
Transcribed by imifos
Hosts: wook77, emmagrant01, elanorofcastile, chaeche
Emma: Welcome to the mailbag segment for episode 38. This is emmagrant01 and I’m here with Rachel and Elenorofcastile and Wook and we are going to talk about the comment we got on the previous episode and then we are going to talk a little bit about The Hobbit which is sort of the big thing everyone is talking about in fandom right now. So first of all we got a comment on our last episode which was the Breaking the Fourth Wall episode from trinity_clare she says “Did anybody talk about bandom? Because the time Vicky-T commented on a pornfic about herself is my favorite fourth wall moment of all time.” And I don’t know what that’s about but I think Elanor I think, you do.
Elanor: Well you know on reading it again I did a little googling and I couldn’t find the one where she talks about it, about herself but I found a video that we’ll link in the post show post about Alex and Vicki - T talking and they have like an interview with this person or whatever and they are asked like what’s the craziest rumour you ever hear and then Alex starts talking about fanfiction and about him and one of his bandmates and some other people from other bands that I’m not super familiar with and then they talk about that yeah they read it and they know about it and stuff. But that was kind of quite interesting too but you know they’re like what’s they craziest rumour and so then they start talking about fanfic and they talked about how about how weird it was to read about yourself having sex with someone you’re friends with.
Wook: Ahh yeah I guess that would be kind of weird.
Rachel: That would be weird, I can’t relate, but I imagine that would be weird.
Emma: I have to say I really enjoyed that interview that Rachel did with the ladies from AO3 about the DMCA exemption. I wasn’t a part of that interview, but I did editing for it and it was so amazing when I was editing it I felt like I making a documentary or something. I mean it was just really such an incredible story you know. The fact…I love the idea of these 4 women, 3 of them are fangirls, who basically went up against really the entire entertainment industry and said look, we are ripping these for fair use and we need to have this good quality and made this case and then won the exemption. I mean, it’s like this crazy David and Goliath thing with the added benefit of having this whole feminist layer of these 4 women and these guys are like trying to like “oh honey you are doing it wrong” and I mean the whole thing just blew my mind. I like sent copies of like that interview, like even people IRL that I don’t necessarily want them to know about the fandom stuff I like sent people copies of just the file of the interview. I’m like you have to listen to this, this is amazing.
Rachel: Rebecca and Tish are just pretty amazing in general. I feel so honored to have done the interview and then also to be able to work with them in OTW, because they are just like rockstars in so many ways. And Francesca too she wasn’t part of the interview but she’s been on Slashcast before and she’s been an awesome force and then (inaudible name) is BFF attorney. So follow these people’s blogs they rock.
Emma: Ok so now we are going to talk about the Hobbit so if for some reason, you are listening to this podcast, if you haven’t seen it yet you might just want to end the podcast and come back to it after you’ve seen it because there’s going to be spoilers probably. First of all reactions.
Elanor: - Thranduil you sassy-ass top your elk.
Emma: Oh my god the elk!
Wook: I actually laughed out loud in the theater and this uber-nerd dad looked at me like he wanted to elbow me in the face. I laughed so had at his stupid ass crown. I was like WTF is on his head!
Elanor: And Lee Pace’s eyebrows, I mean come on!
Wook: Hey he (inaudible) harder than Emma Watson ever did!
Elanor: It’s true. He starred in two big franchise movies this year. Him and his eyebrows. Good on him. Cause he was in the twilight movies. I’m sure he had more fun in this than on that.
Elanor: Oh wow. I have to say, I went, I mean I was going to go anyway cause I love the original trilogy. But you know part of it too for me is the Martin Freeman love and he was amazing. Oh my god. I saw it again today and I was trying to think about what is it about the way that he portrays Bilbo that I love so much, I think what I came away from it with, he’s almost childlike in so many way there’s this sense of wonder and amazement and innocence about the world. And all these scenes you know where he’s like terrified, and you know starting death he doesn’t ever really look, I mean there’s not any sort of overdramatized horror or anything on his face. He’s always just got this kind of like dear in the headlights look or something but it really worked. I really loved that.
Wook: I love the scene, I mean it was in all the trailers and stuff too but, where he’s talking to Sméagol and Sméagol is like if the Bagginses loses we eat them whole and he’s like Oh OK that sounds fair. That scene was awesome.
Emma: Yeah that was great!
Elanor: And that was the first one that they filmed together. They did that scene and he was just started to learn the character and everything. And yet it felt so consistent with everything else, cause you know they always shoot out of order and everything. It was really interesting to see, to know that, that’s how he figured out the character through working with that.
Wook: Well I’ll probably be snotty about it, and I mean it in a funny sort of way. Really how much did he have to learn about this character because he’s every character that Martin Freeman has ever played.
Elanor: It’s true.
Wook: It’s like, oh the confused traveller. Oh wait what was this movie called again? Oh the Hobbit oh I’m sorry I thought it was Hitchhiker’s Guide. Oh I’m sorry. It was like Martin Freeman plays every character Martin Freeman ever played in a way.
Elanor: Yeah, cause he gets put in the everyman sort of role a lot
Wook: And he does a great job at it!
Rachel: I have to push back on Arthur Dent and Bilbo are kind the same character cause even though they have a lot of similarities, Arthur kind of remains bumbly and confused whereas even within this first movie you see Bilbo go from the guy that’s freaking out when all the dwarves are messing up his doilies to busting out a sword and taking on this pale ork at the end. He really grows to this level, that Arthur Dent just remains a comic foil. Yeah it’s the same character but I love watching him play it again and again and again.
Elanor: Oh I definitely love watching him play this character. I just I’d like to see him branch out cause I think he could do an extremely great job doing something other this typecast role.
Emma: I mean it could be interesting to see where it goes in the next couple of films. I guess I came out of the first viewing of this film just completely in love with Martin. I mean I kind of was anyway but there was just something about the way he portrayed Biblio that just oh my Gosh. I just wanted to picked him up and hug him and squish him. I think part it of was just that he was so little compared with everyone else. He’s little anyway. He’s shorter than me, he’s like a little guy. There’s just something about him, just so cute and squishable. Oh man, I just loved him.
Wook: See and I came out of the movie with the same feelings about Richard Armitage. I love him anyway.
Rachel: He was great!
Wook: Thorin Oikenshield, alright here comes major spoilers, when he’s marching out of the fucking burning ass tree and he’s like I’m gonna fuck your shit up. I was like oh my god I love him.
Emma: It’s like I’m not falling on my death on this tree. I’m going on my death like a hero. Oh my god
Wook: I swooned. I actually swooned. I had to put my hand over my heart and it just was racing. My sister who was watching it with me elbowed me and was like can you please breathe? That scene. Oh my god. I love Richard Armitage so much. You can have Martin Freeman I’ll take Richard Armitage, I don’t who the other two would like.
Elanor: I’d like Aiden Turner please! It was so adorable, so the second showing I came out of it and this group of like, I want to say they were high school girls, they stayed through the credits to make sure and get Aiden Turner’s name. And they wrote it down and they were ok and it is A-I-D-E-N, ok we’ve got it. And I’m like oh look at you, you’re adorable. But his smile, oh I had the same thing.
Wook: And Dean O’Gorman, oh my god. I’m gonna weep ugly tears in movie 3, I’m quite certain. But Fili, Kili and Thorin have always been my favourites so I knew kinda coming out of it that I’d love them.
Elanor: And see and I had totally forgotten that. Because it’s been so long since I’ve read the book. So I was like Oh god!
Wook: See I never read the book. Does this make me a bad fangirl? I hate Tolkien’s writing.
Emma: Oh god me too. I can’t read him.
Wook: When he took 80 bazillion pages to describe leading into the mines of Moria I actually just calmly closed the book and threw it against the wall. I went through college classes cliff notes version of the Hobbit. I never actually read it. I cheated my way through that exam. I still fell in love with the whole concept of the maternal uncle. The scene with the giant things in the mountains. (inaudible). Giant rock guys and they get separated by the knees you should see me I’m actually gesturing and making the scene with my hands BTW. And Fili and Kili they look at each other and they’re like we haven’t been separated ever what are we going to do now? I loved it, loved it so much.
Elanor: I know gingerhaze has been doing some really awesome comics on tumblr about the Hobbit and Oh my god she just did this one recently which was, and I’m going to link it, that they’re on two different rocks and My Heart will go on is playing in the background. And it’s just beautiful. But I will say I did go into the movie tempered by the fact that it was rated 65% on rotten tomatoes, but I came out of it totally loving it so. But maybe people were, I don’t know, expecting something else but I’m like, umm it hit all my buttons so… Especially Aiden Turner, cutie!
Emma: You know actually I know a lot about that because my husband and I read a lot of those reviews and I thought. Oh man I don’t know what’s going to happen I really want to like this. And we came out of the theater and we kind of looked at each other and he said I loved that and I said oh my god I did too. And I went back and read some of those reviews and realized that I disagreed with a lot of them, but I think the reason I disagree with a lot of them, like for example a lot of the bad reviews talked about the fact that it was too long and they worked in too much stuff and it was too different from the book - I haven’t read the book- I tried like Wook and didn’t get very far cause I hated the writing but one of the things that I realized was, you know one of the thing they’ve done is they’ve pulled in all this extra information from other sources and that as a fan, that’s what I want. That’s why I read fanfiction because I don’t want the story to end. If it’s all bloated and goes on forever and I want all the deleted scenes, I want all of it. I want more. And so that worked for me, and that worked for him not because he’s like me in that respect but he loves epics he loves these long journeys that really test characters. It worked for both of us for different reasons. But the thing that most of the reviewers were picking up and saying is bad about it is exactly the thing that I loved.
Elanor: Yeah well the interesting thing too is that even though by all the reviewers and stuff it’s 65%, the audience rating is 81% so you know it’s totally like fine. And actually I’m that girl I read all of the appendixes of The Return of the King and so I recognized some of the things they pulled in. Granted I haven’t read the Unfinished Tales I know they also pulled stuff from. Knowing that, knowing that they expanded the world around so it’s not just a kid’s movie, to be able to make a richer world and everything and show that there all these machinations to really tie it to the Lord of the Rings trilogy made me happy. There’s a super awesome web comic called Sheldon that they talked about that in their post, well today is of when we are recording but the 17th. So that was really hilarious with the comparison between viewer, a person who is not familiar with it and a person who is a Tolkian person.
Wook: Well I wouldn’t say a Tolkian person, but a fan of the world itself, because I’m definitely not the ultimate Tolkian person, but a fan. I love the Lord of the Rings movies so much and then have this one - I loved it. And I have to agree with the Sheldon comic and we’ll link it in the port show post, but it basically says they are reading the phonebook, that’s fantastic! And I was like yeah, I would totally be ok if it was the phonebook. Especially if they were singing it. Because Richard Armitage’s singing, I know I keep coming back to him, but his singing in that, holy god!
Emma: When I came out of the theater the first time, there was some guy in the audience the was singing that song he was making up the words because he didn’t know them but he had the tuning exactly right and them everyone else started singing along so the was this procession coming out of the theater doing that (sings). It was amazing.
Wook: That’s awesome. See I had a bunch of teeny little kids and like really really old people cause I went 9.15 in the morning on a Saturday when you know everybody like my age and younger had been drinking and they are not going to be out in the movies at that time. Plus it was cold and rainy and gross and that means nobody leaves their house ever! So it was just the hardcore people. So people actually started cheering and stuff but during that singing it was fantastic.
Elanor: Yeah my first viewing, this was the first time since I was in college that I was in a theater full of college kids so it was so weird. But yeah everyone cheered and clapped and laughed. It was like so great having a really involved audience.
Wook: And then at the end, where they get dropped off by the eagles. I was like ok A - really the eagles couldn’t have dropped them off a couple of miles down the road they had to drop them off at some rock in the middle of nowhere they have to climb down. Oh wait Thorin is hugging him great, I’m glad the eagles dropped them there.
Emma: There was a cartoon or something on tumblr that was talking about that too. Where they have the group of them standing on top of the rock and Bilbo is looking up and the next time he’s looking up at Gandalf and he looks back out and says couldn’t the eagles have drooped us off a little closer. It was really cute.
Wook: So who’s exited to see legolas in the next movie?
Elanor: And some Cumberbatch dragon action.
Rachel: I’m more excited about that. I thought, I mean he was in the credits for this movie so I was confused cause I didn’t hear him talk.
Emma: I think probably part of it was The Necromancer appearance.
Elanor: Yeah he was in for the Necromancer. Cause the Necromancer did sort of make some sort of sounds.
Rachel: He made some noises.
Elanor: It was hard to tell it was him.
Emma: That really true when that shadow kind of appeared and the Necromancer, oh look it’s Benedict. And I thought it before I remembered that he was playing it. That looks familiar like I’ve started at enough pictures of this naked body that I could identify
Elanor: Yeah I recognized his shoulders I’m not gonna lie.
Wook: I had no idea it was him, so now when I drive 5 hours round trip to go see the movie tomorrow I will be looking for that.
Elanor: You’ll get a triple batch of him then.
Emma: Triplebatch!
Elanor: You get him in the trailer for Star trek, as the Necromancer and I’m just pretending that they used his breathing for the dragon.
Wook: (inaudible) 9 minutes that’s why I’m driving 5 hours to go see it.
Emma: so I read a lot of reviews that talked about different things so one of the funny things that I read, somewhere I can’t remember where it was now, this person said well at least the good thing about it being 9 hours of The Hobbit is that in the future when kids are assigned a book report on the Hobbit they’ll actually read it because it’s shorter than watching all the movies. I thought that’s probably true! It takes less effort to read the book than it takes to watch all these movies.
Elanor: Plus with all the extra stuff they’ll be stuck trying to guess which correct for the book.
Wook: Can you imagine if they release an extended edition of this in addition to the theatrical version? Like they did with the original Lord of the Rings where they added like 8 million extra hours. Can you imagine? It will be like Bilbo picks out his socks. Bilbo decides what jacket to wear when he runs out and says I’m on an adventure. Thorin brushes his hair. What-his-face checks the ax on this head in a mirror. It’ll be awesome! If it gets me more Bofur I will be very happy, because dude I did not expect to love Bofur as much as I did. I don’t know if there’s a character you guys came out and went huh I didn’t know I would love him.
Emma: I loved all of them honestly. I did. I mean I kinda went into it not knowing anything except Martin Freeman, I’m a bad fangirl in the sense that I kinda vaguely knew what was going to happen, but yeah going in I was so surprised at how much I really liked all the characters.
Wook: Can I just say one complaint about the movie?
Rachel: No you have to only say good things
Wook: Im gonna say it anyway. Where were the fucking women? Like, there was one actress with a damn line and the rest of the women that the we saw we weren’t even supposed to really see dwarven women are supposed to look exactly like dwarven men, hence why Gimli says that there’s that rumour that they pop out of the rock. And it’s like really? Where are the women? That’s my only complaint about the whole movie.
Elanor: Yeah and you know I was actually, I don’t remember where I read it, but I was reading an article about that and yeah same sort of thing.
Emma: that’s really true.
Rachel: (inaudible) Big celebrities to change the story but not others
Elanor: I think that there will be more next movie, but you know still how much of it is..
Wook: Evageline lili is going to be a made up character who is supposed to be like a conglomeration of a couple of different characters like an elven warrior lady.
Elanor: Yeah Tauriel.
Wook: So yeah Aiden Turner will be getting some of that action.
Elanor: As long as we get to see Legolas’s beautiful face. An seriously to go back to gingerhaze the reason Im excited to see him is because we get to see him with his dad and we get to see all of the gingerhaze (inaudible) Legolas and Thranduil will ever come to fruition. Oh my god I will link to that those are hilarious. Cause he’s like argh dwarves and super preppy. Oh my god I love her art sorry.
Wook: Oh man. So the other thing about the hobbit is like made me fall in love with the Lord of the Rings realm and middle earth. I immediately went home and started watching Fellowship of the Rings and I have never teared up in fellowship of the rings cause, I was like ah yeah Gandalf comes back yeah it’s sad he falls over, and this time Gimli frikking jumps on Balin’s tomb and I was like I know who that is and then like Gandalf grabs the book out of Ori’s hand and I’m like that’s Ori you bastard why don’t you say something to him you went on an journey with him. And I’m like he doesn’t even mention Ori, I actually like, probably cause I’m fake tearing now, but I was really upset I actually cried at that point and I was like that the first time I’ve ever cried at the Fellowship of the Rings.
Emma: I didn’t know that until I saw something about it, I saw the tumblr post about it. And I went Ohhh. So yeah.
Wook: It just made me more emotional watching The hobbit, putting those two together bacause then I was like wait that’s Balin oh my gosh and then everytime Gloin was on the TV I was elbowing my sister going that’s Gimli’s dad. So did you guys some out of it with any slash pairings?
Emma: I really didn’t I thought I would and I didn’t. I thought oh I’m gonna slash Biblo with somebody but no I came out of it and my reading of the way Bilbo was portrayed was very childlike so I just didn’t go there. I don’t know, nothing else really kind of happen for me. I mean it was so obvious in the first one, in the trilogy.
Rachel: I didn’t either, but I felt the same way after I came out of Avengers and then I started reading fic and look at the deep hole that I’m in. The happy place of Avengers fannishness I am in. So who know maybe I just need to crack the first fic and it will click. But I didn’t have any immediate slashy feelings no.
Elanor: I totally came out of it with Fili/Kili I don’t even care that they’re brothers, I just want them to make out.
Emma: No that’s true. That (inaudible)
Elanor: I’m totally on that.
Rachel: And hey it’s usually better when they’re brothers.
Emma: Supernatural person
Wook: Yeah I wanted to come out of it slashing Fili/Kili but I just I couldn’t maybe the next one I’ll get more of it. I just want to keep them all to myself so I’m not gonna write Mary Sue self insert. That’s what I’m gonna do.
Emma: Cause hey there were no women so you might as well.
Wook: Exactly. The sad part is I know what happens to the three favorite characters. So it’s line anybody that I would actually slash. Why, why you just know it’s gonna happen. You know. Hopefully people that are listening to this will have awesome fic recs that will sway me to a pairing or not. I'll take any slash out of this if they can get me. Especially if it involves Bofur.
Emma: I’m going to have to go look. I’m looking on AO3 now. Oh there’s a lot of Bilbo/Thorin. Oh here’s some Fili/Kili. The Hobbit 2012 tag. Oh god there’s a lot of Bilbo/Thorin I’m gonna end up reading it. But nothing really explicit yet. Oh no there’s some.Ok I’m gonna have to read that. Oh god I know what I’m doing tonight. Explicit sexual content. That’s great that’s exactly what I want. I need some hobbit porn apparently.
Wook: Bilbo Baggins and Thorin already have a ship name of Bagginshield. Oh so I lied earlier when I said I only have one complaint about the movie. My other complaint is why do I have to wait until July 2014 to get all three of these because they were that good. So, I don’t know about the rest of you guys.
Emma: What is the Schedule? Is it three Christmases in a row?
Elanor: This Christmas, nest Christmas and then July. Cause there is a shorter time between the last two I guess since they did not plan originally to have three.
Wook: Yeah I bet he knows there’s gonna be a giant revolt in his hands. Because you know that he’s gonna end movie number two on the middle of a battle or something and you’ll be like shit what happens next. And he’s like I can put up with the hate for seven months and let’s face it he ended The Fellowship of the Rings on a pretty big cliffhanger. So I don’t know that I can actually happily wait until July 2014 cause I did love this movie so much.
Emma: Well on that note Slashcast staff big thumbs up, to steal from a certain movie reviewer. We all love it.
Rachel: Slashcast approved.
Emma: Slashcast approved and we’re all gonna go look for slashy fic.
Elanor: Involving Thranduil and his Elk!
Wook: And if we find any we’ll link it to you.
Elanor: Oh you betcha.
Emma: Consider that a challenge then. Right that’s it for episode 38. So if any of our listeners want to drop us comments about your reactions to the Hobbit or your reactions to any fic you’ve seen coming out or anything else about our podcast. Suggestions, comments, criticism we love it all. You can email us at islashdoyou @ gmail.com you can leave a comment in our LJ, you can leave an Ask in our Tumblr, you can leave a comment on our website, you can tweet us. We’re everywhere so please leave a comment wherever you like. That’s it for now. Bye.
Transcribed by imifos