Could The Lord of the Rings lose its epic quality as movie viewing evolves?

It has been 20 years since the history of cinema changed forever. No, I’m not talking about the launch of Zoolander (Although it was fair to guess it was). The first installment in the now classic Lord of the Rings trilogy debuted in 2001, acting as a soothing balm for a weary nation still reeling from the events of September 11. Fellowship of the Ring it was a launch in the right place, at the right time with all kinds of unwanted social relevance is a bit of conventional wisdom that is often invoked, but I am the host of a podcast called Galaxy Brains, so conventional wisdom is not my thing.

The timing was certainly right for JRR Tolkien’s story of perseverance, community, and strangely intense male friendship, but there was much more at stake. The triumph of the Lord of the Rings was not just a happy coincidence. The stars had to align in more ways than one to allow these films to reach millions of people across generations and be truly “epic.”

Like so many epic films before it, the Lord of the Rings trilogy demanded a level of tonal sincerity and commitment that borders on the superhuman. From the cinematography of Andrew Lesnie to the moving score by Howard Shore and the indelible performances of Ian McKellan, Liv Tyler, Sean Astin, Viggo Mortensen and Elijah Wood, every element of these films had to make you feel deeply. It’s less of a movie and more of a miracle.

The great epic cinema has appeared on movie screens since the end of the Lord of the Rings trilogy in 2003. Avatar, The dark knight, Avengers Endgame – but none of them can match the emotional honesty and old school vibe of “oh shit” that Peter Jackson instilled in the DNA of his greatest triumph. The definition of epic is more than the size of a CG thing that explodes.

At this week’s Galaxy Brains, Jonah Ray and I join the comedian, podcaster, and writer of the epic sci-fi graphic novel. Bubble, Jordan morris. We will wrestle with what made the Lord of the Rings films the most monumental works in film history and whether that success can continue into the future of cultural significance.

Here’s a snippet from that conversation. Listen to the full episode wherever you get your podcasts.

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Dave: Jordan, you recently saw Lord of the Rings and became a fan. This decade. This year. On TV. Why did you finally say, “Okay, I’m going to see the most seminal movie franchise of all time”?

Jordan: You guys remember COVID-19, right? So when that happened and I was alone in my apartment looking for long things to see, I thought, “You know what? I’m going to try it again with The Lord of the Rings.” And he loved them. I just thought they were so beautiful and heartfelt and well made and, you know, they definitely displayed a craftsmanship that modern blockbusters really don’t have. And I got in so much that I went back and saw the fucking Hobbit movies. And I thought the hobbits ruled.

Jonah: Even though I don’t like The Hobbit movies, I will continue to watch them. Because you are in that world and they film in many practical places. Most of the time it’s like, yeah, sure. It doesn’t matter if it’s the real actors, but there are people dressed like the characters on top of a mountain and they have a helicopter shot going up and you say, “Where the hell is that?” And they actually had to get those people there because that’s not CGI. And that’s why I’m so excited and I don’t care if this Amazon thing is going to be good because I just want to go back there. I want to see those things again.

Jordan: This is an icy shot, but it’s always worth mentioning that they did a good job combining CGI and practical stuff. It’s like that scene in the first one where you walk in like the orc birthing well and they’re pulling a guy with a prosthetic out of a fake uterus and he’s covered in real slime. That would be all CGI if they did this. Now it’s just this great fusion of a CGI environment, but a real actor.

Dave: I think it is partly the technology, but also what the audience expects now. And we will never go back to that because of COVID and how easy it is to film in a sound studio, how simple it is to go to Atlanta or go to Prague or something like that and film on one of these giant soundstages and call is a day.

Jonah: EternalHowever, I did a lot of location shots.

Dave: Yes, you can see that in the trailer for that movie; It’s expansive and has that scope and that scale, but frankly, you’re not going to get from Black widow or Shang-chi, both movies that I like. Those don’t feel like they’re in a real place. It feels like an intensified comic book reality. But even The Dark Knight … how does it compare to The Lord of the Rings?

Jordan: The Dark Knight are cold movies. These are shows or “ideas”, but there are not many emotional things to hold on to. They are a craftsman being a craftsman and the Lord of the Rings movies are so sweet and heartfelt and the relationship between Sam and Frodo is so beautiful and human that I think they give you the show but they give you the emotional stuff.

Dave: The experience of seeing this during quarantine and feeling that you were isolated from your friends or your family and that you were trapped at home and couldn’t, couldn’t communicate with another human being for your connection. Maybe that’s why [the “epicness”] It worked on you this time, it was a cathartic element to see the movie.

I want to bring up another epic movie that many people equate with some of the best crafting techniques of all time: 2001: a space odyssey.

Jordan: Another movie that I love, but 2001 Ultimately, it will take a backseat to Lord of the Rings, culturally, because it’s just not so much on TBS. Is the mark of an influential movie how often it comes out on TBS at 3pm on Sundays?

Jonah: I think it’s the amount of people who get married to the subject of that movie.

Dave: I wonder what will happen to the way we consume entertainment when linear TV channels disappear completely. Today you still have the chance to turn on TBS or TNT or USA Network and see how all the James Bond movies are today, or they’re going to show all the Harry Potter movies.

Jordan: The Lord of the Rings became great cable movies. It is somewhat difficult to explain to people who are younger than us, for example why you would want to hold on to that.

Jonah: We are talking about an art form that is about 100 years old. What we consider classics … everything is still so new. In the grand scheme of art, it was perhaps always assumed to be disposable.

Dave: I think curatorship will be really important. And people who say this is what you need to survive. That’s what happened to the fine arts, the paintings and the sculptures and things of that nature. This is what we are going to stay. Maybe we are not going to conserve that much, we are going to conserve these things because they are the best things. And The Lord of the Rings, I hope, will survive. I think it has a better chance than most things to stick with us as a culture. But that’s only because it resonated in an emotional and beautiful environment and it was a world that you wanted to revisit over and over again. So that’s a great question, Jordan: for Bubble How do you go about creating a sci-fi fantasy universe that will hopefully continue for many, many years to come?

Jordan: The starting point was satire. It is the story of the near future in which people live in these domed cities and hipsters live separate from suburban and suburban live separate from rural. And we all just interact with people who look and think like us. But we are all under the control of this megacorporation that makes us participate in a kind of life and death concert economy to survive. It is not super subtle. But I tried to do everything in Bubble related to our world in some way, like finding the sci-fi version of the gig economy. Or, what is the sci-fi version of the fact that we are becoming more isolated and only interacting with people who look and think like us? Now, it’s not like Star Trek, where you have blueprints for the Enterprise. I really like that kind of sci-fi, but I think Bubble is more like the story of these characters who feel like they don’t belong and feel like their society is trying to kill them.

Dave: The differentiation you’re making between The Lord of the Rings and Bubble is that maybe they are closer than you think. The Lord of the Rings, when it was being written, was not really just about Tolkien’s experience in WWI, but what he saw coming with WWII and the climactic nature of that conflict. And the One Ring is what many people now say is an analog of nuclear energy and the dangers of anyone with that much power. So, in a way, it might not be satire, but it still has resonant things to say about that moment in time.

And I think that’s what really separates the great worlds from the sloppy ones that are often created. Those are the things that really last, they are the ones that you can apply that to now. Every time you feel that something can be extrapolated, interpreted in the modern world in a modern context, it will last no matter what.