The blank stares are strong with this one.

OMG Gollum! *doublepromote the *quality wrongness

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Not really. ROTS came out in 2005. At that stage, we had plenty of decent CGI in movies (Gollum and the MASSIVE system in LOTR for example).

Even for TPM, it was eclipsed by the first Matrix movie in the same year.

The problem wasn't the technology, it was Lucas' use of it.

Where he hid it cleverly in the original Star Wars movies, he didn't realise that it just wasn't quite ready in the prequels.

I wouldn't mind looking that scruffy!

also, surprisingly good Gollum impression and surprisingly awful Ahnold impression

The ring doesn't grant powers, it boosts the powers of those who wield it...if they already have innate powers.

If they do not have innate powers, basically mortals, then they simply are pulled into the half-spirit realm so that they can be found easier by Sauron and his henchmen (that have power).

The only creature, in the books, with innate powers that put the ring on is Tom Bombadil. He does not seem to be affected by the ring in any way. IF any of the non-mortal characters were to wield it, they would control the Nazgul and would meld a portion of Sauron's power to their own.

Now, in the borders of Mordor, the ring's powers were boosted immensely. When Sam encountered an orc in the Tower of Cirith Ungol while holding the Ring, he appeared to the orc as a powerful warrior cloaked in shadow "[holding] some nameless menace of power and doom." The orc was so terrified that it fled. Similarly at Mount Doom, when Frodo and Sam were attacked by Gollum, Frodo grabbed the Ring and appeared as "a figure robed in white... [that] held a wheel of fire." Frodo told Gollum "in a commanding voice" that "If you touch me ever again, you shall be cast yourself into the Fire of Doom," a statement fulfilled when Gollum fell into Mount Doom with the Ring.

Yeah, that's a bit of a stretch... Funny, but a stretch.

The bit about "what does the ring DO?!" in the beginning was interesting to me because that is one thing that I also dislike about Tolkien's works (as a nerdy reader of the Silmarillion like Soren in the video). The three elven rings Narya, Nenya, and Vilya all grant enhanced "elemental" type powers (for example, Gandalf has Narya, which is why he's got the beefy fire magic). Invisibility seems like a pretty poor ultimate power for the *ONE* ring (yes, there are other features, but invisibility is the primary *active* power of the ring).

Personally, I think that it would be cooler if the mighty *one* ring granted the single ability that any individual user would be most tempted to use, and eventually ABuse -- to facilitate its corruption of the wearer. Smeagol/Gollum, Bilbo, and Frodo, being Hobbits, are already predisposed to stealthiness, so granting them invisibility on top of that makes sense and would tempt them to use the invisibility to do more morally ambiguous things and possibly eventually outright evil things. Isildur, being human, could/should have been granted a different power by the ring. Extreme combat prowess or something. Certainly overconfidence in that could just as easily have led to his death via the "betrayal" of the ring.

It brings me so much pleasure just to hear these names spoken on a popular tv show. His pronunciation though, of Gollum, Sauron and Edain - ugh - and the flame of Anor and the secret fire aren't the same thing. Come on, Stephen.

I demand crystal purity in my Tolkien geekdom. But I would like to hear him tell us about Beren and Luthien, it is a badass story; or, say, just devote the next twenty episodes of his show to reciting the Lay of Leithian in its entirety.

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Regarding the ring and invisibility, do we ever see/read about anyone except Sauron or the hobbits (incl gollum) wearing it?

I could be wrong, but I don't remember any of the humans or elves wearing it. So it's possible it does grant other wearers different abilities.

The one thing that I don't like about the One Ring explanation:

It turns you invisible, unless you are the one person for whom it was actually designed (Sauron).

To me, it seems like the rings of power and especially the one ring should grant a more consistent actual power than that. The three elven rings made by Celebrimbor outside the influence of the one are much better examples.

Narya is the "ring of fire", and in the timeline of LoTR it is held by Gandalf. Which makes sense, because he does a lot of fire-related stuff with his magic. Nenya is the "ring of water" held by Galadriel, and Vilya the "ring of air" held by Elrond. These are used less consistently in the books (or movies), but one movie example is the flood that helped save Frodo and get him to Rivendell. In the movie, the flood is shown as being made of water with horse shapes surging through it, which suggest the magical influence of both Nenya and Vilya (water and air) working together. Anyway, those 3 rings have a consistent and fairly well established list of powers associated with their "elemental" attachments, fire, water, and air.

But the one ring lacks that consistency. It is supposed to help Sauron with his urge to dominate, but it doesn't really explain how that works. It doesn't make him invisible; only others who wear it. Also, it helps him to control or at least influence the wearers of the other rings. That is probably the best, most established power of the one ring, but it is also a bit shaky because wearers other than Sauron don't get those abilities. It seems to make other wearers just more susceptible to corruption, greed, and lust for power.

To me, I think it would be more interesting if the one ring actually granted a more specific power, unique to the psychological state of the wearer. The consistently presented thing about the one ring is that it corrupts, and nothing corrupts more than power. So basically, I think that the one ring should be analyzing whoever wears it, and granting them a unique power that is specifically designed to provide them with their greatest source of temptation to abuse that power.

The invisibility power actually makes a lot of sense for hobbits. As presented in the video here, they generally aren't very ambitious. BUT, hobbits are established as being stealthy beings by default, so granting them invisibility is a good source of temptation to turn that stealthiness into more nefarious purpose. So, I don't mind that the three main hobbit (or hobbit-like) wearers (Gollum/Smeagol, Bilbo, Frodo) all consistently get the invisibility power out of the ring.

Human wearers like Isildur would have less consistent powers granted by the rings, because they have more diverse motivations than hobbits. Just as an example, I'd think that Isildur would be motivated by martial prowess and leadership after watching his father killed by Sauron and the human/elven armies decimated at the end of the second age. So, the ring could perceive that about him and grant him physical power and charisma to lead -- both of which would be very easily turned to corruption. Invisibility just doesn't logically provide the same level of temptation for someone like Isildur.

Finally we come to Sauron himself. He is already an exception to the "ring grants invisibility" concept. But for him, the ring should (and arguably does) represent power and control. Sauron had to put on a false face and play the role of deceiver to get Celebrimbor and the other elves to accept him and create the other rings. Having to stoop to that rather than simply crushing them made him despise that sort of approach; after creating the one ring he cast that aside and became all about sheer power and domination, rather than trickery and deception. So, I see the ring's powers granted to Sauron himself as being sort of a conversion of those cunning/deceptive abilities into might, self preservation, and overwhelming mental dominance that allows him to control his orc armies.


Sorry for the length of that -- I have just always felt that the established powers of the one ring would be a bit more interesting if they led to corruption through real power granted to the wearers, rather than "it makes them invisible, but not Sauron, and in general corrupts them, just because".

Is it just me, or did Mrs. Osborne start to sound like Gollum near the end of her talk?

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The real question really is: "Does Andy Serkis get tired of people asking him to do Gollum all the time?"

*promote Gollum being added to all the CBS shows.....