The Fun of Learning New Things!
In the last three weeks, the hubby and I have seen all three Lord of the Rings movies in our local IMAX theater.
Don’t panic, it’s a huge theater, there were never more than twenty people at any of the movies, and there were masks involved.
I’ve watched the movies a dozen or so times (huge geek here) but seeing them on that giant screen was awesome.
Years ago I went to New Zealand and visited Weta Workshop. Weta made a majority of the armor and weapons for LOTR. I remember standing next to the Witch King’s spiked mace thing…Pretty sure if I ever had that coming at me I’d pee my pants.
Our latest obsession has been the show Forged in Fire. If you’ve never seen it, four blade makers go through three challenges to make first a knife and then a larger weapon like an axe or a sword.
I’ve learned a lot about weapons in just 30-40 episodes of that show. So much that I was actually distracted by the swords and such in LOTR.
“Ooh, that looks like a Scottish Claymore. Or a Crusader sword?”
“That’s almost one of those Viking swords.”
“Ack! Don’t hit that with your blade, you’ll roll the edge!”
“Oooh, that went right through the armor. It will KEAL!”
“The uruk hai blades are thick and ugly, but they’re barely a match for the other swords. Might be a quenching problem.”
“That blade does not look balanced.”
“Whacking a bunch of spears like that…it’s a good sword.”
Funny story. The hubby left to go to the bathroom during the Council of Elrond in Fellowship. When he got back and sat down he looked at me and said, “Did I miss Gimli’s catastrophic failure?” Referring to the moment Gimli tries to destroy the ring and his axe explodes.
I laughed.
It was fun to look at those movies with a bit of newly acquired knowledge, however surface-deep it might be.
Have you learned anything new lately?
