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They're taking the Hobbits to Isengard
[edit]They're taking the Hobbits to Isengard is a viral Internet meme originally composed by Erwin Beekveld. The video is comprised of a song and video remix inspired by a scene from the 2002 fantasy movie, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.[1]The song was initially uploaded on August 18, 2005 to the Albino Blacksheep website, one of the earliest multimedia blog on the Internet that claims to be the starting place of Internet culture and memes.[2] The song was then uploaded to YouTube on May 11th, 2006 by YouTuber Aaron Hardbarger. In the first seven years after the initial upload by Hardbarger, the video gained over 12.5 million views and 38,900 comments[3]. It is currently at 33.2 million views and 46,801 comments.
Music Video
[edit]The music video itself is two minutes and nine seconds long and contains footage from the Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, both award-winning adaptations of the novels directed by Peter Jackson. The line in which the music video finds its inspirations is when Legolas, played by Orlando Bloom, reveals to Aragorn and Gimli that he has spotted a group of Orcs who are currently taking the hobbits Northeast to Isnegard[4]. Footage of the characters Aragorn, Gimli, Gollum, Frodo, Peregrin, Meriadoc, Galadriel, and Samwise are also featured throughout the video. The video begins with techno music playing over a wide-shot clip of Isnegard, then cuts to a the scene in which Frodo is dancing around cousins, Peregrin Took and Meriadoc Brandybuck. The next clip is Legolas speaking the famous lines "They're taking the Hobbits to Isengard", followed by a shot of Aragorn. This two-clip montage of Legolas and Aragorn is then repeated several times. Footage of Gollum speaking "What did you say" is used before it repeats the Legolas scene again. The techno music then plays over a wide-shot scene of Legolas, Aragorn, and Gimli running through the mountains before switching to a scene of Galadriel and Celeborn saying "Tell me, where is Gandalf, for I much desire to speak with him." The Legolas line is then repeated again several times before the video cuts to a scene of Gollum calling Samwise a "stupid fat Hobbit." The video ends with Gollum speaking "Leave now and never come back" before the background music ends while he stares at the camera for several second. [5]
Composition
[edit]The techno music that plays throughout the video is a computerized mix of two themes of Howard Shore's music, the "Shire" theme and the "Fellowship" theme. The remix is written in one of the most popular keys in music, C Major. The melody and chords for the song are fairly basic and have below average scores in Melodic Complexity (19), Chord Complexity (18), Chord-Melody Tension (22), Chord-Bass Melody (26), and Chord Progression Novelty (13), according to HookTheory.[6]
Reception and Tributes
[edit]GIF
[edit]Before the video went viral on YouTube, it gained popularity on the cite "You're the man now, dog!" or "YTMND" which is an online community for meme-related content. Users of YTMND can create and post either a still image or a GIF that has a text overlay for humorous entertainment[7]. User 'rustynail' posted a GIF of the song on August 12th, 2005 which then prompted other users to post more and more of their own images and GIF's of the song.
YouTube
[edit]
Honorable covers of the song have been created and posted on YouTube ever since the video went viral. Soon after it's released on YouTube, other YouTubers joined in by publishing their own video versions of the song. On March 12, 2007, YouTuber 'littledib' created a remix video that included the song along with scenes from Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, a popular Nintendo DS game series. The video gained over 200,000 views. Another Youtuber by the username 'Paperyoshii' uploaded a video featuring the song over footage of the online game Club Penguin on January 3rd, 2008. YouTube 'Jon Wiedyk' uploaded a medieval cover of the song preformed live by a pirate-theme band known as The Dread Crew of Oddwood. The live performance is currently at 1.3 million views. Another honorable mentions include the 10 hour version of the song at 14 million views and a bardcore cover sitting at 115,000 views.
BBC America
[edit]On June 29, 2013, Peter Jackson uploaded to his own personal YouTube a video titled, "Goodbye Orlando." The video is a send-off video for Orlando Bloom's last day on the set of The Hobbit: There and Back Again. In celebration of his last day filming, Orlando Bloom (dressed as Legolas) is seen in the video laughing and singing along to the famous Internet video. The video quickly gained thousands of views, and it currently sits at 9 million views. [8]
References
[edit]- ^ "They're Taking the Hobbits to Isengard". The One Wiki to Rule Them All. Retrieved 2021-04-05.
- ^ "About". Albino Blacksheep. Retrieved 2021-04-05.
- ^ "They're Taking the Hobbits to Isengard". Know Your Meme. Retrieved 2021-03-24.
- ^ "They're taking the Hobbits to Isengard - Tolkien Gateway". tolkiengateway.net. Retrieved 2021-04-05.
- ^ "They're Taking The Hobbits To Isengard Lyrics by Erwin Beekveld". www.streetdirectory.com. Retrieved 2021-04-05.
- ^ "They're Taking The Hobbits To Isengard by Erwin Beekveld Chords, Melody, and Music Theory Analysis - Hooktheory". www.hooktheory.com. Retrieved 2021-03-29.
- ^ "YTMND". Know Your Meme. Retrieved 2021-04-05.
- ^ Janosik, Erin. "WATCH: Orlando Bloom Sings 'They're Taking the Hobbits to Isengard' on the Set of 'The Hobbit'". BBC America. Retrieved 2021-04-05.