Star Wars? Indiana Jones? The Godfather? Back to the Future? Stephen Colbert says screw ‘em. To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the release of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, the Late Show host decided to declare Peter Jackson’s trilogy as the best of all time. And he did it in as unique a way as possible, with a reunion rap video.
Yes, you read that right. Colbert brought back Lord of the Rings stars Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Billy Boyd, Dominic Monaghan, Hugo Weaving, Andy Serkis, Orlando Bloom, and Viggo Mortensen for a fun rap video to stake the series’ claim at the trilogy title. Rappers Method Man and Killer Mike join too as does Anna Kendrick, just for fun. Check this out.
Whenever a late night program or something similar releases a video like this, I can’t help but think of the logistics. Think of all the planning and time that had to be put into getting all these people together. Or, if they aren’t together, just convincing them to be a part of it. For example, imagine being one of Hugo Weaving’s representatives and getting a request from The Late Show that’s like “We’re doing something of a Lord of the Rings reunion sketch for the 20th anniversary. Lots of your costars are doing it. Oh, and we want you to rap in elvish while Andy Serkis plays a flute.” And then he says OK! Just wild.
But it’s so, so worth it. Sketches like this make you remember just how incredible the Lord of the Rings movies were and incredible it is they actually happened. Imagine if Fellowship of the Ring had bombed? That would have been just brutal. Thankfully it didn’t, and the films just kept getting better and better with time.
The official 20th anniversary of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring is on December 19. How will you be celebrating?
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Editor’s Note: Release dates within this article are based in the U.S., but will be updated with local Australian dates as soon as we know more.