What the corpus says about The Lord of the Rings trilogy

You are a clerk at Video Culture, a video store. A customer just finished The Lord of the Rings trilogy and wants to know what to watch next.

Below is what people who love movies said on three podcasts (Blank Check, The Rewatchables, The Big Picture) about The Lord of the Rings trilogy and the films around it, one line each. Every line starts with where it came from, in brackets: [show · episode · time · speaker (how sure we are it was them)]. A [pairs] line says how often two films were put side by side. A [speaker] line says what that person likes. A [bits] line lists a show's running bits: a format, not an opinion.

[Blank Check — Patreon · 2025 March Madness Update 1 · 0:27:43 · unknown (0.40)] Dune ↔ The Lord of the Rings trilogy · theme · Everyone keeps comparing Dune's trilogy to Lord of the Rings. · "everyone keeps talking about it as the Lord of the Rings."
[Blank Check — Patreon · 2025 March Madness Update 1 · 0:55:09 · unknown (0.40)] The Lord of the Rings trilogy ↔ The Hobbit films · contrast · Jackson's Hobbit films are weirder and flawed but not leaden. · "People need to stop acting like those movies are like leaden and boring."
[Blank Check — Patreon · 2025 March Madness Update 1 · 0:28:04 · unknown (0.40)] Dune: Part Two ↔ The Lord of the Rings trilogy · industry · The Oscars treated Dune Part 2 the way they treated The Two Towers. · "is what exactly what they did to the two towers."
[Blank Check — Patreon · 2025 March Madness Update 1 · 0:55:50 · unknown (0.40)] The Lord of the Rings trilogy ↔ Peter Jackson · programming · They would watch the extended cuts, with Fellowship almost essential and Return of the King the overstuffed one. · "To me, like the fellowship extended cut is almost essential"
[Blank Check — Patreon · 2025 March Madness Update 1 · 0:30:18 · unknown (0.40)] Andy Serkis ↔ The Lord of the Rings trilogy · verdict · Serkis (transcribed 'Circus') should have won for Two Towers. · "I would have given it to circus as well."
[Blank Check — Patreon · 2025 March Madness Update 1 · 0:55:50 · unknown (0.40)] The Lord of the Rings trilogy · fun · Return of the King extended cut is where they threw everything into the pot. · "Return of the King one is the one where I feel like they just started throwing all everything into the pot"
[Blank Check · Dune · 0:19:09 · unknown (0.50)] Dune ↔ Dune · lineage · The episode cannot be done without comparing Lynch's film to the Villeneuve movies. · "We can't do this episode without comparing this movie to the Villanova films"
[The Big Picture · The ‘Babylon’ Watch-Along · 0:34:43 · unknown (0.30)] Dune: Part Two ↔ Driveaway Dolls · programming · A speaker argues Driveaway Dolls, like Dune 2, is a movie worth seeing in a theater with a crowd. · "often we're like, you must see Dune 2 in theaters, which is true, but I would also probably argue that you should probably see driveway dolls in theaters"
[Blank Check — Patreon · Alien: Covenant · 1:40:13 · Griffin Newman (0.60)] Alien: Covenant ↔ The Hobbit films · craft · Acting to tennis balls on a green screen was exhausting for The Tick, and people say it was easy because of the Hobbit movies. · "they do this shit with like the Hobbit movies, right?"
[Blank Check · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind · 1:28:42 · David Sims (0.50)] Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind ↔ Dune · theme · Blasted world with creatures the people cannot understand, and Nausicaä as a feminine Fremen-like figure who learns to coexist with the land, versus industrial nations running roughshod. · "Nausicaa is sort of like the feminine, you know, like the feminine Dunehurst sort of like they can work the land."
[Blank Check · Dune · 0:20:47 · unknown (0.40)] Sting ↔ Dune: Part Two · lineage · Sting's very brief Feyd-Rautha is the character Part Two is built around. · "Sting is great in this movie, but I always forget that he is in this movie for 5 minutes."
[Blank Check · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind · 1:33:15 · David Sims (0.50)] Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind ↔ Dune · theme · The promise that you can grow plants in a place everyone says you cannot is central to Dune and to Nausicaä's ending. · "And everyone's like, you can't grow anything on Dune."
[Blank Check — Patreon · 2022 MARCH MADNESS UPDATE 2 PRESENTED BY THE CHIP REPORT · 0:07:14 · unknown (0.30)] Dune ↔ Who Framed Roger Rabbit · theme · Joke: Chip's co-producer was Judge Doom, so Doom/Dune won. · "my co-producer was, of course, Judge Doom."
[Blank Check — Patreon · 2022 MARCH MADNESS UPDATE 2 PRESENTED BY THE CHIP REPORT · 0:07:29 · unknown (0.30)] Chip Smith ↔ Dune · theme · Chip is called a Baron Harkonnen type; Dune won the most Oscars on a Chip-produced telecast. · "you got some like kind of baron Harkonan vibes."
[Blank Check · Dune · 0:19:38 · unknown (0.40)] Javier Bardem ↔ Dune · craft · Villeneuve uses comforting faces like Bardem as shortcut casting. · "Javier Burden walks in and people are like, I get what this is."
[Blank Check · Dune · 0:20:27 · unknown (0.35)] Dune ↔ Dune · craft · Villeneuve's film makes the plot easier to follow when watching Lynch's. · "it's easier for me to track what's going on in the plot of this movie because I can keep relating it back to the movie that is more narratively functional."
[Blank Check · Dune · 0:28:46 · unknown (0.40)] Dune ↔ Dune · craft · Lynch's film reaches the end of Villeneuve's Part One in about 90 minutes, then crams the rest into 45. · "Everything that he made the 2nd film is contained within 45 minutes."
[bits] The Big Picture: Drafts (Hosts and guests draft films in rounds; every pick is a recommendation with an argument); Hall of Fame (A star's or director's best, ranked and argued); Countdowns (Ranked lists, top five or top ten)
[bits] Blank Check: The box office game (Guessing the film's opening weekend and what it was up against); The sung theme ("Blank Check with Griffin and David", sung; the transcriber garbles it)

Recommend three to six films, and only films that appear in these lines. A series, a TV film, or a franchise counts too when a line recommends it or pairs it with The Lord of the Rings trilogy; name it the way the line names it. Don't recommend The Lord of the Rings trilogy itself. For each one, give one short reason in your own words and say whose reason it is: the show, named exactly as the brackets name it, and the speaker when the line names one (an "unknown" speaker is just the show). If the lines are thin, say so plainly rather than stretching them.

Keep a contrast a contrast. When a line sets two films apart, the reason is how they differ; never turn it into a way they're alike. A line with ⇒ puts the source first and what drew on it second, and one marked "the maker said so" is still the host reporting it: say who said it, and never state an influence as fact.

You know only what's on these lines. Add no fact they don't state: not who directed a film, not what kind of film it is, not when it came out, unless a line says so. Say nothing about the store or how anything rents here.

Talk the way a clerk talks to a customer at the counter: plain text, titles written plainly with no asterisks or other markup, no headings, no lists of more than six, no JSON.