You can see my screen?

We're live.

No, you can't see your screen yet.

But you'll be able to put it up.

Yes.

So it was forbidden to dress up as a character in the Lord of the Rings.

Yeah, so go back for those who are watching now.

Oh, now suddenly we're live.

Yes, he's a very different kind of interview these ones.

Before the Soviet Union fell, I heard that people were dressing up as Lord of the Rings

characters, renting hundreds of acres of woods as Middle Earth and staging the Lord of the Rings.

And the Soviet Union got wind of it and forbade it so that you were thrown in jail for...

Dressing up like a hobbit?

For acting like a hobbit, yes. And why do you think they were sent to jail for that because the soviet union is smarter than peter jackson they realized

that as Tolkien said the scouring of the shire was an essential part of the story and there's a political

takeaway to it,

and it's an attack on state socialism.

And these people were acting out Tolkien's vision,

namely Harapha, the original Shire,

boo to the socialist shire. And when Peter Jackson was asked why he didn't include that in his movie,

he lamely said, we didn't have enough money, which is ridiculous.

But you don't offend Hollywood by trashing their favorite religion.

...