Lord of the Rings - The Two Towers ENworld reviews & discussion (SPOILERS)

[Desdichado]

Well, that's my theory -- rather than just starting him off as this super-good guy, we will get to see him transform from "little better than Boromir" to "a lot better than Boromir, approaching Aragorn" in film 3.

But why would they introduce that element into the story? Is it to show once again that all the best girls always end up with the pricks? (Hey, it actually worked in my favor once, at least! )

 

[Desdichado]

Re: Another review ...

Tolkien purists be warned, as well -- there are some significant departures from the text. No plot points are changed or important characters deleted, but if you're as big a fan of the text as I am you may find a few of the changes disturbing.

I didn't think that there were more changes -- FotR actually changed quite a bit. The biggest change for TTT was the chopping off of several parts of the movie and deferring them to RotK. Since RotK actually has a very long extended epilogue, which is bad film-making, this move actually makes sense.

- The scenery, epic scope, music, and pacing are superb. I was completely drawn in, and even though the film is a full three hours, it sure didn't feel like it.

I still don't like the End Credits theme song, though. Maybe it'll grow on me...

- The CGI creatures are all awesome: the Ents, the Worgs, the Oliphants & Trolls, and Gollum. The Worgs are my personal favorites, but the Ents are great, too. Gollum has a few "CGI moments" at the beginning until his character takes hold, but this fades by the end.

Agreed 100%

- Gollum. Absolutely awesome. I think it captures the split-personality of Gollum-Smeagol even better than the text. I could see a Best Supporting Actor for Andy Sertis, who does Gollum's voice and movements for this performance.

Again, 100% behind you there.

- Gandalf's fight with the Balrog. Great sequence.

And you just knew they were going to add it -- they already beefed up the action anyway. It was pretty fun.

- Action & drama -- lots & lots of it. The fight scenes are great -- especially if you're a Legolas or Gimli fan. They both have some great moves, although Gimli is still mostly comic relief. Look for a reprise of the "dwarf tossing" scene from teh last movie.

Actually, I really dislike the "cut-scene" action type. Pull the camera back a few feet and let us actually see what's going on!

- The Eowyn-Aragorn relationship. Tolkien never really develops this; he just shows Eowyn mooning over Aragorn. The movies shows a relationship that sets up the ROTK much better.

Eh. Yes and no. Jackson did a good job of it, but don't sell Tolkien short. He built this up quite a bit as well, in many more ways. I love Eowyn in the movie, though. Can't wait to see her put some smack-down on the Witch-king next year!

- Textual changes. I know that a movie and a book are two different media, and must be different to work. A number of Jackson's changes are positive -- I agreed with most of the departures from text in Fellowship, actually. TTT has more departures than Feollowship, though, and a number of them I take umbrage with.

There actually seemed to be fewer changes. In fact, I recognized a lot more dialogue that was word for word out of the book this time around.

- Moving Shelob to ROTK. At first I wasn't convinced, as I was looking forward to these scenes and the cliffhanger it sets up, but given the way the film is edited it works better this way to end the plot threads on similar emotional notes.

Yep. Not to mention the fact that without the spill-over, TTT is too long and RotK is too short (or has plot resolution too soon and then drags into an hour or so of epilogue.)

- Adding the Worg fight sequence. I enjoyed the fight itself a lot (though not the ending of it: see below).

Yep, I agree, this was a good add. Plus, we needed to see these Dire Hyena wargs, right? Oh, and worgs = D&D, wargs = Tolkien. Just a nit-pick from one Tolkien purist to another.

- Shifting the Two Towers parallel from Orthanc/Minas Morgul to Orthanc/Baradur. It works, particularly given the elimination of the Cirith Ungol sequence, and helps tie the Saruman-Sauron thread together in the movie better. The Saurman portrayal here works very well for the film.

Another nit-pick: Tolkien said very clearly that it always was Barad-dur and Orthanc that he referred to when naming the Two Towers. That isn't a textual shift at all.

- The Arwen-Aragorn scenes. They help the pacing of the film, so you don't get overwhelmed with action.

Yeah, but they come up at odd times, and you can't ever tell if it's a dream, a memory/flashback or something else. I actually coulda done without them, or have them done differently.

- Reducing the amount of footage given to Merry & Pippin. Both the Uruk-hai segments and Ent segments are quite short (hopefully there is more footage that will make it to the extended version). I thought that the original textual approaches to these scenes worked better.

As I said earlier, Merry and Pippin essentially make cameos in this movie, as does Gandalf. Too bad, considering the essential plot roles they play in the book.

- "Banishing" Eomer so that he comes to the rescue ot Helm's Deep at the end. It works for the film (particularly given the editing and pacing), though it eliminates the Huorns (whom I was looking forward to). But it also eliminates the development of the Eomer-Aragorn relationship at Helm's Deep, which I think is important to ROTK. We'll see.

Hopefully more to this in the extended DVD. I coulda sworn I remembered the film-makers talking about Gimli and Eomer squaring off about Galadriel, too, but since they cut that from the theatrical version of FotR, it wouldn't make much sense in the theatrical version of TTT for Gimli to be going on and on about her. And I have mixed feelings about combining (sorta) the role of Eomer and Erkenbrand, although in some ways, at least, it beats introducing yet another new character who isn't developed.

- The arrival of Haldir & the elves at Helm's Deep. Poor change. Yes, it explains what the other races are doing about it all (well, except for the dwarves), but how did the elves know where to go? Why not reinforce Gondor, who is the more critical of the two countries? And with the elves arrival, how is Jackson going to handle the Grey Company segments in ROTK? It will look redundant if a bunch of Rangers ride up at the beginning of the next movie ...

Yes, but presumably it works for the revised plot that is the screenplay of RotK, even if it doesn't work precisely for the original text of that book. After all, Jackson has showed time and time again that Tolkien's version of Arwen just isn't good enough for his vision of the series.

- Faramir's characterization. His early betrayal of Frodo does make his later reversal more dramatic, but I found the book's method of portraying Faramir to be more heroic. Faramir came of faintly sleazy to me (which probably also has something to do with a vague resemblance to the actor who played the Sherriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves).

Yes, that and the change in character of Theoden to a skulking worm who gets mad about Gondor not saving his bacon. I really don't see how they're going to get out of that one.

- The Osgiliath scenes, particularly Frodo's encounter with the Nazgul. Too much. It's like Jackson said "we've had five minutes without a fight scene .. let's throw one in ... and since we have to show Frodo falling to the ring, let's have him give it to a Nazgul!" Blech. Now the question is: if Sauron knows the ring is at Osgiliath, why doesn't he fortify Minas Morgul?

A dearth of black riders for too long is a bad idea. We don't want the audience to forget how scary they are, do we? And how do we know Sauron knows the ring is in Osgiliath? Frodo never actually wore the ring, and in the movie world, at least, he has to put it on before the Nazgul can effectively pinpoint him.

- The "Aragorn death" scene at the end of the Worg fight. The moving already has enough tension and drama -- this was just over the top.

And yet you say the movie is better about showing the relationship between Aragorn and Eowyn than the book: this is one of the main ways they do that.

Was it better than the first movie? Yes, and no. From an action/drama/pacing standpoint, it is probably better, but as an admitted Tolkien purist, I found some of the changes a little jarring. I'm looking forward to the extended edition, though, and I think FOTR and TTT are 1-2 in my list of fantasy movies (if not all movies).

Yes, I think it was, although I'll need to see it at least three more times to tell for sure! At least it doesn't have any big, green Galadriel scenes.

 

[EricNoah]

I'm not saying it's a good change or a bad change. But for me the change at least answers a question: If Faramir is so resistant to the lure of the ring (as he is in the book), then why doesn't HE carry it to Mount Doom?

I think they're going to get Faramir to the same place (character-wise), just taking a different road. For me, it kinda has the potential to work like this:

We have already met Boromir and watched him struggle and fail.

We meet this new guy, Faramir. We're thinking, "Oh, great, another character to try to figure out." We learn he's Boromir's brother. Bam! We "know" him -- he's just like Boromir. Except he's not, because he is shown ultimately able to resist the lure of the ring in a way Boromir was not. (this is the part I'll need to see to verify my theories). And in film 3 we'll see him change even more as he interacts with his father and meets Eowyn. Question is -- will he be "done changing" by the time he meets her, or will his meeting her change him further toward what he is in the book?

I feel this is an "it works better for the uninitiated than for those who know the books" change. Again, I'm not saying it is a good change or a bad change. But I think that it might not be such a stretch as it first seems. Can't wait to find out!

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Re: Re: Another review ...

At least it doesn't have any big, green Galadriel scenes.

Hear, hear!

You may be right about the raw number of changes between the two films (I don't really count dialogue, though I recognized more lines in FOTR than TTT) -- the changes in TTT were more noticable to me than the ones in Fellowship (I never cared for Bombadil, and after the Arwen/Glorfindel switch I guess I didn't get emotional about the rest of the changes). Maybe it's because I just reread TTT about two days before the movie.

Hey, from a movie standpoint, the changes work (just ask my wife, who hasn't read the books in probably 15 years, who thought the movie was great!).

Oh -- on the title nit-pick. Do you recall where Tolkien discussed the meaning of the title (I don't have an annotated copy of Tolkien)? My copy of the trilogy has a passage (at the end of FOTR) that specifically says TTT is about Orthanc and Minas Morgul -- but I don't know if that was Tolkien, or his editor.

 

[EricNoah]

Re: Re: Another review ...

Yes, that and the change in character of Theoden to a skulking worm who gets mad about Gondor not saving his bacon. I really don't see how they're going to get out of that one.

Perhaps this change of heart comes upon the final confrontation with Sauruman in film 3, a final realization as to how much he's been manipulated? Dunno...

 

[Frostmarrow]

It was a long time ago I read the books and I think I must have rushed them too. However, I just got back from the theatre and I though the movie was first rate. While watching the movie I thought to myself: "What if this film had been available when I was a kid!" I was completely blown away by the movie and this sudden insight. This is one magnificent film for which we have longed. ("We" being fans of fantasy and all things medieval.) It made me feel like a kid again.

 

[Vocenoctum]

I thought it was superbly done.
my nitpicks;
1) I didn't like Gandalf's "fly, you fools" line. He should have gotten tagged by the whip and plummeted, not hung around for famous last words. They had to put that back in here, blah!
2) Too many over emotional death scene's in the first, slow motion tension building. Not as many in 2, but still more than I wanted. The tear drops weren't as bad.
3) When Treebeard was walking, something about him interacting with the background didn't sync with me. Just didn't feel real.
4) Merry & Pippin: they really were blah. In fact, at one point I'd swear there were two Merry's (or, Pippins, who can tell?) in Treebeard... Frodo's obvioulsy a smarter halfling, since he at least remember's he has an Elven Cloak eventually, while these two wander through a forest trying to hide...

Stuff I liked:
1) The Movie
2) Gollum was great, looked great,acted great. I'd have prefered not to have the camera switching on his ranting, but it was still good. Early on, I had a flashback to Jar Jar, but thankfully got past it quickly.
3) Aragorn is once again a great, professional hero. His tracking, even his stance (walking forward nice and calm with his hands before him, acting in charge, etc.) were superb.
4) Legolas and Gimli were very good, typical adventurer types. You know if anyone was sent outside the gates, it'd be your characters!
5) the Isengard battle was good. Remember that a film can never match your imagination and adjust for that. The rock tossing was nice, like natural catapults. Hazarding the flood as only big tree's can, plus the flaming one dunking his head. I'd only wished they'd shown them actually ripping down Isengard itself.


I read the books and thought they were great. I'll read them again after the third movie. I haven't read them in so long that I don't remember them enough to point out plot differences, I just enjoy the movies for what they are.

I hope the DVD is a Super Duper Extended Version as well.

For those that mentioned how it jumped right in, you DID watch Fellowship again before seeing this, didn't you? Heck, it was even on Cable TV the other night

 

[Wolf72]

know what I love about LotR spoilers? ...

since I've read the books, it's not really spoiled

... I just keep getting more and more envious that I have to wait until this weekend (gf pulled the guilt strings on me! ...*what? you'd go with out me?* ... umm ... umm ... no! of course not!)

Or I might wait until the 24th and see it with my brother (ah, life is good when older brother is a bigger geek than you)

 

[EricNoah]

Well we still have something these "saw it already" people have lost -- a chance to see it for the first time.

 

[Celtavian]

Re

That was the most awsome film I have ever seen.

Though I prefer the books handling of many scenes, I can understand why Jackson changed alot. These are movies are 3 hours and they can barely show character development for the main characters, much less all the side characters.

I forgive Peter Jackson for attempting to use brutal, obvious changes to build character such as with Faramir and Theoden. I think they are being used as instruments to allow the main characters to shine.

I am still in utter awe. I can think of no movie that matches TTT for scenery and effects. TTT has the kind of scenery that goes through my mind when I play D&D.

I loved it. Best movie of its kind of all time, and one of the best movies of all time period based on a trilogy of the best books of all time.

Unbelievably good.