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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Olgar Shiverstone" data-source="post: 536833" data-attributes="member: 5868">Another review ...Just got back from the noon showing the The Two Towers, so here's a short review:My wife's first comment after the movie: "I can't believe I have to wait a whole year to find out what happens!"Mine:"Man, I need to go get some Warg minis!" (Warg riders have featured prominently in my last two game sessions.)Peter Jackson delivers another great epic film.  If anything, the movie is more dramatic, and significantly more action-packed than the first film.  Making the second story of a trilogy is tough, but Jackson succeeds in making a stand-alone movie out of the second act.If you're going to see the film, be warned that there's no recap -- they jump directly into the action (which will throw off anyone who hasn't seen the first movie).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.Rants & Raves:****  Warning, Spoilers Follow *****My raves: the best parts of the film.-  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.- The CGI creatures are all awesome: the Ents, the Wargs, the Oliphants & Trolls, and Gollum.  The Wargs 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.- 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.- Gandalf's fight with the Balrog.  Great sequence.- 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 the last movie.- 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.Rants:- 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 Fellowship, though, and a number of them I take umbrage with.- Positive changes, in my opinion, include:  - 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.  - Adding the Warg fight sequence.  I enjoyed the fight itself a lot (though not the ending of it: see below).  - 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.  - The Arwen-Aragorn scenes.  They help the pacing of the film, so you don't get overwhelmed with action.- Negative changes, in my opinion, include:  - 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.  - "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.  - 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 ...  - 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).  - 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?  - The "Aragorn death" scene at the end of the Warg fight.  The moving already has enough tension and drama -- this was just over the top.Edit: almost forgot, I didn't care for the change in the Ent's motivations, though it works OK for the film.  My wife kept asking: "Why don't the Ents get swept away by the water, too?"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).Edit: Worgs to wargs, at Josh's request<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /></blockquote>

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