Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

I went to see TTT at the 12:01 a.m. showing on opening day Wednesday. Miranda Otto as Éowyn was wonderful, definitely my new favorite character introduced in this movie.

One of the things I didn't like about this movie was all the comedy relief offered by Gimli the dwarf. It seemed like every time he spoke something it was a joke, and almost everyone in the theater laughed. Some of the things he said were funny, but just a little too many jokes in my opinion. I liked the overall seriousness of the first film more.

As for Gollum, I felt he had a little more screen time than he should've. They did a great job with the CG and he was a great character (reminds me of Yoda from ESB), but I just felt he had a little too much screen time.

That scene where Legolas flips onto the horse was just awesome. Everyone in the theater cheered at that.

The anticipation of the battle was tremendous, and when the elves arrived to back them up it was a great relief. Still, I didn't enjoy the battle's scenes as much as I thought I would, probably because most of it took place at night.

Definitely liked it more than Fellowship of the Ring, eventhough I did enjoy that movie a lot as well. I'm going to go see TTT in theaters several more times.

 

One thing I wanted to get out of the way: be careful not to put in spoilers that might make the experience less fun for those who have yet to see it.

A friend of mine was saying he wished gollum had gotten even more screentime... he was done really really well. But yeah it seemed like half the movie was about him. OTOH maybe that's just how important he was in the book/series and they're just being faithful to that. I read the books too long ago to comment.

Overall I liked it, I didn't find it as enthralling over a three hour period as the first movie, but it was good and worthy and all that. I think the only thing that really kept me from going nuts over it is the fact that by sticking to the book, there aren't really any opportunities for creative plot twists or storyline techniques (like showing events out of order, etc... )...
It seems like have the flick is spent watching people walk/run across the land or battle. But the scenery, CG, sets, etc are jawdropping and super convincing so it's fine entertainment. I think moreso for males than females.

 

Creed, he appears more in the movie than in the book. And they added things to the movie that arent in the book. Lots of things. Too many for some people

 

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and they added things to the movie that arent in the book. Lots of things. Too many for some people

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Amen to that. It was an excellent film I really enjoyed it. I was just taken off guard when I saw it for precisely that reason. In defense of the film, they really couldn't have done it any other way -- they moved events in the book around in time, geography, and in some cases even moved the event to another character. They had to do this because the film would have been five hours otherwise. Once I reconciled what went on in the film with the book I was happier with the film. I'll definitely go see it again. There were some things that were pure additions and for that there was really only one thing that I didn't like.


cheers,
kbcat

 

Enjoyed the movie, but had some problems with it. Some other people have mentioned some of these, but I will reiterate.

1. Gimli, son of Bozo. Tolkien didn't write him as a clown and for good reason. Why all the lame jokes? I wasn't in the mood to hear them keep busting on the little guy or watching him fall from his horse.

2. Saruman. Why so purely evil? In the book he is more complex and sympathetic. He wants the ring, but he wants to undermine Sauron's machinations. He is guilty of pride, greed, vanity, and bad judgement, but he is not Sauron's second in command as the movie makes him out to be. Some might say that there is not enough time to develop his character, so Jackson had to change things. I could buy that were it not for the fact that they found time for:

3. Arwen Evenstar. This is terrible. Yeah the story is compelling and sad, but it is very peripheral, so much so that Tolkien sticks it in the appendix. I understand that there are not many female characters in book, but so what? I don't care if movies are made without central male characters. Why should this be any different?

4. Theoden's exorcism. Yeah Grima had been slowly poisoning his mind and Gandalf snaps him out of it, but it is corny in the movie- corny in the same way that Galadrial's levitating banshee act in FOTR was corny. Maybe I am different from the average American movie-goer (I hope so. Remember Titanic?), But I sometimes like a little subtlety.

5. Gollum's soliliquy. He is conflicted in the book, but it seems that in the movie he is rendered as one with multiple personality disorder. Gollum never spoke directly to one side or the other. It was always "we." Maybe this was necessary to hammer the point home to an audience consisting of many people who have not read the books, or maybe not too many books at all, but I did not like that.

6. Faramir. He was wise. Thoughful. Brave without seeking glory. In the movie he is Frodo's captor, and basically Boromir Lite. There is something sad and compelling in the book about the fact that Faramir was the better man than Boromir, but Boromir was favored by Denethor.

What I liked.

1. The locations, sets. The places look amazing. Isengard, Fanghorn, The Black Gate, Helm's Deep, Meduseld, Osgiliath, The Dead Marshes, etc.

2. Gollum. Wow. He is also amazing. So tragic and unsettling and funny at the same time. The voice, the look, the movents are all perfect, and I know I would have been hard to please on this one.

3. Helm's Deep. What a fight! So many orcs. So many people and arrows and swords, etc. Take out the wisecracks and it's about perfect.

4. The Ents. They look cool. Not like anything I've seen in any movie.

5. The flooding of Isengard. My favorite part of the movie. At this point, probably the coolest thing I've ever seen in a movie.

All in all it is the most spectacular movie to date- I mean in terms of providing spectacle. I wish I didn't have to wait one year for the next one.

 

*spoilers*
Gollum does talk to him self. Its hard to pick up on cause its written so beutifully but they nailed that scene hands down. It couldnt have been done any better.

Theres a lot you missed thats more important than what you mentioned.

These things are not in the book. thus have no reason in the movie

1. Aragorn never falls in a ravine. EVER, In fact aragorn never falls at all. He's a supreme bad ass.
2. After the ent moot, the ents decided that war is definately necessary. Treebeard dosent say no and then change his mind after he sees the forest.
3.The elves of lorien never go to helms deep. That does not happen. That guy(forgot his name) doesnt die.
4. The orcs at helms deep are routed by Herons(Creatures that arent trees but arent ents. Kinda like really angry trees.) In the morning the herons show up as a forest and kill every single orc, this is after aragorn frightens them with Anduil(Narsil).
5. Faramir never, ever, ever takes frodo and sam to osgilith. He lets them go at the forbidden pool.

 

damm, theres just no pleasing everybody, there's always gotta be the "the book is better" people. fuck the book man, long live eye candy.

/versus/images/icons/wink.gif

 

Must.........refrain................from mentioning PS2 VF4Evo.

 

to be hinest, i got totally bored of the book, and put it down.
Tolkien just drags te adventure on and on and on and on....
i much prefered the dark materials trilogy by philip Pullmann.

 

Review of Two Towers

(This is a general reply to this thread.)
My thoughts, based on comparisons with the book, etc. (contains potential spoilers):

Things I liked:
• Grima Wormtongue - played with true menace, well acted; scary-looking.
• King Theoden - I very much liked the transformation from being completely addled, etc. Also well acted.
• Gollum - didn't like the look and sound of him at first, but he really grew on me. He looks impressively "realistic", even when close up to camera - nice graphics.
• The pacing - much faster than the first installment; more well-suited to a young male audience (generally speaking), in my opinion.
• Scenery/landscapes - stunning. Made me want to take the 25-hour flight to New Zealand.
• Visual effects generally - the Urak Hai and the battle scene in particular are breathtaking; epic. The sheer scale of the battle of Helm's Deep is worth the trip to the cinema. Particularly grand on a large screen, of course.
• The humour. It is genuinely mildly amusing this time around. The first movie relied on Pippin's slightly irritating jokes (largely based on his Glaswegian accent); in this one the humour is left to Gimli, who is slightly funnier.

Stuff I did not like, or was disappointed by:
• Treebeard/ the Ents in general. The legs were too long; the scenes with them were, frankly, boring; there should have been way more of them (to keep things plausible, i.e. five or ten ents couldn't take on the Urak Hai!)
• The fact that Wormtongue wasn't given enough screentime
• No Shelob
• The ridiculous, Eryll Flinn-style skateboarding moment from Legolas
• The overall Hollywoodisation of certain sections of Helm's Deep - Gimli and Aragorn defeating about fifty Urak Hai on that bridge sequence (right after Gimli asks to be tossed over [his words not mine] on to the bridge, after using the secret entrance/exit). Not to mention how easily the individual Urak Hai fell during the battle - they were supposed to be custom-built brick shithouses that could withstand tens of men each, whereas in battle they fell like flies
• The Dead Marshes - should have been at night and much bigger; should have taken longer for Gollum/Frodo/Sam to pass (more screentime etc.)
• There is a part where the riders of Rohan are travelling on horseback down a near vertical cliff edge. Seemed silly/implausible to me and others I've spoken to about it.
• The Wargs are terrible in the film. They have been rendered well, but when the action takes place right next to the (real, living) horses, the effect is less than seemless (<-understatement). I think they were meant to impress the 13yr old boys watching or something.

Inaccuracies, or modified details from the book:
• The Elves did not participate in the battle at all in the book and should not have been there in my opinion. It is part of this Hollywood-style turn this chapter has taken, and seemed like a cop-out to me - "How can we defeat the bad guys? Stick to the book? Nah, let's pretend the elves came and saved the good guys". Fits in quite well in the film, but is nonetheless an inaccuracy/modification.
• Gandalf is much more powerful in the book. E.g. in the film he practically asks Wormtongue to leave him alone and stand aside; in the book he commands him to kneel before him
• Much, much more Ents help out in the book. Should have been an army of Ents, not a half dozen of them
• Shelob, the giant spider, is not present in the film, even though she was very prominent in the book (i.e. specifically the Two Towers). Peter Jackson's saved her for the Return of the King. Kind of a disappointment, but I'd rather they spent the entire Two Towers on the battle - as they did - than have Shelob play a small, token-gesture part, etc. Now, though, they have a LOT to get through in the third part.
• Frodo doesn't fall in the marshes in the book
• The marshes - as I've said - are described as being seen by Frodo, etc. at night. In the film the trio arrive there during the day and it's about as frightening as a cute little girl
• The part where Arrogorn falls over the edge of a cliff is not in the novel

Things that have, in my opinion, improved upon the book:
• The film version sees Theoden crying after hearing of the death of his son. In the book it's said in one or two lines, something like: "oh, and he heard his son had died".
• The part where Gandalf exorcises Saruman away from Theoden
• The scenes with Elrond and Arwen are quite touching - more so than in the book perhaps.
• Miranda Otto is not in the book /versus/images/icons/wink.gif

I could write more but I'll leave it there - written so much already, hehe.

Generally I enjoyed it. The pace is significantly breezier than The Fellowship. It's also more novice-friendly in my opinion - even though it doesn't introduce the characters like the first one does, it doesn't contain as many "boring bits" - i.e. more action, less character-development and fan-favourite weirdness (e.g. the whole Galadriel thing in the first one).

I have high hopes for the next one - they have so much left to show us in terms of the plot. Should be the best of the lot.

And, Piccolo - the book IS better /versus/images/icons/wink.gif

 

Re: Review of Two Towers

Uhm...Errol Flynn didn't skateboard. I believe they call what he did swashbuckling. Many have confused the two.

Stanley Kubrick at the top of his game...

 

herons are birds. you mean the huorns.

 

Re: Review of Two Towers

>> (to keep things plausible, i.e. five or ten ents couldn't take on the Urak Hai!)

i saw much, much more than five or ten on screen. and while i liked the design of the ents, i don't think the movie showed how powerful they were as described in the book - and they were still awfully powerful looking in the movie.

>> The scenes with Elrond and Arwen are quite touching - more so than in the book perhaps.

elrond's lines in the movie and the visuals were actually derived very heavily from a story in the appendix of lotr, and i agree, it wasn't really a bad thing. in fact i wish they could have continued and shown arwen's death in lorien, but they cut it off a bit quick...

ostensibly, shelob isn't shown because there would be practically zero screen time for gollum - assuming they follow the book and don't make much up - in rotk, save for mount doom.

the warg attack was the added thing i liked the least. it was put in there for some action at the mid-way point, but it just came off as silly and weak, as a fan of the book. another thing which isn't necessarily a fault of the moviemakers is that the landscape just did not look at all like it was described in the book in many places. rohan was far more green with meadows of long grass, and ithilien (where gollum, frodo and sam see the southrons and the oliphaunt and meet faramir) was supposed to be green, lush and beautiful.

i didn't mind seeing osgiliath - those events (the orcs taking the east side) actually did happen in the book (described by faramir) but with frodo not there, and a long while earlier in the story. the nazgul scene with frodo was awfully melodramatic, though, and faramir was a complete prick. he didn't have enough screen time and dialogue to really explain his situation, and for that reason more than the actor he came off totally unlike he was written in the book. but...how did they get back over to the east side? and how did they get over to the west side in the first place?!

the dead marshes weren't 1/100th as creepy as they should have been. they might have wanted to have it take place at night and actually show the "lights" so that when gollum kept saying "don't follow the lights" it might have actually made some sense to those who hadn't read the book...durhh.

liked the designs of the southrons and the oliphaunt.

bleh, i could go on and on...

 

Re: Review of Two Towers

on the subject of "don't follow the lights" creating an inexplicable situation for those unfamiliar with the books...

Why is it that faramir (their captor right?) had to forfeit his life for letting the hobbits go? Also his change of heart was sort of abrupt and seemed implausible. He didn't really seem convinced, and suddenly he's ready to die for the cause.

 

Re: Review of Two Towers

>Uhm...Errol Flynn didn't skateboard. I believe they call what he did swashbuckling. Many have confused the two.

Well, you knew which part I meant, so I don't think the terminology really matters

 

Re: Review of Two Towers

Agree with pretty much all your points, especially with regards to the landscape - definitely had me saying to myself, "doesn't quite look right" at several parts of the film (despite how spectacular some of the scenery was). faramir was "wrong" in my opinion too. agree with creed's point about how sudden and silly him laying down his life seemed.

The Dead Marshes lights thing was pretty inexcusable too...

>i saw much, much more than five or ten on screen. and while i liked the design of the ents, i don't think the movie showed how powerful they were as described in the book - and they were still awfully powerful looking in the movie.

I'll look out for more if I see the movie again. Maybe I only noticed ten or so actually walking about, without counting those who stayed mostly stationary onscreen. Dunno. As for the design, the top half seemed fine, I just always pictured much shorter, wider legs. Treebeard looked more like a man who had been turned into a tree than a tree that could walk. Also, another thing - along with the Wargs - that looked far from seemless, was when we saw shots of Merry and Pippin atop of Treebeard; the background looked so unconvincing (i.e. it was clearly done using bluescreen or something, and the character's edges stood out), that it reminded me of Superman's flying sequences. I know it's nitpicking but with some of the special effects these days - including some seen in this film - I was very much surprised at how shaky it looked.

 

Re: Review of Two Towers

>> Why is it that faramir had to forfeit his life for letting the hobbits go?

this is an invention of the film makers, and one that's not explained very well. my guess is that there is dialogue that was filmed but wasn't included. in the book faramir has a strained relationship with his father - my guess is the movie makers have and are going to sort of exaggerate this in the third movie, replacing time-consuming screen time and dialogue with a quick-fix plot point. too bad.

in the book faramir is a hard-ass but noble, wise and restrained - he doesn't even want to see the ring once he learns their quest. sam even likens him to gandalf...not the impression most would get from the film's depiction of him.

 

>> In the book he is more complex and sympathetic.

i agree on complex (wish they had gone into him becoming saruman of many colors), as well as all your other comments on the movie, but i don't think saruman was ever sympathetic. he was pretty much utterly corrupted and had his eyes set on the ring for hundreds of years. something that's clear in the book and which the movie doesn't really make clear is that he wanted it for himself and to overthrow sauron and to rule utterly. he ruins isengard, breeds the uruk-hai, rapes the shire, tried to obliterate rohan, and tried to murder frodo at the end - i think this sort of answers your "why so purely evil?" question =)

 

I really enjoyed LOTR:TTT, but it was not as exciting as the FOTR. I, however, did enjoy the humor of Gimili. I thought his character was pretty funny.

I thought Gollum looked great but I did not think he was all that funny.

I am really upset to still see hardly any magic from Gandalf. No offense to JRR Tolkien, but Helms Deep Galdalf, a wizard, goes charging into battle---lame!! A wizard who use magic and spells or something in a battle. Instead, he jumps into battle chopping at people with his staff. IMHO, Warriors, fighters, knights, rangers do this. not wizards. MORE MAGIC.

Also, the defenses at Helms Deep sucked. All it seemed the had to defend the castle were bows and rocks. There should have been hot oil to spill, logs and boulders to roll. but, definately hot oil.

about them adding in the other parts. That was not cool. Although I enjoyed it, it should have stayed true to the book.

mainly i would just like to see some freakin' magic. even in LOTR:FOTR they wasted all this time on making a cool firework dragon (laa dee daa) when they should have spent more special effects and time on the wizards fight (gandalf v. saruman). hello!!!!!

oh well, I continue to love LOTR!!!!

 

yo akira2k1, you say you think the movie should stay true to the book, but if you've read them you'll notice that they don't have any flashy spells, and the magic is very subtle like elves being able to hide well in a forest, making it look as though they can disapeer. So i think the movies were very faithful to the books in the magic department, and I'm glad they didnt take the holywood aproach to it and add tons of special effects and spells that dont belong in LOTR.
Anyways, what I really liked about the movie were the mordor people, I thought their design and style was awesome and I hope their in the 3rd movie alot, and the ents were also very well done IMO. What I didnt like was Gimli being a complete comic relief charecter, and Legolas being a bit "too cool" with his shield riding scene and flipping up 360 degrees backwards while spinning upside down and mounting on a horse. Overall, I liked it better then the first one, cause the battles were awesome, and I'm glad gullom wasnt jar jar binks.