The Two Towers

[Reverend Jax]

*Minimal spoilers ahead*

 

Obviously, The Two Towers still leaves you hangin, just like FOTR, but even going into the theater knowing that, it doesn't stop it from pissing you off when it ends. FOTR movie ended with the beginning of the 2T book (Boromir doesn't die in the books til the beginning of the 2T) and the 2T movie doesn't get nearly as far in the Frodo/Sam/Gollum plot as the book. In the book, they make it all the way to Mordor and Gollum betrays them, which he decides to do in the movie, but doesn't do yet, and Frodo gets captured. This bothers me becuase I was looking forward to it, and now have to wait another year before seeing it. I will see it evidnetly though,and I cna be patient, so I'm okay with it.

 

That said, this movie was awesome! Better than FOTR, as most readers of the books suspected. The main thing I noticed is that the first movie took the book as literally as possible, stripped as little as it had to to get a 3 hour movie. It didn't have a new vision behind it, so to speak, which is fine, because Tolkien had plenty of vision in the books. But 2T has Tolkien's vision and the movie's own unique vision behind it too. One example was that Gimli was, from start to finished, used as the comic relief character. This came about as him being kinda useless in battle. This was a bit fo a cop out to him, seeing as he's badass. Oh well, EVERY movie needs some comic relief, and they could have turned Gollum into a Jar Jar Binks, so thank god that didn't happen. My major appriciation was Gollum. BY FAR, the single greatest CGI character I've ever seen, period. He interacted with the real characters, by grabbing clothes and stuff. The light of everything around him was affecting him adn affect by him. I keep looking at him with a critical eye and there's no other way of putting it, he looked like he was really there. And the split personality was done REALLY well, they changed the camera angle the first time he talked to himself alone, gave you a really feeling of how he felt talkign to himself. And if anyone thought that maybe Gandalf wasn't a fuckign badass mother fucker, any and all doubts are extinguished in the first scene. Fucking awesome! Go see it, now!

[Take Me To Your Lizard]

I dunno, something about The Two Towers left me feeling a little disappointed. Maybe it's just that the 'wow' factor from last year is gone, maybe it's because they deviated greatly from the book. Whatever it was, this didn't do for me what the Fellowship did this time last year.

 

I was looking forward to seeing Merry and Pippin developed more as rounded characters (not just comic relief) as the second book deals with them a lot. But they were mostly left out, and remained their daft selves when they did get a scene. Gollum was very nicely animated (though reminded me strangely of Dobby from the new Harry Potter film), and his parts were great. The battle scenes were awesome and though they dipped into comedy even here, it worked pretty well.

 

I can't put my finger quite on why I feel a bit unfulfilled. It deserves another viewing and I might appreciate it more the second time around. It is definately worth a watch and is without doubt one of the greatest films in years. Maybe I just expected too much.

[soldier of fortune]

Tickets Booked for Monday, can't wait!! The Helms Deep scene is going to rock!!!

[Reverend Jax]

The Battle of Helms Deep was a real high point for the movie. I agree about Merry and Pippen, well, at least about Pippen, Merry developed a little bit. I'm hoping that if they do an extended edition like they did with FOTR, that it has more Merry and Pippen material. What did people think of Gimli? Was making him funny yet useless an insult to his more badass self from the books, or good for the movie?

[JunkerSeed]

BADASS. This is why people go to the fuckin movies! I absolutely loved it, deviation from the book be damned. I think that the movies are focusing more on the human side of the struggle, whereas the books were more concerned with the hobbits. The books were a journey, the movies are more of a fight. The first half was all buildup, with forces being set in motion and everything else and the end was just pure, amazing payoff. Helms Deep was fucking insane. One of the biggest and best battles I've ever laid eyes on. This movie so fucking epic it makes spartacus and the ten commandments look like family dramas. Tons better than the first, and I thought it ended very well, at a good spot, though it obviously leaves you wanting a lot more. Some of the best action and visuals I've ever seen, and characters I actually cared about! Lucas could take a tip or two... Anyways, I love these movies so far, and return of the king is definately gonna be the best of the bunch.

 

Oh, and although Gimli was a bit of comic releif, he was not worthless at all! He was a complete badass, the jokes weren't really about him being worthless. Even when all that shit piled up on him he was like snapping necks.

[TopDawg540]

Just thought I'd drop a note about any deviation from the book in the movie. I might be preaching to the choir but if you all already know this then just go make stalactites in the corner till i'm done.

 

The ORIGINAL Book by Toilken was "Lord of the Rings" it was a single volume and was larger than most verbose dictionaries. The original publishers had to convince him to split it into 3 books and ship it as a trilogy. Now Being so large it didnt FIT into 3 books so that is where all the compendiums and histories and beastiaries that bear tolikens name come from. If you put every toliken book in a stack and bind them together you have the TRue manuscript for the Lord of the Rings.

 

So technically the movie makers are following the book more faithfully than anyone could expect. All of it is Tolikens work and from what i heard they painstakingly researched it so that everything was correct with the timeline.

 

(and yes i very gratuitously misspelled toliken probably evey time in here. ahh well.)

[Reverend Jax]

Now let's not get carried away. They rearranged the events to work chronologically for the movie (since it was not chronological in the the book), but this was not the most faithful translation possible. Thsi told the same events, but Jackson added his own vision to this movie, more so that the first one. He was filming a movie from an adapted script, not filming it directly from the book. However, several people on the set, include several of the actors, read and reread the books and used it like the bible to dictate many changes in the movie ("actually Peter, it says right here in the book that he comes in the door and goes straight into bed, so shouldn't he enter the bed from the other side?"). All my praise goes to them for this adaptation, but this is not the most faithful testament to Tolkien possible. As everyone has said before, it would have to be longer, and probably more boring. I could see it happen in a TV mini-series (which would be so long it would out run most regular series), but not on a movie screen.

[Take Me To Your Lizard]

**Some minor spoilers from Two Towers possible, but nothing too big and nothing to spoil the next film/book at all**

 

Yeah, I understand why they changed stuff, just don't entirely agree with it. The ending of the Two Towers from the book kicked ass, and I really expected them to end the film with it, since a dark unhappy ending is a winning formula for the second film of a trilogy (Empire Strikes Back being my fave of the holy trilogy). But I see that there would not be much left for Return of the King if they included everything as it should be, since I expect them to cut a lot of that book.

 

TopDawg - the original work was six books comprising one volume called 'The Lord of the Rings'. Tolkien was forced to break it into three as one book was too large and six was too many, so the three books that the films are named after are pairs of Tolkien's original intended books. This film did stray from them a great deal. In the book, Helm's Deep happens at the beginning and is more or less skimmed over by Tolkien, then the rest is the fall of Isengard and Frodo, Sam, and Smeagol's journey into Mordor, ending with some cool action at the end.

 

I wonder why they deviated from this? They added a battle on the way to Helm's Deep, Aragorn's fall and the Arwen stuff, and changed Faramir's character from this smart noble guy into another Boromir. When Sam and Frodo go to Osgiliath Sam says "We shouldn't be here" - appropriate seeing as in the book nothing like that happens.

 

Not that there's anything wrong with changing things, PJ's own interpretation is what we were always going to get. But still, Tolkien came up with a great story with brilliant cliff hangers and a great structure - I'm sure it could have worked in a film.

[JunkerSeed]

I say "faithful" translations be damned! I want something a bit different from what I read! As hard as it may be for some to accept, the movies shouldn't have to be such tight, slavish adaptations. I like the idea of taking everything apart and reworking it all for the movies, not going through the books scene by scene and saying "should we change this?" whenever the question arrives. Making helm's deep the focus goes along with the movie centering on the humans, not the hobbits, and gave us that fucking visionary last hour of the movie, I thought it worked. I like it when the books and movies serve as a companion peice to each other, not just a filming of what you just read. (Best example of this I think is Ghost World)

[Reverend Jax]

Well, as far as putting more Arwen stuff in there, it seems obvious to me that that's because it's a very man intense story and some more female characters are needed. That's fine. I didn't like them changing Foromir's character. I liked the "younger brother overshadowed by older brother despite being just as noble and strong, and in the end proving his worth over his brother" angle in the book. I understand them putting more empathsis on the humans, but the fall of Isangard was sweep over with dramatic music inbetween shots of helm's deep. They made it seem to easy. They made Saruman look like a punk, not any sort of real threat. I also agree about the second parts of trilogies ending darkly, like the book did. They ending of the book made me want to jump right into the third to see what happens to Sam and Frodo (even though you don't find out until the second half of ROTK, Damn you Tolkien!). Cutting the ending was a big mistake, but they again, they can't send the second half of the last movie (90 minutes) sayign goodbye to each other and walking back home.

 

Oh well, good stuff. Hope the make a TV miniseries within my lifetime with top notch production that dedicates a whole half hour to every chapter of the books. Now THAT...would ROCK!

[Silent Bob]

[Spongebob]

It pissed me off!! When me and my friend went to go and see it the power got cut in the 1st sene and we had to wait about a week to go back. Other then that the movie was top notch kick ass.