Just Saw 'Two Towers'

[MattyBoy]

I loved TTT. I read the books many times, but not recently and was concerned that TTT would make a movie that was too gloomy and rambling. Given that, I felt the film was great and its pacing was far better than FotR. Gollum and the Balrog were incredible graphically and the pacing of the film was surprisingly good. The tie-ins to the next film were handled very well.

In general, it was an awesome effort to bring such a complex and difficult tale to the screen. You can safely bet that nobody will do a better job of making TTT into a movie.

My only complaints were:
1) I agree with Buck that the ents deciding rashly to attack Isengard was poorly handled. They should have been aware of Saruman's efforts from their communication network and their rashness is totally out of character.

2) I would have preferred that the romance be downplayed as per the book, but understand that it makes for a more popular movie. I would at least have wished that it were more subtle and less of the focus in this movie.

[Pekka]

Phew, finally I can enter these threads too, since I just saw it too. Well.. what can I say.. it was good, no doubt about that. Still it didn't have the same grip for me like the first one did. I don't know why. Gimlis jokes were kind of.. too many. They were good, but I think it would've been better with fewer jokes. Nothing REALLY bothered me, since I didn't want to be ready to spot mistakes and directors own decisions. Good movie, liked the first one better, waiting for the last one.

My butt fell asleep, crappy seats!

[Pekka]

Oh and I definitely agree with complaints about the ents, and destroying the Isengarden. It was... little too light.

Also what did hurt my eye was seeing Legolas doing Tony Hawk.

[monolith94]

The tony hawk move was cool.
I liked it better than the first actually. For some bizarre reason it felt MORE epic to me. Meh.

[Dr Strangelove]

Yes, there were definitely somwe digressions from the books in this movie. I'm wondering if Jackson is actually going to change Aragorn's fate and have him marry Eowyn? That would be blasphemy!

Overall I liked the movie. The CGI of Gollum was terrific. I wonder how long it will be before they're able to do that with any human character they desire?

[MRT144]

well since george lucas messes it(CGI character) up at every turn i predict until his death

[DanS]

I liked TTT better than FOTR. In the first movie, I was removed from state of disbelief suspension several times. TTT never did this to me and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Anyway, what's so funny about tossing dwarfs? One of the must unfunny schticks to come around for a while.

[MRT144]

how could you not find humor in tossing dwarves? its the scottish nation pasttime!

[Pekka]

Oh yes Gollum was Beautiful!

[SlowwHand]

I thought it was well-done.
From the sound of the Nazgul's wings flapping to the tramp of feet as the approach was made on Helm's Deep.

[Demerzel]

I know they had to change things and beef up certain characters whilst removing others but why oh why did they have to fiddle with Faramir?

All they did was make Faramir into a mindless automaton who isn't that likeable with their changes. In the book he is fighting between doing the right thing and doing what his father, Denethor, commands him to do. When they cut large sections of the book because the running time of the film can't be more than 3hrs or so, then to have a totally extraneous scene in Osgillath puzzles me. Dragging Frodo, Sam & Gollum into Osgillath to me smacks of them having to create the set for another point later in the film and then thinking how can we cost justify this?

Overall I thought the film was very well done for the tough film-making material it is, but the changing of some bits for dramatic effect did annoy me a lot. Apart from Faramir, the other bit was the arrival of the elfs at helms deep instead of Eomer fighting there. Eomer obviously took Erkenbrand's role when they arrived at the end of the siege.

Ah well, can't wait to see how they fit all the bits they cut from the TT book to fit into the 3rd film, e.g. Shelob's lair. I know they've decided to seriously shorten the scouring of the shire but where else they going to fiddle? Hopefully they'll still include the siege of Minas Tirith - if Helm's Deep was a big fight then Minas Tirith had anout 6 times the number of combatants, so nearly 100,000 fighting will be interesting....

[Ming]

I've heard a bunch of complaints about "this and that"... and my only comment is, this is the best we are going to get, and it's DAMN GOOD. So I'm willing to cut them some slack. Overall, it's been great. But people can knit pick anything to death. We should just be happy it was finally done.

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Pekka
Oh yes Gollum was Beautiful!

Although Gollum was brilliantly executed and although computer-generated characters are becoming more realistic, they aren't there yet. I would have preferred a human actor, say Linda Hunt (Year of Living Dangerously, Dune and Kindergarden Cop). In a latex bodysuit with webbed hands and feet, she would have been brilliant.

Oh yeah: another vote for Fellowship over Two Towers.

[Demerzel]

As I said, I'm very happy with what they achieved and enjoyed both films immensely. it's just that even though they had to fiddle to make it fit into a mere 12 hours or less of film, you obviously can't blame 100% of the people for not being 100% happy with it. naturally some things had to go or be changed, but why the obsession with tossing dwarves?

as i said, can't wait to see Peter Jackson's implementation of 'The Return of the King' - Shelob should be quite interesting and the siege of Minas Tirith one would hope would totally outclass the spectular Helm's Deep.

[GePap]

It would be IMPOSSIBLE to mae a film of LoTR that stayed fuly loyal to the material. Books and Film are utterly different mediums, where the drama and suspense are built in very different ways. Yoiu can never just film a book page by page, and defenitelly not something like LoTR. For God's sake, the last half of the third books is an appendix to help you understand what the hell went on: if someone here can explain some whay in which a filmaker could somehow include the whole index into the fiolms, then perhaps you can try to make the movie.

The majority of human kind has NOT read LoTR, and they will be the ones to make the enterprise profitable. The filmaker musdt bring them into the story, and that is bound to be very difficult to do with Tolkien. There is simply too much, too much for the medium of cinema.

As a movie (without bringing the book in at all, as it is a meaningless and invariably failed thing to do) it had various issues, as I think the dramatic tension the last battle scene is broken by switching from strand to strand. I think they used the chliche of "threatened children" too much, and did not show enough of how those 12 year olds and 60 year olds conscripted to fight fared (which was probably very badly) to show the sacrifice made. Gollum was doen evry well, and from the fact that Faramir is able to resist the urge to take the One Ring, and willingly let Frodo go (thus passing the test Galandriel had to face, Brromir failed, and Aragorn has not taken) he is set up for a much more sympathetic third movie. And I think the Wringwhaiths ae too weak, as they seem utterly unable to do much: hardly the most feared henchmen of Sauron.