The Two Towers is great

[esquire]

Heh I can't sleep... but I found this potentially cool info on the Two Towers:

Lord of the Rings 2 & 3: Someone said once that Kiwis are the best
cockteasers on Earth and Peter Jackson sure knows how to keep us begging for
more. In a CBBC Newsround interview, PJ touched upon two very important
things. First, how goes the third film "Return of the King"? "We've got a
rough cut. And I just started last week, before I came over here, I started
to do the final cutting of it which will take me about three months. And
then there's all the visual effects to do and the music and everything else
so we're pretty busy next year. The third one is my favourite I think of the
three". The other? What extra stuff can we expect on the "Two Towers" DVD?
"There's some great scenes - good stuff with Merry and Pippin and Treebeard.
A couple of good Gollum scenes actually that we're going to put on the DVD
that we didn't end up using in the film. There'll probably be about the same
amount of footage roughly as there was for the Fellowship - about 30 - 35
minutes worth of footage. There's a lot of good stuff, strong scenes".
Taken from Dark Horizons site.

cool, no?

[Memnoch]

Originally posted by esquire: One more thing, I am currently reading the trilogy for the second time though, but I purposely saw the TTT before rereading the entire second book and I am glad I did. I think that if I had the book fresh in my mind I would have been a little more pissed off at the several large plot changes that they made. As it is now, I can go and finish TTT and have all the details filled in for me. At least that is how I see it.

This is a good point. I remember watching FotR just after rereading the trilogy to refresh my memory - I think I saw it about a day or so after finishing the FotR part of the book, and I spent practically the whole movie either waiting for things that didn't end up being shown or wondering why things happened differently. I then watched it again a couple of weeks later and loved it. This time, I went without rereading the damn thing and loved it for what it was.

[lucius]

I loved it and am going to see it again as soon as possible I cant wait till I can buy it

[Lopadamus Flimbog]

This is just about what the ending is gonna be like in RotK
Some slight Spoilers for some I Guess:

According to imdb.com, tho sometimes they're wrong, it mentions that Elanor Gamgee is in it, Sam's daughter in the book, and is also played by his Real Life daughter, so there will probably be a Shire scene,tho mayb they cut out the ruffians

It says Ian Holm (Bilbo) is in this one too, so when they're back in Rivendell and/or the Grey Havens scene will most likely be in it

It mentions that they filmed 5 different scenes for the Death of Saruman, and Christopher Lee himself says he doesnt know which on they're using. Most likely, with 5 scenes, he wont be killed the way he is in the book..

...

[esquire]

Alas, no scouring of the Shire

Who cares though, its still going to rock [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img]

[ 01-16-2003, 05:20 PM: Message edited by: esquire ]

[shadowhound]

On a little known site www.brunching.com there is a guy who calls himself the self-made-critic and he does some very good movie reviews. I found this one on the lord of the rings two and thought that it was worth posting.
------------------------------
Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
reviewed by The Self-Made Critic

There is a fine line between being a fan and being obsessed to the point of insanity. Case in point, last year I gave Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring 4 4/5 Babylons. That's a lot of Babylons. Very, very few movies come anywhere near that many Babylons.

Do you have any idea how many emails I got cussing me out for not giving it 5?

Like I'd personally offended their world because I didn't believe that the sun rose and fell in Frodo's hairy buttocks. That I dared suggest that this movie hadn't made the world a better place for all humanity seemed to strike some people as just plain wrong, and for that I got flamed to high heaven and called a 'sniveling jackal of Sauronian evil.' Whatever that means.

Now we come to The Two Towers. Film number two in this immense trilogy known as The Lord of the Rings. And guess what? As much as I didn't like Fellowship of the Ring (giving it ONLY 4 4/5 Babylons), I liked Two Towers even less.

Which is not to say this isn't a great movie. Once again, we are given something immense in both scale and imagination. And length. 179 minutes, according to IMDB. And if you sit there for another minute in wonder and awe after it's over, it counts as three hours.

Three hours!!! And part one was the same length! Nearly six hours for two movies! When we get the third installment next year, more than likely the same length, we'll have a mammoth trilogy that takes up nine hours of your life in one sitting!!! I've had relationships shorter than that!

But I digress.

The Two Towers is a grand film, and everyone in it does a wonderful job, pretty much the same job they did in the first movie. In fact, seeing as how the entire trilogy was filmed at once, it's no wonder that everything, acting, directing, art direction, best boy is equally as well done as in the first film. But Two Towers adds two very important elements. Gollum and Ents.

Ents are tree people. Literally. Very large, very cool, like to talk very slowly. Ents are a CGI creation which are seamlessly integrated into the story. Think if the Lorax could rip stones out of the Earth. That's your Ent. They speak for the trees, and if you don't listen, they're gonna show you Mother Nature's nasty side.

Gollum is simply a revelation. He's also CGI, but unlike the Ents, he's a main character in and of himself. Gollum has a character arc. Gollum acts. Gollum evokes sympathy, anger, fear, pity and a host of other emotions. The only reason everyone in the theater doesn't walk out muttering Gollum's catch phrase of "My Preciousssss·" is that it's so much fun to talk like an Ent.

The basic story of The Two Towers is.. well.. it's really just the middle chunk of the larger story. The Fellowship broke up at the end of the first film, so in this film we follow three storylines simultaneously. Frodo and Sam meet Gollum and try to get into Mordor to destroy the ring. Merry and Pippen escape from the Orcs and meet the Ents. Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas join the war of good vs. evil, ride some horses, do a lot of fighting, and make dwarf jokes.

Got all that?

Seriously, it is hard to say what the 'plot' of this film is. It's not like anyone is going to go see this film who never saw Fellowship or doesn't plan on seeing Return of the King. This is the middle chapter. No nice introduction of everything, no climactic end to the story, just lots and lots of action and story to whip you into a frenzy for the climax.

That said, it does it very well.

For some people, this movie will be the best movie they've seen since the first Lord of the Rings flick. Those people have already seen it. For others, here's a pretty easy way to tell if you'll like this movie.

Did you like the first one?

Because in reality, Peter Jackson is making one 9-hour film that has been chopped into three films to make it more palatable to the movie-going public. Part one flows into part two which will flow into part three. I mean heck, they don't even bother with a prologue to bring you up to speed. You snooze, you lose. You need a refresher course, go buy the special-advanced-all-powerful-enhanced DVD.

Me, I liked the first one, I liked the second, I'm looking forward to the third.

But I'm not planning on learning Elvish any time soon.

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers gets 4 1/3 Babylons. It sure beats The Hot Chick all to heck.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Editor's Note:

If the SMC doesn't stop talking like those Ents, I'm going to need to call the tree surgeon.

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THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS
Rated: PG-13
Directed By: Peter Jackson
Starring: Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Viggo Mortensen, Sean Astin, Billy Boyd· Viggo. Is that a great name or what? Liv Tyler, John Rhys-Davies, Dominic Monaghan· I mean the name just rolls off your tongue. Viggo. Say it with me. Viggo. Christopher Lee, Miranda Otto, Brad Dourif, Orlando Bloom· I mean you don't meet that many Viggos around town. But it's not like you can just name your kid Viggo now, because everyone will think you're naming it for Viggo Mortensen. But you're not, it's just a great name. Viggo. That'll turn heads. Cate Blachett, Karl Urban, Bernard Hill, David Wenham, Andy Serkis, Hugo Weaving and a bunch of other guys who aren't named Viggo and therefore, simply don't matter.

[Aelia Jusa]

Oh man. I saw this last thursday. I can't believe how much I loved it. The first one, I liked, but wasn't too excited about it really. And the book just didn't really grab me! But after seeing TTT I can see why I didn't like the first one so much or the book. It was the all the different groups! The Fellowship was just that - all of them, all of the time. And, sure, they had little adventures, but all they were really doing was toddling off together, fixed destination in mind, one mission, and all that. Now in TTT, we had Aragorn and co, Frodo and Sam (lol I didn't even hate Sam as much in this one as I did in the book! Man was he annoying in that ), Merry and Pippin, plus Eowyn, Faramir, etc. You knew exactly what everyone was doing and when they were doing it in relation to everyone else. In the book I was constantly irritated that I had no idea when exactly the battles were happening when Frodo was trudging through yet another *scary place*. And the transitions were perfectly timed I thought. One of the best was during a particularly hectic and frenzied battle scene at Helm's Deep, so much tension and danger - then switch to Merry and Pippin and the Ents staidly debating whether to join the war. Then, back to the battle! Was great [img]smile.gif[/img]

And, sigh, how female of me, but Legolas is just too gorgeous [img]graemlins/blush.gif[/img] . Not a fan of Frodo's hair and *big blue eyes* though

Originally posted by Horatio: SLIGHT SPOILER However, I really did begin to despise Frodo. During the battle of Helm's Deep, the action was totally ripe. The audience was totally captivated, and nearly everyone was sitting forward in their chairs. Aragorn slices his way through an army of orcs, Legolas uses a metal sheet to skate down some stairs, and Gimli is counting the kills. THen it switches to Frodo and Sam walking through a city, and you could hear the sighs of frustration in the room and the sound of 60 people settling back into their chairs. It then struck me that Frodo is a pansy . In the Fellowship, on Weathertop (s/p?) when the Nazgul are attacking, Sam goes forwards and gets sliced away. Then Merry and Pippin step together, and are each put to one side. the Nazgul gets to Frodo, and he doesn't even ready himself. He falls backwards and then goes invisible. Now, I know that its not every day that you get confronted by some dude with a REALLY bad throat problem and a fetish for black, but still, it left me with the impression that yes, while the putting-on of the ring HAD to be worked in there somewhere, Frodo could have done more.

You know I think his pansiness is totally ok! Because I think it really shows the power of the ring. Under normal circumstances Frodo would probably be as strong and brave and willing to get Sting in there. But it's the ring! He can't think of anything but it, his only thought in trouble is 'use the ring!'. It's totally consuming him. And a credit to him that he manages to control himself as much as he does.

[Attalus]

Very good post, Aelia, and one with several points that I was going to make. I will add that they had to cut the Shelob scene from TTT, and it will be in ROTK. It is, after all, the shortest of the books , and can take a little addition, especially if the Scouring of the Shire is left out.

[arion windrider]

im sooooooooooooooo looking forward to rotk.. i bought the two soundtracks from the movie and they are very cool...

[Attalus]

Heck, I can't even wait for the theatrical version DVD to come out. June, I hear, with November for the extended version.