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Lord of the Rings: Two Towers Reviews Rolling In
flogger writes "After the first showing of The Two Towers, the reviews are now coming in. They are positive and SPOILER FILLED. Reviews can be found here, here and a short one here." Don't say you weren't warned. I'm not reading them. I finished re-reading TTT saturday, and am ready to see Ents walk.
Just a heads up to all the peps out there it holdin' down. If you buy the special edition super ultra limited DVD box (with the bookend thingies), enclosed is a free pass to see TTT in the theaters, or theatres depending on your pondsidage.
Cloud City Digital: DVD Production at its cheapest/finest
Actually, yes.
It is both spoiler filled for both those that have and have not read the books.
All info on the new film will be spoilerish for people that have not read the books (a surprisingly large group).
Information pertaining to specific changes and added scenes as well as descriptions of the flow of the narrative would be spoilers even for the crowd that has read the books.
Once more unto the breach dear friends...
The name comes from the 2 towers that are central to the second (really 3rd and 4th) book. The first half (book 3) revolves around Saruman and the tower of Isengard.
The second half (the 4th book) revolves around the trek of Sam and Frodo to destroy the one ring, whose power was used to build the foundations of the mighty tower of Barad-Dur.
With these 2 structures featured heavily, there seems little other reason how Tolkien came to the title.
LOTR is not a trilogy and the following movies are not sequels. It's one huge novel/movie that is divided into three parts for convenience.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
No, there are different vocalists featured this time around: Isabel Bayrakdarian, Sheila Chandra, Ben Del Maestro, Elizabeth Fraser, Emiliana Torrini, and Hilary Summers.
Check out the soundtrack.
Uh... "one huge novel"? Where'd you get that idea?
It was originally supposed to be 6 books when he wrote it but the publishers, at the time of the original printing, wanted to save money on printing costs and force readers to buy more of the series all at once. They combined books 1 and 2 into one book, 3 and 4 into the next, and 5 and 6 into the last.
Karma: NaN
Um, he meant that the director's cut *for LOTR* is running in the theaters. Peter Jackson made a big deal about explaining that the new 4 hour release is not a "director's cut" because that implies that he was unhappy with something in the theater release, which he wasn't. He prefers people call it the "extended edition."
So when the previous poster was referring to buying a director's cut, Phil made an attempt towards a joke that no one is getting.
actually it was "one huge novel", but the publisher insisted on cutting it into 3, and tolkein didnt like it but it had to be done if he wanted it published.
No, for complex reasons:How many frames can humans see?
If there's a question, there's a Google
Never confuse volume with power.
However, the books are not sequels to each other, the story is one single continuous tale. The story does not wrap up a tidy conclusion at the end of each of the 3 or 6 "books." If you read Tolkien's comments, he wanted them all bound together, but the technology to bind 1216 pages did not exist at that time.
Nicotine free Amish .sig.
--ngoy
In the book it's 17 years.
That statement is probably very true, which makes it even more interesting that I did not see one review in Swedish media that did not begin with words to the effect of:
"I never in my life read Tolkien, but..."
"I hated Tolkiens books, but..."
"I regularly piss on Tolkiens grave, but..."
and (this guy must be a real fan-boy) "I haven't read Tolkien in a great while, but...
After which follows a favourable through enthusiastic review.
I choose to remain celibate, like my father and his father before him.
The special edition DVD of FOTR improves on the passage of time. It adds a few scenes of 'filler', that each are only maybe one minute long each, but the help to promote the feeling of more time passing. There are two or three camping scenes that show that what looked like one day in the theatrical release is really longer. To me, the biggest point that shows how much time is really passing is when the barkeep in Bree says "Haven't seen him in 6 months." Assuming Gandalf stopped on his way TO the Shire the first time, that's still a multiple month journey each way. (I'm guessing 1.5-2 months on horseback, 3-5 months by foot, based on that one line. I don't remember how long it is in the book.)
Plus a whole new 'marsh' sequence is added when the four hobbits are following Aragorn, which shows that the trip from Bree to Rivendell was MUCH longer (they passed through a whole different kind of terrain.)
Yes, in the book, a few years passes between the party and Gandalf's return to Bag End to tell Frodo to leave. That passage of time isn't very well explained in the movie, but it is lightly implied with all the riding around Gandalf does.
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
The best reason I can think of for why Aragorn and Co. march all the way north to the Gates is an easy one - he's playing for time. It takes several days to make his way across the river, up Ithillian, round the dead lands and to the Black Gate. That's time for Frodo to hike across Mordor while Saruon is busy moving troops to the Black Gate.
As for why Sauron does not send a force from behind, his one goal here is the Ring, which he thinks Aragorn has. I think he believes Aragorn is drunk on the power of the Ring and seeks to challenge him openly at his gates, a sort of 'winner take all' ending.
Aragorn is in the open and exposed. If he attacks Minas Tirith again, Aragorn may retreat to the city leading to a long seige. If he attacks the army from the rear, it may scatter and he'd be forced to hunt Aragorn (a ranger and woodsman) up and down the Great River.
Saruon knows he has an overwhelming force, his spies can see the exact size of Aragorn's army. Sauron has the choice of terrain - Aragorn must attack his fortifications.
Remember your Sun Tsu - Choose your battleground and you need not fear the outcome of a hundred battles.
And as for why the attack should be at the Black Gates, rather than Minas Morgul, here's the best reason - time. Gandalf is playing for time. It takes quite a while to muster the army, march across Osgiliath, up to the crossroads, along Ithillian (sp?), around the Dead Lands and up to the Black Gate. That's a longer hike than Frodo has to make, with Sauron concentrating all his attention away from Mordor the entire time.