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LOTR: The Two Towers
Let's try to mash all the LOTR submissions into one. Reviews: comingsoon.net,
Empire Online (UK), CNN, Slate, Salon. The LA Times has a story about animating Gollum which we can't link to because it requires registration. Lord Satri writes "Ents, elves and mages being on every orc's lips, new versions of
Tales Of
Middle-Earth are available. It is an open source, one
player and online
multiplayer game. It is ported
to many OS's. Yeah, no terrific graphics, but the game is
really worthwhile. It is based on the famous roguelike Angband
(variants here). Faithful to Tolkien's writings."
Are you one of those who think "if it is different from the book, it's automatically crap!". Yes, the movies are different from the books in some places. No, that does not make the worse. What works in the book, may not work in the movie. Books and movies are completely different medias, you cannot expect them to be identical.
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
Why oh Why Dear Slashdot Editors dose Lord of the Rings not have a Logo? Starwars has a Logo.. the Ipod has a Logo.. why dosent LOTR?
Think about it.. all the Posts that are going to be made over the next +2 Years for LOTR.. Movie Reiviews, Spoilers, Trailers, DVD's, DVD Reviews, Special Ed. DVD's, Cast Interviews, Award Shows, ect.. ect... ect..
LOTR DESERVES its own Logo/Icon
The More Knowledge you have the Luckier you Get- J.R. Ewing
There's a good possibility it won't break $100M. Fellowship of the Ring only did $75M the first weekend.
Box office take is a misleading number. The movie is twice as long as most movies, therefore theaters can squeeze fewer showings into one day.
It's not different from the book so it's automatically crap. It just happens to be so.
Actually, most of the movie was very good. It's just the bits that strayed from the book in to obvious Holywood teritory that let it down.
Gimili: Started off as a tough, gnarled, Dwarf warrior. In the first movie, he was a little bewildered and had the one joke ("Nobody tosses this Dwarf"). In the second he is JUST there for comedy. He can't keep up on the run; he's keeps falling over; he gets to wear comically oversized mail; he is the butt of endless short-jokes etc. There's just no validity to him. What sucks is he's not written that way (he actually keeps up just fine on the run in the book) but they decided to sell him out to lighten the "dark second part of the trilogy". It's like making Chewie do song and dance routines to stop Empire being so depressing.
Frodo and Sam: OK, what the hell's up with their "new and improved" journey? Why are they in that city? Why does Frodo need to go and try and surrender himself to the ringwraith? Why did we need to see Sam doing his running, diving, savior thing? Why did we need to turn Faramir in to an exact clone of his brother, Boromir, rather than leave him the way he was written as the ultimately stronger of the two? OK, so not a lot happens with them, that translates well to the screen, in the book. Even so, do we really need cliche'd holywood crap?
Speaking of holywood crap - Aragorn: Why did he need to fall off that cliff? It's not in the book. Just because Robin Hood once dramatically jumped off a high cliff in to a river, it doesn't mean Aragorn has to. He's not Kevin Costner. It's not a Kevin Costner movie. It adds absolutely nothing beyond a mopey Eowyn moment (see my next comment). It's just cheesy holywood, mid movie, something dramatic needs to happen here, crap.
Eowyn and Arwen: OK, I'll admit, I liked Arwen in the first movie. Even so, this one makes it really obvious that she's stolen everything Eowyn's supposed to be in terms of the pained love story with Aragorn. So now we have Eowyn moping around with no sympathy because she's invading on the relationship we've already learned to care about. You can't get rid of her because she's needed later so, instead, we end up with stupid scenes like the cliff fall in order to give her something to do now we've given away what she's supposed to be doing.
Ninja Ents: Was is just me or did the Ents ONLY redirect the river Isen in the book? The whole "Ents stomp!" fight was just unnecessary and left the already underexplained race feeling like some cheesy Disney reject. The book builds them up in to stately, dignified, sad characters who act in their own way. The movie abandons all of that. Granted, you have to make cuts for time, but cut the holywood added big Ent fight and leave the depth of character stuff.
So, most of it really was a good movie. The problem is: The first one stayed [largely] true to the book and really felt like it was obviously saying, "Fuck holywood, we're going to make this one right." This one feels much more like, "Hey, we made a really successful movie, so we are God. Let's fuck with whatever we need to to get the holywood weaned audience in and happy." The stupid thing is, the first one was so good exactly because they DIDN'T pander to holywood style.
On the positive side, Gollum/Smeagol was just about perfect. I knew the direction they were going in and he still amazed me. The fights were spectacular, the Ents were really nicely rendered, it was appropriately rousing in the right places (which is no mean feat at 3am). It just sucks that what was a fanboy franchise, and turned out to be great for being unappologetically so, seems to have turned around and chased holywood style that it never needed at its own expense.
The book remains great. The parts of the movie that come from the book remain incredible. Every failing in the movie comes from the movie makers deliberately shooting themselves in the foot (feet?).
What is different in Jackson's is that instead of it having already taken place in the past, where the Aragorn they see at the Council of Elrond is all ready to take his place (with his only personal fault being the breaking of the fellowship at amon hen, quickly forgotten when Gandalf returns), the transition from loner to leader is taking place before us.
Had Jackson not done that, there would be no character development in him or most of the non-hobbits at all.
Read the book again, specifically looking at the words from Elrond and Denethor on him, and in appendix A, and you'll see that transition: Denethor's Aragorn is not the one the hobbits met in Bree. Aragorn in the books has already matured to leadership, where the Aragorn in the movie is actively maturing before us.
I for one think Jackson's version works just fine, as the alternative while a good book character would be a rather flat part in a movie.
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
Well, first off, I really liked the movie a lot, but this is one of the times I think I would have liked it more if I hadn't read the book because I didn't like the plot deviations.
I will say that, knowing Gollumn was CG, I was completely convinced by his character - it was amazing, and the duality of his personality couldn't have been done any better, just fantastic.
[SPOILERS]
The part with Faramir really bothered me. I think the movie makes it seem like that whole family is so weak minded they just can't let the ring go - and it's not like they had some "bonding" time like Frodo, Bilbo, or Gollumn - they just see the ring and become idiots. Then, and this is the worst part, Faramir decides he should let Frodo go it alone after seeing how willing Frodo was to give the ring over to the enemy in a weak moment. That made no sense to me. I know the sentiment was supposed to be that he saw what evil the ring brought, but that's not immediately how I saw it.
One of my friends who saw it last night (I saw it today) mentioned that it was more of a movie than a film. I hate when people say things like that, it seems somehow really snotty to me, but I when I saw the movie I understood what he meant - it pandered to the moviegoer; Legolas sliding down the steps on the shield, all the dwarf jokes. When I see stuff like that it snaps me out of my trancelike state when I'm watching a great movie and makes me think "oh, come on now, did they have to do that?"
I also think they eliminated one of the greatest scenes in the book - and if they haven't, they've really hurt the effect it will have in the next movie. I'm referring to Gandalf's premature meeting with Saruman through King Theoden. In the book, Theoden was not "possessed", he was really simply downtrodden (I can't think of a better word) after having been misled by Wormtongue for so long. The greatest dialog in TTT (the book), was Gandalf saying to Saruman, as he stood outside the tower of Isengard: "Behold, I am not Gandalf the Grey, whom you betrayed. I am Gandalf the White, who has returned from death. You have no colour now, and I cast you from the order and from the council"
So they butchered that and put it in the wrong place, and I think it made a much bigger statement standing in front of the real Saruman in Isengard. Now maybe this scene will be in RotK, because TTT (the movie) ended before TTT (the book), but it's been ruined at the premature meeting. The portrayal of Theoden actually also made him a lot weaker than he was in the book.
Again, don't get me wrong - I liked a lot of the additions; the dynamite was nice touch. I also like the elves joining the men, I thought that was actually a very touching and very cool moment. There were lots of places they strayed from the book that didn't particularly bother me - things to help the movie fit into the 3 hours, but there were a lot of things that could have been more faithful to the book, things that showed some of the characters inner strengths, that wouldn't have taken any more time.
On the upside, I liked Elijah Wood a lot better in this movie. I thought he was one of the weaker actors in FotR, but he was a standout this time.
Anyway, just my two cents - I liked the movie a lot, but frankly I thought FotR was actually a better movie. I might simply be that TTT has no beginning or end, so I felt more like I was missing something.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
One thing that fans of the book should keep in mind going into this movie is that different generations will visualize the movie in differenet ways; people who read the Bridge of Khazad-Dum sequence in the 60s tend to have a much less visually apocalyptic "mental imagery" of the scene than its presentation in Peter Jackson's film. Meanwhile, younger readers raised in a environment containing much more visually dynamic storytelling were far less startled - they visualized something much more akin to Jackson's visual intensity.
... patented "me unscathed against 3-million baddies" fights.
My large point is that there's little purpose to getting worked up about visual interpretations that don't necessarily match ones expectations; no one has the "one true interpretation" of any reasonably complex novel. Many, many things come down to taste, and this is only greatly complicated by adding a translation to another medium.
Having said that, I feel ornery enough to contradict most everything you list to complain about.
- Gandalf literally exorcises Saruman from possession of Theoden...[rather] than subduing Grima
Jackson has to demonstrate the connection between Grima and Saruman visually; this accomplishes that. The presentation may have been over-the-top, but a long back-and-forth between two old men while Grima squirms would have had less visual impact and lost the Saruman connection.
- Faramir, a noble and wise character in the book, is here really no different than Boromir.
While it is true that there are some drastic changes to Faramir character in TTT, I enjoyed the conflation of Faramir's return to Osgiliath with the Ringbearer's quest (which isn't all that huge a departure from the text, BTW - the Forbidden Pool is quite close to Osgiliath). The confrontation with the wraith provides a visual dramatization of Frodo's plight, Sam's bravery (heretofore not well shown) and convinces Faramir _not_ to take the ring. The closer-to-canon-alternative would have been to have a drawn-out debate between Faramir and Frodo that, which would have to be intercut with Helm's Deep and thus destroy the pacing/tone of both sequences (imagine intercutting between the Council of Elrond and the Tomb of Balin battle - blech). Finally, I wouldn't be surprised if Faramir's character comes into his nobility and bravery in the next film (consider the drawn-out character arc being applied to Aragorn, and my next reply).
- Theoden is much less heroic at Helm's Deep and has to be coaxed into doing anything (usually by Aragorn).... Like Faramir, he is a watered-down version of Tolkien's character...every other heroic character from the book had to be emasculated in order to make Aragorn look good.
You may notice that Jackson, by having Theoden show hesitation and doubt, has constructed a more psychologically realistic (i.e. believable) character than Tolkien did (in the books, both Aragorn and Theoden make life-altering changes in the space of a chapter and are never shown displaying doubt or hesitation thereafter - this ain't gonna work on screen, where dramatically static figures are dull unless they're engaged in battle... but I guess you think Legolas was "just perfect" and not at all dull?).
Anyway, Aragorn is shown despairing, frustrated, and scaring the crap out of the Rohan refugees while Theoden is shown trying to do his best under impossible circumstances, not always making the best decisions, and struggling with the results - this sounds like paralleled human dramas to me.
Also, to contradict your idea that Aragorn is being shown off to his best advantage and others downgraded, I would say that Theoden actually got the best dramatic notes in the film (next to Gollum) - at Theodred's grave, and while Hama suiting him up in armor.
- Gimli is reduced to bumbling comic relief except for
I do agree that Gimli could've used more gravity (hopefully with the Halls of the Dead sequence in ROTK)..., but I also recall the comic relief during Tolkien's Helm Deep sequence came from Gimli - wheee, canon! And in a book, one does not notice the ridiculousness of a dwarf maintaining top speed running alongside two full-sized people. I think the choiuce was "laugh at" or "laugh with" the movie, and Jackson chose "laugh with".
As for the "me unscathed against millions" fights... did you not read the book? Any warrior in any battle taking down forty-plus enemy warriors in one-on-one combat is superhuman, period.
- New subplot with dog riders attacking the people of Rohan en route to Helm's deep, Aragorn's "death" and Arwen's (apparent) decision not to stay with him.
Oh no, another departure from "canon"! The flashback/connection scenes are used to develop the Aragorn/Arwen relationship and make the mortal/immortal choice plain to those who never read the novel (this was only hinted at in Jackson's FOTR), and thus shed more light on Aragorn's inner conflicts. This also adds interest to his relationship with Arwen, something almost entirely lacking in the Tolkien's original text (until you read the appendices - which were the inspiration for those flashbacks, BTW).
As for the Wargs, sure they're a plot device... but dammit, that was a great battle scene and helped the pace of the movie, while setting up character development. Not too shabby, I think.
- Elves show up to announce their alliance with the humans and save the day at Helm's Deep (????)
Oh no, another departure from "canon"! There are several ideas underlying this change:
a) that Arwen knows what is happening with Aragorn (re: the kiss at the riverbank), and is trying to help
b) to keep the elves from coming across as uncaring, aloof cowards (running to Valinor...).
This way, they are shown to be involved with the conflict , rather than simply fleeing the conflict (which would be a perfectly reasonable conclusion, otherwise).
- The women and children of Rohan are kept in Helm's deep instead of another keep in the mountains...
Having the women/children at the Deep provided:
a) a greater, more immediate sense of danger; crude, but still a smart decision.
b) the opportunity to show Theoden conscripting young men into the war, thus underlining Tolkien's theme of the horrors of war, a good reality check to help balance out the glamor of the battle sequences.
- Ents have to be tricked by Pippin to decide to to do anything about Saruman. Why? Pippin and Merry get their moments of glory later on. Was PJ just impatient?
The movie's way uses visual drama to show the betrayal of the ents; the other way invlves lots of swaying and Hoom-hooominh. I wonder which will work better in a visual medium? (speaking of which, Merry and Pippin were still rather too passive in this film).
- No Shelob
This is in the next movie, and was announced about ten months ago in an interview, and repeated ad nauseum everywhere on the 'Net. next!
- Gandalf does not confront Saruman / receive the Palantir
Given that none of the Fellowship has actually begun riding to Gondor at film's end (a departure from canon that you failed to note, along with the absence of the Huorns at the Deep), both of these could be shifted to occur at the beginning of the next film. Neither was necessary to demonstrate the defeat of Saruman or of the Uruk-Hai at Helm's Deep.
Sorry for the flamey bits of my response, but I do get the impression that your criticism focused on the changes to the text vs. whether underlying themes and tone of Tolkien's work was violated. You begin to make some good points, and I'd be interested in seeing those elaborated upon.
Tolkien meant LotR to be, among other things, a mythos for Great Britain. That being the case, his treatment of women reflected their role in pre-Christian times. Ya know, as much as some folks might dislike this depiction, it's accurate to historical accounts! Hey -- if the reviewer wants a strong, independent woman, s/he should read RotK, or talk to someone who has! Eowyn rocks! Besides, didn't the reviewer catch the theme that there's more to her than meets the eye in TTT? geez...
mmm... yeah... You see, we're putting the cover sheets on all TPS reports now before they go out...
I too liked TTT much less then FOTR. Of course, I loved FOTR so "much less" still leaves TTT in the positive.
... well, I'll live.
,what an performance! She had little screentime make impact, but boy did make most with it. Maybe I'm not really able to objectivly estimate if the writers were correct in making those changes, after all, it might have sucked if Eowyn hadn't been so masterfully played. Anyways, if Eowyn has to be at Helm's Deep then women and children are there too. Theoden can't have been riden to meet the orcs in battle, because then women and children and Eowyn would have been left behind. ... Yeah, my speculation and excuses are getting a bit thick here and I'm not even done yet. ... I didn't see Theoden as particulary week. True, he isn't the hero and needs a little nugging along, but that's just consistent with his questionable decision to retreat to Helm's Deep. A decision he must make because we want to have Eowyn there. See, it all fits. :-) And anyways, Theoden gets the best lines of the whole movie in that poem he does while his armor is being put on.
... no reason for it that I can see. It worked though. I was in tears, litereally. Maybe that was to some measure get Elrond off the hook. Agent Elrond is nothing short of a manipulative bastard in this movie.
... probably a false hope; they have added female screentime significalty, would they now cut something that is in the book? Anyways, I can't see anything gained character-wise in Faramir's change, nor does consistency so far require it. Reason may be in ROTK but really don't how that could have been a must.
I left to theater asking both "could it have been better" and "was it any good?" After couple hours I still don't have answer to the first but for the second: "yes, it's pretty good but not excellent."
This must have been really difficult script to write. No begining, no end, loads of material you would like to cut but can't.
Most of the changes you list are quite understandable, or at least the writers had their reasons. I don't know if you have listened to the writers' commentary on the FOTR Extended DVD version. (Althou PJ is the Author of these movies, there are three other writers too.) They talk a lot about their motivation for any and all changes for FOTR. Naturally, pacing is the most important, but often it's the need to build up characters, especially the bad guys. I wouldn't think their motivation has changed too much.
Seems clear that almost half of third book (Return of the King) has been cut. PJ says himself that there's no Scrouging of the Shire and I would hazard a guess he won't linger too much on the Return part after Sauron gets it. Some of the material in the second book has to go into ROTK (the movie).
Saruman has been build up as the active enemy all the way through. In the book Witch-king, Saruman and Sauron are pretty evenly build up. In the movie Witch-King is an non-entity (which I belive to be a mistake) and Sauron not much more. Only Saruman has been really build up. "The Exorcism" is part of that. It had to be Saruman, not Grima, Gandalf takes down a notch or that scene would have been just stepping on a bug. After all, what is Grima the Henchman to Gandalf the Powerful Wizard if not a bug.
Gilmi truly is a comic relief, although he still does some serious damage in battle. I do see the need for a comic relief. TTT would a weary, if not all out horrible, movie without some humor. Gilmi's lines and bumbling are for most part done well, which means that they are funny, work within the story and setting and don't totally distroy the character's serious side. As unofficial member of Friends of Gilmi Society, I would have liked more respectable dwarf
Pippin and Merry really did need a moment of glory in this movie. Without it (or them as they both have one) they would have been just baggage. Maybe you and I could watch that baggage being carried because Tolkien wrote it so, but the movie would have been worse because it. The writers have license, maybe even duty, make changes of this moderate magnitude if it makes the movie better.
Eowyn had to be at Helm's Deep. She really had to be. Just had to be. It was that good. Miranda Otto
For the the battle with worg riders I offer simply the need for action scene at that point. I don't know if that really was necessary, that would need at least a second watching. (I started to really dislike Moria sequence on the third watching.) Again judging from his own comments on FOTR ExtDVD , PJ seems to be quite sensitive to the need for a fight every now and then.
Another way the worg battle works for the movie is by giving us an excuse for Aragorn tripping into the Arwen flashback. Both the flashback and the excuse are indeed needed. Aragorn already has one regular flashback. There's a limit to the lenght and the frequency of flashbacks you can have before the audience starts wondering about the character's sanity. Another regular flashback would have been pushing it, specially if there hadn't been a fight inbetween. As to the need for the flashbacks and the whole added subplot/drama between Aragorn and Arwen, ask yourself this: in ROTK when A&A finally get eachother, do you want to feel that Aragorn would have done better with Eowyn. Without the added A&A material and with the wonderful Eowyn stuff in, 99% of the audience would have prefered Eowyn over Arwen, no matter what Tolkien wrote in Appendices.
For elves showing up at Helm's Deep
Why was Faramir changed? You got me there. A real character assassination on him. In the books he really is wise and likeable and you feel good for Eowyn when they hook up. In the movie, I'm dreading the prospect that Eowyn, my love, ends up with that bonehead. Maybe they cut that
One possible explanation is that the pacing just required more material for Frodo and Sam. Can't really comment pacing with one viewing, so let's just speculate. It is possible that they needed scenes near the end of the movie dealing with F&S. Those scenes would be cut into from the battle of Helm's Deep, so they couldn't be about picking berries in Ithilien. Something strong, preferably action. Assuming I remember the sequences correctly, an added action scene for F&S is needed. Did it have to come at Faramir expense? Couldn't Faramir have turned down the ring and shown his wisdom and strenght and then, for example, have the close encounter with the nazgul almost unchanged (location wasn't important in that scene)?
In the book, the whole F&S in Ithilien and their meeting with Faramir is much too light and full of exposition to be used very directly. Lot of rewriting and adaptation to be done for sure, but thats what they been most always so good at. Pity they failed here.
-- Flam
--what! this emacs doesn't have a spell-checker
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers - Pablo Picasso