Discussion of the Two Towers (contains lots of spoilers).

[Fallguy]

Right then,
just in case you are blind and/or daft, this thread will contain lots of discussion about LOTR: The Two Towers. So if you haven't seen it yet, do yourself a favour and stop reading.....






OK, so you are still reading. Good. So what did I find wrong with the Two Towers, given that everyone apart from me seemed to think it was the next best thing since sliced bread.

Well firstly, the music was overplayed, particularly in the slower bits of the film. It clashed rather horribly with what was going on in the actual film to my mind, although the more dramatic moments were well scored (if a trifle repetitive, but with a film this long thats pretty hard to avoid).

Secondly, some of the effects didn't come out so well - I thought the warg riders could have done with a little more polishing particularly. Of course, Helms Deep was very impressive, although I always imagined it to be, well, taller???? Maybe thats just me. I think this is actually something that alot of FX companies struggle with - CGI looks fantastic in darker scenes where details are not so easy to see, but tends to look very unreal and fake in daylight, particularly when composited over real terrain. The same thing happens in Episode II, with Coruscant looking fantastic in the chase scenes, but the bits in the arena looking very fake. The Ents were well portrayed, though, but I got the feeling that almost all of that scene was CGI, so there wasn't the clash of real and unreal elements.

Plot wise, I felt the film ran on just a bit too long, and could probably have been cut down to 3 hours or so. I felt the whole Aragorn/Arwen situation dragged a little, and could have been sharpened up, and again the dilemna of the elves was played a little too long. Overall the plot was a reasonable adaption, but I just felt it dragged a little too much in the slower parts.

I enjoyed the portrayel of gollum, I have to confess that was fantastic and brought a smile to my face, especially when he argues with himself. Sean Astins role was alot more understated in this film, which did surprise me a little, but Elijah Wood was very convincing as Frodo.

Well, thats my thoughts, so what do the rest of you think? C'mon, don't be shy - if you think I am full of excrement, say so! :p

Fallguy

[jema]

I think my worst points in an otherwise great film was where it strayed from the book :rolleyes: Aragons over the cliff episode adds little to the plot and I think the new portrayal of why the Ents attack Isangard is pretty dumb :( as well as inconsistant to the fact that unlike in the book Gandalf has already reappeared to the Hobbits and Treebeard.

jema

[Fallguy]

Heh,
and I thought it was just me going loony, but I didn't recall Aragorn going over a cliff in the book. Mind you it has been 11 years since I read it, so I don't exactly have the plot fresh in my mind.... lol!

I wonder if there was some studio pressure to have more of the women folk in the film - cos running through the first films commentary by Peter Jackson, there was quite alot of pressure on them to "spice up" or alter the plot in quite alot of stupid ways. I shudder to think what the Fellowship would have been like had they got their way.... :(

Fallguy

[speculative]

Way better than FotR, had more action which was good. :thumbsup: I also think that it still had a lot of relationships and plot though, so I don't think the action overshadowed these other things.

I thought the music was perfect. Seen it twice now and 2nd time I was listening for the music, and didn't really notice it I got so swept up in the story, which is what the music is for, so imho it was great. :)

Some parts could have been shorter, but no parts seemed too long. Some of the speeches seemed a bit forced, like Samwise's near end. I think that his should have ended with "They had something to hold onto. Through thick and thin, they held on to each other." Would have been better than "That there's some good in the world," which was highly anti-climactic to an otherwise good speech.

Thoroughly enjoyed it. Might pick up The Two Towers game just to see how they adapted it (game got in the 7's and 8's in most reviews).

Lol! Here we are discussing CG - guess we've come a long way from, "It's only a model."

-speculative

[Fallguy]

Hmmm,
I think on balence I preferred FotR to the Two Towers, it just seemed to flow a little better. Strange really, given that the Two Towers had far longer to develop and edit, but perhaps that was the problem.

I'm still not sure that Viggo Mortenson was a good choice for Aragorn - in the Fellowship I felt that Sean Bean would have made a better Aragorn, and Viggo Mortenson would have made a fantastic Boromir (its the way he just looks so shifty all the time). But listening to the commentary on FotR DVD, apparently they had someone else cast as Aragorn through the early filming, and then had to change later in the shoot. So at a guess, Sean Bean was already cast as Boromir before the part of Aragorn opened up.

Fallguy

[CyberdynSystems]

You are not the only one with complaints about these movies. Althought I personally have no issues whith when a Filmamker strays from a book,.. it is a different craft,. I do have problems with the finished product.

The director is clearly Too precious with his footage. Period. I found this a MUCH bigger problem in FOTR.

They filmed the same scene about 5 times as far as plot development is concerned,...

....they are travelling together,.. some strange beast or natural disaster occurs,.. Frodo's life is put into extreme jeopardy, someone cries when Frodo is hurt,.. but in the end he is fine,...

How many times did we see this scene? How did it help the story? Never mind the reduncy,.. how long did each of these scenes NEED to be??!!! The Cave troll scene was a small movie in itself as far as duration goes,.. of course with no character or plot development during that scene,.. it wasn't much of a story. The worst was the Tentacle monster scene! WHY?!?!?! Why make that scene at all.

The movie was filled with redundant unnecesay in there entirety scenes that all could have at the very least been shorter.

I found this to be less so with Two towers. But still,.. especially given the additions to the story that did indeed serve no real purpose. (the cliff) But I did not mind any of the Aragorn Liv Tyler stuff,.. as I thought it helped for when the Elf army arrived at Helms Deep. I felt there arrival could have been played up in fact. It seemed more,.. "oh your here and DOOMED too",. not .." wow now we may have a chance"

By far the biggest plot hole in TT was the arrival of Gandalf and the Riders of Rohan. When Aragorn and Co. meet up with the Exiled Sons of Rohaan earlier,.. we assume there is maybe 50 of these horse men. They do not further explain that Rohaan is so defensless due to the lack of there armies all having deserted with the exiled Prince,.. (at least it is not explained enough!!!)

So when Gandalf arrives it is hardly makes any sense that the Prince and his handfull of riders would make a dent in the ranks of no less than Ten Thousand Orcs!!!!!

Oh well my 2 cents for now,..

And the Music sucks....

[Fallguy]

Originally posted by CyberdynSystems
You are not the only one with complaints about these movies. Althought I personally have no issues whith when a Filmamker strays from a book,.. it is a different craft,. I do have problems with the finished product.

The director is clearly Too precious with his footage. Period. I found this a MUCH bigger problem in FOTR.

They filmed the same scene about 5 times as far as plot development is concerned,...

....they are travelling together,.. some strange beast or natural disaster occurs,.. Frodo's life is put into extreme jeopardy, someone cries when Frodo is hurt,.. but in the end he is fine,...

How many times did we see this scene? How did it help the story? Never mind the reduncy,.. how long did each of these scenes NEED to be??!!! The Cave troll scene was a small movie in itself as far as duration goes,.. of course with no character or plot development during that scene,.. it wasn't much of a story. The worst was the Tentacle monster scene! WHY?!?!?! Why make that scene at all.

The movie was filled with redundant unnecesay in there entirety scenes that all could have at the very least been shorter.

I found this to be less so with Two towers. But still,.. especially given the additions to the story that did indeed serve no real purpose. (the cliff) But I did not mind any of the Aragorn Liv Tyler stuff,.. as I thought it helped for when the Elf army arrived at Helms Deep. I felt there arrival could have been played up in fact. It seemed more,.. "oh your here and DOOMED too",. not .." wow now we may have a chance"

By far the biggest plot hole in TT was the arrival of Gandalf and the Riders of Rohan. When Aragorn and Co. meet up with the Exiled Sons of Rohaan earlier,.. we assume there is maybe 50 of these horse men. They do not further explain that Rohaan is so defensless due to the lack of there armies all having deserted with the exiled Prince,.. (at least it is not explained enough!!!)

So when Gandalf arrives it is hardly makes any sense that the Prince and his handfull of riders would make a dent in the ranks of no less than Ten Thousand Orcs!!!!!

Oh well my 2 cents for now,..

And the Music sucks....

I quite enjoyed the cave troll scene, although I thought it could have been slightly better choreographed. If you get the extended addition DVD, it shows how they used the character of the troll to demonstrate to the studio how they planned to use their effects, sort of a sales pitch. They have this fantastic animation of the mountain troll trying to flatten a beach ball with his hammer, which is very amusing..... the facial expressions particularly.... :D

Listening to the directors commentary on the FotR DVD, the scene with the tentactled monster at the entry to Moria was included to show how reluctant the fellowhip were to go into Moria - the fact that they were about to leave when attacked and forced to travel through the deep. And I think it is a very interesting point for Gandalf as well - going into Moria he knows what lies in the deep, and is very much aware that he will have to face it. Hence his reluctance to go into Moria in the first place. So I think that scene is very much a pivitol point in the film, and extremely important in building character. This isn't quite as obvious in the theatrical version of the film, though, as some of the character building scenes are missing or cut short.

I have to confess I will be interested to see if there is an "extended" edition of the Two Towers, I'm not sure that there will be. With the FotR they cut it very tightly because it was untested, and the studio didn't think people would be prepared to sit for over 3 hours (cough, Dune, cough), but with the Two Towers I think the opposite happened - because of the success of FotR, it was almost like the Two Towers had to be bigger and "better".... perhaps too much so!

Fallguy

[The Therion]

there are about 45 differences between the 1st film and the 1st book, and around 25 for the second.

More later,i'm sleepy