LotR:Two Towers review with spoilers.

Post #72,030

1/2/03 11:58:38 AM

God, what a mixed bag.

First the good:

Andy Serkis should win a fucking OSCAR. Gollum isn't just good, he's GOOD. Somewhere, there's a gigantic target, with a piece of paper nailed to the bullseye, with the word "Gollum" written on the paper.

When I read the books, I kept hearing how everybody pitied Gollum, yet all I saw was a twisted, depraved individual who only cared about himself. The movie Gollum is perhaps the most three dimensional character in both of the films so far, and steals the whole friggin' show. Ian McKellan was my man - now it's Andy Serkis and his animators.

Wow.

Now for the "just okay" stuff. I can handle the changes they made to the "posession" of Theoden. The rest of the CGI was pretty good, good enough that the warg attack didn't look too fake, and actually kinda worked. I'll accept the Arwen/Eowyn angle, although I'm a little worried about how Arwen's going to play into the third film. I *REALLY* hope she doesn't do some kind of "Aragorn is about to get killed, she shows up out of nowhere after we thought she left for the Grey Havens and saves his life" type crap. I think PJ knows better than that. I *HOPE* PJ knows better than that.

Now, onto the crap.

Helm's Deep and the Ents.

Okay, I can accept that for a group of horsemen, who live and die by mobility, that going to Helm's Deep was a mistake and not survival. Hell, I can even accept that the elves from Lothlorien decided to help out. (Although I'd love to know what Agent Smith, er, Elrond and Galadriel talked about - couldn't make it out due to my hearing problems.)

What I can't accept is that Mr. Laser-Guided One-Shot-One-Kill Badass-Of-Doom Legolas all of the sudden can't kill an Orc 1/4th of the distance from some of his more spectacular shots, not with one shot, but with TWO shots, and THEN he turns around and drops three WHILE SLIDING DOWN A STAIRCASE ON A SHIELD.

Oh, and that even though Legolas is such a badass, all his kinfolk are killed. Um, excuse me? I know that the phrase "plot device" is written all over Legolas, but still, showing a couple of the elven warriors living through would have at least made things a little more believeable... And before you guys go hauling out the ol' Sindar/Noldor/Wood Elf thing on me, IIRC Legolas is from Mirkwood, and hence a wood elf, about the least powerful of the different "breeds" of elf.

As far as the Ents go, yeah they looked pretty entlike, but man, they were dumb.

Really dumb. Not slow, just STUPID.

I didn't like the characterization change for Faramir. I kinda understand WHY they did it, but I still didn't like it.

That's all for now, maybe more later. Or maybe not.

"Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the wise cannot see all ends." - J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring.

Post #72,040

by tseliot

1/2/03 12:18:27 PM

Agreed on Faramir.

Many fears are born of stupidity and ignorance -
Which you should be feeding with rumour and generalisation.
BOfH, 2002 "Episode" 10

Post #72,101

by ben_tilly

1/2/03 6:35:09 PM

WTF were the other elves doing there?

A troop of rangers would make more sense - they were actually in the bloody book. Elves (with one exception) aren't anywhere near Helm's Deep.

And doubly agreed on Faramir. That ticked me off, and my brother even more. (Faramir was his favorite character in the whole series...)

Cheers,
Ben

"Career politicians are inherently untrustworthy; if it spends its life buzzing around the outhouse, it\ufffds probably a fly."
- [link|http://www.nationalinterest.org/issues/58/Mead.html|Walter Mead]

Post #72,105

by inthane-chan

1/2/03 6:49:21 PM

Yup.

The Faramir thing really ticked me off. I mean, at least they could have actually sprung for Richard Gere, instead of hiring some cheap lookalike knockoff...

Juuuuuust kidding. Still, he did look like a Richard Gere imitator to me. No idea why. The characterization bothered me - Peter Jackson seems to be saying "Humans can't be trusted at all." Those of us who know the books know that Aragorn is at least elvish blooded - Boromir and Faramir represent more truly the line of men than Aragorn does. By having Faramir be Boromir's clone (in a personality sense - PJ didn't screw it up THAT bad) instead of his brother, he's basically saying that there is nothing in humanity that is redeemable IMO. That presented with the temptation to power, they will basically fold like a house of cards at first.

And what was with Frodo trying to HAND THE FARKING RING OVER TO THE WRAITH? He's supposed to become more POSESSIVE of it, not hand it over like it's a cheap party favor... Then Faramir sticks ONE arrow in the flying beast, and it's all "party's over, folks!"

Somehow I think a bit too much of this film ended up on the cutting room floor.

Also agreed on the rangers versus elves. I have a feeling that it might have made more sense if I could have heard the aformentioned Galadriel/Elrond "conversation" - but it still drew a HUGE "what the fuck?" from me.

Post #72,133

by ben_tilly

1/2/03 9:49:44 PM

Two observations

Firstly in The Two Towers Frodo does nearly hand the Ring over to a nazgul. The scene is slightly different, but there was one like that.

As for the elves, I am frankly glad that more of it landed on the cutting room floor. Because I strongly suspect that the line of archers that you saw setting out from Rivendell were the elves that showed up at Helm's Deep, and those elves included Arwen. I am sure that on the cutting room floor there are some touching scenes where she directly reminds Aaragorn where his heart is. (Rather than the scene they went with instead of Legolas handing over her favour to Aaragorn to the sight of Eowyn's heart breaking...)

Cheers,
Ben

Post #72,113

by bepatient

1/2/03 7:08:14 PM

Agreed...

The elves at Helms Deep was a big downer.

Same with Faramir.

HOWEVER<< I knew going in that this installment would probably go further away from the book than the first...and hopefully the last can come back a little...depending on how he took the story.

And yes...Gollum was..well...Gollum!

All in all I liked the movie. Certainly much much better than SWII - Clones

You were born...and so you're free...so Happy Birthday! _{Laurie Anderson}

[link|mailto:bepatient@aol.com|BePatient]

Post #75,616

by static

1/20/03 6:00:52 AM

I know it's been a few weeks...

... but I only saw it the other day. :-)

As pure cinema goes, it was brilliant. I will say it's better than the first movie, principally because he had the full 3 hours to advance the story and develop the characters. There was almost no recap of the first movie: which was a good decision.

Gollumn was perhaps a shade too good. Just once or twice I thought he was rendered just a little bit too cleanly. But everything else about his was marvellously done. He is a much stronger character than people usually realize.

The modification to Faramir was disappointing. Skimming through the book again, he is a very shrewd commander - more so than Boromir. Unfortunately, I cannot recall at what point in the movie he discovered that Isuldur's Bane is The One Ring, but if it is after he takes them to Osgiliath then his characterisation is rather less awry.

I missed Sam and Frodo's interchange with the elven rope. I was sorta looking forward to that. Maybe in the Special Edition. I also noticed that the movie ended long before Sam and Frodo even begin the climb towards Shelob's lair. :-/

The Ents I quite liked, although I would have given them a longer torso. Some people have felt they were animated badly. I disagree. OTOH, I did think it a bit odd that one of the hobbits had to trick Treebeard. I mean, Treebeard gathers the Ents to destroy Isengard for the same reason, but he already knew about this in the book before he met Merry and Pippin.

The battle of Helm's Deep was also a good piece of cinema - and the skilful editing conveyed well the terror of such a battle. Skimming through the book (again) I see it wasn't very accurate, but in the scheme of things, I suspect it didn't matter a lot. However some of the changes were odd: the addition of the elves for a start. Eomer's arrival for a second. In the book, the force that arrived with Gandalf was indeed the Rohirrim, but not under Eomer: under one Erkanbrand of Westfold. The battle also ended, it didn't really finish. More the the third movie, I guess.

On balance, it was a very good movie.

Wade.

Is it enough to love
Is it enough to breathe
Somebody rip my heart out
And leave me here to bleed

Is it enough to die
Somebody save my life
I'd rather be Anything but Ordinary
Please

-- "Anything but Ordinary" by Avril Lavigne.

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