the two towers

actually the whole sam speach they made up(i think) explains why fiction requires a bad side

actually that ‘speech’ was in the book almost to the letter, but it was said at a different point in the story (i think)

That may be why it seemd alien to me.

Also the riders of rohan didn’t charge at the end correct? And the elves never even came to friggen fortress I know that. I’m just not sure about the riders although I’m pretty confident.

Something that always made me wonder was sam’s and frodo’s relationship. O come on how many of you think they make them seem gay?

Well yes and no on the making them gayish. They need to tone down the sweetness toward each other. Sure Sam loves taking care of Frodo, but thats just his gardner nature. Taking care of the living at your own cost.

Their love relationship is like boby brown and whats her name. He goes twisted and slaps her around.

I think the riders did help save helmsdeep but the elves didnt. But i liked the elf touch. But the last movie better be water tight to the book. I can stand little fabrication. But i so want to see what happens in the book not what some director thought up. Cause the book’s two battles are gona Kick arse. the war on gondor, the war on mordor.

Another thing that kinda got me was Merry and Pippin in Fangorn forest. They did more stuff in there. They cut out a lot of treebeards stuff and them drinking from the river making them grow taller. I like stuff like that in books. It adds an extra magical taste to it. They left out little magic things in the first movie too which got me a little annoyed.

Yeah, I agree. I mean they left out Tom Bombadil in the first one!! Lol, but to put all that in the movies would be so much longer, and they are already long films. I wouldn’t mind a 6 hour Two Towers but most other people would.

Actually, i allways had my doubts that Legolas and Gimli were “just friends” and i actually have pretty good proof for this. I dont think that this forum is the place to expound my ideas, but for a taster, see if you can recall Legolas’ first 2 lines in “The Two Towers” (movie, not book)

i don’t think any of the characters were supposed to be gay, or are even gay ‘subliminally’ - they are just close frendships. nowadays society is so cynical that we become suspicious of close frendships like this. cant people be freinds??

this irkes me

sadly their has a big decline in Close friendships not people have GROUP friendships. which also explains the decrease in populace.

Ugh, that pisses me off that people think that about the LOTR characters. I have several close friends like that, both male and female. People in general irritate me. Blah, I should stop and take it to the rant house; I go all social reformation on topics like this.

I saw The Two Towers Twice!
Worth every penny. I thought the Ents were a little silly - their eyes and faces were a little too artificial (unconvincing of tree shepherds), but they were a great addition at Helm’s Deep, especially the detail of that one Ent extinguishing himself in the water (he was on fire). The elves were impressive at Helm’s Deep, the precision. Saving the best for last, Gollum was an amazing achievement. Although I have yet to finish the complete book of LOTR, I have read upto the beginning of the second movie. One of the greatest things I like about the first movie was it’s accurate resemblance to the book, although, talking to people that have read the whole book and who have seen the second movie, there are many complaints about the second movie not staying faithful to the book. I think this is a big mistake. LoTR is a classic for a reason, one shouldn’t go around messing with that, which is something Hollywood still hasn’t figured out. Lastly, I thought the whole love scene between Aragorn, Liv Tyler, and oh…what’s her name again? Ah, I can’t remember, but you know the blonde. But anyway, I thought it was a little drawn out…

What’s your take?

I thought the Ents were awesome!! They were my favorite characters in the second book. My only gripe is with the animation of them. Granted it was good and almost believeable (the graphic artist did a bang-up job), I think that future LoTR fans watching it say… 10 years down the road wil be disappointed. It would be like us watching the Narnia seris that PBS aired back in the early 90’s. ughs

i think it will be more like Blade runner is today A work of art with its own timeframe.

the film was to much about the big bits and didnt include the details in my view. Where was tom bombadil im glad im not the only person who spotted that. The whole forest bit was one of the best bits of the movie. I know they can only make the movies so long but come on you know that should have been in the movie. Second one was good but someone tell the director that horseys running into pike’s is a cunningly bad plan … braveheart need i say more. Sorry im being picky im in one of those moods la la la

ed

I’m sorry, but am I only the only person who thought that film sucked??? I liked the first one and I appreciate the need tocut bits fromthe book. They’re not the reason Idisliked the film. In my opinionthey screwed up the bits it should have been easy to get right:

  1. What the hell did they do to Gimli? Instead of being a rock hard fighter he was a foolish short scotsman, constantly having to be the butt of everyones’ joke.

  2. The battle of Helm’s deep was so idiotic it was beyond measure. Tactically it was the biggest load of bullshit I have ever seen. Why put all the archers on the battlements? Any fool would bung them in the court yard and have them fire over the walls. There was no need for precision, there were so many outside the castle that they’d hit without needing to see. You would then lose less people on the battlement and leave it free for a select group of good fighters to push the ladders away when they were put up. There was the stupid scene where Aragorn and Gimli leap out of a convenient side entrance (and gimli had to be tossed, sigh). This is in the book, but it is Eomer, Aragorn and Gimli and they take with them a group of fighters and do a quick charge and then a hasty retreat, before archers can get them, not some stupid 5 minute fight of two people versus 50 where they could be picked off by even the most inept archer (although yet again they seemed to be incapable of putting across that there are certain “super” humans like Boromir (it took 50 or so arrows in the book), Faramir, Eomer, Aragorn, theoden, etc. who are too hard to be felled by mere arrows).

That bullshit about the orc with the torch was unneccessary as well, are you telling me no other orc could use fire? Dumb.

Finally that scraggle of men that came out from helm’s deep was nothing like the charge that was supposed to have come. They were the force of the drive in the book and then Gandalf turned up with more (I think). They also made a tragic mistake giving all the orcs spears (i know uruk-hai, I use orc for convenience). It made Gandalf’s charge in the film seem stupid, in fact that should have been a massacre of the horse men. No force can charge a sea of spears like that and expect to survive even with sparkly shiny Gandalf. What they do? Suddenly drop their sears when he lit up? They missed out the orcs charging the walls and then retreating away from the arrow fire, whcih to me would have been a key reason why aragorn, eomer, gimli, etc.'s charge would have worked, charge the battering Ram while the rest of the force is retreating. Gah, it makes me angry typing about it.

All in all, the dreadful tactics of that battle really ruined the film for me big style. It was a comical fight, if those had been the real odds the Uruk-hai (plus the missing wild men) woulda won.

  1. What the hell happened to the mighty Faramir? In this he comes out as an evil bastard rather than a wiser version of his brother. If I’d seen Frodo running towrds the black rider i’d have taken the ring off him immediatly to stop him giving it to the enemy. Instead all of a sudden faramir turns round and says, oh yeah, I understand you now.

  2. Why put in the scene of the horse kissing Aragorn?

There were good points, the ents were fantastic, and I can see why they cut it down to just dealing with Saruman. I liked that bit of the ent being on fire and putting himself out too, nice touch. Gollum was superb, brilliantly done, I used to skip those parts of the book as I’ve read it so much, but they were the best bits of the film (apart from fing Faramir).

I’d always got the same feeling from the book that the film portrayed about Sam and Frodo, but had always read it as a master/servant relationship that isn’t explained in the film. It’s a fine line, but I thught they trod it well, in keeping with the time the book was written in.

But I have no desire to see the film again, I was so looking foward to the battle at helms deep that it made me angry to see it done so spectactularly badly. I hope they make a better job of the battles at the blackgate and the defense of Gondor. Shame cause i thought the first one was a really good film. Most people I’ve talked to have loved the film, but the few people I know who have any sort of tactical or wargames experience have all said it was a shit battle, and it ruined the film. And everyone I know who has read the book hates what they’ve done to Gimli. I know they don’t have the space to put in the relationship between Legolas and Gimli, but a little bit of effort wouldn’t have gone amiss.

Matt,

A lot of good points. The spears especially. They took that one shot where a line-up of spears from the orcs pointing to the Rohan riders coming down the hill- it was almost exactly like a similiar scene with pikes in Braveheart. The Braveheart scene was original as far as I know and infinitely better, in fact it is one of the emotional peaks of the movie. The Scots used the pikes to turn the tide at Sterling and massacred the English heavy cavalry; the movie depicts how this happens very well, since the pikes are longer than the cavalries’ lances. So you are right that the riders of Rohan should have been killed.

Besides this, there was a kind of anti-work, anti-industrial strand through the whole thing. I thought the orcs were very well organized, intelligent, and industrious. I admired their little mine, despite that I didn’t want to. The orc that ran with the torch also was pretty heroic, cause he charged into the wall after he’d been shot. Ah well.

The film is fantastic, no doubt about it… i think it deserves the 9 BAFTAs it’s been nominnated for.

Of course it’s not like the book, however the script is very well written and we should give credit to Peter for that. To do it like the book they would need 6 3hours films… and there are irrelevant parts that woudn’t make much difference. The only thing i don’t like is the time wasted with Aragorn and Arwen’s romance. I think they could have stick to the beginning of the book a bit more (Frodo’s birthday and his leave from the Shire) instead of the tons of romantic scenes.

However, i love both films… i’ve watched The Two Towers 4 times now,… and probably watched more than 200 times the Fellowship of the Ring (ok ok… i am pathetic, i know :confused: )

Regarding the war. You have to remember that Tolkien’s world was far different than ours. He was born in 1892 and went through wars himself and probably put in his books many of the experiences he had.

I’ve always thought that the relationship between Sam and Frodo was a bit odd and the film caught it very well… whatever it meant to be.

In 1892 the wars were stilll pretty much as they were in the old days, gunpowder wasn’t advanced enough to be much more than a fancy bow. Even WW1 was fought in pretty much line em up and let em charge type of way. What was always key in those type of battles was morale. They still formed square when cavalry was about cause of the whole idea of cavalry, which was to breakup a line and create confusion in order to get easy kills. Charging in to what essentially was one ginormous square in the battle of helms deep would have meant certain death for the riders of rohan, I’m sure tolkein would have known that, pity the director didn’t. I’m not sure what awards it’s up for, but I wasn’t particularly impressed with the directing, even if I forget about the battle scene.

The battle should have been several waves of Orc attack, each time penetrating further, with a last ditch charge of the riders which managed to break the orc line scattering them, causing a massive rout on the orc side. Not hard or comlpicated, and I’m sure the director was probably told that that should have happened.

It was only WW2 where the rules of warfare changed dramatically with the new type of weapons involved, though WW1 was the start of the change. That’s why the Americans got their arses so badly wipped and suffered massive casualties right at the start of their eventual involvement of the WW2.

Not so much we got some good intel from Civil war but we were still using things learned then for WW1