TT

PJ Strikes Again - The Two Towers!

I know you want to get straight to the ranting, but first let's review the good points:

The special effects were very good.
Gandalf.
Eowyn had long blonde hair.
Sam explicity states that he is Frodo's gardener! WHOA!
The scenery.

Ok, this is the continuation of the first movie; and the continuation of the same problems. But it improved because the plot becomes more serious, and so the melodrama is more suitable. The romance between Aragorn and Eowyn seems appropriate - after all, everything in the movie has to be pounded into us, and Tolkien's idea of romance is "Then she paused and looked at him a moment before she left." And... its ok to buff up the action scene in Helm's Deep.. because.. the movie needs a climax. BUT: that being said, there were too many PLOT DEVIATIONS in this story. It's not Lord of the Rings, it's fan fiction by Peter Jackson using LOTR characters ... and some of the characters were apparently not based on characters of the same name in the book. unless PJ gets "Boromir" and "Faramir" easily confused. I can see that.

When the movie came out, many of my friends went to see it the opening night. My immediate question was "Are Frodo and Sam in the movie?" the delayed response was "well.. sort of." then a "j/k yes." And this is faithfully reported, thanks, Paul - Frodo and Sam were indeed part of the film! I should have asked "Are Pippin and Merry in the movie?" because that's less easily answered. It really depends on one's idea of "in the movie." I was vaguely aware of their presence after they escaped from the orcs.. but my overall impression of their contribution was that they sat in Treebeard's hand.

GOLLUM. What happened? When did the Disney sidekick formula work its way into this movie? I was really shocked at the bastardization of Gollum's little monologue. It's one thing to extend his discussion with himself (and you thought Tolkien made the dual personality obvious with the changing color of the eyes - PJ has to keep cutting shots back and forth - enough to make you dizzy), but its another thing to change the outcome entirely -to ignore the implications of changing the outcome entirely. Poor Gollum - 500 years of the Ring and in three days without it he suddenly acquires the willpower to banish his evil side.. WOO HOO - there's a role model for those of you making New Year's resolutions, kids. Oh, the cutesy-ness of it all. I never got the impression that Tolkien threw Gollum in there for comic relief, but apparently the Frodo-(Sam)-Gollum bonding is an integral stress-relief mechanism for part two of this trilogy!

Gollum, perhaps as Smeagol, 450 years younger

       Also: who is that strange blonde guy who calls himself Faramir? I was waiting with bated breath, hanging on the words "two halflings in the wilderness.. a host of men at my call... and the Ring of Rings..-" AND THEN... WHERE IS THE NOBLE HEROIC SPEECH?? What happened?! I know I speak for more than one LOTR fan when I ask WHO LET FARAMIR DRAG THEM BACK TO GONDOR?
Yes, that was an abomination.
       One of my favorite little scenes was Aragorn's Indiana Jones near-death experience. (Not to mention the marathon, in which Gimli keeps up the pace of Legolas and Aragorn, but at a steady 10 yards behind.) Our hero tumbles right over the cliff with the horse. I almost expected a hat to float back up while the others were looking for him. Or maybe a hand slowly agonizingly reaching for the top... Well, we needed an excuse for Xenarwen to do something, so she got to telekinetically revive him. That was fun.

Another few points, on Helm's Deep and "SHE": Helm's Deep looked nice. It was exciting. It's nice, also, that PJ preserved Tolkien's bit of humour with the Gimli-Legolas death count. Still, Helm's Deep took up a lot of time.. It seemed out of proportion - also the fact that Pippin and Merry did nothing. I guess this imbalance all comes about because the movie does not cover all of book three? And what about book four? WHAT ABOUT BOOK FOUR -Who dared to upset Tolkien's great cliff hanger? The movie leaves us dimly worried that Gollum is about to go back on his New Year's resolution.. I did hear some movie goers wondering "Who's SHE?" But "Who is SHE and what's SHE got to do with it?" is not half as exciting as "IS FRODO GOING TO LIVE?" What's the last line of TT? "Frodo was alive but taken by the enemy"? That's pretty ominous. Sounds like a direct and deliberate cliff hanger to me. Orcs are a lot more worrisome than vague threats from Gollum -after all, he's the cute comic relief character who means well deep down!
---And this just in, an interview with PJ from greencine.com:

"We didn't really want to have the action story, the Helm's Deep climax, at the same as having Frodo and Sam start their own action story by fighting a giant spider. We just felt that would be too much. So we wanted to keep them strictly as the psychological characters. That was the reasoning, really. And we've got a great spider scene for the third film."

FAN FICTION! see, this is not a problem in Tolkien because you read all of book 3 with Helm's Deep, THEN all of book 4, with the slow lead up to the action scene. I still dont think the changes are necessary - this is America; we can never have too much action!

So how do these changes bode for the future? SHE and Pippin and Merry all going to be stuffed into the next movie? How is this possible? How IS PJ going to cram the rest of part two AND the end of the trilogy into the last movie? Maybe he'll just leave out some characters. Or change the plot: Frodo dies in Cirith Ungol - Sam throws the Ring away, then takes the place of Frodo as new master, with Gollum as comic butler/gardener. That could work! ....Or drop the last 3 chapters entirely. No one likes the Scouring of the Shire anyway. It conflicts with the happy Hollywood ending we're going for. At any rate, it'll be interesting to see what PJ does with the last movie. The second one wasn't .. as shocking as the first. But PJ may still have an ace up his sleeve.

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