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AndrewB

LOTR: The Two Towers

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The thing i didn't like about it were the scenes that were put in there in a lame attempt to make the audience laugh. Like, oh, everything the dwarf seems to say or do...That pissed me off. They could've made him a kick-ass character, but instead, he's the comedy relief for some reason. Oh yeh, that "scene" where Gollum is arguing with himself was rediculus too...I don't even want to get into that because is was so stupid.

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Quast said:

Oh yeh, that "scene" where Gollum is arguing with himself was rediculus too...I don't even want to get into that because is was so stupid.


no, gollum is one of the most important characters in the story, and his self-conflict is important to the overall story.

now, we thought the movie on it's own was great, but compared to the book, there were some errors that pissed us off (spoilers if you haven't seen the movie):

1) what the hell is up with the elves going off to the undying lands? that never happened!

2) the whole arwen/aragorn love scene was in the appdendix of rotk and could have been left out as it probably confuses people

3) theoden isn't a wimp, and they portrayed him that way

4) why the hell are elves at helm's deep? except for legolas, there were no elves at helm's deep

5) the ents saved the day at helm's deep damn it! why the hell weren't they at helm's deep saving the day?!

6) why didn't they end in shelob's lair? that's a much better end to the movie (and the actual end of the book) than what they did

7) do you realize that rotk is fucked?

8) the ent attack as isengard occured before helm's deep.

9) the gondor/mordor battle occured before fellowship, if i recall correctly.

10) men of rohan are said to be born with swords in their hands, non of this 'oh a sword, how the hell do i use this?' crap the movie displayed.

there are probably a few other errors but we are too tired to remember them.

long live the mancubi.

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I liked the changes they made from the book - especially Gandalf at Helm's Deep and the Ents going to war with Isengard only.

Chronologically, the encounter with Shelob occurs after Helm's Deep, so it makes sense from that point of view. I don't think Rotk is fucked - plenty of interesting and spectacular things to happen, especially with the trap Gollum lead them into, and the big war.

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monochrome said:

monochrome's stuff


Some of those points are valid... others seem just picky. And you didn't mention how faramir was portrayed - which I thought was the biggest mistake of all.

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GS-1719 said:

I liked the changes they made from the book - especially Gandalf at Helm's Deep and the Ents going to war with Isengard only.

Chronologically, the encounter with Shelob occurs after Helm's Deep, so it makes sense from that point of view. I don't think Rotk is fucked - plenty of interesting and spectacular things to happen, especially with the trap Gollum lead them into, and the big war.


good to see you!

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what we ment refering to rotk being fucked is that they have the entire third book to condense into a three hour movie, plus what they left out in ttt. not only that, some of the plot lines changed will make it difficult to do rotk correctly (such as the dead marshes and the return to hobbiton). sorry if we do seem like picky bitches.

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"no, gollum is one of the most important characters in the story, and his self-conflict is important to the overall story."

Yes, I know. I understand that, however, the way it was done in the movie was horshit. It's supposed to be serious, i mean, gollum is suffering yet it is done in a humorous fashion to appeal to the masses....All im saying is that it could've been done without the camera changing views, that would've made the scene a lot better, in my opinion...well, you'd have to make the scene shorter or possibly having 1 or 2 camera changes and definitaly not have it been so close to gollum

But what do I know. I guess, I like serious type movies to be serious. If i want to laugh, i'll watch a comedy

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Ok, now I have at last seen the movie and I have mixed feeling about it, but in the end, I think it's roughly as cool as FotR.

***[SPOILER ALERT]**MAJOR SPOILERS ahead!!! Whatever you do, DO NOT READ THIS POST UNLESS YOU'VE SEEN THE MOVIE ALREADY!!!**[SPOILER ALERT

I think they managed the first half of the movie perfectly - cut away a lot of redundant shit. I remember reading the book and just thinking "Aw come the fuck ON! This shit is sooo redundant! Come on dammit!" - glad they cut the hunt on the orcs so short.
I'm also quite pleased with the Battle at Helm's Deep and the way they made Gollum and definitely the way they made the Ents.

The Ents in particular are kickass - I always envisioned them as clumsier from reading the book - glad they made them slimmer.

The Ent attack on Isengard is also very friggin' cool - probably my favorite part of the movie. It just gave me a giddy joyous feel of glee when I saw the Ents kick ass.

But there are several points I'm slightly annoyed with:

1. The Ents' slow decision to go to war: So, first they go to the Ent gathering and decide NOT TO GO TO WAR - huh? They decided to march upon Isengard in the book!! What's wrong with THIS picture!? Then afterwards the two Hobbits persuade Treebard to head South, wherupon he finally discovers what has happened to his trees - WTF? In the book he had known this for ages, which is why the Ents decided to go to war at the gathering in the book! Jackson could've done this part far quicker and smarter by just letting the Ents decide to march upon Isengard AT THE GATHERING LIKE IN THE BOOK, instead of first letting them decide against it. Bah!

2. Elves to the rescue: Wtf is up with that!? Not only didn't the Elves join the Rohan forces at Helm's Deep in the book, but this part is probably the cheesiest bit of the movie. We have this oh-so dismal picture of the humans alone against a large force and then suddenly, lo and behold! The Elves come to the rescue tadaaa! Bah!

3. EĂłwyn combat abilities and lack of use of them: Ok, so there's this scene that goes through the trouble of showing how EĂłwyn is a 1337 sword fighter, but after that we never see her kill orcs. To me that seemed to just have been put in to show that the yeah, she's no defenseless woman. But if they went through that trouble, at least they could've shown her kill a few baddies. Another solution would've been to have left it out completely, but that might have made the female audience less satisfied with the movie because there would seem to be no asskicking women in it.

4. The ending in general: Wtf? Frodo and Sam are taken to this Gondor City Oscilliath (sp?) where Frodo almost surrenders the ring to a Nazgûl and just after that, the humans (who were supposed to be desparately fighting off the forces of Sauron) gather all around them and finally releases them - bullshit!

However, I strongly disagree with a few negative points mentioned in this thread: The so-called "prolonged" battle at Helm's Deep is fine for crying out loud - after reading complaints about "how this battle seemed much longer than in the book" I must say that I was like "What? Is it already over!?" When the battle ended - the battle is not longer than in the book dammit, it seems as long as it was in the book. Period!
And Gollum's split personality not only is true to the book, it was also handled extremely well (whining about the changing cam is pathetic and nitpicky), and somehow made a lot more sense than it did in the book. It was easier for me to realize what was meant with it than in the book. And I see none of the so-called "fun ways" that Gollum's split personality is portrayed.
Oh yeah, and Gimli was fun and cool at the same time - I don't mind that he was made a comic relief, for they still managed to make him seem badass, simply because he constantly seems eager to chop off orc heads with his axe.

<End of spoilers>

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monochrome said:

1) what the hell is up with the elves going off to the undying lands? that never happened!

Yes it did.

5) the ents saved the day at helm's deep damn it! why the hell weren't they at helm's deep saving the day?!

They didnt go to helms deep. IIRC they destroyed a load of the army when it was on the way there.

1. The Ents' slow decision to go to war: So, first they go to the Ent gathering and decide NOT TO GO TO WAR - huh? They decided to march upon Isengard in the book!! What's wrong with THIS picture!? Then afterwards the two Hobbits persuade Treebard to head South, wherupon he finally discovers what has happened to his trees - WTF? In the book he had known this for ages, which is why the Ents decided to go to war at the gathering in the book! Jackson could've done this part far quicker and smarter by just letting the Ents decide to march upon Isengard AT THE GATHERING LIKE IN THE BOOK, instead of first letting them decide against it. Bah!

100% YES! WTF?

There were a few things that they had changed which pissed me off. Faramir was portrayed in the books as being much wiser than his brother (Boromir) and let them go. Sadly Faramir in the film was incredibly two dimensional. Eomer wasnt banished from Rohan. The Elves didnt go to help them at Helms Deep (they seem to have distorted a bunch of stuff to make the Helms Deep battle more exciting).

The Tolkien nerd in me really wants to hear Aragorn say, "Behold, this is Anduril, the sword that was broken and forged again!" but I guess I'm going to have to wait.

It was a still a great film of course, I just didnt like some of the changes.

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fraggle said:

Faramir was portrayed in the books as being much wiser than his brother (Boromir) and let them go.
[...]
(they seem to have distorted a bunch of stuff to make the Helms Deep battle more exciting).

Agreed, I was also a bit disappointed with Faramir - I mean, he's too damn much like his brother and he only let them go in the movie because it was revealed to him what would happen if he took over the Ring. In the book he is tempted, but he manages to withstand the temptation of the Ring because he IS much wiser than his foolish brother.

And yeah, they only added those Elves to the battle at Helm's Deep to make it more interesting but imho, they would've done the battle at Helm's Deep fine without the addition of the Elves. Oh yeah, and I think Jackson wasted too much time on showing all those scared children again and again before the siege and during the siege - come on! We already KNOW that they're helpless and frightened villagers with women and kids and yes we already KNOW how damn evil the orcs are for killing these cute children, because this was already displayed quite well with the scene with the orcs attacking a village where a mother gets her crying children to ride away.

In many ways I think this second movie seems a bit rushed and not always like it has been planned carefully enough. I'm still scratching my head about Jackson's choice to make the Ents first decide against the war on Isengard - this seems like a capital blunder to me - not only does he waste precious time of the movie by doing this, but he also goes completely against the book.

Anyway, I haven't read the third book yet, but I will soon. Still, I saw events not described in the first two books in this movie and I have grounds to believe that these events are described in the third book. Also, knowing that they left things out in the first two movies, I also believe that they will leave out events from the third book in the third movie, so I wouldn't worry overly much about how they will make the third book "fit" in the third movie...at least not until I've read the third book.

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Actually, read the sequence in the text. Faramir only rejects the Ring as a weapon of Sauron after he hears that the weapon of Sauron was what drove his brother mad and got him killed in the end. The effect of the dialogue was:

"So you carried something with your party."
"Boromir wanted this something."
"This something was a weapon of Sauron."
"blah de blah"
"I wouldn't take it if it was lying by the side of the road!"

His personality really hasn't changed, in fact I'd say that he is presented a little better than the book had.

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Also, with concerns that they will somehow be screwing over the third book in the third movie ... keep in mind that the third book is in actuality much shorter than either of the first two.

The entire last portion of the actual published book is given to appendices, genealogy charts, and such.

They are cutting out the Scouring of the Shire though.

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Arioch said:

They are cutting out the Scouring of the Shire though.

That's good. I always felt that was too cheesy. RotK won't be short though - I've read in an interview that it will be as long as it needs to - 3.5 to 4 hours even which is also good.

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Arioch said:

Also, with concerns that they will somehow be screwing over the third book in the third movie ... keep in mind that the third book is in actuality much shorter than either of the first two.

The entire last portion of the actual published book is given to appendices, genealogy charts, and such.

They are cutting out the Scouring of the Shire though.

That sounds grand.

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Actually, read the sequence in the text. Faramir only rejects the Ring as a weapon of Sauron after he hears that the weapon of Sauron was what drove his brother mad and got him killed in the end.

Yeah, you are actually right. But I didnt think they spent enough time fleshing out Faramirs character, it was like he was "just another guy who wanted the ring". And the way they laid it out, I felt the character lost a lot of the qualities he had in the books.

GS-1719 said:

That's good. I always felt that was too cheesy.

Yeah I agree with that. Saruman and Wormtongue end up like Dastardly and Muttley at the end.

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