LOTR: Two Towers Reviews

[Mark Holtz]

Well, it's going to be released TOMORROW. Post your comments.

[jrjcd]

Awesome!!!Fantastic!!!!Tremondous!!!!Superb!!!!...

ok, ok-so i HAVEN'T seen it yet...but i have high expectations on this one!!!!...lol

[Mark Holtz]

So far, according to Rotten Tomatoes, The Two Towers (http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/TheLordoftheRingsTheTwoTowers-1118285/) is getting better reviews (116 Fresh, 3 Rotten, 97%) that Fellowship Of The Ring (http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/TheLordoftheRingsTheFellowshipoftheRing-1108476/) (164 Fresh, 9 Rotten, 95%).

In fact, The Two Towers may be in a virtual tie with the best movie of 2002 by reviewers, Sprited Away (http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/SpiritedAway-1116064/). Here is the full list for 2002 (http://www.rottentomatoes.com/top/bestofrt_year.php?year=2002).

UPDATE: We got three bad reviews for The Two Towers verses one of Spirited Away. Still one of the best movies of the year.

[djlong]

Words fail me to describe this movie...

Superlatives just don't go far enough...

Of course, I am not at a loss for my opinions on the theatr. I went to the all-stadium, super-sound, every screen multiplex 17 miles away. 10:30AM showing - even took a vacation day to go..

10:30AM the advertised time.

10:34AM the theater darkens slightly.

10:59AM it actually started running. NEARLY A HALF HOUR OF COMMERCIALS AND PREVIEWS. Most of the previews were bad - but the 10-15 minutes of commercials REALLY put me in a foul mood...

[John Corn]

I seen it tonight............:righton:

It's generally exceptionally difficult for any movie on the website for the internet movie database to get a great ranking. The Two Towers is already ranked as the 9th greatest movie of All-time (The Fellowship of the Ring is ranked 4th).

That there should tell you something about the film; that it is very special and one of the greatest works of film in the history of the industry. The Two Towers was a brilliant adaption. There were some changes, but the cast was poignant and emotional, the special effects were not overly done, and Gollum's character was so torn and disturbed.

Absolutely fantastic, even better than The Fellowship of the Ring.

[jrjcd]

Now this is what a REAL trilogy is about-saw it last night and was tremendously impressed. Peter Jackson will be THE premiere director of the 21st Century it seems and ANYONE who doesn't feel he deserves to be ranked along side with scorsese, welles, de mille, and ford has been smoking too much sillyweed....

[Mark Holtz]

It has made over $100 million in just five days, outpacing The Fellowship Of The Ring

[Kevin]

I didn't see Fellowship Of The Rings due to lack of interest but a group of friends convinced me to see The Two Towers last night. BIG MISTAKE. The movie seemed to pick up exactly where the last one left off so I was pretty much lost as soon as the movie started. :confused: About two hours into the movie I thought to myself, "Damn, this movie is loooooong!" Indeed it was, as I left the theater another hour and 15 minutes after that. Plus it took like 2 and a half hours for the real good fighting to begin.

My advice: AVOID this movie until you've seen the first one, or else you're doomed to 3 and a half hours of cluelessness. If you're tired, you can sleep for the first half of the movie and not miss anything too exciting.:sleeping:

However, if you decide to snooze, make sure to wake up in time for the fighting trees. That scene alone will give you your money's worth. :D

[Unthinkable]

Tried to see this one yesterday at a local theater here and it was sold out for 3 straight shows. Oh well. Maybe another day. I think the free movie cash coupon for this movie that came in the Lord of The Rings: Fellowship of the Ring SE DVD expires 12/31 though.

[invaliduser88]

Caught it last Sunday...next Christmas isn't going to get here soon enough!

Probably go see it again this weekend.

[Unthinkable]

I finally caught it and the only minor issue that I had with it was one quick scene where one of the main characters hops on a shield and rides it down a stone castle staircase sled-style in a tremendously hollywood sensationalized moment of "wow, was that ever out of place there". Was that actually taken straight out of the book or no? The tree people and schizophrenic guide were also a little bit on the slightly annoying Jar Jar Binks side as well, but all in all it was a decent movie. Previews for T3, Final Destination 2, and the movie with Jim Carey playing God for a day looked interesting. Hopefully the prequel Dumb and Dumberer won't be a massive letdown in the same vein of an Austin Powers 3: Goldmember sequel running itself into the ground with really nothing new to add to the series. Hate it when sequels/prequels manage to take the fun out of the originals with such shameless appeals to the masses with zero creativity and folks scrambling to finish the script or rewrite it while the movie is in actual production.

[TNGTony]

I went to see the movie yesterday. Had mixed feelings about it... not the movie! The movie was great! But I will also caution anyone who hasn't seen Fellowship or read the books NOT to go see this movie. There is absolutely NO character introduction. I was trying to remind myself who was who and where everyone was at the beginning of this flick. Great movie! I especially liked the way that Snaga(?) was portrayed. A fantastic DVE character very well excecuted. I also liked the way the split personality was portrayed! Excellent.

The mixed feeling I had was going anywhere that meant that some one had to be working on Christmas Day. I really, really want any business that is opened on Christmas Day to lose money just by being open that day therefore forcing them to reconsider opening that day. :( I know I must be one of the few that feel this way... I feel the same on Thanksgiving, New Year's Day and Easter.

See ya
Tony

[Mark Holtz]

I feel quite the opposite. I don't know why, but I would get really bored on major holidays. So, I volunteered to work those days.

[sorahl]

I have been spoiled by PVR's!!!
In the scene with the Warg attack when legolas does that amazing leap to horseback I wanted to yell out STOP THE MOVIE and REWIND THAT!
:)
Same thing with his surf down the battlement of Helm's Deep.
What an OUTSTANDING movie. I saw it last week and I'm going to see it again before New Years Day. I expect I'll go see it again atleast one more time after that (maybe in March when I expect they will add a preview for "The Return of the King" after the credits as they did last march for "The Two Towers")

John

[Unthinkable]

Originally posted by TNGTony
The mixed feeling I had was going anywhere that meant that some one had to be working on Christmas Day. I really, really want any business that is opened on Christmas Day to lose money just by being open that day therefore forcing them to reconsider opening that day. :( I know I must be one of the few that feel this way... I feel the same on Thanksgiving, New Year's Day and Easter.



I hear where you are coming from on this point, but keep in mind how much of a blessing in disguise this outlet is for single people who have no friends or family close to where they live when the holidays roll around and plans don't allow for annual gatherings. I don't even celebrate holidays for this reason alone so a movie theater being open for a handful of afternoon showings on Christmas day with a minimal skeleton staff on hand is always my one single chance to get out and at least feel like the day isn't entirely wasted alone with nothing on TV thats appealing.

A lot of high tech companies make it very clear they aren't giving time off in December for employees to travel (aside from Christmas Day itself) and visit friends/family out of state these days and funds just aren't always readily available with all the layoffs in the past few years to accomodate trips elsewhere.

There were exactly two businesses open yesterday here close to where I live. A local drug store for a handful of hours and of course the movie theaters which again screened just a few showings so the employees weren't forced to work an entire 8 hour shift by any stretch of the imagination. I always figure to myself that if you make the decision to work and stay in retail, you are more or less sacrificing any and all rights/wishes to regularly having weekends and nights off in making such a career choice. Your desires to not work holidays and/or nights and weekends would be far better served working in a non-retail environment imo. Some things you just should know full well in advance what you are actually signing up for.

[TNGTony]

If companies made these days OPTIONAL for employees, then I wouldn't mind as much. I know that is not the case. Usually it's work or start walking out the door. THAT is why I feel anyone who made the decision to open a business on a major holiday should be the FIRST to be working one the front lines EVERY year they decide to do this. I guess 20 years of retail soured me on this. Yes there are a few people who want to work the holidays for whatever reason. But I'm willing to bet that for every 1 person that does, more than 10 of his coworkers feel differently. It's those 10 I feel for. Blue laws have a place in society. But that's another thread...sorry for taking this one off course...any one who cares to continue this discussion please open a new thread in the Potpourri forum.

Back to your regularly scheduled movie thread. Two Towers WAS AWESOME! I also wished I had my Dishplayer (sans bugs) to pause the movie for a second while I went to the john! After two hours (1:00 into the movie after all the friggin commercials) the coffee, wine, beer and other recreational diuretics caught up to me! :D

See ya
Tony

[Mike123abc]

I was lucky enough to watch LotR Fellowship of the Ring on Starz right before going to the theater to watch the two towers, since I had advance purchased tickets and live 3 minutes from the theater, I was able to watch it then go see the sequel 10 minutes later (midnight showing). Worked out really good.

[Unthinkable]

Deleted Scene

[Unthinkable]

Cutting Room Floor

[Unthinkable]

Another Deleted Scene

[Unthinkable]

Don't remember seeing this one...

[Unthinkable]

one last one...

[Mark Holtz]

Well, the coupon was about to expire, so I saw TTT Tuesday evening after work. Mind you, I have not read the books.

First of all, if you did not see the first movie, don't bother seeing the second movie. They continued one scene from the first movie and extended it. That's about it.

Probably the treeherders were the weakest effect in the entire movie. Some of the shots literally screamed "backdrop projection."

As for the story.... unlike the first movie, we have three seperate stories going on at the same time. Gimbley was very amusing in this movie. We knew that things were not going to be wrapped up in this movie, it just serves as a stepping stone with important points that will play an importance in the third movie.

I'm going against popular opinion, but for now, Fellowship is still the better film. However, that can change. It would be interesting, once the third movie comes out on DVD, to watch all three movies back to back.

[Bogy]

I saw Towers a week ago, which was at least a week later than I wanted to, but my daughter begged us not to go until she could get home to go with us. My sister spent Christmas, and had not seen Fellowship, so we watched it again with her on DVD. She was immediately ready to go watch Towers. Great Movie. I really love the story Jackson is telling. However, while I sincerely feel he is well in keeping with the spirit of the story Tolkien told, there have been many changes made.

I have probably read the Trilogy at least 10 times. But it has been a few years since I had done this. I am just finishing the Fellowship, slightly behind my daughter who is already into the Towers. She is much more disturbed than I am that more changes have been made than either of us had remembered. I think it is a tribute to Jackson that he has so much kept the spirit of the books that we had not necessarily picked up how many of the details had changed. I am not going to start getting into details, because they would be to numerous to list here. They consist of when and where events took place, and who did them. Some very minor characters in the books have been expanded, while at other points a different character in the fellowship acts or speaks in the book than in the movie.

I still love them both. I am looking forward to the DVD coming out so I can watch the two back to back until next Christmas. You guys with weak bladders might want to start planning now, the word is that The Return of the King will run 3.5 hours minimum. :D

BTW, rereading the books now is easier since I could download them on my Clie. I don't know why the publisher doesn't offer them as an ebook, but you can find them on the web, if you look long enough. I don't feel bad about having done this, because I have bought several generations of paperbacks plus the leatherbound collector's editions of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. They're just a little inconvenient to carry with me for those occasional moments when I have a few extra minutes to read.

[JBKing]

TTT was great, but TLOTR was better, IMHO. When all three movies are out, it will be hard to pick among them, because it really is just ONE 9 hour movie. I say the lack of character development in TTT makes me prefer TLOTR. Don't get me wrong, both movies are fantastic, but TTT was for the most part preparing for the battle at the end, and not much else. Sure, there's the Golem storyline introduction, but the battle was the main part of the movie.

BTW, how many other people (without reading the novels), STILL don't have a clue what half the character's names are? I was talking to some of my siblings over the holidays, and no one knew all the character's names. Between several of us, we were able to put together most of them. But who is the dwarf, Gimbley?

In about a year and a half, tell me this won't be an awesome DVD collection to own! :)

[jrjcd]

there will be and will probably be a complete 12 hour film....

[Bogy]

Gimli is the son of Gloin. Gloin was one of Dwarves who hired Bilbo to go with them and burglarize their treasure which had been captured by a dragon years before in Lonely Mountain (this is the adventure where Bilbo "finds" the One True Master Ring. The ring's invisibility factor makes burglary much simpler). His Uncle Balin had also gone on this mission to reclaim their own, and 30 years before the LOTR takes place he led an expedition to regain Moria, where the Fellowship unfortunately finds Durin's Bane is still hanging around (Durin was the Dwarf King who established Moria and dug deep after the "True Silver" or Mithral, which the coat of mail that saves Frodo's life from the cave troll is made of. Moria is the only place this metal can be found, and in digging for it Durin finds his "bane," which is a Balrog (the Doom looking guy with the fiery whip that almost takes out Gandalf. Does this clear up who Gimli is?

[sorahl]

None of what I am going to say here is based in fact but rather my own conjecture at the direction that Peter is going with LOTR.
THe only thing that is being left out that will bother me is the final section of ROTK "The Scouring of the Shire". I don't know that he is going to do this but after TTT I had a VERY strong feeling that he was going to. Especially since TTT ended so much earlier in the story than the book actually did.
I LOVE that section on the scouring of the shire. It is a PERFECT ending to the story and in my thoughts a very necessary one.
I hope this doesn't happen but I am afraid it will.

John

[Bogy]

Sorahl, I also love the scouring of the Shire. They have to have in in there somehow, unless they aren't going to bring the Hobbits home.

After I typed my explanation of Gimli last night I thought about how we now have two mythologies, the book and the movie. Very much the same story, but with many changes.
Here are just a few differences from the trip through the mines of Moria. (I figured I wouldn't spoil TTT for someone who has not seen it yet.)

Movie: one of the Hobbits, (Frodo?) opens the door.
Book: Gandalf opens the door, finally realizing the answer.
Movie: Pippin throws a stone into the pool outside the door, summoning a monster very much like an octopus.
Book: Boromir (the man who lusts after the ring for those who have problems keeping everyone straight) throws a stone into the lake, summoning a creature named "the Watcher" in the book the Fellowship later finds, description could have been an octopus, but seems to have many more than 8 tentacles.

Movie: Pippin knocks a skeleton and about 300 feet of chain into a well. A drum starts. Soon the Orcs show up, with a cave troll, who almost kills Frodo. They make a running escape, with a fantastic scene on the crumbling stairway.
Book: Fairly soon after they enter Moria, Pippin drops a stone through a hole in the floor of a small room. Shortly after a drum starts. 20 or 30 miles later, almost at the end of their journey, in another small room they find the tomb of Balin, and the aforementioned book. There they are also attacked by Orcs. A large Orc captain almost takes out Frodo. They leave by a back stairway as Gandalf has his first encounter with the Balrog, without really seeing it or knowing what it is. Because they have taken the back stairway, they come out on the other side of a chasm which slows down the Orcs. The cave trolls throw down huge slabs of stone for all the bad guys to cross on.

The scene on the narrow bridge where Gandalf confront the Balrog was very much the same in both the movie and book. The book describes how the Dwarfs used such narrow bridges that could be easily destroyed as a defense mechanism, kind of like a moat.

Lots of little changes in who did or said things. Some very exciting visuals have been added. The story remains (so far) fundamentally the same. Even with how familiar I am with the book, this is one of the very seldom times I have not been disappointed in the film version made from a favorite book. I look forward to seeing the rest.

[sorahl]

I would tend to agree with you analysis.
There were a few other changes in the movie, which did NOTHING to detract from the story but I didn't think their inclusion in the story detracted from that either.

some of these are (from the book)
Frodo, Sam, Pippin, and Fatty Bolger making the journey from Hobbiton and meeting up with Merry just before the ferry.
Meeting with the elves on the borders of the Shire.
Tom Bombadil and the Old Willow, and the Barrowwights
Bill Ferny
Glorfindal (name spelling and perhaps a missremembering) being the elf who met the troupe enroute to Rivendell after the attack rather than Aragorns squeeze <grin>

I could be wrong but those are the glaring differences in story line from the book to the movie in FOTR.
TTT is a different story.
I don't think I'm giving anything away here, but if I am I apologize.

I was originally suprised at the use of Gimli as a comic device in the movie. Yes I laughed and enjoyed it but was puzzled. After the second viewing I was thinking about it and realized that they had to do it with someone. Of those characters on the screen for the majority of the story he made the most logical choice. With the book it was very serious most of the time. It is a very serious story and TTT is especially dark for a majority of the read. PJ had to use Gimli to break the seriousness up for the visual viewer or we would have been nervous wrecks by the end of the film. As with The Empire Strikes back TTT is a dark section of the trilogy. All tragedies have a dark middle. We start with the light hearteness that comes from ignorance or naivety in the beginning, travel through darkness, and come out in to the light (albeit a cloudy light) at the end of the tragedy. After realizing this the use of Gimli as PJ exercises was logical to me.
Faramir, however, is a different story. Perhaps you or someone else have some thoughts on that. For myself I can't see the point right now.

This is fun :)

John

[Bogy]

The example of Moria was just one segment I could pick apart fairly easily. Now that the Fellowship has been broken, and there are 3 plotlines to follow, it explains why they have established three comedic characters. Gimli, Merry and especially Pippin, and Sam and/or the conversations Gollum/Smeagol has with himself. Nobody was a consistently comedic character in the book. As you said, it was pretty dark most of the time. Pippin and especially Merry are not comedic character in the book. They are take charge guys, who knew about the Ring and made plans to go with Frodo even before Frodo had quite figured out he was going. It was no accident that they left the Shire with Frodo, it was something they planned, and chose to do. Not to say that there is no comedy in the book. Tolkien just spread it around, if sparingly.
In the movie, Faramir is much more like his brother Boromir than he is in the book. In the book he realizes his brother's weakness and is not surprised to learn what he had tried. I don't see a point to it at this time either. We'll have to wait a year to find out if it was one of the few poor decisions made, or if there is a point to it we'll find out then.

[sorahl]

Somethings make sense immediatly, others.... time will tell.
One thing I do like is how WELL they have done Gollum, and I'm not just talking visually.
One of the things I really admired about FOTR was how PJ showed how childlike and sensitive the Hobbits are at their core. I am thinking especially of the scene with Bilbo and Gandalf after the party before he left. Bilbo had just said he wouldn't give upt he ring and Gandalf just wanted it for himself. Gandalf got angry and you just see Bilbo fall to pieces and become like my 2 1/2 year old son when he knows he did something wrong. It was absolutely perfect and just how I saw it my minds eye when I read it.
On to Gollum. The transformation from Gollum to Smeagol and his reaction to the kindness in Frodo and the subsequent betrayal of that trust when Frodo allowed him to be captured by Faramir's men was heartrending. You could almost believe that Smeagol could be brought back (indeed as Luke believed his Father could be (and was)). Again, as in all things in this quest it falls back to Sam to protect his master from Gollum and his treachery and indeed to rise above being a 'mere' hobbit.... :)
I want to rename the Lord of the Rings to The Adventures of Samwise and his friends.

:)

John