Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

I loved FOTR and have seen the SE DVD about 8 times already. And yet, I left The Two Towers a little disappointed, and a little bewildered by all those reviews that claim it is “better” than FOTR. Now, don’t get me wrong — The Two Towers is a fantastic movie. In fact, it’s hard for me to put into words what I think is “wrong” with it — if that’s even the right way to say it — it just didn’t have the… sparkle?… of FOTR to me.

Here’s a few specific nitpicks:

•  We just don’t see enough of the characters, and they don’t interact with each other as poigniantly as in FOTR. Sure, there’s more action, more battle — but less… life… somehow.
• Does Grima have to look so obviously evil? Did Jackson say, “The audience is too stupid to realize he is a bad guy, so we need to make him look like a walking corpse so that the idiots watching this movie will understand.”
• What’s the deal with the way Theoden looks when we first see him? I guess they wanted to show his corruption “visually”… but they went too far, and the difference is drastic enough to prevent the suspension of disbelief. He should have looked sick, or dark, or something, sure… but not 200 years old.
• Not sure what all the hype about Gollum is… he was well done, but the performance didn’t blow me away. It was a bit hard to swallow the constant shifting between him being 100% murderous to 100% childlike… I felt like I was constantly “filling in the gaps” with my knowledge of him from the book — not sure how a non-book reader would take Gollum… he’s kinda stuffed down your throat in the movie.
• The dream sequences with Arwen were pretty dull. I think they would have been better to stick more closely to the Appendix — show how they met, etc. Shoulda played up the conflict between Aragorn and Elrond more, or something.
• The changes to Faramir didn’t thrill me. I think it was the point where he puts his sword to Frodo’s throat that it just goes to far. I just don’t see why this darker Faramir was better for the movie than the gentler book version (though I said the same about the darker Prancing Pony in FOTR… ). And in what way was the Osgiliath trip an improvement? It didn’t seem to do anything besides introduce a new set.
• Eowyn seems under-used, alas. During the battle of Helm’s Deep, my wife leaned over and said to me, “What ever happened to Eowyn?” — she needed some sort of role there — not battling, but at least doing something.
• I didn’t mind them bringing the elves to Helm’s Deep… but there is a cynical side of me that thinks they only did it because they wanted to bring in Haldir… someone known and yet expendable. I can’t think of anyone else who would have been better suited — and so it makes me think that they said, “Okay, who can we kill off that will bring at least a little emotional impact. Sure, Haldir. Okay, now how do we get him to Helm’s Deep?”…
• I really wish they hadn’t used John Rhys Davies as the voice of Treebeard. It’s not that there was anything wrong with it — it’s just that I could only hear Gimli whenever Treebeard would speak, and so it ruined the suspension of disbelief for me… (what reminds you that you’re only watching a movie more than the same actor in two different roles?) I mean really, couldn’t they find someone else?

…so, all of these nitpicks probably make it seem like I didn’t like The Two Towers, and yet that’s not the case at all. It’s a better movie than most, that’s for sure! But FOTR was sooo good, it had my hopes up a bit too high for TTT, I guess. (I don’t think TTT is going to be nominated for 13 Academy Awards the way FOTR was… I’d say they’ll get a Special Effects award, but that’d be about it, I think.)

Anyway, I’m happy to report that the Special Extended Edition DVD of The Two Towers goes a long way towards addressing my original reservations.

In the Extended Edition of Fellowship of the Ring, the “Most Improved Character” award goes to Galadriel — but here, in The Two Towers, that award definitely goes to Faramir. You get much better insight into his motivations during the flashback with Boromir (always great to see more of Sean Bean!) and his father, Denethor. In the book, of course, he is never even slightly tempted by the One Ring — wouldn’t even pick it up if he found it lying by the side of the road — and so it is nice to learn in the Extended Edition of Two Towers that he’s not tempted by the Ring in and of itself: he is only thinking about pleasing his father.

Another noteworthy addition comes when Faramir first captures the hobbits — in the Extended Edition, there’s a glimmer of Faramir’s character from the book when he walks over to the body of the fallen enemy and delivers some poignant lines (which I think were originally Sam’s in the book):

Frodo: “Those who claim to oppose the enemy would do well not to hinder us.”

Faramir: “The enemy? His sense of duty was no less than yours, I deem. You wonder what his name is… where he came from. And if he was really evil at heart. What lies or threats led him on this long march from home. If he would not rather have stayed there… in peace. War will make corpses of us all.”

Of course, it ties with Sam’s soliloquy at the end of the film:

Sam: “By rights, we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in the great stories, Mister Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end, because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing… this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines, it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you… that meant something. Even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mister Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going, because they were holding on to something.”

Frodo: “What are we holding on to, Sam?”

Sam: “That there’s some good in this world, Mister Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for.”

Faramir: “I think at last we understand one another, Frodo Baggins.”