The Two Towers

[mdlbear]

We (that is to say, the whole family) went to see The Two Towers today. Visually spectacular, and on the whole quite good as a movie, but less successful in my opinion as an adaptation of the book.

Quick summary -- they should have skipped the gratuitous battle scenes and stupid interpolations, and stuck to the actual plot. The ents, while not what I had envisioned, were pretty good. Gollum was superb: best supporting actor, if there's any justice in the Oscars. The battle of Helm's Deep was impressive.

But there were problems.
They could easily have skipped that stupidity with Aragorn falling over the cliff, for example. The dream/memory scenes with Arwen were obviously just there to keep her in the movie. Bah! They should have skipped that business in Osgilliath and just done the Faramir sequence straight -- it would have worked much better the way Tolkien wrote it. And I don't see Gimli as comic relief.

See it, by all means, but don't expect a particularly faithful rendering.

Comments

[jilara.livejournal.com]

Funny, I and a couple friends had almost an identical reaction. Aragorn falls off a cliff?! Faramir "I would pass it by" has decided to take the Ring to Gondor? Say, huh??? And no Gandalf confronting Saruman and breaking his staff? Come on, we already put a lot of Two Towers into the first movie, so now some goes into the 3rd, as well? Sigh.