The Growth of a Masterpiece Continues, *Spoilers*

Rating: 10/10 (10 January 2003)

Many reviewers, professional as well as us amateurs, have commented that *The Two Towers* departs much more from the novel than did *The Fellowship of the Ring*. I have gone over both movies comparing them with the novel and don't find this to be the case. One difference between the movie and the book is organizational. In the book, all of the events involving Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas, etc were told as a continuous story followed by the events involving Frodo, Sam and Gollum even though these events were taking part concurrently. The movie instead interwove these. This gives the appearance of being more of a departure than it was and actually I find the movie approach in this respect more satisfying. Presumably, this approach will continue into *The Return of the King*.
Another seeming departure is that the last 4 chapters of each of these halves of the story were excluded. That much of this will be presented in *The Return of the King* is fairly certain. Gollum, e.g. does say that She will be able to help him recover the ring, referring of course to Shelob. I assume that the chapters after the defeat of Sauron will greatly reduced. Except for the very important *Scouring of the Shire* most of these are rather anticlimactic.
Faramir's behavior is different than in the book. In the book he never attempted to take Frodo and the Ring back to Gondor. However in the movie he does, in the end, realize the *truth* and lets Frodo continue his mission. I find this probably more believable behavior than the more noble image depicted in the book.
To some extent the same can be said for the Ents. In the book, Treebeard was well aware of Saruman's crimes against the forest and I find it unlikely that he had to wait until the coming of a couple of Hobbits before he felt motivated to take action. On the other hand, I find it also unlikely that, as in the movie, he would have been unaware of Saruman's crimes. Either way, this part still leaves me a bit dissatisfied.
I did find the addition of Aragorn's plight, after falling over the cliff and being presumed lost, a bit contrived. I assume that's so they could add more of the Aragorn/Arwen romance to the story but maybe they could have found a better way. And talking of Arwen, the movie gives the impression that she has, after all, taken the ship over the sea. That could of course lead the way open for Aragorn, instead of Faramir, to marry Eowyn. That would be a significant departure. My bet is that Arwen will prove not to have sailed after all.
Further speaking of Elves, I was glad to see Elves, lead by Haldir, come to the aid of Rohan at Helm's Deep. The Elves after all ultimately had a large part in bringing all these troubles about to begin with even if that's not apparent in LOTR.
The highlight of this movie for me is Gollum. I've always regarded him as the most interesting character in LOTR anyway and was hoping they would do his part well. Not only was it done technically superbly well but they capture much of the combined revulsion and pathos of Gollum. I'm in the ranks of those who would like to see an Oscar for Andy Serkin.
Finally there is the battle of Helm's Deep. This was done as spectacularly as I anticipated (based to a large extent on the short battle scene presented as a prologue to *The Fellowship of the Ring*. Many have hailed this as the most spectacular battle scene you will ever see in a movie. Maybe to date, but this is but a skirmish compared to the Siege of Gondar/Battle of Pellanor Fields in *The Return of the King* ! Prepare to be blown away by that one.