More about Gollum & the SUPER Extended DVD version of The Two Towers!

Rating: Null/10 (21 December 2002)

Gollum was really impressive in this movie but did you know there is a real actor behind this excellent performance? Indeed, Andy Serkis is not only providing Gollum's voice in the movie, he's also providing the facial expressions and the moves of the creature. So at first, a human Gollum (Andy Serkis) was on the set with the actors, playing the scenes, providing the voice and so on. This way other actors could know where the character was and it was a lot easier for them to interact with him. That is why it's so BELIEVABLE! After the shooting, Serkis (the actor playing Gollum) dressed in a special black suit with some kind of silver balls distributed all over the suit. These balls became sort of way points on his body, so that the computer could integrate his body and all his moves to be able to generate the CGI creature! Serkis had to repeat ALL the moves he did in the movie in this special suit, after the shooting! And this process was really complicated for Serkis: it took about one year to achieve! To create Gollum's face, they used Serkis' facial expression but obviously they enlarged his eyes. The final result his really impressive, thanks to technology and to Andy Serkis!! Peter Jackson found the best compromise: a part CGI character played by an actor. Brilliant. Andy Serkis certainly deserves an oscar nomination: he was both excellent as well as really patient to work on this character for one year!
The movie is really GREAT, even though I think it's less feeric and artistic than the first one. But this movie have other forces. There's so much stuff in this movie that it appears clearly that several parts of the movies have been removed for the theater version. Even if this movie has a runtime of 3 hours, I thought that it was not long enough! It never stops!! You can't really integrate all of this in your mind the first time you see it. That is why you got to see this movie several times! And each time you'll see it or think of it, you'll find it even more great because you'll be able to integrate ALL events! I heard that Peter Jackson just begin to work on a SUPER-EXTENDED version of The Two Towers to be release in DVD... this confirms what I just wrote: Jackson got to cut several parts of the story in TTT , even more than in the first film. The extended version of Fellowship contained an additional 30 minutes...and the additional scenes were just excellent and reinforced the movie a lot. Imagine a SUPER-EXTENDED version of The Two Towers!!! This being said, obviously I cannot wait to see it again, and again, and again!!