Fantastic adaptation... but beware!

Rating: 8/10 (19 December 2002)

The Two Towers is a wonderful movie, one that stands as a great work on its own. As an adaptation, it also excels, but you have to be willing to forgive the filmmakers for the amount of material they changed. At first, I left the theater a bit unhappy and ticked off. Some things really didn't need to be changed, I thought. They went too far. However, after thinking about it more, there were a lot of things in the books that wouldn't translate well, not to mention the fact that introducing more people, towers, etc. would only serve to confuse the casual movie goer. Also, some characters weren't complex or realistic enough in the books (Faramir), and needed more depth and conflict. Arwen, who is barely mentioned in the books, with exception to her tale in the Appendixes, also needed to have her story, and her love story with Aragorn, expanded, for the sake of realism and believablity. That is the key. There are things in the book that we can accept as readers that casual watcher wouldn't believe. Were the movie geared only toward fans of the books, they could have mentioned all the names they wanted, and given us everything from the books they could have fit in 3 hours. But for the sake of making the trilogy make sense for new viewers, things had to change. I think that even the most jaded fan will appreciate this movie once they understand that. And, most importantly, Peter Jackson kept the mood and attitude right. Details may have changed, but the heart-and-soul of the book remains. That is commendable.