The Two Towers? But that wasn't in the book I read...

Rating: 3/10 (25 February 2003)

The Two Towers.after seeing the Fellowship of the Ring, I was very excited about the release of this chapter of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. Though FOTR wasn't totally true to the writings of Tolkien, the changes director Peter Jackson made to the story were minor, and seemingly necessary to translate this great work of literature into the theatrical medium of film. All in all, FOTR was pretty darn close to the book and helped bring my childhood imaginings of Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli to life. Having read all of the books a number of times since I was little, you can imagine how I was looking forward to seeing The Two Towers in the same visual format as FOTR, as the book was full of action and exciting new monsters like the giant spider Shelob waiting for Frodo and Sam in the caverns of Mordor. But what a HUGE disappoint it turned out to be!
At the beginning of the movie, we are treated to about 10 minutes of footage that we've already seen in FOTR, of course intermixed with some other footage of Gandalf and the Balrog, all but confusing the viewer. This opening footage was completely unnecessary for the viewer to follow the story, and just eats up valuable story telling screen time. I'll get to why this is important later.
After this, things seem to recover.Jackson follows the story line of the book for the most part, and then towards the middle of the movie, things go bad. Jackson begins taking liberties with the storyline.a story line written by a great author whose works are what made the fantasy of the LOTR popular. Are these changes necessary for the translation from book to film? Absolutely not. For example, the Ents are only persuaded to go and stop Saruman after Treebeard sees the destroyed forest surrounding Isengard.basically since Saruman is destroying trees, now it's the Ents problem when it wasn't before. The book of course shows the Ents deciding to attack Saruman because of the deeds he's already committed, his affiliation with the hated orcs, and the fact that they know if he wins, the Ents and trees will be doomed as well. The book shows the Ents being wise creatures, acting when necessary. The movie shows them as being uncaring separatists, who have to be persuaded by a couple of idiotic hobbits (which by the way have a REALLY lame persuading speech to the Ents, also not in the book).
We also have a scene with the Orcs riding on Worgs, attacking the Riders of the Mark and our remaining members of the fellowship. This whole scene isn't in the book at all, and though is a great action scene, and the Worgs are beautifully done, this whole scene wastes about 15 to 20 minutes of screen time. I'm unclear as to why this change was made; the original story line from the book accomplishes the same tasks, but with less time.
Next of course we have the Elves of Rivendale showing up at Helm's Deep. WHAT?!?! This change was made obviously to show some sort of good neighbor attitude from the Elves, but that wasn't of their nature. They were leaving, and made it clear that this fight was that of man. A totally unnecessary change. This fight scene is also full of slow motion camera tricks that are suppose to make the fight more dramatic and intense, but only stetch out an already long fight scene and actually take away from the intensity. For example, one of the Elf captains (who we see from the FOTR) ends up getting killed by an orc, and this scene is slowed down that it ends up taking almost 5 minutes to happen.and this is for a minor character who wasn't even in this scene in the book!!
And towards the end of the movie, the change that actually made me angry, was when Boromir's brother (Faramir) is charmed by the ring and takes Frodo, Sam, and Golum back to Gondor, and this point, the rest of the movie is basically NOTHING like the book. First of all, the book has Faramir turn down the chance to take the ring from Frodo while they are in Mordor. This shows the strength of character in Faramir, which was lacking in his brother. This action leads to events in the next book, the Return of the King. Also, with Faramir letting Frodo go free inside Mordor, this allows Frodo to continue his trek to Mount Doom and of course encounter Shelob and the fun twist of thinking Frodo has died by Shelob's bite. But of course, we are denied this, and instead get some lame battle against the Orcs at Gondor and the appearance of a Nazgul who Frodo basically gives himself up to. This whole scene goes against the strength and integrity contained in Frodo that allows him to get all the way to Mount Doom with the Ring in the books. If he wants to give himself up at the mere sight of a Nazgul, how is he going to make it past Sauron into Mount Doom? Of course a the end of this movie, Golum alludes to the fact that he's taking them to Shelob's lair, which of course indicates that the story line for The Return of the King is already screwed up.> The funny thing, is that without all these storyline changes, extended action scene `slow downs', and reused scenes from FOTR, Peter Jackson could have had plenty of time to follow the storyline created by Tolkien almost exactly, removing some of the longer speeches from the book, and delivered a much better movie to LOTR fans of the book as well as the first movie. Some LOTR movie fans would say to me that it's a great movie, and that it doesn't have to follow the book to be good, and normally I would agree. However, all this series of movies is now, is a stepladder for a mediocre director to make a name for himself by butchering a great piece of literature to fit his vision. In interviews he talks about how big a fan he is of Tolkien's works, and how he wanted to make these movies be as close to the books and stories as possible. FOTR did show that intention, however, The Two Towers did not, and in fact showed a bit of disdain for the original work. Characters are changed. Events are changed. The storyline is changed. How is this movie allowed to be called the Two Towers? In my opinion, this movie is terrible. Not as bad as say.Pluto Nash, but is an insult to any true LOTR fan. The special effects were great, but the rest of the movie (the substance of it) was trash.
I should say that this movie does have one saving grace.and that's the character and creation of Golum. Probably one of the best CG characters I've ever seen, Golum definitely embodies the character from the book in mannerisms, actions, and attitude. However, I would attribute the success of this character to Peter Jackson, rather the great writing of Tolkien and an obviously excellent CG crew.
P.S. This movie, or any of the LOTR series, should never be directly compared to the Star Wars Trilogy, as they are two completely different genres of movie making. Star Wars is a Sci-Fi fantasy, while LOTR is just plain fantasy. One has spaceships and laser guns, while the other has elves and dwarves. One Trilogy has affected generations of fans since it's creation and is an integral part of pop culture, while the other has p****d off literary fans while affecting only the lives of D&D players living in their parent's basements. One has a great director, who created an entire universe out of his imagination, while the other has a director who pirated a great book, and twisted it to his limited vision.