Lord of the Rings: Two Towers Reviews Rolling In

flogger writes "After the first showing of The Two Towers, the reviews are now coming in. They are positive and SPOILER FILLED. Reviews can be found here, here and a short one here." Don't say you weren't warned. I'm not reading them. I finished re-reading TTT saturday, and am ready to see Ents walk.

the battle

[katalyst]

More interesting than the reviews, was the write up on the humongous battle scene that takes place in the movie and how the MASSIVE system was used. I especially liked the note on the AI soldiers who ran away instead of fighting , which surprised the animators.
Anyways, the LOTR movies are a must watch : can't be missed. Though not in the same league as the Star Wars movie, they are a similar phenomenon. Similarly the Matrix movies will not be missed by most geeks. Other movies to watch out for - Star Trek Nemesis ; Equilibrium ; Terminator 3 :D

Am I the only one ...

[guybarr]

... who reads some reviews only after seeing the movies ?

seriously, some movies I'll see no matter what the reviewer says,
LOTR is one (three) of those.

I'll read the reviews solely for the purpose of getting other people's take on the movies. Like the "discussion" part of an article comes after
the "results" section.

I know it sounds sick but hey ...

Unbiased reviews

[drsquare]

Three reviews given, not one of them seemed to be from an unbiased perspective. When I read the first two, I began to think the writers were masturbating as they typed. And the third one, being from 'theonering.net', didn't seem a reliable source of an impartial view either.

Isn't it possible to find a review from someone who isn't an obsessive zealot? I'm interested in finding out how good the film is, and I'm not going to get that from someone who has decided he's going to enjoy the film before he's even seen it.

Secondly, what is the point in having spoilers in a review? The whole point in a review is that you can find out how good the film is, so you can decide whether to see it or not. By giving away what happens in the film, you sort of take away the fun in watching it in the first place. Most reviewers seem to get by reviewing films without giving away every single thing that happens, why can't these reviewers?

Looks like I'll just have to see what the Filthy Critic says, although if he does review it it probably won't be up till February, and then he'll spend 90% of the review talking about his personal problems.

Re:DUMB PIECE OF AMERICAN, UNEDUCATED, PATRIOTIC S

[OrangeSpyderMan]

"The Two Towers gets as near as possible to finding a title to cover the widely divergent Books 3 & 4; and can be left ambiguous- it might refer to Isengard and Barad-dur, or to Minas Tirith and B; or Isengard and Cirith Ungol (1)." [Letter #140]

Taken from JRRT's letters. You will easily find many more references on google.

"I am not at all happy about the title `the Two Towers'. It must if there is any real reference in it to Vol II refer to Orthanc and the Tower of Cirith Ungol. But since there is so much made of the basic opposition of the Dark Tower and Minas Tirith, that seems very misleading." [Letter #143]

You see?

Re:the battle

[angelo]

Star Wars isn't on par with Star Wars these days.
LotR > Star Wars.

Re:What disappointed me...

[AveryT]

You're right, they should have totally changed what is probably the most read story of the 20th century so that it fits into your definition of what a "Hollywood" movie is supposed to be. Maybe Peter Jackson and New Line gave the audience a little more credit than you apparently deserve.

Unexpected spoilers suck, scene by scene summary

[nitefallz]

I read the book so obviously nothing surprises me but I was a bit irritated reading the second review(i didn't finish it) and it started giving a scene by scene account of the movie, I didn't want to read a summary of the screenplay.

Music

[bicho]

The thing I want to know, Is if Enya did sing /write another set of songs for this movie and if she will for the next.

I really like "May It Be", and I still think she deserved an award for it.

So, did she?

Re:Comic Relief

[dswensen]

I disagree. The moments of humor in the LOTR movies so far have been very well-done, in my opinion (Merry and Pippin's antics, Gandalf threatening to bash Pippin's head against the doors of Moria, etc.) I was even okay with the line "Nobody tosses a dwarf!" (Regarded as blasphemy by some, but it goes by so quickly it's hardly worth getting excited about.)

In the Two Towers book, I found the "contest" between Gimli and Legolas as to who could kill the most orcs to be very amusing. Not slapstick, knee-slappingly hilarious, but amusing nonetheless. I imagine TTT will be of roughly the same caliber in terms of humor.

I don't forsee Jackson making Gimli into a joke character by any means. His role in FOTR was nicely balanced, with some great lines and some very emotional scenes in Moria and in Lothlorien. Hell, the only character to take a pratfall in the FOTR movie was Aragorn (during the hobbit "sword training" scene in the Extended Edition) and it's not like that sullied the movie experience for all time.

Moreover, Tolkien's work was itself not dark and humorless, but full of joy -- lots of jokes, lots of songs. That joy deserves to be translated to film, not made into something overwhelmingly gloomy. Grimness and maudlin has no meaning unless it has joy and humor to contrast with.

Re:What disappointed me...

[CaptainCarrot]

It's "six books" as far as thematic divisions, but I don't think it was ever intended to be published as six volumes. It is in fact one continuous narrative divided into three volumes for reasons of length.

It's almost never noted that this is a revival of the format in which all the great (and not-so-great) English novelists of the 19th Century were usually published. They were called "triple deckers" in the jargon of the time. Most novels from authors like Jane Austen, Edward G.E. Bulwer-Lytton, or Charles Dickens were originally published in this form.