Do you like The Two Towers?

[JTG of the PRB]

Personally, it's my favorite movie, but my second-favorite book.

[fizzgig]

1. i love the book

but the way they characterized faramir in the movie made me want to burn the theater to the ground

[Danger Mouse]

2. They did much better with him in ROTK.

[fizzgig]

5. but i still see it as absolute character assasination

he should have sued peter jackson for defamation of character :silly:

[JTG of the PRB]

4. I agree completely.

Like Danger Mouse said they did a better job with him in RotK, but in Two Towers he was way more of a dick than he should have been.

[fizzgig]

6. they did a 180 on his character and it made no sense

behold! my righteous nerd outrage :P

[JTG of the PRB]

13. Righteous indeed!

I'm a few months away from my Hobbit and LotR re-read, which I plan on doing once a read from now until infinity. If I ever have kids, the set of those four books will be a gift to said potential children as soon as they are old enough.

[fizzgig]

14. i'm due for a re-read

which i also plan to do about yearly until i die.

of course, faramir's defamation is nothing compared to the blind and nearly uncontrollable rage i felt during the rotk scene above minas ithil when frodo told sam to get lost. :nuke:

[JTG of the PRB]

15. Yeah... Yeah that was pretty bad.

But they couldn't exactly have Sam and Frodo go into Shelob's lair hand-in-hand, determined to support each other through and through. That would have lacked important (and nonexistant) dramatic tension. :eyes:

I was okay with that at first, but when I was re-reading RotK last year, I was shaking my head while I watched the movie afterwards. That's not in Frodo's character, or in Sam's! They were devoted to each other and to the quest. I suppose creaitve liberties had to be taken to keep audiences interested, but that was a BIG departure from the book...

[fizzgig]

16. i was so furious i almost walked out

and i will wear that nerd badge with pride.

one of the most enduring themes of the whole trilogy is frodo and sam's devotion to one another and the movie shat on it.

i understand creative license will be taken when any book is adapted to the screen, but why they need to make such drastic changes to the foundation of a story is beyond me.

[RoyGBiv]

17. That was unforgivable ...

There were many changes in the movie versions that were cringe inducing for fans of the books, but that one damn near destroyed the story. It doesn't even make sense. Supposedly Jackson just wanted to drive home the point that Frodo is going batshit crazy insane from carrying around the ring, but that's not at all what it did ... the point being, SAM WOULD NOT HAVE LEFT.

My daughter and I were watching that together in the theater, and both of us simultaneously said, "What!?" when that happened.

[pokerfan]

3. There... are... five... towers!

From wiki...

Tolkien wrote, "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."<3> At this stage he planned to title the individual books. The proposed title for Book III was The Treason of Isengard. Book IV was titled The Journey of the Ringbearers or The Ring Goes East. The titles The Treason of Isengard and The Ring Goes East were used in the Millenium edition.

A note at the end of The Fellowship of the Ring and Tolkien's final illustration of the towers gives the pair as Minas Morgul and Orthanc.<4><5> However, in a letter to Rayner Unwin, Tolkien instead gives Orthanc and the Tower of Cirith Ungol, but felt such an identification was misleading due to the opposition between Barad-dûr and Minas Tirith.<6> Loosely, any pair from the set of five towers in the story could fit the title: the Tower of Cirith Ungol (Cirith Ungol being a pass), Orthanc, Minas Tirith, Barad-dûr and Minas Morgul.

[fizzgig]

8. be still, my beating tolkien nerd heart

[pokerfan]

10. Then there's the Tower of Amon Sûl

The Tower of Amon Sûl is a watch-tower on Weathertop hill. It was once tall and fair, but by the end of the Third Age only ruins remained.The Tower of Amon Sûl was built in the first days of the North-kingdom of Arnor, which was founded in 3320 of the Second Age. At that time, the seven palantíri were divided and placed in different parts of Gondor and Arnor. The largest and most powerful palantír in the North was kept in the Tower of Amon Sûl. The Stone of Amon Sûl was the chief palantír used for communicating with Gondor. The palantír was kept on a round table of black marble with a curved depression in the surface where the seeing-stone was set.

It was said that Elendil watched from the Tower of Amon Sûl for the arrival of Gil-galad before the Last Alliance set out to wage war against Sauron.

When Arnor was divided into three kingdoms in 861 of the Third Age, the Tower of Amon Sûl was claimed by Arthedain and commanded the east road into Rhudaur from Cardolan. Also a special warden was posted there to guard and maintain the palantír. But Cardolan and Rhudaur also wanted possession of the Tower and its seeing-stone and there was strife among the three kingdoms.

In 1356, King Argeleb I of Arthedain was slain defending the Weather Hills against an assault from Rhudaur, which was then ruled by an evil lord of the Hillmen who had secretly joined forces with the Witch-king of Angmar. Arveleg, son of Argeleb, drove back the invaders and defended the Weather Hills for many years. But in 1409, Weathertop was surrounded by a great host from Angmar. Arveleg was killed and the Tower of Amon Sûl was burned and razed. The stone (palantír) of Amon Sûl was rescued by the forces of Arthedain, but it was later lost at sea.

[fizzgig]

11. i'll be in my bunk

;)

[rcrush]

7. omg guys sign my petition to get them to change the name of the two towers!

Its offensive cause of 9/11!!!!

[leeroysphitz]

9. LULz. I had forgotten about that...

[pokerfan]

12. The petition responding to the petition

http://www.petitiononline.com/trutower/petition.html

:rofl:

[AllenVanAllen]

18. The opening scene took my breath away.

It wasn't my favorite of the three but I did liked it very much, especially the extended version. FOTR was my favorite movie, second was ROTK. I loved all of the books and couldn't choose a favorite.


Even with any criticisms I may have with the changes the films made from the books, I still believe Peter Jackson created the greatest fantasy adventure films ever made.