Two Tower or Not Two Tower: The Sequel: The Movie

Sorry, we still need to talk about the wigs | Vol. 3 Iss. 4

Don’t you just hate changing plans? You get all excited to go to Treebeard’s cave with the fancy ent drinks and then to the spider cave, and then all of a sudden your itinerary is pulled out from under you. You’re in Osgilaith, where you didn’t even care to go in the first place, with some guy who’s not acting like you expected at all. And all your friends are in weird love triangles and not even with each other.

My plans changed part way through the Two Towers movie when we took a break to go to a Nationals baseball game and then after that and dinner did not have the energy or time to finish this extremely long movie. No harm no foul we’ll finish it tomorrow, right? Wrong, Will left the next morning for a conference. Which means I didn’t even try to finish this movie until the following Friday, which still didn’t work because we took another break and I fell asleep listening to a baseball game. And we finally finished it Saturday morning, at which point it had taken us a week to watch this movie and I was mostly leaning over to Will to say “this wasn’t in the book.”

Spoiler warning: Does this have spoilers for The Fellowship of the Ring and Two Towers? Yes. Are you allowed to tell me spoilers for later than that in the series? Absolutely not.

Journey Part 4 - The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

I enjoyed parts of this movie over the three sessions, but I think it’s a less successful adaptation than the first film and suffers from some of the existing lack of character/emotional stakes from the book.

The movie, as I hoped, treated the book’s two main storylines (or, I suppose, really three) as pieces of a braid, weaving them together rather than getting one out of the way and moving on to the other. I think this was a necessary choice, but it did reveal how little these plots are really connected. The movie also thins out the Frodo/Sam plot pretty significantly to spend even more time on what increasingly feels like The Aragorn Show, to the emotional detriment of the movie.

I’ll go in order the plots are in the book.

The Two Hair Styles

Why is Aragorn’s hair always wet and dirty while Legolas’ hair is neat and perfect? They’re traveling together! If Legolas has shampoo and a brush, which he obviously does, he should definitely be lending it to Aragorn. I do this resentfully for my friends and family members less prepared for hair care than myself, but I do it all the same.

Maybe Legolas is holding out on sharing his good conditioner with Aragorn because he feels they might be competitors for the heart of Eowyn. This is unfair, because he has great hair anyway and could stand to let Aragorn have at least clean hair. Also, Eowyn is obviously so much more interested in Aragorn that I think Legolas can let this one go. (Though maybe he’s resentful that this seems to be Aragorn’s second girlfriend and Legolas has none. (Or, and this comes from Will, perhaps Legolas doesn’t want the Eowyn side of this triangle but the Aragorn side.))

This love triangle (square?) is not in the book. Aragorn falling off a cliff and nearly dying is not in the book. Aragorn’s Elf love (not Legolas) convincing her father to send elves to help at the battle of Helm’s Deep is not, and you’re going to be shocked about this, in the book. Faramir kidnapping Frodo and Sam to bring the One Ring to Gondor is not in the book.

Why, in adapting a nearly four hundred page novel, did the filmmakers feel the need to add so much stuff?

I see three main possibilities, all of which could mix together:

1. They were attempting to give the plot more structure than the book has, and thus avoid the wandering around feeling.

2. Romance helps sell a movie.

3. Return of the King has too much plot and they were moving some of it up to make the third movie a manageable size.

I’m only about a fifth of the way into the Return of the King book, so I can’t speak very well to the third point yet, except that Eowyn’s big speech about why she wants to fight is pulled right from the third book, not the second. Faramir fighting at Osgilaith happens during Return, but it happens off page and Frodo and Sam are definitely not there for it, being by the spider cave.

One structural change that I think did work was starting the film with a “previously on” to catch us up with Gandalf. I now understand slightly better what happened to him, though I still think the reveal when he comes back to join the gang is a little anticlimactic.

The movie also tries harder to explain why the orcs would side with Saruman and Sauron, giving Sarumon a speech about how the people of Rohan have done the orcs wrong. I don’t know that it works, but given how many orcs are are in this movie I think they had to at least try. In the books it’s just orcs = bad.

While this is my least favorite friend group in the movie, it’s not their fault the hobbits are more fun. This whole movie does my guy Gimli dirty, including a wild dwarf tossing joke that I can only imagine they wouldn’t make if the movie was made now. However, I do identify with Gimli’s less-than-elegant running. I am much more of a Gimli runner than an Aragorn/Legolas one. Pick a pace the whole group can stick with guys!

But maybe Legolas, who does not share his hair products and does not run with his good friend Gimli who’s like a foot shorter than him, would just be a tough hang overall. Because the “I can smell the orcs were here three days ago, look at this blade of grass,” routine would get old fast.

Trees Are Not Towers

You know who would be a great hang? Merry and Pippin. These guys love a great meal. They love the environment! They give clear, if slightly clunky, exposition on what an ent is.

Treebeard is maybe a bit tougher, especially given the movie’s insistence that no one can make the right decision the first time, which means he initially decides not to help get rid of Saruman and then, having seen what Saruman did to the trees, changes his mind. This bothers me less than the Faramir change we’ll get to in a minute. I did like that we got to see the sack of Isengard on screen. Including one ent who caught on fire and then dunked his branches in the flood to put himself out, which was delightful.

The ents look fantastic, and I’m told the extended cut is mostly more ents, which I would not object to. I do think their introduction would work better if the tree that almost eats the hobbits hadn’t been left out of the first movie. Also I don’t think the movie properly explains why the orcs kidnapped Merry and Pippin in the first place, when it’s clear in the book.

A Towering Affection for Each Other

You know what romance could have sold this movie? Frodo and Sam. When Sam says to Frodo, who is under the ring’s thrall “it’s your Sam,” my heart grew two sizes. They’re adorable.

Gollum… less so, though Andy Serkis is a great actor, especially selling a two-sided monologue where he has to be in an argument with himself. The Gollum CGI is showing its age, though it was really the only thing in the movie that made me think that, which for a movie over twenty years old is impressive. The loin cloth was a kind of gross choice but I guess the book doesn’t have to describe whether or not you can see Gollum’s genitals.

The biggest structural change in this section of the plot, other than cutting it short, is that Faramir (brother of Boromir, who was swayed by the ring and died in the last movie), basically kidnaps Frodo and Sam to take the ring to Gondor. In the book, there are about five seconds of suspense before he basically says “don’t worry, I’m not my brother.” On the one hand, I think with this and the Treebeard change, the filmmakers were trying to create more tension. But on the other, I think it’s really interesting to engage with who is drawn to the One Ring and why, and having read the first section of Return of the King, it becomes really important to Faramir’s relationship with his dad that he let the ring go. I miss that difference between the brothers.

The book overall is a lot more subtle about the effects of the ring. We know that it’s weighing on Frodo, but he’s not possessed by it the way he is in the movie. Some of this is about what can be portrayed on screen vs. shown in close third person narration, but I miss the nuance.

The Twoest of Towers

After my last blog I looked up which two towers are the two, and apparently a) other people are also confused and b) Tolkien eventually said it’s Isengard and Minas Morgol. But this movie clearly picks Isengard and Barad-dûr, because they keep cutting to the lidless eye in Mordor, which makes it even more confusing.

Outstanding Questions

• If you have cheekbones like Viggo Mortensen, do you even bother considering careers other than movie star and supermodel?

• Are orcs born out of the earth? They just seem to roll out of the mud fully formed which a) doesn’t make biological sense and b) is disgusting.

• Why did I write “voldemort cave” in my notes? I’m not looking it up.

• Did the actors playing hobbits have to wear foot prosthetics? I feel like that would get very uncomfortable.

• Why are there infinite orcs? This is a personal movie pet peeve.

• Could they have made Wormtongue look any more evil? No.

• Would they have access to fish and chips? I understand that this is not our universe, but it all seems vaguely medieval and I don’t think they would. But also, fish and chips are delicious.

• Is this Roxie’s favorite Lord of the Rings movie? In the first one she got scared by the Black Riders.

What Else?

Sharks

Since November I’ve been working on a romance novel that includes a lot of sharks (not as romantic heroes). And part of the main character’s whole thing in the book is that shark attacks are really rare, and movies like Jaws lead to people not caring about environmental impacts on sharks and such. But also…

Apparently the U.S. is the global shark attack leader! U-S-A U-S-A U-S-A

I love the beach though, and they actually are very rare, so won’t stop me.

Scallops

This weekend, to avoid going to the real grocery store, we picked up some scallops at the fish market and made this recipe, subbing rosemary and thyme for most of the basil, and it was stunning. We had some spring asparagus and a loaf of jalapeno cheddar bread on the side. No notes.

Mysterious Door

Most of my last two weeks has been spent at work, including either covering or anticipating that I might have to cover the House Rules Committee. That committee meets at the Capitol, in a room that looks bigger on TV. And outside it is this mysterious, dog-sized door. What do we think this is for?