Posted by Holly Ordway in Reviews | 0 Comments
DVD Review – The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Extended Edition
It’s always hard to approach a film that’s been as eagerly awaited as The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. I’d initially been deeply resistant to the idea of any films of The Lord of the Rings at all: how could a filmmaker capture the magic of Tolkien’s great work? As it turned out, The Fellowship of the Ring far exceeded any expectations I’d had, simply knocking me over with its beauty and power. With an opening like that, then, The Two Towers is in the unenviable position of following up on a masterwork. It’s also worth pointing out that, with 43 minutes of footage that didn’t appear in the original release, the Extended Edition is most definitely a re-visioning of the theatrical edition; in this review, I’m considering the Extended Edition entirely on its own merits, without reference to how it worked in its first cut. (Don’t worry, I’ll also talk about the differences between the two versions, later in the review.)
The Two Towers has a problematic place in the story of The Lord of the Rings. It’s the middle third of a long novel, and it was never intended to stand alone. Although The Lord of the Rings is popularly considered a trilogy, in fact it is one novel: Tolkien conceived and wrote it as a single work, and its common appearance in three volumes derives only from the fact that 1950s bookbinding technology wasn’t really up to the challenge of publishing Tolkien’s work in a single paperback volume. In fact, the title “The Two Towers” is not Tolkien’s own. He gave the title The Lord of the Rings to the book as a whole, but the titles of the individual volumes were added by the publisher when the book was split up; Tolkien even admitted that he wasn’t sure what two towers, exactly, the title referred to (the film settles on the tower strongholds of Sauron and Saruman, but in the book there are other candidates as well).
And so The Two Towers is in a tough spot. It doesn’t have the charm of discovery that’s such a large part of the appeal of The Fellowship of the Ring, as it introduces little new of significance; nor does it wrap up any of the storylines. Director Peter Jackson has shown himself to be committed to preserving Tolkien’s essential vision, so in bringing The Two Towers to the screen he had to grapple with the issues of adapting the middle third of a novel so that it would stand by itself, without fundamentally altering the story; as with The Fellowship of the Ring, though, Jackson has made a number of structural and plot alterations throughout the film.
The Two Towers is purely a continuation of the story as set up in The Fellowship of the Ring, and so it leaps directly into the story as left off in the first film, with the orcs who have kidnapped Merry and Pippin given chase by Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli. As a result, there’s none of the gradual build-up of interest in the story and characters that worked so well in the first film: we’re tossed head-first into the story and expected to fully engage with it, without the film having taken the time to establish itself and develop its dramatic tension.
What the film does do, right away, is introduce quite a few new characters. As Aragorn and company head into Rohan, we get tossed into the problems of the royal house of Rohan: its king, Théoden, is under the evil influence of Saruman through his henchman Wormtongue. The king’s son is wounded in a battle with orcs, and the king’s loyal nephew has been banished, while his niece remains behind trying to care for the ailing king. This sounds a lot clearer in summary than it actually plays on screen: the characters are rather hastily introduced, and the Rohan sections of the film have the odd quality of feeling both rushed and overly drawn out. I have no idea how any viewer who wasn’t already familiar with the story would follow who was whom: the only reason I could keep track of kings, nephews, nieces, and heirs was that I’ve read the book a number of times and knew the story and characters very well ahead of time.
Running parallel to this story is that of Merry and Pippin, kidnapped by orcs and then lost in the Forest of Fangorn, and the continued quest of Frodo and Sam toward Mount Doom. The latter storyline is really the only one that develops the fundamental storyline of The Lord of the Rings: the Ringbearer’s journey. Aragorn’s encounter with the Riders of Rohan and, simultaneously, Merry and Pippin’s encounter with the Ents of Fangorn, are essentially lead-ins for two major set-pieces: the attack on Isengard and the defense of Helm’s Deep. In both cases, we get a spectacular scene in terms of pure visual effect. The attack on Helm’s Deep in particular is well done, with the hordes of attacking orcs and their demonic-looking siege machinery facing off against the few human defenders.
However, neither this scene nor the scene of the Ents attacking Isengard have anything like the emotional punch of the first film. I think it’s because we have little or no emotional connection with what’s happening. In the first film, when the Fellowship is attacked by the Ringwraiths, we are fully involved, fully committed to these characters and concerned about what happens to them. The dangers they face are on a smaller, more intimate scale, and so it’s easier to relate to them. In The Two Towers, those intimate dangers are scaled up to full war, and in the process become strangely impersonal. Thousands of orcs crash up against Helm’s Deep; hundreds of defenders die. But these are just nameless people of Rohan; intellectually we sympathize with them and want them to win, but there’s no emotional connection with these people whom we hardly know. In the attack on Isengard, it’s perhaps telling that the two characters whom we might connect with, Merry and Pippin, ride out the attack safely perched atop Treebeard’s shoulders: out of danger, merely passively watching the carnage, they’re a perfect stand-in for the viewer.
(As an aside, I’ll point out that “carnage” is exactly the right word to describe the combat sequences, and I’m shocked that The Two Towers received a PG-13 rating. The rating explains that it’s for “epic battle sequences and some scary images.” I’m not sure how the MPAA differentiates “epic battle” from regular battle, because in The Two Towers we get a number of very graphic, bloody images, including on-screen decapitations. I wonder if orc cannibalism qualifies as a scary image? Maybe not, since we see flying pieces of the orc, but not the whole thing… Honestly, this is a movie that should have gotten an R rating.)
The very best part of The Two Towers, hands down, is the part of the story that follows Frodo and Sam on the way to Mordor. This thread of the story is energized by the one truly new, significant story element to appear in The Two Towers: Gollum. By allying themselves with Gollum, Frodo and Sam put themselves in a dangerous position: to what extent can they trust him? Frodo’s pity for Gollum wars with Sam’s loathing of him, and we can appreciate both impulses; Gollum is both pathetic and frightening. As the story develops, the inner battle between his two “selves,” Gollum and Sméagol, is very effectively presented, and Gollum develops into a fascinating and three-dimensional character. We have to wonder… where exactly is he leading Frodo and Sam? Will he betray them, or will Frodo’s mercy enable Gollum to turn away from the addictive pull of the One Ring?
While I thoroughly agreed with the changes that Jackson made to the original material in adapting The Fellowship of the Ring to the screen, I can’t say that I feel the same way about The Two Towers. On the one hand, he’s pretty much stuck with the plot as it stands; on the other hand, some of the changes he does make don’t seem to benefit the story.
One distracting change is the additional element of juvenile humor throughout the film. The Lord of the Rings is a fundamentally serious story, and trying to play for laughs in the middle of this epic just feels wrong. In particular, Gimli the dwarf is presented here as much more of a comic character, which dilutes the effectiveness of the character as established in the previous film. Not surprisingly, the humorous elements that do work reasonably well are things like Gimli and Legolas’ competition over who kills more orcs… which was in the original story. On the other hand, the more physical humor just feels out of place.
While the humorous elements affect the overall tone of the film rather than the plot, there are also several noteworthy changes to the plot… several of which serve to draw out story elements that are presented in a fast-paced manner in Tolkien’s original story. The encounter of Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, and Gandalf the White with the Riders of Rohan is significantly expanded from its presentation in the novel. The banishment of Éomer is an entirely new element, taking its origin from a disagreement that’s merely mentioned in the original book; likewise, the death of the king’s son is handled entirely off-stage in the book, but is given an extended treatment in the film, including a funeral. This expansion doesn’t really benefit the story at all; we’re left with a jumble of characters and incidents that serve to camouflage the real point of the episode, which is the very effective scene of Gandalf’s shattering of the spell over Théoden. To a lesser extent, Frodo and Sam’s encounter with Faramir is changed, and not advantageously; the main elements are the same, but the film adds an extended and unnecessary flashback to show Faramir’s relationship with Boromir and his father, as well as a battle scene in a Gondorian city; Jackson’s Faramir is much less heroic than Tolkien’s, which is fine, except that in the film, Faramir’s decision to release the hobbits is thus much less clearly motivated than in the original novel.
Yet with all the expansion of some areas of Tolkien’s story, Jackson has left out other elements that would have added significant interest to the film; until we see The Return of the King, there’s no way to know whether he plans to omit them entirely, or add them into the third installment. In The Two Towers as written, Merry and Pippin are reunited with Gandalf after the fall of Isengard, and as they depart from Saruman’s citadel, there’s an ominous incident with Saruman’s Palantir (the globe by which he communicates with Sauron). The film version omits this. Similarly, in the original novel, Frodo and Sam make it all the way to Cirith Ungol and travel through the dark, secret passage into Mordor. Instead, Jackson chooses to end the film as Frodo, Sam, and Gollum are released by Faramir to continue their quest, with Gollum feeling betrayed by Frodo. It’s a reasonable note to end on, but there’s no reason we couldn’t have cut out a lot of the intervening material and continued the story up to Cirith Ungol.
We can see, then, that Jackson has also taken a free hand with the structure of the story. Since the opening of The Two Towers was transplanted to the end of the film version of The Fellowship of the Ring, what these omissions mean is that this enormously long film is actually covering only the middle of The Two Towers as originally written… leaving out some of the most interesting parts. Apart from cutting out some of the material and expanding other parts, Jackson has also changed other elements of the story’s structure. In the original text of The Lord of the Rings, the first half of The Two Towers follows exclusively the remainder of the Fellowship (Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli in Rohan, Merry and Pippin in Fangorn), while the second half focuses entirely on Frodo, Sam, and Gollum in their travels toward Mordor. In the film adaptation, Jackson decides to follow a more conventional narrative structure, alternating between the stories of Aragorn and company, Merry and Pippin, and Frodo and Sam. This actually changes the focus of the story considerably: in the book, it’s clear that Frodo and Sam’s journey is the more important element, with as much narrative time spent on their story as on all the other characters’ adventures combined; in the film, however, this emphasis disappears.
So yes, The Two Towers is problematic. It’s still reasonably entertaining, if considerably over-long; the disappointment comes partly from the fact that it doesn’t live up to the high standards of The Fellowship of the Ring (which is perhaps inevitable), and partly from the fact that Jackson doesn’t handle Tolkien’s work with anywhere near the deftness that he did in the first volume, in which all his edits and adaptations were spot-on.
The part of the movie that really works for me is Frodo and Sam’s journey toward Mordor, and their reluctant alliance with Gollum. This is where the film actually builds on what has gone before. We’re at the small scale, where two very ordinary people are facing the fact that their lives have been irrevocably changed by events in the wider world; both Frodo and Sam long to abandon their burden and return to the safety of the Shire. It’s here where we see real courage, as day after day Frodo bears up under the growing weight of the One Ring, and Sam doggedly accompanies him; this is the part of the story that’s moving and meaningful, far more so than the hue and cry of the more traditionally courageous warriors in battle. It’s this, and the fact that The Two Towers is the next step in a story that we want to see through to the end, that makes it worth watching.
The extended edition
This review so far has considered The Two Towers: Extended Edition as a whole, without considering which parts appeared in the theatrical cut and which have been added for the Extended Edition. Now we’ll take a look at the differences between the theatrical and extended cuts of the film. For the Extended Edition, 43 minutes of new material has been seamlessly integrated into the theatrical version of the film; some scenes are entirely new, while others are extensions of existing scenes.
The 15 completely new scenes are “Elven Rope” (an incident on Frodo and Sam’s journey); “Massacre at the Fords of Isen” (our first introduction to Éomer); “The Song of the Entwives”, “Ent Draft,” and “Don’t Be Hasty, Mastery Meriadoc!” (all scenes with Merry and Pippin among the Ents); “The Heir of Numenor” (a short scene between Gandalf and Aragorn); “The Funeral of Theodred” (the burial of King Théoden’s son); “Brego” and “One of the Dúnedain” (scenes between Aragorn and Eowyn); “The Ring of Barahir” (showing the return of Wormtongue to Saruman); “Sons of the Steward” (the flashback to Faramir and Boromir in Gondor); “Fangorn Comes to Helm’s Deep” (a short scene after the battle); “The Final Tally” (a humorous scene between Gimli and Legolas); “Flotsam and Jetsam” (another scene with Merry and Pippin); and the self-explanatory “Farewell to Faramir.” If you’ve read my entire review up to this point (and haven’t just skipped ahead!) you’ll note that many of these scenes are ones that I pointed out as being unnecessary or counterproductive. Notice how few of these new scenes involve the central characters; in particular, the added material in the Rohan section is entirely superfluous. After getting to know and care about the characters of the Fellowship, why would we be interested in extra footage of new secondary characters?
A substantial number of existing scenes have also been extended throughout the film. The expanded scenes are concentrated mainly in the middle third of the film, but involve all three story threads to some degree. The scenes with added material are “The Taming of Sméagol”; “The Uruk-Hai”; “The Burning of the Westfold”; “The Banishment of Éomer”; “Night Camp at Fangorn”; “The Passage of the Marshes”; “The White Rider”; “The King of the Golden Hall”; “A Daughter of Kings”; “Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit”; “Dwarf Women”; “The Evenstar”; “Helm’s Deep”; “The Window on the West”; “The Forbidden Pool”; “The Glittering Caves”; “The Battle of the Hornburg”; “The Retreat to the Hornburg”; and “The Last March of the Ents.” These additions mostly serve to add greater detail to events that are already fairly well established in the story; whether or not you find them worthwhile probably depends on how interested you are in that part of the story.
Originally written for DVDTalk. Read the full review here.
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