Hacker Cinema
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
2002 · Film · 179 min
Part of The Lord of the Rings Collection
Directed by Peter Jackson
Frodo Baggins and the other members of the Fellowship continue on their sacred quest to destroy the One Ring--but on separate paths. Their destinies lie at two towers - Orthanc Tower in Isengard, where the corrupt wizard Saruman awaits, and Sauron's fortress at Barad-dur, deep within the dark lands of Mordor.
3 positive4 negative2 neutralfrom 9 commenters
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9 comments on Hacker News
Hard disagree about declarative "X is Y". It's a failure of weakening attention span. There are plenty of excellent long movies:
- Once Upon a Time in America (1984) 3:49
- Lawrence of Arabia (1962) 3:47
- The Irishman (2019) 3:29
- Malcolm X (1992) 3:22
- The Godfather Part II (1974) 3:22
- The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) 3:21
- Schindler's List (1992) 3:15
- Gandhi (1982) 3:11
- The Green Mile (1999) 3:09
- The Deer Hunter (1978) 3:03
- The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) 2:59
- The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) 2:58
- Casino (1995) 2:58
- Braveheart (1995) 2:58
- The Godfather (1972) 2:55
- Django Unchained (2012) 2:45
What I most object to is lazy storytelling for lazy, second-screen audiences lacking in style and subtlety having a robotic, spoon-fed, infantile, unnatural, expository narration quality in every character like it's a commercial for an antacid.
+ 1 Here.
I can hardly sit through The Two Towers, extended or otherwise, without cringing constantly at nonsensical plot changes.
No, Faramir was not a moody nihilistic relativist who changes his entire outlook without any character development.
No, there was no alliance, and getting from Lothlorien to Helm's Deep in the span of a few weeks, with a full army, is physically impossible even if the army were already assembled. (This was only in the movie after a last-minute cancelled attempt to turn Arwen into a warrior; seriously.)
No, Treebeard didn't spend 2/3s of the book stalling.
No, Frodo did not offer a wringwraith the ring, even for a second. And if he did, there's no way he would've survived afterwards.
And on, and on...
I took my kids to those as well. For Fellowship we took our time getting popcorn etc, not caring about missing previews… boy was I surprised when we walked in and it had already started.
Made sure to be early for The Two Towers so we did not miss the iconic opening scene. And to the point of the linked blog post… they ran several spoiler-filled ads before the movie started (to be clear: before the starting time, while people were filing into their seats).
I've read tens of thousands of books, and probably that length more in short stories and prose. I can't make it past page 150 of the two towers.
As a rational human being, I feel like 45 pages of "they walked past a tree. They walked past another tree. They ate food. They walked past a tree. This tree was interesting because it was 3.4 centimeters taller than the last 46 trees they passed by. Let's sit and eat lunch and talk about this tree. The tree is a tree. Yep. Just like that tree over there. And if you look past that tree, a little to the left, down the rolling glade and just over the tree topped hill, you will see another tree, and next to that tree is a tree that one time a treant leaned against in the middle of his 45 hour long conversation with the tree that I mentioned to look past to see the tree that the treeant leaned against, and the contents of that 45 hour conversation was basically the treeant saying his full name to the tree, not hearing a response, and then saying it again, only this time, he didn't hear a response, but then he realized that he was just talking to a tree and not a treeant, which made him sad, so he told the first second tree, the tree he was leaning on, that we are talking about now, that the fact that the second first tree was not a treant made him sad, before he realized, oh, silly goose, I've done it again! I'm talking to trees like a looney. I had better stop talking to trees before the other treants lock me away."
His themes are great, but Tolkien is not exactly a riveting writer. It's so bad that the only way I was able to make it through the the movie of the two towers was by making out with my girlfriend for the boring parts, which, let's face it, was the middle 2 hours.
The two towers gave me narcolepsy and genital friction burn.
>it was in some ways better than at least "the two towers"
Im gonna have to disagree. Overall it was decent, but the pacing was horrible. As well, adapting a childrens book to be gritty leads to a lot of tonal problems that I had problems with. The Two Towers, at least in my opinion, is the best movie in the Jackson series. Especially when you factor in the emotions of Theoden King when he lost his son, and the fact that it was all his fault he died. He was the one who listened to Wormtongue, and banished him. Pair that with the highs and lows of the Battle of Helms Deep, and you got an emotional masterpiece! I didn't get any of that from any of the Hobbit movies.
These are also great in my opinion (book as well as film): The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, and Jurassic Park.
Interestingly, "Earthling Cinema," (later rebranded "Alien's Guide") has a running gag where they show clips from movies, and sensor any frames which show someone eating food.
Check it out: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCu6DDGoV21YhwSb5iWbriAw
It's always been my least favorite way for a film-maker to lazily show that someone is evil. Perhaps the worst example would be King Théoden in the Two Towers. It's an extreme closeup, which holds for a while, of Théoden eating in the most gross manner possible. It's as disgusting as it is ham-fisted. A modern equivalent to mustache-twirling, perhaps.
[edit]
It turns out that I meant "Denethor II, the Steward of Gondor" and not "King Théoden."
Of course, the scene in "The Two Towers" movie that uses some of these phrases is quite wonderful ("Elrond's Prophecy").
"....an image of the splendour of the Kings of Men in glory undimmed before the breaking of the world."
In explaining the split, Hastings cited the need for the streaming business to stay focused. In other words, Netflix took away a convenience many customers wanted to address a need internal to Netflix's management. That's less than ideal, but I understand the need for the company to face up to reality and shortcomings in its capabilities.
More worrying is what they did to the recommendation engine after the split. Although I have yet to decide whether the recommendation engine is worth my while, the positive PR created by the Netflix Prize convinced me at least to give it a sustained try (and to encourage a friend to give it a try) which means rating a whole mess of movies I had seen.
Well, guess what? After the split, streaming-only customers cannot rate titles that are unavailable on the streaming service.
For example, when I find myself on the streaming service's page for The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, I see a message that says, "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers is not available to watch instantly. Watch The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers on DVD! Add unlimited DVDs for only $7.99 more a month." But I see no way to rate the movie.
Also if Netflix's negotiations with content owners means Netflix loses the right to stream a movie I already rated, I guess I will no longer be able to use Netflix's web site to see that rating.
In summary, as part of the split, Netflix management hobbled the recommendation engine for no good reason that I can see. Netflix seems to have lost sight of the fact that people use their service because of their interest in movies.