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Right, now I've caught up with the rest of the thread...
I can't believe when Peter Jackson et al said that making 'The Two Towers' was more difficult than 'RotK', that surely was fairly simple with only three sets of characters and one fight scene, in this we had about four seperate sets of characters (five if you include the Faramir arc) and two enormous fight scenes, the Battle of Pelenor Fields being amazing.
The quibbles were few, I agree with those that said splitting Frodo and Sam up before Shelob was a mistake, I don't think it added anything, did anyone, even those who haven't read 'LotR' think Sam was going to give up and go home? The orc tower afterwards was by necessity rushed to it's detriment, it might have done better with being cut. And considering the emphasis made on the iconic drawings of Howe and Lee, it's odd that Jackson chose not to go for the one of Shelob trying to crush Sam while he stabs her with Sting, as it was it looked a little confused, was it clear to people who hadn't read the books how Sam drove her off?
But otherwise, starting with the story of Smeagol and Deagol was great, and a chance for everyone to see the real Andy Serkis. So the hand from 'FotR' was Deagol's after all! Considering that Gollum was redesigned to look more like Serkis, the transformation of Smeagol into Gollum was amazing.
The Denethor/Faramir relationship wasn't handled particularly well, by not giving Denethor a palantir and by making pretty much the first thing he says be that he will not step aside for Aragorn makes him a bit of a one dimensional baddy. I do think the tensions of the film would have been better and less complicated if he had followed more closely the arc of the character in the book.
The battle of the Pelenor Fields, what can I say? To top the Battle of Helm's Deep and not loose sight of the individuals involved. Theoden's death was a moist eyes moment, "I know you..." and I think not going into the whole Dernhelm thing with Eowyn was a good idea. And then for Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas to arrive in the ships, the orcs all grin thinking they've got an easy victory, and then the Pirates of the Carribean swarm out... Legolas leaping up the Oliphant, I was grinning wide enough to crack my face at that point.
It's a real shame that we don't have Saruman, or the Scouring of the Shire, I wonder if they cut that for time reasons or because they were worried it wouldn't be popular with non-book fan viewers? What we got was probably the second best option, but why didn't Frodo give Sam Bag End? |
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