News You Can Bruise for 2002 December 23

Just got back from The Two Towers. I liked the first movie a lot better, but I also liked the first book a lot better. My favorite part, the Ent trashing of Isengard, was well-executed in a way that seriously tickled my monster movie bone, but the movie botched the leadup, took out the cool war song (the only LOTR song I don't skip), and cut the Gandalf/Saruman smackdown denoument. That last bit could still go in the third movie, but the end of this one had a "Well, that's Saruman taken care of!" feel).

Gollum was brought to life very well, but nothing really happened in that plot: you'll recall that the end of Fellowship saw Frodo and Sam trudging apprehensively toward Mordor. The second movie ends with almost the same shot, only they're about ten miles closer and they have Gollum. I don't remember, but I think this is actually pretty faithful to the book (since Shelob got pushed off to the next movie).

There were some battles which involved no Ents and which I therefore found pretty boring. Saruman came up with some good seige engines, though. He woulda conquered Middle Earth, too, if it hadn'ta been for those meddling hobbits and their Ring of Power!