The Two Towers

[J.R.]

Much like Fellowship, TTT overcomes its changes to the text by capturing the overall tone of the book. The scene where Treebeard sees the devestation of Isengard and decides to fight is so touching and evocative of what Tolkien was saying with the books. The whole movie had a sadness to it, with everyone realizing the full weight of the situation and their desperation over going to war.

I can't wait for the extended DVD. There is definitely some stuff missing. Saruman, Gandalf, Treebeard, Merry and Pippin all get the shaft when it comes to screen time. And hopefully some non-comic relief, badass stuff from Gimli is coming.

[Scott]

Just seen this one yesterday at the 4:15 show with a light crowd. First I'd like to mention that I have never read the LORD OF THE RINGS books. Second I remember liking the first film a bit, but it was hard because I couldn't get into the characters let alone the names of the characters. After the movie was over I could barely remember what happened. My main thoughts were that the director Peter Jackson also did DEAD ALIVE and that that was Christopher Lee of Dracula fame with the white beard in the tower. I liked the archer and didn't like Frodo and his furry footed friends. Overall it was ok, but couldn't say much more.

Anyway, about the TWO TOWERS it was slow getting started and wasn't keeping my interest till the siege of the castle then the characters came to life for me. I loved the appearance of the elven archers to help battle that mass of 10,000 orcs and the appearance of the of wizard with the fresh troops. The castle scene makes up for the down time before it and it helps you appreciate the castle battle more in a couple ways. The battle scene also carries this film above the other fantasy film HARRY POTTER.

I still can only remember the names of two of the characters Frodo and Argon.  The movie is about 3 hours long.

[Offthewall]

I loved this, alot of the camera shots and scenery just reminded me of old school Peter Jackson, mainly Frightners and Dead Alive type of stuff. Also, we pulled off the ultimate prank,

We went with a group of 25 people, we all sat scattered about the theater, right, there was a preview for Priates of the Caribeean (we knew this was going to be shown) so 1 person in our group yelled "I wonder what that's rated" we all yelled back "RRRRRRRRRRRRRRR". The whole audience laughed, we were very satisfied with it.

[J.R.]

 <>

Is your name actually Leonard and do you go around with a Polaroid camera hanging from your shoulder?

[Scott]

Hey J.R. that was a scene from Memento. I think.

[Neville]

Just seen it. It is a pretty good film, but I can't really judge it, because of the three books this one is the one I like the least. Palace intrigues and war operations are interesting enough, but I just wanted to know what happenned to Frodo and Sam, and the story just went in other directions. I don't blame Tolkien or Jackson, it is just the way things are.

Despite this, I have really enjoyed the movie. Peter Jackson has made a good work and I liked how he illustrated things like Gollum's split personality or the Ent attack, easily my favourite scene. Just laughed when I saw Saruman's face when realising what was coming. Dying to see him in the last chapter.

[Bernie]

I saw it Saturday at the Union Square Plaza in Manhattan -- ignore the nitpickers and the naysayers.  If "Godfather" recreated the epic film for the 1970s, LOTR will be it for the 00s.

Shakespearean, even Greek classic in its scope -- I daresay by the end, this trilogy will have it all -- tragedy, comedy, nobility, treachery, love, hate, good, evil, the whole schmear (as we say here in NYC).  A very big fan of the books (I reread them every few years), I was not bothered at all by Jackson's deviation from the books -- a movie is a movie, not a filmed book, of course there's going to be differences.  But the core, the spirit is there.  

I've thought my whole life, THIS is the one truly unfilmable project (I thought, maybe, as animation....).  How glorious to be proven wrong.

[Susan]

Gimli was the "jar jar" binks of LOTR. "meesa yousa, massa". If they were such an advanced civilization they should have invented some prozac