March 14 movie: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. It's been a long slog, but I've finally watched all three LOTR directors' commentaries. I had a lot to say about this when I watched it, but a week later it's all faded into a vague memory. (Lucky for y'all.) I do remember that they seemed a bit defensive about the criticism of the movie, and maybe acknowledged some validity in said criticism. You don't spend several minutes explaining why a movie can never live up to a book, if you think you nailed it.
In my opinion, it seemed that most if not all the problems with The Two Towers followed from the decision to move the entire Minus Morgul/Shelob sequence to the third movie. I think that was a good decision; without it, there is almost nothing for Frodo and Sam to do in The Return of the King. But once that decision is made, they're pretty much forced to embellish and invent story for The Two Towers. You may feel that they went too far; I certainly did. But they basically had to. In essence they sacrificed the second movie for the third.
I wanted to reread The Two Towers and see if I could figure out anything they could have used to hang the story on besides Helm's Deep. But dang if we couldn't find the book. The perils of a cluttered life.
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