The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien
Review by Anar M., Youth Reviewer
It’s probably some sort of travesty that I haven’t seen “The Two Towers” until recently — despite reading all the books a while back, I haven’t gotten to the movies until now.
“The Two Towers” is movie two, and it jumps back and forth across various characters (Frodo and Sam, Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas, and Merry and Pippin). In terms of plot or pacing, it’s a lot faster-moving than the books, which are full of descriptions and cultural or historical additions that can make for slow reading. Inevitably, a lot of that is cut in the movies, but the plot generally follows that of the books (although there are a variety of additions and changes).
There are a lot of shots that show the characters tiny against a vast, forbidding, empty landscape, which creates an interesting feeling of something like loneliness, and definitely distances the film from any of the hyper-urbanized cityscapes we might be used to. One thing that struck me in this film is a clear distaste for industrialization and especially industrialized warfare: Ents (tree-herders) talk about the devastation wrought on forests by Sauron’s (evil) armies; Sauron’s victory is associated with death, with a bleak, black land upon which nothing can grow; characters talk about how “everything green or good in the world” is fading. This is Tolkien’s influence, I think: after the world wars, perhaps it’s reasonable that he would associate the bare, muddy landscapes of trench warfare with evil in its purest form.
In some ways, the movies aren’t quite as good as the books. While they certainly try to show Frodo’s gradual wearing down by the Ring and his consequent mental struggle, it’s a bit harder to depict that on-screen than it is on paper; the books, I think, do that better. Gandalf, assumed to have fallen to his death at the end of the last film, is seen falling through the air in the movie, which hints that he might be alive; in the books, the reveal that he didn’t die after all is more shocking and — to me, at least — more affecting.
There’s also a brief scene in which one of the armies marching to aid Sauron is wearing turbans and accompanied by war elephants; the group is almost immediately killed by the men of Gondor (loosely speaking, the “good guys”), who are, of course, white. Similarly, during a battle, prepubescent boys are armed but women and (younger or female) children are sent to hide — none of which is uncommon in movies, but it bothered me specifically in this case because a character had declared only a few minutes earlier that the women of that group learned to fight as well as the men. Why have them hide, then?
Overall, though, “LOTR” is a classic for a reason. I’m looking forward to watching “The Return of the King”.
Find “The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers” at the Kitchener Public Library!