There were -two- towers?

2002-12-22 - 4:39 a.m.

An open letter to the makers of the 2002 movie, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers:

Two Whom it May Concern (Peter Jackson, et al.),

I would like to thank you for the 3+ hours (not including the 8 extra-long commercials and uncounted previews for movies that belong to a completely different marketting demographic than I do ("Dumb and Dumberer???" What was your distributer thinking?)) and the $21.00 (which is the current "cheap" rate for 2 tickets to a matinee - more than the full price only 8 years ago) that I will never get back. I hope you can use them to win a sales record that will never benefit me in any way.

I'd also like to thank you for the scenery in your movie. It was stunning. New Zealand (which is where I believe you filmed?) is a beautiful country, and, should I ever start saving my money and stop wasting it on long movies, one day I would like to visit.

Now, a few notes on your movie:

1) To make heroes, you do NOT need to take down everyone around them by a peg or two. I know that you want everyone to believe that Aragorn Is The Best Man Ever To Walk Middle Earth, but that does not mean that Gimli must become comic relief, and that Legolas must become a pessimist. In addition, Theoden doesn't have to be a cowardly, grumpy, lousy strategist just so we can all see how Great Aragorn Is. The same goes for Frodo: Faramir doesn't have to be a cruel, cold-hearted, greedy man like his brother just so we understand Frodo's peril: we have the burning, glowing red skies to show us that, yes, he is walking toward danger, as well as the glowy red eye thing. And yes, in the book Merry and Pippin were responsible for the Ents getting started when they did, but I'm sure that Tolkien did not intend for the Ents to seem stodgy instead of careful, weak-willed instead of cautious.

Also, not all heroes need to have long overblown speeches about hope and goodness and why we have to fight the good fight. Usually the audiences understand much of that before the enter the theatre.

Also, we gathered that the Orcs were bad guys - that's why they're ugly. Need they be contrasted with cutesy-poo images of personality-bereft "innocents" with golden locks and large, doe-y, teary blue eyes?

Really, you just saved yourself twenty minutes right there.

2) Is Aragorn in love? Is he really? Because the TWO dream sequences of him kissing that elf girl left me wondering...they were a little unclear.

That was sarcasm.

3) You realize that no one - NO ONE - believed, for even a second, that Aragorn was dead. That scene wasn't in the book, and since N.O. O.N.E. believed he was dead, and since he only (from what I saw) got a bruise (since he was fighting fit to save the day a few scenes later), and since the scene only served to give us two dream sequences (TWO!) that only hammered a point in that we already knew, I am completely confused as to why you bothered.

4) Believe it or not, you can show despair, corruption, and age without special effects or magic. Age and despair are two things that many of us have had to deal with. Some fancy conjuring on Gandalf's part and then a scene from the "Exorcist" doesn't make Theoden's recovery (aside from the shave and hair colouring, I couldn't really tell a difference: mainly because it's Aragorn who's the hero, right?) any more impressive.

5) The same for Gollum: you do not need a "Shrek"-ish (or whatever CGI animation cartoon is in vogue this week) monologue to show conflict. Really, you had a good enough CGI team, as well as a voice actor, to show that Gollum/Smeagol was divided -without- having him play Schizo-boy by himself.

6) In the Real World, Sauron would have taken his Nazgul aside and said to them: "Hey, if you find that you're circling a spot, about twelve feet above the ground, over and over again - that means the Ring is there. Land and fucking -search-." Same to his human and Orc henchfolk.

7) Why did you steal the Harry Potter "Invisible cloak" effect? I know the cloaks are in the LotR book, but why do we need the "Cloak Cam?" It looks clumsy and is useless.

8) You severely under-used several supporting actors. I'm thinking Eomer, Faramir, Eowyn and Saruman, to start with. For Faramir, Eomer, and Saruman this is -their- book. You (seemed to) have good actors, why aren't you using them?

9) Exposition in the middle of the film, even if it means you get to show a map, is clumsy.

10) Why did you remove both climaxes? ie, Gandalf vs. Saruman and Shelob? Will you have time in the next movie for those conflicts, Pippin's use of the Palantir, Aragorn's walking the Paths of the Dead, The fortifying of Minas Tirith, the battle of Pelenor Fields, Merry and Eowyn vs. the King of the Nazgul, the Ride of the Rohirrim, Sam's rescue of Frodo, their trek across Mordor, Frodo and Sam at the Crack of Doom, Aragorn and Arwen's wedding, and the Scouring of the Shire, to name a few? If not, then why did you include so many useless scenes, like with Merry, Pippin, and Fangorn saying the same sort of stuff, or that pointless series where Faramir took Frodo and Sam to that city? Nothing happened in that city that we didn't already know.

11) I don't care how loud the music is, it cannot make the dialogue better.

In short, you opted to avoid subtlety and craft at nearly every point, choosing instead to hit the audience over the head with a shovel. Some people may enjoy being hit over the head with shovels, I do not.

Yes, you spent a lot of money on this movie, and I understand that perhaps my expectations may have been high, but I don't feel they were too high, and no one forced you to make a movie based on J.R.R. Tolkien's books. If you couldn't make these movies with respect to the art and skill and dedication that went into their crafting then I would have rathered that you didn't. There are far too many cynical money-grabs in your business, where in great works and concepts are shorn of their souls so as to make people lots and lots of money.

Cheers,

The Magus

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