How come nobody started a discussion about TTT? Or have I simply overlooked it?
Anyway, what did you think of the movie? I found it not as good as the first one. I mean, the actors and effects and atmosphere were excellent, but I'll never forgive them that they changed Faramir's character so much. They made him just as "weak" as Boromir, only in order to add more suspense... whereas in the book, Faramir is definitely more Aragorn-like when it comes to resisting the Ring and all that. And to all Sean Bean fans out there: The "weak" only refers to Boromir not being able to resist the power of the Ring, I didn't want to say that Boromir's character wasn't well developped or played (I personally thought that Sean Bean was simply BRILLIANT, although he didn't look the way I had imagined Boromir... after ten minutes I didn't care about that).
However, all the other things they changed can understand - although it was a little too much Hollywood for my taste, like Aragorn almost dying, and the Elves joining in the battle, and all that. And Gollum was simply brilliant! What about an Oscar for the Best Animated Charater or something?
What did you think of the movie? Do you agree with me?

I really like the Gollum.
At least non-Tolkien buffs will find TTT more interesting - the scenes at Helm's Deep was awesome
On the Whole, the movie is 11/10.

Ah! 11/10 fantasy arithmetic - good stuff.

I thought The Two Towers was so much better than its predecessor! I gave up on the books partway through the third one because they were so boring and The Fellowship of the Ring was much the same way... except they left out the cool part with Tom Bombadil, exaggerated Arwen Undómiel's role and spent a lot of time putting us to sleep with her' and Aragorn's love spats.

But TTT was brilliant! Except for all the parts with Arwen (was she even in book two?), the movie flowed really well and was far from boring!

I thought it was great, exept for the scenes with Arwen, since she didn't actually seem to do anything. By the way, does anyone know if they're ever going to make a movie out of The Hobbit?

Some *spoilers* herein, beware...

Pearl,

I agree with you on pretty much all fronts. I was a bit disappointed with the second film for a number of reasons, though in the big scheme of things I still considered it a film that was rather above-average...it's not hard to be above-average these days. I think they departed from the book unnecessarily a few too many times in the second installment, though to be fair it occurred in the first film as well...but was a more frequent phenomenon in the first sequel. I thought the Aragorn 'death' scene was utter nonsense, completely unnecessary Hollywoodized dribble...and the love scenes are a curious phenomenon as well. I wonder if they'll focus on the only true love scene in the books in the third film, that being the capture of Eowyn's heart by Faramir. Somehow, I doubt it...they really are trying to revolve the film around the Aragorn character, our kingly hero. The role of Gimli has been dimished to comic relief, while Legolas primarily is used for his cool, skateboarding tricks. Another bit of fluff...the addition of the elves in the battle of Helm's Deep and the death of Haldir...when did that happen in the book? I'm still flipping through the pages to find out! Oh yes, the attack of the orcs, who were riding those big wolf-like creatures...another scene that was not in the book.

Overall, more action and mooshy-gooshy stuff than the book, less conversation...but what can you expect? They say that all films these days are directed towards people with a 14 year old mentality, so you have to accept these things.

Again, though...I must remind folks that I didn't overly dislike the film, I still would rate it about a 6-7 out of 10...a high mark indeed from a stingy critic.

So far, I prefer Fellowship over the Two Towers but overall they've done a brilliant job of putting an epic like this on the big screen. I've started reading the books again just to get a LOTR 'fix' - I can't believe we have to wait a year for the third part.

I try to ignore the Hollywood additions/changes to the movies - no sense getting in a huff about it - it's to be expected - they can't help themselves. I just wish that integrity for the story could win just once where Hollywood is concerned.

Reading all the comments that followed mine, I feel that I didn't quite make clear that I still consider "The Two Towers" a great movie that widely conveyed the spirit of the book. It's just these Hollywood aspects that upset me - and the change they did to Faramir, who always was one of my favorite characters from the whole book. So all in all, I basically agree with thejazz and Myla59. I also tried to ignore the Hollywood changes because I just knew there had to be some in there.
I am also convinced that "The Return of the King" will be the best of all three - there is so much action and tension in it that they simply won't have to change anything The original will do.

I liked The Two Towers more than The Fellowship, because it had more scary moments. I loved the battle scene at the end.

I preferred The Two Towers.
I read the books once and I thought they were mostly accurate. I think they did about as good a job as they could of keeping it to the story. But there are too few women in it, so they had to add love scenes to keep the film balanced. That's what I think anyway.
My favourite bits were all the Gollum scenes, the scene with the Ents, and the scene with the Orcs riding wolves.

I just don't understand the appeal to these movies. I didn't like the books either.

I've now seen both of them. Yeah, there is some good acting and they are beautifully filmed, but they are long and mostly boring. I have to admit I dozed off at least three times during The Two Towers. But, the blonde elf guy is hot.