PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, psychological, sociological*
With TWO TOWERS, Peter Jackson and company have a slight but measurable falling-off from the successful adaptation of FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING. On a commentary for the extended version of TOWERS, Jackson and his writers confessed a certain difficulty with the middle section of RINGS, and said difficulty is reflected in an unnecessary straying from the structure of the trilogy's second part.
I commented in my review of the TOWERS novel that one of Tolkien's master strokes was to sunder the Fellowship at the end of Part One, and then, throughout Part Two, to show the three separated groups each making new allies who all proved indispensable to the war-effort-- respectively the Riders of Rohan, the Ents, and Gollum. Technically these alliances still take place, but the pacing is somewhat off in contrast to that of the books.
In the book, Merry and Pippin are taken by two separate bands of Orcs, respectively sent by Saruman and by Sauron. Riders from the country of Rohan attack the Orcs and the Hobbits escape. Legolas, Gimli and Aragorn track the Hobbits all the way to the Forest of Fangorn, in which the Hobbits have taken refuge, but the trio of warriors are forestalled from going farther by the appearance of the reborn Gandalf, now Gandalf the White. All of this action takes place in the book, but the book is better organized. When Gandalf redirects the threesome to the business of seeking out the king of Rohan to make him an ally, it has a more logical presentation, while in the movie, the mission to Rohan seems to come out of left field. '
Meanwhile, Merry and Pippin accomplish their task: they find and befriend Treebeard. However, their accomplishment is somewhat muted by the fact that Gandalf has already encountered Treebeard in Fangorn and communicated to the Ent some of the doings of Saruman-- all of which diffuses the role of the Hobbits. I suspect the writers only injected this unnecessary scene so that they could throw a shock into the viewing audience when Treebeard says he's going to take the Hobbits to "the White Wizard," and they're afraid of being surrendered to Saruman's tender mercies. This scene cuts away just as Merry and Pippin see a figure in white, but viewers never see the Hobbits' response to the reborn Gandalf, because the movie doesn't want him to be fully seen on-camera until he meets the three warriors.
The experiences of Merry and Pippin among the Ents are extremely abbreviated, possibly for budgetary reasons, since the animation of the Ent attack on Isengard had to be one of the film's most expensive sequences. Jackson and company just barely get across Tolkien's feelings about the destruction of nature by human industry. In contrast, the script does leave in a very pointless comic bit where the two Hobbits drink Ent-water and talk about getting taller from it, as well as a scene where they get temporarily caught by a man-eating tree more or less swiped from the "Tom Bombadil" section of FELLOWSHIP.
As for the journey to Rohan, Gandalf's crew accomplishes roughly the same purpose of freeing King Theoden from the influence of Saruman's pawn Wormtongue, and of mounting Rohan's defense against an invasion by Orcs at Helm's Deep. The inclusion of a subplot involving refugees from the villages seems at best a ploy to make the defenders more sympathetic, but I found it a waste of time. Similarly, the screenwriters spend a lot of time with scenes in which Theoden's niece Eowyn develops feelings for Aragorn, but since Aragorn can't seriously be tempted away from his love for Arwen, I found these scenes pointless-- except insofar as they help motivate Eowyn to masquerade as a man and join Rohan's soldiers for her big moment in RETURN OF THE KING.
However, for the most part the journey of Frodo, Sam and Gollum works out well, and the divided mind of Gollum/Smeagol is put on full display. They encounter Faramir of Gondor, brother to the slain Boromir, and thus the heroic halflings must wonder if history will repeat itself in Faramir's coveting the Ring. Jackson and company tease the viewers with this possibility more than Tolkien did, but I felt that was a legitimate take on the character, even if it made Faramir a little less noble. The writers also expand upon the idea that Denethor, steward of Gondor, showed a disproportionate affection to the older brother Boromir, while acting as if Faramir could do nothing right. This too is in Tolkien, so a slightly different take on the matter didn't bother me. The one big change to the Frodo section is that Jackson et al decided to move the Hobbits' big fight with the giant spider into the last film of the trilogy.
The DVD commentary goes into considerable detail about an alternate character arc for Arwen. The filmmakers were concerned that the book kept Aragorn and Arwen separate for most of the story, and that this long-distance romance might not prove pleasing to moviegoers. For a time Jackson and company had actress Liv Tyler train with swords so that her character Arwen could join Aragorn at Helm's Deep. Apparently this plot-idea was leaked to the public and many Tolkien-purists objected to Arwen becoming "Xena Warrior Princess." I would have had no intrinsic objection to such a development, just as I liked seeing her have a more active role in FELLOWSHIP. However, the filmmakers had so many balls in the air that it's just as well they rewrote things so that Arwen stayed back in Rivendell.
Lastly, I should note that, even if Tolkien was rather ambivalent about which "two towers" were referenced in his subtitle, Jackson is wholly unambivalent: his two towers are without question those of Saruman and Sauron. Symbolically both are doomed to fall by the conclusion of both trilogies, though the times of magic and mystery are similarly destined to expire as the Age of Men comes into being.
Oh, yes, and as I mentioned in the FELLOWSHIP post, the big battle scenes are totally killer.
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