 Mmm, my precious. Ooh, that's a hot mug, guys. Hey guys, this is my review for Lord of the Rings, the Two Towers, after having a fun time reviewing the Fellowship of the Ring and then continuing on with our day and a half marathon of the series. Obviously, now I'm gonna review the Two Towers. A little bit of interesting trivia about this, though. I saw this movie in an IMAX theater, even though it wasn't displayed in IMAX. It's one of the weird memories I can remember from 2002. I went and saw it for the second time with my dad and they were showing it in so many theaters and since IMAX hadn't really become anything more than just showing off really cool documentaries at the time, they were trying to show it in as many theaters as possible, obviously, for that money. So I saw it in the IMAX theater and it was bizarre because imagine watching a movie in the IMAX theater and you're seeing it only by this much of the scale. You're seeing almost less than half of the screen being utilized. So that was kind of a bizarre sort of treat. The Two Towers is when the films obviously get a lot more serious. There's a lot more stakes, there's a lot more on the line. We really see the tribulations that Frodo and Sam are going through. We see Erdogan, Legolas, and Gimli trying to go after Marion Pippin but also getting themselves embedded in a war for an entire country of Rohan. We see Gandalf becoming a bigger player in things. We see him taking on a much more richer destiny and we see that war is in fact coming and that the denial of the world of men is no longer an option. They need to fight or they will die. So yeah, it's a bit more serious. Something I didn't mention in my review of The Fellowship of the Ring, these are in fact the extended versions of the movie. I have seen the original versions plenty of times but admittedly it's been years, almost a decade if I'm correct. I almost wanna go back and re-watch these movies in their original form just to see the differences because in my opinion of the three, the second one is the best one in terms of the extended footage. Every single scene that was added or extended is vital. And I actually mean that, vital. Sure, I understand why some of these scenes are cut out but their addition to the story builds that richness. It helps with the world-building so much in terms of the life of Rohan, Saruman's plans, the war overall, more interactions with Gandalf. There's more information about Faramir. We get introduced to Denethor earlier. We also see the relationship between him and Boromir and builds up to this hate that Denethor has of Faramir. There's a lot of stuff that's really, really necessary. It's also the beginning of Carl Urban, otherwise Aermir, getting cut out of the movie because his first real scene in the movie is cut and that's when he finds Theodon's son. It's a really big scene in terms of its scale. There's hundreds of extras all over this riverbed dead. There's all of these arrows, armor. There's a lot of money in this entire scene and they cut it. This scene's importance is pretty big because it shows off that Rohan isn't winning and on top of that, not only is the king completely being corrupted by Wormtong, otherwise played by Brad Dorff who just loves to play a weirdo. Honestly, if you go through his filmography, I'm very, very interested that you found anything of him not doing something weird because he just loves to do that. We see how hopeless Rohan is. We see how broken the country is. In comparison between Rohan and Gondor, I've always had more of an interest in Rohan because they live much more simpler lives. They also have kind of a more of a rule age but they're human, they take care of themselves whereas Gondor always seemed to be up on a pill box and they're always like boasting about themselves. The storytelling with Rohan is much more interesting I find than Gondor as well because we see this way of life, these people who tend to themselves, who live for themselves, we see that they are still strong but they're also terrified. Whereas Gondor is just kind of, hey, we're rich, we live in this big ass white tower. I liked Rohan more because it had much more of a human element and we are also introduced to Aowyn. Aowyn, Aowyn, Aowyn, Aowyn. Admittedly this is a bit of a thing that I've always had an issue with. Miranda Otto is a fantastic character in this film and obviously in Return of the King and just taking a slight sideline here. Her character is portrayed more as a feminist if you want to say that than most of the films that have been done recently in the last five years. Terminator Dark Fate is one that really comes to mind. That thing just makes you groan. It's trying to shove itself down your throat so much because it's pushing a message rather than a character. Aowyn is a character. She is a strong female character and she has one of the best parts in the entire trilogy in my opinion. So her introduction into this film, while she's kind of sideline, she doesn't get to fight in the Battle of Helms Deep, she does portray herself as a strong character because she's afraid of being put in a cage. She's afraid of withering and dying and seeing her country die before her eyes. Also Theoden is actually really well portrayed in this film. Bernard Hild is a great job at showing off a character who is, he goes through a lot. He goes from being possessed by Saruman to realizing what he's done to mourning the death of his son to have to making a life or death decision for his entire people to doing a pretty good job as a commander in a battle that he really didn't have much chance of winning and wanting to go out like a homie when he thought everything was done. Theoden went from being one of the boring kings in the novels slash other interpretations of the film to being one of the most interesting characters of rule in my opinion in these films. He's done a fantastic job by Bernard Hild. He has humility. He has weakness. He has parts to him that just don't make him clean cut. He is a fractured character and it's really well portrayed in this film. And some of those scenes are great because he's playing off of Ian McKellen who while saves his life also is kind of at odds with him when he decides to go to Helm's Deep because whereas Gandalf thinks that it's better to go off and charge at them Theoden actually makes a smarter move. In reality, he's actually stuck. He has no choice but to go to Helm's Deep because Saruman prepared the Urkai army purely for Rohan. Speaking of Gandalf by the way actually that opening scene with him in the Balrog is bad ass. It is one of the coolest goddamn scenes in the entire trilogy and it still stands up. Speaking of special effects standing up this movie has some fantastic effects. There's only one really kind of bad one that I can think of and that's when they're fighting the rogues. Legolas jumps off of this hill in the background and he comes up and shoots one. He's so badly super imposed in the background that there's a reason why they don't focus on him. They focus on the Rohan writer and the rogue fighting in front of them because if they tried to make this any better it would look like shit. It's honestly a really shit shot. But that's the only shit shot I would say of this film because every action sequence in this movie is a great action sequence. There isn't even that many in terms of what we're used to. We see small skirmishes up until the war battle which is a great mix of humor and action and dread and surprise. It also leads into a little bit more character building with Aragorn when he goes off the cliff. He is developing a relationship with Eowyn but he's trying to be like, yo, I'm already taken. Which, by the way, that's actually another scene that was cut from the original film is talking about how old Aragorn is. When you find out that he's 87 because he's part of the Duda name. Is this entirely vital information? No, it's not really but it builds more onto his character. It shows why he's such a good warrior. It shows why they had in respects his opinion so much. Even though he kind of gives them a bit of a shade at that one point when he is deciding what to do about Helm's Deep. Which, going again, back to Helm's Deep. This is the best battle sequence in all three movies. I love the Charge of the Roheum at the Battle of Pelinor Fields but overall as an actual giant battle sequence Helm's Deep kills it. It is such a goddamn good battle scene. We see what's at stake. We see the battle and it's complete clarity. Even though it's shot in the night you can actually see what's going on. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. Sure, the Elves of Riving is not in the book but it adds a little bit more whoo to it. We see that even with the support of the Elves they're still getting their asses kicked. When the wall explodes, that's such an amazing scene. It's a great deviation from the source material because really it's, Saruman just sends a ball when it goes and blows up the wall. It's a little weird. This also leads me to talking about one of my favorite video games of all time. The Two Towers Lord of the Ring game that was made by EA. You fight up on top of the wall. You fight in the breach and then you fight in the Hornburg. Three great, great levels. Really, really good. If you've never played the game I was just trying to find it. Sure, mind of age a little bit but at the time I loved it and I still love these levels. The battle took three months to shoot and you see that they put so much work into it. Not only with the costumes, the battle sequences, the fight choreography, but also how they shot Helms deep. There's a lot of good trickery between models and actual sets. There's a times where I honestly can't tell which is which and that's how well they hit it. You learn a lot about this actually in the commentary. This was the first movie of the three that I actually watched the commentaries for, particularly starting with the cast commentary which is actually very, very, very funny. You really should listen to it. It's super funny. And while this battle is going on we see the battle going on for Frodo and his kind of relationship with Smeagol who obviously got to talk about this. This was obviously such an amazing standout piece of visual technology and film technology. The amount of work that they had to do both anti-circus and the animation department to make this work, they shot it three times over each scene if I'm correct. They shot it without him there. They shot it with him there and then they shot it again in the studio with him mimicking the movement so they could put Smeagol into the movie. The Smeagol Gollum character is one of the best characters that Tolkien ever wrote because he is a fractured character to the core. He is a corrupted character to the core. We see him as a representation of man at its weakest at its most addiction craved at his most corrupted essentially. And it leads into some really great conversation slash memes. There's a lot of really good memes about Gollum. The one thing that I've never understood though is that there was a lot of girls in high school and grade school who were all like, oh Gollum's cute, ooh, I'd like to keep her for myself. Whereas I'm off to the side thinking, he's a heroin addict. If you think he's so cute, why don't you go down East Hastings and pick one up and take him home with you? I've never understood it. I never understood why people thought he was cute and they wanted to keep him because this mofo shady. Overall though, the two towers is definitely a fantastic movie through and through. In terms of what people have said about the trilogy, I will say that it is probably the best put together of all three. It has the greatest use of all of its time, both the normal and the extended version. It has the best battle sequence of the entire trilogy and it has some great character moments. It has some great moments that really bring up the stakes, really builds the fantasy war element and just is a general overall really, really fantastic movie. I still prefer the Fellowship of the Ring over this movie because it's the stepping stone. It's the first one in the trilogy and it's really the best one to set up with. However, I will say that the two towers is the better movie. So in the end, I'm gonna give the two towers a seven out of seven. It's a fantastic movie. It's great. It's fantastic. But obviously we got one more left. Obviously that review will be in a little bit but it's gonna take some time because I'm looking at the timer right now and I can see that this is already gonna make me wanna claw my eyes out in terms of editing. But either way guys, I hope you enjoyed this review. If you did leave a like and if you're interested in more subscribe, please check out my Titan AE Forgotten Marvel essay that I did recently. I really would appreciate if you guys check that out and give me any comments about what you liked about it and what you would like me to do next. Otherwise that's all from me guys. Hope you enjoy your day. Stay safe out there and I'll see you next time. Thanks for watching the video. My name is Knitz and you might remember me from the animated cult classic TV show Undergrads. It's been a while but I'm happy to say the click is finally getting back together in an all new movie thanks to a successful Kickstarter campaign. But we are still asking for your support. To see any and all updates about the upcoming Undergrads movie, be sure to check out and like the Bring Back Undergrads Facebook page. And with any luck, we'll see you guys soon.