Two Towers is the strongest book but weakest film

Because the books were all one work chopped arbitrarily in three so Fellowship is pretty much all buildup with little climax whereas the films were consciously designed as individual but connected pieces. Why Fellowship is so much better than the other two is a mystery, I've always suspected the editing of the final two were rush jobs.

>Fellowship is the weakest book
Imagine being this wrong

Book rankings:

3>1>2>4>5>6

Right. LotR is internally divided into 6 books for structural reasons too.

I think Peter Jackson just got more and more up his own ass as the filming went on, relying more and more on CGI spectacle, culminating with the ridiculous army of ghosts. I cannot believe that entire catastrophe was part of the original script, that would imply they somehow gave it enough thought.

It’s the comfiest absolutely which can totally mean best based on mood. Two towers has it beat though in enough other areas.

Unpopular opinion but I thought the army of ghosts was fine. They didn't have unlimited time and budget to get another whole army and plotline of the various factions aragorn gathers, and it fills his arc out quite nicely still. The deaths of rohirrim weren't pointless because as we see in the film if they didn't arrive Gandalf would have been killed and probably alot more casualties on Minas Tirith side if not fully taken without the Rohirrim there to divide them.

Having quickly looked it up the second and third films had extensive reshoots after Fellowship came out which makes a ton of sense. They must have poured all their effort into making the first one good neglecting the final two in the process until they had to rush reshoots. That awful sequence where Aragorn and Co jump out of the ship with the ghosts must be a reshoot, only a reshoot could make something that bad in a major motion picture with talented people at the helm.

I like all three films really but the jump off in quality is undeniably stark.

*toot*

Attached: Boromirs Last Stand Imgur.jpg (1440x790, 282K)

Some user a while ago was talking about a 6 movie fan edit. Here's the post:
>There was this really kino fan edit of the Jackson movies floating around years ago that cut the movies into six parts. First part followed the journey from The Shire to Rivendel. Second movie was from Frodo waking up in Rivendell till the breaking of the Fellowship. Third movie followed Aragorn and Merry/Pippin from the battle at Amon Hen up until Pippin and Gandalf ride for Minas Tirith. Fourth movie is all Frodo and Sam from the taming of Smeagol up until Sam watching Frodo getting taken by the orcs to Cirith Ungol. Fifth movie is Amon Din being lit up until the battle of the Black Gate. Sixth movie is Sam rescuing Frodo in Cirith Ungol up until the Gray Havens. Pretty much like how each book is paced more or less.
>Cant find this gigakino fanedit anymore though. Shame.
Anyone got a link to what he was talking about?

I like this. What artist?

Biggest problem was how fucking useless the Gondor soldiers were, to the point they were losing one on one fights with the Orcs. There's a tragic romanticism to seeing fine warriors being overwhelmed by these ugly turbomanlets in spite of their skill and courage. The movie made the Gondorians utterly pathetic.

would the films have worked with the scourging chapter?

Matthew Stewart
matthew-stewart.com/middle-earth
I can see that, especially in Osgiliath the dudes were supposed to be seasoned they retook it with Boromir. Gondor has been in constant war for a while

No, audiences already felt the ending/s were tool long and that was the theatrical.

because they rewrote RotK so that Aragorn and the rest had something to do, amplifying the efforts of Frodo & Sam

wait im retarded i just assumed you said RotK the best because it is

Thanks, I'll check him out now.

The whole siege and Pelennor battle is something that can definitely be upstated in a prospective remake. The fields actually being green farmlands rather than a wasteland, no ridiculous Denethor, Gordorians being Chads, the Witch King looking like the Witch King and having his proper face off with Gandalf, etc. Show the Easterlings being brave and having their last stand too.

Fellowship is so great mainly because of the creepy scenes when they are moving from the Shire to Bree. The entire sequence as the movie slowly goes from them joyfully traveling through the Shire to being terrorized by Black Riders is amazing. The beauty of New Zealand is really captured in these shots and is what I always remember from the movie. Even after that it was pretty great with things like Aragon's heroism at various parts of the movie (I was awestruck watching the Amon Hen scene as a child) and the sheer epicness of the Moria scenes (the Moria soundtrack is great chills material).

Then you move to the second and third movie and you transition from scenes of amazing beauty and emotion to more filler diplomacy and warfare. It's almost like Tolkien decided to stop creating the world and started doing Game of Thrones-esque politics. Gondor and Rohan obviously have cool soldiers and musical themes, the Faramir scenes throughout both movies are extraordinarily poignant, the entire Frodo - Sam arc after Morgul is amazingly dark, and I guess if I have to conclude this sentence with a 3rd point then I could bring up the song Into the West

youtube.com/watch?v=UoVaK2NXmJA

The End Credits song from ROTK, which won Best Original Song in 2004, and I've recently rediscovered, which is just an amazing piece of music in its own right.

>Two Towers is the weakes film
Lol

Too much of the second and third films took place in a brown tundra. If Rohan and Godor where green lands with farms and pastures, it would have helped massively. That's why Fellowship feels more comfy; a lack of brown sterile tundra.

Also, Sauron had far more of a presence in the first film, what with us hearing his deep speaking voice a lot more often. They never had a 'Build me an army worthy of Mordor' moment in Towers or Return.

They needed more character in the second or third movies. I'm not a books purist so I don't know how much of it is the fault of Tolkien, but things like Gandalf's charge, the Ents' charge, the Rohirriims' charge, the Army of the Dead's charge are just awful. The way Aragorn turns into an invulnerable badass by the end of the movie even though he's just a guy with a big sword doesn't age well. None of those fight scenes had any real suspense to them. That's why people liked GoT so much, because a lot of characters actually died instead of being miraculously saved at the last second by an epic cavalry charge.

The ghosts didn't even kill anyone at all in the books, just made them flee and gave Aragorn the advantage. Jackson has the nerve to complain about the scene afterwards, but he 'did it for the fans'.

>The ghosts didn't even kill anyone at all in the books, just made them flee and gave Aragorn the advantage
I know that has nothing to do with what I said though

Any remake can only be worse. For all the faults of the original movies, overall they are fantastic

In no way can I see modern Hollywood ever coming close to recreating it. Even forgetting all the gender politics and race swapping crap that will inevritsbky happen, just the current reliance on CGI and green screens makes me believe the trilogy were the last films of their kind

I suppose the Amazon series will give us a better idea of what to expect

Remember the fight in Moria? Orcs getting heads lopped off, Boromir getting floored. Gimli and the hobbits thrown about. Even there Aragorn is immune to damage. Even the 'surrounded by goblins' scene, in the book the trolls threw down stones to let the orc army cross the fire from one side, but the balrog came down and took charge. The Fellowship wasn't surrounded completely by 6 million orcs-it looks stupid.

And you're right. Why was the Helm's Deep charge down such a steep hill? If they just followed the books exactly (maybe leaving out the songs) it would be a million times better.

It does. Because you say it's fine as a pragmatic option due to costs and time, but I think the pragmatic option was to get every uniform from the first two films not used in the third to make an army (random stuff, cloaks, helmets etc.) and make out they are the reinforcements. Just get the Gondor soldiers to wear different stuff, no one would know. Better than the bloody green wave.

>instead of being miraculously saved at the last second by an epic cavalry charge.
You mean like in real life when Polish-German cavalry led by the Polish king routed the several times larger Ottoman army already breaching the walls of Vienna in 1683?