April 1, 2003

Be Happy With What You Have
Andrew

I've read countless articles and reviews of The Two Towers that have complained about the changes made from the book. What I have to say is, why can't you just be happy with what WASN'T changed?

As far as I'm concerned, Two Towers is more than faithful enough. Take a look at some other adaptations, such as Jurassic Park, that pretty much just keep the main theme, but come up with tons of other different things and invented scenes. Maybe you should be glad that Peter Jackson didn't do that.

There are thousands of things that are in Two Towers that are taken DIRECTLY from the book. The meeting with Smeagol, the Riders of Rohan scene, the Of Herbs And Stewed Rabbit scene, the forbidden pool, Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli having to leave thier weapons at the doors of Meduseld, and the meeting with Gandalf the White in Fangorn was probably one of the most faithful things in the movie!

As for the new stuff, such as the change in Faramir, the Warg scene, the stuff with Arwen, the Elves at Helm's Deep, and the little change with the Ents being led by Merry and Pippin, are not all that much! Can't you just accept them?

And if Peter Jackson hadn't done most of these things, then the movie would not have worked so well on screen. Things like the 'exorcism' of Theoden, as you guys have named it, are put in to make it more interesting to WATCH. Sure, just throwing Grima out of the city works in the book, but it makes it more of a cinematic experience to actually see how Theoden was controlled, and twisted by the power of Isengard.

So try to see the reason behind the changes, and be glad that Peter Jackson kept all that other stuff from the book in it, and didn't just use the main story as a guide and make all his own main events and even charactors like some adaptations have done in the past...

Be glad with what has been given to you.