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| Elijah
Wood, Sean Astin, Ian McKellan, Viggo Mortensen, Sean
Bean, Cate Blanchett, Orlando Bloom, John Rhys-Davies,
Bernard Hill, Miranda Otto, Brad Dourif, Liv Tyler, Christopher Lee,
Billy Boyd, Dominic Monaghan |
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Anamorphic
widescreen |
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Dolby Digital
5.1 EX |
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DTS 6.1 ES |
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Trailer(s) |
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Featurette(s) |
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Documentary |
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Audio commentary
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Deleted scenes
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Concept art
/ storyboards |
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Multi-angle
feature |
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Gollum (Andy Serkis): We swears
to serve the master of the precious. We swears on...on... on the
precious!
Frodo and Sam are guided by Gollum
to Mordor in their mission to destroy the One Ring, while their
former
companions
make new allies and launch an assault on Isengard.
 Peter
Jackson, the obscure splatter-movie director from New Zealand who
became a household name with The Fellowship of the Ring, continued
his triumphant adaptation of Tolkien's sprawling fantasy novel
with The Two Towers, which opened to even better reviews
and box office success than the phenomenally successful first installment.
The second part's tremendous success is not only indicative of
the extent to which the first episode captured a global audience's
imagination, but is all the more remarkable considering the challenges
and obstacles involved with this particular production.
Of the three volumes that make up Tolkien's notoriously unfilmable
book, the middle part is clearly the most problematic when considered
for cinematic adaptation. For where The Fellowship of the Ring was
adapted successfully with some well-chosen elisions that managed
to condense its dense, incident-packed narrative into a straightforward
movie adventure, The Two Towers follows three separate
sets of characters in narrative lines that consist mostly of dialogue
and background tales, interrupted by a single brief action sequence
(followed in the first book of the second volume by several more
chapters of gripping but unclimactic dialogue and exposition).
 Jackson
and his team of screenwriters were therefore forced to take stronger
measures in adapting the second part, successfully interweaving
the more character-driven scenes of Frodo, Sam and Gollum with
a fast-paced variety of incidents and encounters in the other storylines,
which culminate in the overwhelmingly spectacular siege of Helm's
Deep, which dominates the last hour of the film, followed by the
ents' trashing of Isengard, which is perhaps even more impressive
in its economy of images. As in The Fellowship, most changes
to the book in the name of cinematic effectivity work very well:
the addition of the Osgiliath sequence provides a dramatic final
note for the Sam/Frodo storyline in the understandable absence
of the Shelob cliffhanger from the book, and the intercutting between
the stories also works out better than expected, in spite of the
fact that Tolkien had explicitly rejected the very notion. But
in some cases, they again overdo it: Pippin's final role in getting
the reluctant ents to join the war is laughably unconvincing, and
was clearly invented for no other reason than to give the two Hobbits
a slightly more active role in Fangorn forest, where the book's
very idea was that their presence alone was ultimately enough to
change the course of history.
New scenes between them and Treebeard are among the many terrific
additions to this extended cut, which alleviates many of the theatrical
version's problems similarly to the longer version of the previous
film. With 43 additional minutes of footage, there is more time
to set up the film's recurring themes and motifs, and provide the
awkwardly paced theatrical cut with a far more natural tempo. Faramir's
character is best served by enhancements that provide somewhat
obvious but surprisingly effective motivation for his character,
which has been criticized for departing from that in the book.
Many of the added and extended scenes bring a lighter touch into
the film's grim proceedings, thereby making it less fatiguing and
thereby - paradoxically - a breezier film to watch. |
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Identical two-disc Special Editions
were released for Region 1 and Region 2 in the summer of
2003 with the
theatrical cut of the film on the first disc and promotional featurettes,
trailers and other extras on disc 2. A four-disc set with
a much longer cut of the film spread across the first two
discs and a wealth of other extras
on discs three and four
streets internationally on November 18, 2003. The four-disc release
served as a basis for this review.
The first DVD release of
this film already featured a stunning transfer that was
close to reference level.
This new version, if anything, is even better, with more
detail and less grain than the occasional minor instances
that popped up on the two-disc DVD, and further
enriching
the
color pallette
with
bold,
vibrant
colors. As in the previous extended edition, the new footage
is wholly indistinguishable from the shots that were
already part of the film.
The Dolby
Digital 5.1 EX sound mix is also at least as good as that on
the initial release, delivering a hugely
powerful enveloping soundstage that puts the rear channels to frequent,
creative use and makes the subwoofer work overtime. Howard Shore's
powerful
score is very strongly presented, and the award-winning sound design
is nothing short of reference level in this superb 5.1 mix. The extended
cut
also includes a 2.0 Surround mix that does the job for those with an
antiquated ProLogic setup, but the true stunner on this release is
the new DTS 6.1 ES track,
which reaches the same level of last year's standard-setting
extended edition of
The Fellowship of the Ring. High-end audiophiles with seven-channel
audio systems will reap the
full benefits
of this incredible 6.1 track, but even without the extra speaker,
the sense of immersion is
so complete, one truly enters the world of the film.
With the collection of promotional fluff again
done away with on the two-disc release of the theatrical cut,
this four-disc collection is geared exclusively toward the true
fan, with hour upon hour of amazing material, all produced exclusively
for this release. Both in packaging and in content, the Two
Towers four-disc set follows the Fellowship box
set very precisely, down to the structure, order and style of
the extras and the design of the menu screens. This makes for
a lesser degree of a sense of discovery, but it will ultimately
lead to a pleasingly consistent, highly authoritative trilogy
of box sets. The extras in any case reach the same level as the
previous four-disc release, and if there's any sense of disappointment,
this is only due to a degree of familiarity and not to any flaw
in this new set.
As with the previous set, the film is accompanied by four
audio commentary tracks
following the roughly the same large groups of participants.
The first track, with writer/director Peter Jackson together
with his two screenwriters Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens,
is again the best mix of entertainment and information, and the
most interesting to those with an interest in the adaptation
process and the editing choices that were made. The second track
features the design team, including production designer Grant
Major, conceptual
designers
Alan Lee and John Howe, and Weta Workshop supervisor Richard
Taylor (whose nasal Kiwi drawl remains as irritating as ever).
This track focuses on the practical aspects of the effects work.
The third track brings together the same members of the production
team that appeared last time, and it's again the most technically
detailed track of the four. The fourth and final commentary presents
sixteen main cast members, with most of last year's participants
returning (excepting Ian McKellen), joined by new
additions to the cast like Miranda Otto, Berard Hill, Brad Dourif
and Andy Serkis. It's a chatty affair, with the actors recorded
in a number of separate groups and edited together, and it's
full of the lightweight anecdotes one would expect from such
a track.
 Moving
on to the 'Appendices' contained on disc 3 and 4, the material
here again follows the previous film's appendices to a tee, all
the way down to most segments' titles and the chummy introductions
on both discs from Peter Jackson and Elijah Wood. The first disc, Appendix
I: From Book to Vision,
yields three hours of documentary material through its 'Play
All' function, in the following order:
- J.R.R. Tolkien: Origins of Middle Earth (29 mins)
- From Book to Script: Finding the Story (21 mins)
- Designing Middle-Earth (46 mins)
- Weta Workshop documentary (43 mins)
- The Taming of Smeagol (40 mins)
 Most
of this continues on the path started on the previous set, with
some deeper digging into Tolkien's background in the 'Origins
of Middle Earth' item, and the screenwriters defending some controversial
choices in adapting the book in the 'Finding the Story' documentary.
The highlight however is the Gollum documentary, which charts
the difficult development process of this astounding composite
performance, and reveals just how much of actor Andy Serkis actually
survives in the final animation. The remainder of the extras
must be discovered manually, and include hugely expansive design
galleries (as well as a separate one on Gollum alone), and a
playful peek at executive producer Rick Porras' embarrassing
attempt to stand in for Gollum during some pick-ups. A continuation
of the 'Interactive Middle-Earth Atlas' and the 'New Zealand
as Middle-Earth' map rounds out the contents of disc three.
The
final disc, Appendix II - From Vision to
Reality, leads us through the sprawling production, which
took on even more mammoth proportions than the previous film.
As the documentaries show, the production team was forced to
rely on internet and satellite connections to keep track of each
other around the world as various units worked simultaneously
to complete the film on time, and Jackson still overseeing it
all. The three-and-a-half-hour collection of documentaries here
unspools from the 'Play All' function as follows:
- Warriors of the Third Age (21 mins)
- Cameras in Middle-Earth (68 mins)
- 'Big-atures' (22 mins)
- WETA Digital (28 mins)
- Editorial: Refining the Story (22 mins)
- Music for Middle-Earth (25 mins)
- The Soundscapes of Middle-Earth (21 mins)
- The Battle for Helm's Deep is Over... (9 mins)
 These eextensive documentaries demand increased respect for
the mind-boggling amount of dedicated work that went into the
production on every level, but the most fun to watch is the 68-minute
'Cameras in Middle-Earth' documentary, that reveals more of the
relationships, jokes and accidents among the cast members and
stunt crew. The featurettes dealing with the sound design and
the music score are beautifully
presented with Dolby Digital 5.1 audio, including isolated effects
and music cues. Watching all of this at once is again hardly
recommended, but by the end of it all, one's sense of fatigue
is due in large part to the empathy one feels for the cast and
crew. Besides the above documentary material, there are a few
galleries and
demonstrations to be found in the other menu screens:
- production photo gallery
- The Flooding of Isengard animatic
- miniature galleries
- abandoned concepts
- sound demo: Helm's Deep
The galleries again include relevant comments from participants.
Once again, the four-disc edition of this Lord of the Rings film
is hard to beat on every level. Now that we're familiar with
the quality and format of the supplements, this second set is
a little less overwhelming simply due to the sense of familiarity
that now exists. But it remains nothing short of a comprehensive
examination of an historic production, that already makes one
regret that there's only one more of these editions left to look
forward to.
 The
subtly animated menu screens for all four discs are basically
the same as thos on the Fellowship of the Ring extended
edition DVD, designed like the index pages of a book with
swift fades to the
following
screens.
A nice touch is the initial menu screen for disc 2, containing
the
second half of the feature: rather than the expected introductory
animation screen, simple white text on a black background offers
the options
either to continue watching the film or to continue listening to
a commentary track. Only after starting the film will the Menu
key bring forth a full
menu screen with all the usual options. An excellent choice that
helps the viewer to view the entire feature with only minimal
interruption.
Dan
Hassler-Forest
Reviewed: November
22,
2003
Click
here for IMDB info on The
Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.
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