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I never took that Pippin shrank to his original size, but rather that Merry grew enough to remain taller than him from the Ent Draft he stole from Pippin.
That was always my take as well. When Merry says they're "back to normal" at Isengard he's not saying they're back to the heights they were when they left The Shire, rather that they're back to Merry being slightly taller than Pippin.
For me, it's when the witch king beats Gandalf and yet in both the book and first movie he manages to hold off all 7 at once on weathertop while his power is handicapped.
yeah - first time reading the book I was waiting and waiting for Galdalf to get slapped by the witch king... And now, watching the movies, that scene feels so against the grain. I actually love the scene with them drinking the Ent drafts, and while I think the movie could have skipped banishing Sam... I do kind of like it and feel like it makes sense in-world, even if Tolkein went a different direction. But Gandalf's moment isn't a character difference... it's a complete flip of a power balance with a leveled-up maiar.
Low key I roll my eyes whenever I see his undoing. Apparently if you're a woman you can hack off a Fell Beast's head like that poor water Buffalo in Apocalypse Now (RIP). Apparently the mighty Witch King can be downed in a minute if you throw enough estrogen at him 🙄 BRB just loading a tampon cannon to take down the Nazgul, shouldn't take more than 30 seconds
@@wolpertinger. Estrogen has nothing to do with it, really. What screwed him over and made him killable in the first place was Merry's enchanted Númenorean blade breaking his magical protection. After that, any random dude could have rammed a blade where is head was and done him in - it's just that there was no dude around to do it, while Éowyn was. The 'prophecy' wasn't that the Witch-king *couldn't* be killed by a man, but simply that he *wouldn't* be. He, and many readers like yourself, simply took it the wrong way and ran with the misconception.
Yeah, for me it's Frodo casting out Sam. They get seperated because Gollum attacks Sam in the middle of Shelob's lair, NOT because Frodo and Sam fight. That PISSES me off. Their friendship/partnership is way too strong for Gollum to mess with it.
I agree. Having them separated by the combined attacks of Golum and Shelob makes much more sense and makes the encounters much more dramatic and gives opportunities for much more spectacular action sequences. I could never understand why Jackson and his team chose to have them separated in that way, as it only made the story worse, even for the movie medium.
I always thought that Frodo's threats to Gollum were not actually from him at all, but a rare moment of the ring itself sort of using Frodo as its talking-piece. The ring itself abandoned Gollum because he was "too good" at keeping it concealed for himself. It WANTS Frodo to take it into Mordor, or get caught along the way, & Gollum taking it back underground would undo all of the progress it's made trying to be discovered. So this is an example of the "evil" of the ring spelling out its own doom- it is warning him, "you take me from this hobbit, & I will send you straight to hell", not knowing that this curse it lays upon him will result in Smeagol taking the ring down with him.
This is a load of bull. The "stealth" scene with Sam & Frodo is meant to showcase the elven cloaks the hobbits were gifted by Galadriel that render the wearer invisible to unfriendly eyes. It is 100% lore accurate. And the Merry & Pippin scene was an homage to the Tom Bombadil storyline that was cut from the story due to pacing and narrative concision. Just say, "I have no idea what I'm talking about," at the start of your video next time.
Legolas surfing on the shield while shooting orc is just too silly. I almost want to make my own edit of the extended editions of the movie just to remove that scene.
There's another incredible take a while before Aragorn fall into the chasm in The Two Towers, where Legolas ride a horse by a fancy jumping on the run, that left me out of words back then in cinema when I saw it for the first time.
"Scouring of the Shire" aside, I think they missed a real opportunity when they changed the meeting of the resurrected Gandalf at the edge of Fangorn Forest. In the book, Legolas has an arrow nocked and ready to loose because they were not sure who they were meeting. Legolas was the first (I think) to recognize Gandalf the White and he fires the arrow straight up into the air, shouting "Mithrandir", and Gandalf sets the arrow on fire as it flies up. That would've been so cool, and it would only take like 5 seconds of screen time.
One thing Gibi seemed to miss which is an important change between the books and the movies is while it's true that Sam never fell and got buried in rocks in the books, their movements DID still attract some unwanted attention from the Haradrim, as some of the soldiers did see rocks sliding down the steep slope from Sam, Golum and Frodo's movements farther up the slope and did to to investigate, and the hobbits did use their lothlorien cloaks for camouflage to help them avoid being spotted. I think Jackson was trying to capture that event in his Sam fell scene, but just want too far into the spectacle that he broke imersion there, which it did have that affect for me too, as I could never figure out how the Haradrim soldiers couldn't see Sam and Frodo as they were going down the slope nor when Frodo was trying to help Sam up before using his cloak to conceal them. Nor did the extent of Sam's burial make any sense. I think that was a scene where the producers got too caught up in making spectacle that the forgot the storytelling they'd been doing elsewhere in the movies.
I saw the movies before I read the books, I was about 12 or 13 when the Two Towers came out. The scene where Sam falls and Frodo covers him with the elven cloth, always threw me off, even as a kid. In the movies you don't know the elven cloth can act as camouflage, but even still... that and the idea they planned on running through the front door of Mordor was unbelievable.
Maybe you are just speaking hastily, but in the movie, Pippin doesn’t shrink, Merry just also has enough Ent draft to balance things back to their respective heights. Though I don’t remember their heights being noted as different in the books.
I do remember them being noted as taller in the books, though I also remember them getting the ent draft not from Treebeard, but from another ent who's not included in the movies, Quickbeam, while they're staying at Quickbeam's house while the rest of the ents take their entish time making a decision. You see, Quickbeam's rather hasty by ent standards and has already made up his mind to go to war with Isengard. The other, more deliberate ents needed a few more days to finally reach that decision.
I think at the end or in the appendix it’s said that merry is the tallest hobbit recorded and pip is a close second. But I can’t remember where it was said.
Treabeard doesn't know how the entwives look like, not because he doesn't remember, but because ents - as he explains at another point - tend to be changed by the world that surrounds them. Therefore, after the centuries of separation, the entwives might look quite different from when Treabeard last saw them.
@@lida7529 Or he simply forgets how they look like because it have been three millenias since he last saw them and unlike men, elves, dwarves and hobbits, the ents and entwives don't draw portraits of each other to remember them with so they rely on their memories, which can disappear after a very long time.
Personally, the part I disliked the most was adding in that "movie style" misunderstanding scene where Gollum frames Sam for eating all the hard elf bread.
I loved Sam's recitation of the Oliphant poem, it would have been nice if they could have included it somewhere - perhaps during an extended rabbit stew scene?
We all love Ol' Tree Beardil 😂 honestly though merging Tom and Tree Beard is probably one of the best changes in my opinion just because it acknowledges Tom's presence in the source material, also speaking of Tom for those who don't know he appears in other media set in Jackson's version of Middle-Earth (pre the Hobbit) and I'm not on about the LEGO games lol, no Tom's in LotR: Battle for Middle-Earth II as a summonable hero who will prance around the battlefield, singing the Tom Bombadil song/poem (I forgot it's been ages) and sending enemies flying as he dances, it's the funniest thing ever to me and I love it.
Agreed. That's just the way books are adapted into films: things get moved around, and the fact that they still included it shows their dedication to remaining faithful to the book
Treebeard is a great character, though after rereading the books, I realized there's another great Ent character that we miss in the movies, who's often forgotten because of his exclusion from the movies, Mari and Pippen's 2nd ent friend, Quickbeam. In fact, if I remember that part of the book correctly, he's actually the one that gives Mari and Pippin the ent drink that permanently changes the pair of hobbits.
This is where Jackson goes most wrong. He omits most of the ents part of the story, for absolutely no reason, then expands the battle far beyond what it should be (which we’ll get to soon, I expect.) this is what ruins the second film for me, omitting crucial character story for vast amounts of CGI battle. It loses the heart of Two Towers.
Let's be so for real though, the ents are boring af. The movies were already very long, and any additional ent dialogue would add hours to the films 😅 my ADHD chipmunk brain runs at mach 2 and the ents talk waaaaaaay too slow to keep my attention. I'd rather see battles or dialogue between other characters
Regarding timeline: The day Frodo spent watching the black gate was the same day when Gandalf, Theoden and comp. visited Isengard and Gandalf broke Saruman's staff (i.e. 5 days after Merry and Pipin set off with Treabeard for the Ent Mood.
Thank you for including this scene. Just why? This could (and should) have been easily left out entirely. This along with the Witch King scene where he destroys Gandolph’s staff and is about to kill him when Rohan’s horn’s are heard and he stops. Just unnecessary garbage.
Those men marching to the The Black Gate are another allies of Mordor, Easterlings from Rhûn (as you can see by their samurai-like armor, inspired from Asia which is east from Europe if we compare Middle-earth being that continent, since Tolkien saw Middle-Earth as being a pre-historic version of our own world, The Shire being England and so forth), which is confirmed in the books. Also, I don't mind these changes as they serve the movies purpose and I don't see how the omitted material would have worked as a film. The stone slide and the dash for the Gate only for Gollum to stop Frodo and Sam in order to prevent their capture and therefore Sauron getting The Ring back, was added for the sake of drama, as Fran Walsh and Philipa Boyens point out there wouldn't be any drama for them to just be on the cliff standing there. Also, it wasn't really big rocks that buried Sam but rather lots of smaller stones and gravel, so I don't how see that could break Sam's bones (seriously, you're overthinking and overlooking stuff at the same time, no offense). I like the scene with Merry and Pippin because of it is lighthearted comedy brought to otherwise quite dark movie with a lot of heavy things going on, plus I like how they referenced the parts that there are in the book plus the homage to Tom Bombadil and The Old Forest. I don't care it didn't happen quite in the book but it works out. While I understand why this scene is just in the extended version, it's still a pity that it wasn't used and it takes a long time for Merry and Pippin to come back after the scene where Treebeard says that he told Gandalf to keep them safe, to when we see them after Saruman have sent his Uruk Hai army to Helm's Deep. Like some have already stated, Pippin didn't shrink back but Merry was growing past Pippin, making them in proportion to their heights as before but doesn't make a big deal about it.
To be honest I was always just happy to have Old Man Willow and the ent draught get a mention in the films. I think it makes perfect sense to merge the Old Forest and Fangorn when they're very similar settings, and it's nice to have Tom Bombadil at least referenced through some of his lines being given to Treebeard. "Heed no nightly noise" is a great line of Tom's that I'm glad they managed to sneak into the films.
Though I don't remember the ent drink being given to them by Treebeard but rather Quickbeam, while he and the hobbits wait for the rest of the ents to get around to making their decision to go to war. During that period that lasts for days or even weeks, the hobbits are staying with Quickbeam at his house, so since Quickbeam, the hasty ent is not included in the movies, I'd attribute that to also having Quckbeam's role being appended onto Treebeard, along with a few of Bombadil's lines.
The cloak thing is just Jackson's usual going for the drama for the sake of drama and overdoing it without any regard for logic. Just one in a long series of moments which had me blink at the screen in disbelief. And as for the extended edition scene of the fight for the potion.... I'm glad I never watched it.
Honestly I didn't mind the changes within the scenes of Frodo, Sam and Gollum at the Morannon. It was a little bit more dramatic than in the book. But in the book it is just dialogue and that might be a bit boring for a movie packed with action. And it illustrated the quality of the Lothlorien cloaks nicely after they omitted that in the scene where the three hunters meet the Rohirrim. I was sorry for the character change in Treebeard. I would have liked it much better if they had just kept him as he was in the book. I was quite disappointed when the Ents decided to do nothing and when it needed Merry and Pippin to show them the devastating damage that Sarumans Orks had done to Fangorn Forrest. As if they were completely ignorant about that. For me the most awful moment in the Two Towers movie was the completely made up and unnecessary scene with Eowyn bringing Aragorn that disgusting soup. I really hated that. Why can't a woman who is a trained fighter not produce an acceptable soup? Hell! Noone complains about Aragorns culinary skills. But because she is to be established as a shieldmaiden she must be a lousy cook!
Mega fan here. My biggest issues with the movies are as follows: The whole army of the dead part. Peter Jackson said he never liked the army of the dead. His solution was to make it one of the most useless parts of the movie. And Legolas being ridiculously OP.
The scene when frodo tells Sam to go home. Biggest middle finger to Tolkien fans. Bigger than that stupid ghost army crap PJ put in. Worst of the 3 movies.
My only problem with the elven cloak scene is that the Easterlings are already walking in Sam and Frodo's direction before Frodo decides to pull the cloak over them. And while it could be that they're behind some larger rocks, it's not clear where the rocks are or what angle the Easterlings are approaching them from. This makes it look like Sam and Frodo has such massive plot armour that you could see someone trapped underneath a lot of gravel and sand, watch someone else try to dig them out while you're walking towards them and then conveniently forget everything just because there's now a giant rock where they used to be. What the scene needed was to make it explicitly clear that the Easterlings' vision was obstructed by something else before they got to Sam and Frodo.
I’ve read the novels many times (every summer since 1995) I’ve seen the movies many times (maybe 20) I love both. I understand the many changes Jackson had to make. My only “real” problems with the movies are: Faramir Aragorn pitching a tent in front of Gondor because he refuses to enter the city until “the people” realize he’s king (which he proves through his healing powers) Frodo at the cracks of doom: that speech needed to be made. “I have come but I do not choose to do what I came to do. The ring is mine”. I hate it was shortened to just “the ring is mine” and also I hate Frodo fighting gollum to get the ring back. I prefer gollum just falling over the edge on his own and screaming “precious!” as he fell.
To elaborate on Aragorn: In the novel he knows he will be King of Gondor but he is waiting for the right time. Even after the battle is won he recognizes his time has not come…yet. And he refuses to be treated as King until it’s time. The pitching of a tent is a huge moment for his character. In the movie his “king-ness” is briefly mentioned at the council of Elrond and in dialogue between Gandalf and denethor and in the made-up scene between Aragorn and Elrond before Aragorn goes into the mountain. Then at the end he has a crown put on his head. Aragorn’s destiny is a very minor plot point on the films. It’s a larger plot point in the novels: hence the name of the third novel
I still think the most egregious scene is in The Return of the King, when Aragorn gets his video game power up and shoehorned reason to suddenly get serious about becoming king.
A bit of clever foreshadowing by Tolkien with Frodo’s threats to Gollum; given after Gollum takes The Ring back from Frodo that he immediately falls off a cliff into fire.
I just wanted to take a quick moment to thank you for this amazing work! The amount of time I finished your playlist while I’m working is wow. It has made me understand the lore better. Also, these videos have made me want to read the book, shout out to you for that. So thank you!
On the one hand, I definitely agree that elements of the fall down the cliff scene are silly, but I addition to their cloaks, that are sort of supposed to do that, they are Hobbits. Even back in that book, the Hobbits are supposedly notable, at least by Gandalf, for their heightened stealth, and since this seems to be an ability they just "have", even if they are individuals who have never trained it up, I feel like it is probably as much just being beneath the notice of bigger folk, as it is paying attention, and soft steps. Maybe there was also a little bit of providence in there, too. In the end, I also like that it is a direct portrayal of these cloaks actually doing something, in a way we can see. At times, LotR cam actually feel really low-magic, despite that being wrong, and among the things they received for their journey, the cloaks were among the most important, and visible, throughout the work, bur then we get to a point where stealth is no longer important; our heroes are eirher frontlining epic battles, or skulking through places no one else epuls go, and thus no eyes to be hidden from. I'm certainly not going to sit here, and tell other people what to like, or that they are wrong for what they don't like; everyone's welcome to make those decisions for themselves, but I'm mostly good with it. The sliding down part is kind of silly, and not being seen before getting hidden is kind of crossing a line, as is how buried Sam became, but I'm personally fine with the hiding bit; that's apparently what even layperson Hobbits can just do, and then they have D&D cloaks of elvenkind, which are pretty good for stealth. 😊 If Yolkien had been a more modern time writer, we might even see a spot on the Gamgee family tree that leads up to Snake. Think of what he could do with just a cardboard box, even where a cardboard box had no business being.😊
The changes to the relationships between Frodo, Sam an Gollum is probably the most impactful in the trilogy. And very sad for most book fans. Thoughts on why PJ thought he has to do this?
Besides the fact that the evil men approaching the Black Gate in the film are Easterlings instead of Haradrim, they are also marching from the wrong direction. Arriving from the right side of the screen would be correct for Haradrim marching from the south, but the Easterlings should be approaching from the north/northeast, aka the left side of the screen.
I can't remember the movie chronology as well, but didn't movie Sam also hear Gollum around the same time frame talking to himself and loudly declaring that he would kill the hobbits while they were sleeping, to which Sam impulsively tried to throttle Gollum?
7:16 - 7:30 I don't think Sam being buried would've caused that much damage. He's a hobbit, so being buried to the middle of his torso would've been, what, two and a half feet of gravel?
that's weird, because i read the books before the movies came out, and i remember there being a part with the cloak saving them. could be a mandala effect... scene/event tied into the more detailed description of the cloaks Galadriel gave them when she gave them all their gifts. like, when she was describing the elven rope (which explained why it hurt Gollum), she said something about the cloaks that i can't/too lazy to quote. imo, the worst thing PJ did was what he did to Faramir. Faramir was basically the only human to not be tempted by the ring, ever... Faramir was special.
I found it really weird how much the changes from the source material kept the essence, plot, and overall lore. The movies - especially the extended edition - did a really good job of it. It's extremely rare for a movie or show to do that. It's unsettling in a good way. Edit: To the point made at the end, most of the changes feature events that are in the books, but at different times and places. For instance, they did use the cloaks for camouflage, and did nearly get caught due to something akin to the landslide caused by Sam.
Yeah, I remember the Black Gate scene in the movie feeling really weird and cringeworthy, back when I first saw The Two Towers movie in the cinema. And although I had encountered and played The Hobbit as a text-adventure game on my ZX Spectrum as a teen in the '80s. It hadn't really left me compelled enough to read any of Tolkien's books like the movies did. - I guess what I'm trying to say is that, my first feeling of cringiness from watching the scene was completely unaffected by Tolkien's original version, since I had not read any of his books by that point... It just seemed to stick out like a sore thumb, even before I knew the original story.
‘I did not mean the danger that we all share,' said Frodo. 'I mean a danger to yourself alone. You swore a promise by what you call the Precious. Remember that! It will hold you to it; but it will seek a way to twist it to your own undoing. Already you are being twisted. You revealed yourself to me just now, foolishly. Give it back to Sméagol you said. Do not say that again! Do not let that thought grow in you! You will never get it back. But the desire of it may betray you to a bitter end. You will never get it back. In the last need, Sméagol, I should put on the Precious; and the Precious mastered you long ago. If I, wearing it, were to command you, you would obey, even if it were to leap from a precipice or to cast yourself into the fire. And such would be my command. So have a care, Sméagol!’ ************************************************ This alludes to a theme in the books that Sméagol has to keep his oath to Frodo taken 'on the precious', otherwise it will punish him. It results in the climax in Mount Doom, when Sméagol breaks his oath and as a consequence the ring (!) makes him stumble and fall into the cracks of Doom, and effectively destroying itself. That's an interpretation of course, but not an uncommon one. It's an important moral point of the entire trilogy: Resist and endure evil, until eventually it destroys itself. Peter Jackson changed this whole theme, wanting Frodo and Gollum to fight for it at the end. Hence this scene here was also not important any more. For a lover of the books, that's a a shame, but I assume they needed the climax at Mount Doom to be more dramatic for mass audiences...
Hated the landslide. Loved the impossible stealth of the cloak. It shouldn't work on Nazgul, but a few men pledged to the enemy or some orcs? Why not, it was cool. If only the rest with like body-crushing rocks and a soldier who was looking right at them until they Solid Snake into the nearest Elvish Cardboard Box … er, I mean, hide under Frodo's cloak … no, that was dumb. If the cloak trick had been used to hide from a patrol or something, that'd be one thing, but this scene was ridiculous as it was. Wish as always that they'd allowed Pippin to be seen as having grown some more. He did a lot of growing up in a year.
The deeper you get into Two Towers, the more I remember why I ended up hating Peter Jackson's trilogy. Visually stunning, and a great film, technically speaking, but a very poor adaptation of the source material.
Another thing about the "cloak scene", I am pretty sure the ring would have given them away if they had wondered this close to Suaron's army, it had powers.
How would ordinary men be aware of the Ring when it's not being used? That wasn't Sauron's army, but one from the Southrons, the Swarthy Men, so the concept you present doesn't work. Frodo could don the Ring and just stand there, and they wouldn't know. Had he done so, he'd risk attracting the attention of worse, but that had nothing to do with orcs, elves, dwarves, or men. As for the scene, I found it implausible, but it was a point made in the book, that the cloaks weren't magic, but were great camouflage. Jackson condensed all the times they helped that way down to that goofy magic rock scene in order to include those cloaks more emphatically without taking too much time.
I see nothing absurd with the cloaks hiding then the way they did. It wasn't some. "absurd" or "unrealistic", thing. I always just chalked it up to Elven magic. And it makes no sense to complain about things being unrealistic when the entire story is about Elves, Orcs, and all other manner of fanciful thing.
@@daemonthorn5888 It is elven magic. The books - and I think the extended editions of the movie - explain that the cloaks are a special gift from Galadriel, made by her and her handmaidens, and thus are blessed with a special ability to hide their wearers.
Also, after they successfully hide from the evil dudes, they immediately get up an hide behind a big rock.... when they are hidden by the cloak the shot of the dudes, there is no big rock. The hobbits get up an take one or two steps an hide again. If the men were standing right infront of the cloak, they would be standing on the rock or atleast it would be in shot...
Don't kill me, but while I love Bernard Hill as Theoden, it is hard to take his crying scene at the death of his son seriously when seems so hammed up.
To be fair, the Merry/Pippin cringefest (including the "appropriation" of Old Man Willow from Fellowship) were in the extended edition of The Two Towers, not the Theatrical Cut. I guess we know why they were cut. As for the Elven Cloaks resembling rocks, that felt pretty far fetched, even for Tolkien.
The cloaks were a gift from Galadriel, and as such had the magical gift of hiding the wearers from unfriendly eyes. The books did it a little more subtly, but only a little - in the Two Towers, when Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas are being approached by the Riders of Rohan, they don't hide in a cleft - they stand in the middle of the field and let the Riders approach. And the Riders run right by them. These three are standing in the middle of an open field, and the Riders of Rohan who are traveling right next to them, don't see them. I should also mention that all three had the hoods of their cloaks up, at this time. It isn't until Aragorn throws back his hood and calls to the Riders, that they finally realized that there are three people there, that they all are passing right by. That's how the cloaks work.
Did JRR Tolkien kill an elephant IRL? I remember reading an autobiography in school of some british writer who was a soldier in one of the world wars where he was in india or somewhere like that and he had to kill an elephant that had previously rampaged through a village. The point of the chapter was that he only did it so he wouldnt look stupid or weak in front of the natives and he regretted it. I cant remember if it was from Tolkien or someone else though
Speaking of the Old Man Willow in the moiview - it's not actually a willow. Why? Because the leaves that Merry and Pippin got buried under are from an oak. So, either you can call this tree "Old Man Oak" or just think that this is just one of the trees that, like Old Man Willow, became carnivorous and agressive.
@@factorfantasyweekly I thought in the extended Old Forest scene we had Old Man Willow. When I watched the elf-cloak scene as a child, I was surprised that the cloak did look like one of the rocks: I believe the criticism over it being unrealistic (which I have seen on 2016 answers on Quora, as well as Random Film Talk's discussion of the Extended Two Towers), refers to the fact the Easterling gimps who look at the cloaks should have seen what the "rock" was at close range, and the fact they should have seen Sam: however, it seems Sam quickly was swallowed by sand, which is why his bones were not broken and how Frodo quickly got him out. It also should be said they were wearing their elf-cloaks the whole journey, and used them to watch the Haradrim enter the Black Gate (they and Gollum were on the height of course and hidden by rocks: all three were careful to make sure the Haradrim didn't spot them).
You are incorrect the men marching into the Black Gate are Easterlings(in the book inplied to be from Rhun), and are a different allied people to Sauron. The Haradrim are from the South, and have a more direct path into Mordor from the South, Morder is completely cut off from the North with the Exception of the Black Gate. There are in fact four main ways into Mordor and Two of them are in the South East of Mordor, Minas Morgul, and the Black Gate. It makes no sense for Haradrim Foot Soldiers to wander across Ithilian to the Black Gate when they can(and later do in the movies) use Minas Morgul to enter Mordor. So in conclusion the Wicked men in this scene are Easterlings.
I was never fan of the scene with elven cloak. Now, after being Dungeon Master in DnD for two years, I dislike the scene even more, as my players use it as excuse to abuse item called Cloak of Elvenkind, saying "but Frodo and Sam did it too!". The only worse scene I can think of is Legolas jumping on falling rocks in Hobbit, but I will wait for you to make a video about that once LotR series are finished.
Just ask them, "But were the cloaks specifically made and blessed by Galadriel and her handmaidens?" Even among Tolkien's elves, not all of them could make cloaks that could do that - the cloaks in the movie were specifically made and blessed by Galadriel to "hide the wearer from unfriendly eyes".
I thought I was the only person who thought the first scene was stupid. I thought it was something I missed from the book but I guess nahh it’s just stupid.
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Personally, I think the movie would've been better served to provide a little more info on huorns, too.
I agree this bad scene could have been removed however I think it's not so bad because it reminds us these hobbits are really just young kids, not superheroes, normal kids in extraordinary situations. Lost and a long way from home. But that they are still just kids out of their depth.
Relative to a 3000 year old Legolas,, a 200+ year old Gimli, a 80+ year old Aragorn, a 8000 year old Gandalf and a 10,000 year old treebeard, the hobbits are children compared to them etc
@@94462 Are you under an impression that Legolas would be faring any better going to Mordor? It was a quest where _everyone_ would be out of their depth. And Gandalf was the oldest of them all - older than the world itself, actually.
Is there a reason you called them evil men and not men of Rhun or Easterlings? Because I'm pretty sure those soldiers are Loke-Gamp Rim, which is a part of the Rhunic army. I know its not a big thing but I was just curios because the evil men armies do have names which is Rhun, Harad, and Umbar.
Nah, they gotta be evil, otherwise we'd have to re examine how we feel about our heroes gleefully slaughtering them while keeping score as if the lives they were ending had no value beyond fueling their bro bonding.....
yeah I don't know, I often refer to them as easterlings, haradrim and corsairs of umbar (or the corsairs for short) because I don't believe them to be evil but simply corrupted.
@@DrewLSsix they could still be evil what I'm saying is that you could use the faction name. I mean it can still be shown that they are evil by the fact that they are allied with Sauron. Shows that not all of the men are good.
@@CursedAnqxl yeah I get that with the Corsairs. They are pirates and possibly only really care about coin, Sauron probably just brought them into loyalty. But still the Easterlings/Rhun and Haradrim are pure evil. Though I do not really know why. Is it ever said why those two are evil?
Quick answer for all of you: It’s easier to say “evil men” cause, as you all have mentioned, there are multiple names for them and the different regional groups. If I called them one name, I’d probably get comments telling me I forgot the other possible names. 😂 So to make things easier, I think we can just call them “evil men”.
I simply hate how Jackson did Mary and Pippen in the whole thing. I was a fan for about 12+ years before the movies and any slight deviation pissed me off, so I couldn't enjoy the movies even today. it was mostly just the characters more than the plot deviation that pissed me off.
That cloak was never big enough t cover both young men. The overall film was still a masterpiece an both these scenes weren't as relevant t the whole storyline as say Aragons,Frodo eyc
There is a difference between having a negative opinion and being toxicly negative. Negativity get views and likes on social media, it's the lazy way of getting big
Great as always! The scene of them drinking the water and growing is among my least favorite in the movies and should have been left out. I know it was an homage to Tolkien's original story, but it just came out silly and ridiculous. For example, if the Hobbits want to be taller, why not just keep drinking the water until they were 6 feet tall or whatever? Just not a good scene. As for the Black Gate, I have one thing to add to what Gibby said. It may just be me, but those two soldiers by the cloak/rock looked like women to me. I know you can't see much, but their eyes just look like women and we know Jackson often used women made to look like men. Look closely and see what you think. That brings me to what I think is the absolute worst scene in the whole movie trilogy. Unfortunately, it's in the last movie and won't be talked about for a long time. I am dying to talk about it as I do think it's the worst and was totally unnecessary. But I'll wait (I'm not really "dying" in case you're concerned). As always, I love the analysis in this great series!
Hey, I have a question I feel like I haven't been able to get a straight updated answer from google. Is there an Omnibus set of all the published Tolkien material? Failing that,mfors anyone have an updated list in canon chronological order? I want to include all hisfa letters and the Father Christmas letters. I also can never tell which short stories are in which book because sometimes google talks about them ile the stories are sold individually too. Thanks to anyone that can help me!
Sorry but I think these movies were flawless. You just c it lent ask for more. I don’t think anyone could have made a better movie closer to the book and the way I envisioned the book, which was the only thing better: my version ;)
19:54 I feel you are incorrect about the films showing Pippin "shrink back to his normal size". You seem to be reading way too much into an extremely brief and non-specific scene. I'm not saying that you are definitively incorrect, but to state that this is objectively in the films, is simply not true. At the very most, your perspective is just one of several possibilities. (Dear Lord, I'm never getting back the time it took to post this, lol... Priorities, damn it! Priorities!!)
Have you ever adapted a screenplay from a book? have you ever designed a production for a highly complex film with a vast shooting schedule? I took 3 years of technical theater and have read all of tolkien's primary Works multiple times and I wouldn't deign to criticise the style choices of a movie that was deemed to be unmakeable, until Peter Jackson stepped up and had the courage to adapt these films and maintain a truly impressive level of Integrity to the original material so that you could critique it, if you want your criticisms to be taken seriously you should probably present some sort of body of work or experience in the field of what your critiquing. I haven't seen any evidence of anything like that in your presentation. have a little respect and maybe pay attention when professionals are doing the best work that's ever been done in their field. Attempting to elevate your own stature by nitpicking little things that you don't like and you don't think are lore Worthy? So you felt tree beards reciting of the poem spoken by Tom Bombardier in a similar situation in the Old Forest as an homage to the fact that that material was removed and that's one of the scenes you're referring to? Frankly you're not presenting with the credibility for me to take this criticism seriously I'm just going to go watch my extended editions again cuz I love them and I seriously doubt that anybody will ever top them, certainly not you.
Paused at the 39 second mark. Sorry, with an intro like that this comes off with the same energy as those Star Wars channels that exist simply to bash things. I won't be returning, life's too short man.
Hey you! 👀 Read along with me! 📖 Claim Andy Serkis’ narration of “The Two Towers” on Audible *for FREE:* www.audibletrial.com/twotowers 👈 Every free trial supports the channel!
Where is the dead marshes part
We covered that in episode 24! 🙏🏼
I never took that Pippin shrank to his original size, but rather that Merry grew enough to remain taller than him from the Ent Draft he stole from Pippin.
That was always my take as well. When Merry says they're "back to normal" at Isengard he's not saying they're back to the heights they were when they left The Shire, rather that they're back to Merry being slightly taller than Pippin.
Yeah same, I never considered it could have been interpreted any other way.
Same here.
Ditto
But their height compared to everyone else is back to what it was too in the movie.
I loved the cloak scene. It was a magical cloak, not some rag from second hand shop.
For me, it's when the witch king beats Gandalf and yet in both the book and first movie he manages to hold off all 7 at once on weathertop while his power is handicapped.
yeah - first time reading the book I was waiting and waiting for Galdalf to get slapped by the witch king... And now, watching the movies, that scene feels so against the grain. I actually love the scene with them drinking the Ent drafts, and while I think the movie could have skipped banishing Sam... I do kind of like it and feel like it makes sense in-world, even if Tolkein went a different direction. But Gandalf's moment isn't a character difference... it's a complete flip of a power balance with a leveled-up maiar.
Low key I roll my eyes whenever I see his undoing. Apparently if you're a woman you can hack off a Fell Beast's head like that poor water Buffalo in Apocalypse Now (RIP). Apparently the mighty Witch King can be downed in a minute if you throw enough estrogen at him 🙄 BRB just loading a tampon cannon to take down the Nazgul, shouldn't take more than 30 seconds
tbh this was cut from the 'normal version' because jackson doubted it
@@wolpertinger. Estrogen has nothing to do with it, really. What screwed him over and made him killable in the first place was Merry's enchanted Númenorean blade breaking his magical protection. After that, any random dude could have rammed a blade where is head was and done him in - it's just that there was no dude around to do it, while Éowyn was.
The 'prophecy' wasn't that the Witch-king *couldn't* be killed by a man, but simply that he *wouldn't* be. He, and many readers like yourself, simply took it the wrong way and ran with the misconception.
Yeah, for me it's Frodo casting out Sam. They get seperated because Gollum attacks Sam in the middle of Shelob's lair, NOT because Frodo and Sam fight. That PISSES me off. Their friendship/partnership is way too strong for Gollum to mess with it.
I agree. Having them separated by the combined attacks of Golum and Shelob makes much more sense and makes the encounters much more dramatic and gives opportunities for much more spectacular action sequences. I could never understand why Jackson and his team chose to have them separated in that way, as it only made the story worse, even for the movie medium.
Agree. I think Frodo casting Sam away changes something fundamental about their relationship as was a bad call as compared to the books.
100000% tbis one and trashing Faramir are two things I will NEVER say was okay! EVER!!
Shelobs Lair is done way better in the books
@@garrettohyeah7365 I honestly couldn't stand the New Zealand tarantula they used. It bugged the crap outta me
I always thought that Frodo's threats to Gollum were not actually from him at all, but a rare moment of the ring itself sort of using Frodo as its talking-piece. The ring itself abandoned Gollum because he was "too good" at keeping it concealed for himself. It WANTS Frodo to take it into Mordor, or get caught along the way, & Gollum taking it back underground would undo all of the progress it's made trying to be discovered. So this is an example of the "evil" of the ring spelling out its own doom- it is warning him, "you take me from this hobbit, & I will send you straight to hell", not knowing that this curse it lays upon him will result in Smeagol taking the ring down with him.
This is a load of bull. The "stealth" scene with Sam & Frodo is meant to showcase the elven cloaks the hobbits were gifted by Galadriel that render the wearer invisible to unfriendly eyes. It is 100% lore accurate. And the Merry & Pippin scene was an homage to the Tom Bombadil storyline that was cut from the story due to pacing and narrative concision. Just say, "I have no idea what I'm talking about," at the start of your video next time.
Legolas surfing on the shield while shooting orc is just too silly. I almost want to make my own edit of the extended editions of the movie just to remove that scene.
Legolas in the Hobbit is even worse, but the shield surfing scene could be removed to good effect.
There's another incredible take a while before Aragorn fall into the chasm in The Two Towers, where Legolas ride a horse by a fancy jumping on the run, that left me out of words back then in cinema when I saw it for the first time.
Can't you do something like that in Breath of The Wild?
"Scouring of the Shire" aside, I think they missed a real opportunity when they changed the meeting of the resurrected Gandalf at the edge of Fangorn Forest.
In the book, Legolas has an arrow nocked and ready to loose because they were not sure who they were meeting. Legolas was the first (I think) to recognize Gandalf the White and he fires the arrow straight up into the air, shouting "Mithrandir", and Gandalf sets the arrow on fire as it flies up.
That would've been so cool, and it would only take like 5 seconds of screen time.
One thing Gibi seemed to miss which is an important change between the books and the movies is while it's true that Sam never fell and got buried in rocks in the books, their movements DID still attract some unwanted attention from the Haradrim, as some of the soldiers did see rocks sliding down the steep slope from Sam, Golum and Frodo's movements farther up the slope and did to to investigate, and the hobbits did use their lothlorien cloaks for camouflage to help them avoid being spotted. I think Jackson was trying to capture that event in his Sam fell scene, but just want too far into the spectacle that he broke imersion there, which it did have that affect for me too, as I could never figure out how the Haradrim soldiers couldn't see Sam and Frodo as they were going down the slope nor when Frodo was trying to help Sam up before using his cloak to conceal them. Nor did the extent of Sam's burial make any sense. I think that was a scene where the producers got too caught up in making spectacle that the forgot the storytelling they'd been doing elsewhere in the movies.
Apparently they have real poor visibility in those helmets. Perhaps they were in need of glasses 😅
I saw the movies before I read the books, I was about 12 or 13 when the Two Towers came out. The scene where Sam falls and Frodo covers him with the elven cloth, always threw me off, even as a kid. In the movies you don't know the elven cloth can act as camouflage, but even still... that and the idea they planned on running through the front door of Mordor was unbelievable.
Maybe you are just speaking hastily, but in the movie, Pippin doesn’t shrink, Merry just also has enough Ent draft to balance things back to their respective heights.
Though I don’t remember their heights being noted as different in the books.
Lol “speaking hastily” 😂 I love it…
Pippin was originally smaller of the two but I don't recall any size difference mentioned after they have grown.
I do remember them being noted as taller in the books, though I also remember them getting the ent draft not from Treebeard, but from another ent who's not included in the movies, Quickbeam, while they're staying at Quickbeam's house while the rest of the ents take their entish time making a decision. You see, Quickbeam's rather hasty by ent standards and has already made up his mind to go to war with Isengard. The other, more deliberate ents needed a few more days to finally reach that decision.
I think at the end or in the appendix it’s said that merry is the tallest hobbit recorded and pip is a close second. But I can’t remember where it was said.
When Mary and Pippin are reunited with the others in the book during the "salted pork" scene it is noted that both are taller with thicker hair.
Treabeard doesn't know how the entwives look like, not because he doesn't remember, but because ents - as he explains at another point - tend to be changed by the world that surrounds them. Therefore, after the centuries of separation, the entwives might look quite different from when Treabeard last saw them.
@@lida7529 Or he simply forgets how they look like because it have been three millenias since he last saw them and unlike men, elves, dwarves and hobbits, the ents and entwives don't draw portraits of each other to remember them with so they rely on their memories, which can disappear after a very long time.
@@mevb No. He clearly remembers what Fimbrethil looked like in her youth, and he describes how the entwives were changed by their hard work.
@irena4545, yep. After they migrated east they planted orchards and farmfields and the heat of the sun affected their complexion.
@@mevbmy thoughts exactly lol
"Absurd moment of stealth" isnt that an elven cloack? Always assumed it was imbued with powers like the rope.
Easy to miss, but when Galadriel gifts them the cloaks, it is mentioned that they "shield you from unfriendly eyes."
Personally, the part I disliked the most was adding in that "movie style" misunderstanding scene where Gollum frames Sam for eating all the hard elf bread.
I loved Sam's recitation of the Oliphant poem, it would have been nice if they could have included it somewhere - perhaps during an extended rabbit stew scene?
RIP bunnies 😭
We actually learn that merry grew taller a lot more earlier on in the book. Tolkien hints at it, then explains is a better tale for later.
👍
We all love Ol' Tree Beardil 😂 honestly though merging Tom and Tree Beard is probably one of the best changes in my opinion just because it acknowledges Tom's presence in the source material, also speaking of Tom for those who don't know he appears in other media set in Jackson's version of Middle-Earth (pre the Hobbit) and I'm not on about the LEGO games lol, no Tom's in LotR: Battle for Middle-Earth II as a summonable hero who will prance around the battlefield, singing the Tom Bombadil song/poem (I forgot it's been ages) and sending enemies flying as he dances, it's the funniest thing ever to me and I love it.
Agreed. That's just the way books are adapted into films: things get moved around, and the fact that they still included it shows their dedication to remaining faithful to the book
Treebeard is a great character, though after rereading the books, I realized there's another great Ent character that we miss in the movies, who's often forgotten because of his exclusion from the movies, Mari and Pippen's 2nd ent friend, Quickbeam. In fact, if I remember that part of the book correctly, he's actually the one that gives Mari and Pippin the ent drink that permanently changes the pair of hobbits.
This is where Jackson goes most wrong. He omits most of the ents part of the story, for absolutely no reason, then expands the battle far beyond what it should be (which we’ll get to soon, I expect.) this is what ruins the second film for me, omitting crucial character story for vast amounts of CGI battle. It loses the heart of Two Towers.
Yes! Completely agree. And same for Return of the King.
Let's be so for real though, the ents are boring af. The movies were already very long, and any additional ent dialogue would add hours to the films 😅 my ADHD chipmunk brain runs at mach 2 and the ents talk waaaaaaay too slow to keep my attention. I'd rather see battles or dialogue between other characters
Regarding timeline: The day Frodo spent watching the black gate was the same day when Gandalf, Theoden and comp. visited Isengard and Gandalf broke Saruman's staff (i.e. 5 days after Merry and Pipin set off with Treabeard for the Ent Mood.
That scene where frodo and aragorn "lean forward(!)" when fleeing the orcs in kazad dum always made me furious.
Thank you for including this scene. Just why? This could (and should) have been easily left out entirely. This along with the Witch King scene where he destroys Gandolph’s staff and is about to kill him when Rohan’s horn’s are heard and he stops. Just unnecessary garbage.
Those men marching to the The Black Gate are another allies of Mordor, Easterlings from Rhûn (as you can see by their samurai-like armor, inspired from Asia which is east from Europe if we compare Middle-earth being that continent, since Tolkien saw Middle-Earth as being a pre-historic version of our own world, The Shire being England and so forth), which is confirmed in the books.
Also, I don't mind these changes as they serve the movies purpose and I don't see how the omitted material would have worked as a film. The stone slide and the dash for the Gate only for Gollum to stop Frodo and Sam in order to prevent their capture and therefore Sauron getting The Ring back, was added for the sake of drama, as Fran Walsh and Philipa Boyens point out there wouldn't be any drama for them to just be on the cliff standing there. Also, it wasn't really big rocks that buried Sam but rather lots of smaller stones and gravel, so I don't how see that could break Sam's bones (seriously, you're overthinking and overlooking stuff at the same time, no offense).
I like the scene with Merry and Pippin because of it is lighthearted comedy brought to otherwise quite dark movie with a lot of heavy things going on, plus I like how they referenced the parts that there are in the book plus the homage to Tom Bombadil and The Old Forest. I don't care it didn't happen quite in the book but it works out. While I understand why this scene is just in the extended version, it's still a pity that it wasn't used and it takes a long time for Merry and Pippin to come back after the scene where Treebeard says that he told Gandalf to keep them safe, to when we see them after Saruman have sent his Uruk Hai army to Helm's Deep. Like some have already stated, Pippin didn't shrink back but Merry was growing past Pippin, making them in proportion to their heights as before but doesn't make a big deal about it.
If you think you'll walk away after being buried, waist deep, in a landslide. Youre crazy. Lots of small stones will obliterate your legs
To be honest I was always just happy to have Old Man Willow and the ent draught get a mention in the films. I think it makes perfect sense to merge the Old Forest and Fangorn when they're very similar settings, and it's nice to have Tom Bombadil at least referenced through some of his lines being given to Treebeard. "Heed no nightly noise" is a great line of Tom's that I'm glad they managed to sneak into the films.
Though I don't remember the ent drink being given to them by Treebeard but rather Quickbeam, while he and the hobbits wait for the rest of the ents to get around to making their decision to go to war. During that period that lasts for days or even weeks, the hobbits are staying with Quickbeam at his house, so since Quickbeam, the hasty ent is not included in the movies, I'd attribute that to also having Quckbeam's role being appended onto Treebeard, along with a few of Bombadil's lines.
The cloak thing is just Jackson's usual going for the drama for the sake of drama and overdoing it without any regard for logic. Just one in a long series of moments which had me blink at the screen in disbelief. And as for the extended edition scene of the fight for the potion.... I'm glad I never watched it.
Honestly I didn't mind the changes within the scenes of Frodo, Sam and Gollum at the Morannon. It was a little bit more dramatic than in the book. But in the book it is just dialogue and that might be a bit boring for a movie packed with action. And it illustrated the quality of the Lothlorien cloaks nicely after they omitted that in the scene where the three hunters meet the Rohirrim.
I was sorry for the character change in Treebeard. I would have liked it much better if they had just kept him as he was in the book. I was quite disappointed when the Ents decided to do nothing and when it needed Merry and Pippin to show them the devastating damage that Sarumans Orks had done to Fangorn Forrest. As if they were completely ignorant about that.
For me the most awful moment in the Two Towers movie was the completely made up and unnecessary scene with Eowyn bringing Aragorn that disgusting soup. I really hated that. Why can't a woman who is a trained fighter not produce an acceptable soup? Hell! Noone complains about Aragorns culinary skills. But because she is to be established as a shieldmaiden she must be a lousy cook!
Mega fan here. My biggest issues with the movies are as follows:
The whole army of the dead part. Peter Jackson said he never liked the army of the dead. His solution was to make it one of the most useless parts of the movie.
And Legolas being ridiculously OP.
The scene when frodo tells Sam to go home. Biggest middle finger to Tolkien fans. Bigger than that stupid ghost army crap PJ put in. Worst of the 3 movies.
I dont know... It was the ring talking, makes the effect of it that much more obvious the toll it's taking.
@znk0r None of it was in the books.
@TheTrueBobDole and we are here talking about a movie. If you want the books read the books or listen to the 60hr audiobook.
@znk0r Oh gee, by that logic ROP is the bestest thing ever! 🙄
My only problem with the elven cloak scene is that the Easterlings are already walking in Sam and Frodo's direction before Frodo decides to pull the cloak over them. And while it could be that they're behind some larger rocks, it's not clear where the rocks are or what angle the Easterlings are approaching them from.
This makes it look like Sam and Frodo has such massive plot armour that you could see someone trapped underneath a lot of gravel and sand, watch someone else try to dig them out while you're walking towards them and then conveniently forget everything just because there's now a giant rock where they used to be. What the scene needed was to make it explicitly clear that the Easterlings' vision was obstructed by something else before they got to Sam and Frodo.
Elves in Helms Deep is the most atrocious change in my opinion.
I’ve read the novels many times (every summer since 1995)
I’ve seen the movies many times (maybe 20)
I love both. I understand the many changes Jackson had to make.
My only “real” problems with the movies are:
Faramir
Aragorn pitching a tent in front of Gondor because he refuses to enter the city until “the people” realize he’s king (which he proves through his healing powers)
Frodo at the cracks of doom: that speech needed to be made. “I have come but I do not choose to do what I came to do. The ring is mine”. I hate it was shortened to just “the ring is mine” and also I hate Frodo fighting gollum to get the ring back. I prefer gollum just falling over the edge on his own and screaming “precious!” as he fell.
To elaborate on Aragorn:
In the novel he knows he will be King of Gondor but he is waiting for the right time. Even after the battle is won he recognizes his time has not come…yet. And he refuses to be treated as King until it’s time. The pitching of a tent is a huge moment for his character.
In the movie his “king-ness” is briefly mentioned at the council of Elrond and in dialogue between Gandalf and denethor and in the made-up scene between Aragorn and Elrond before Aragorn goes into the mountain. Then at the end he has a crown put on his head. Aragorn’s destiny is a very minor plot point on the films. It’s a larger plot point in the novels: hence the name of the third novel
@@jasonandkathleenbarker6306 A minor plot point? He’s one of the lovers, of course is a magpie plot point!
I like that you make intentional steps not to be toxic, we need that especially in regards to LOTR TH-cam haha
The cloaks are magical and given to the entire Fellowship by the Elves. Tolkien had a line in the book that says it camoflauges against enemies.
I still think the most egregious scene is in The Return of the King, when Aragorn gets his video game power up and shoehorned reason to suddenly get serious about becoming king.
A bit of clever foreshadowing by Tolkien with Frodo’s threats to Gollum; given after Gollum takes The Ring back from Frodo that he immediately falls off a cliff into fire.
I just wanted to take a quick moment to thank you for this amazing work! The amount of time I finished your playlist while I’m working is wow. It has made me understand the lore better. Also, these videos have made me want to read the book, shout out to you for that. So thank you!
So glad you’re enjoying the series! Happy I can play a part in getting someone to read the book again or for the first time. Happy reading! 🙏🏼
On the one hand, I definitely agree that elements of the fall down the cliff scene are silly, but I addition to their cloaks, that are sort of supposed to do that, they are Hobbits. Even back in that book, the Hobbits are supposedly notable, at least by Gandalf, for their heightened stealth, and since this seems to be an ability they just "have", even if they are individuals who have never trained it up, I feel like it is probably as much just being beneath the notice of bigger folk, as it is paying attention, and soft steps. Maybe there was also a little bit of providence in there, too. In the end, I also like that it is a direct portrayal of these cloaks actually doing something, in a way we can see. At times, LotR cam actually feel really low-magic, despite that being wrong, and among the things they received for their journey, the cloaks were among the most important, and visible, throughout the work, bur then we get to a point where stealth is no longer important; our heroes are eirher frontlining epic battles, or skulking through places no one else epuls go, and thus no eyes to be hidden from.
I'm certainly not going to sit here, and tell other people what to like, or that they are wrong for what they don't like; everyone's welcome to make those decisions for themselves, but I'm mostly good with it. The sliding down part is kind of silly, and not being seen before getting hidden is kind of crossing a line, as is how buried Sam became, but I'm personally fine with the hiding bit; that's apparently what even layperson Hobbits can just do, and then they have D&D cloaks of elvenkind, which are pretty good for stealth. 😊 If Yolkien had been a more modern time writer, we might even see a spot on the Gamgee family tree that leads up to Snake. Think of what he could do with just a cardboard box, even where a cardboard box had no business being.😊
The changes to the relationships between Frodo, Sam an Gollum is probably the most impactful in the trilogy. And very sad for most book fans. Thoughts on why PJ thought he has to do this?
Besides the fact that the evil men approaching the Black Gate in the film are Easterlings instead of Haradrim, they are also marching from the wrong direction. Arriving from the right side of the screen would be correct for Haradrim marching from the south, but the Easterlings should be approaching from the north/northeast, aka the left side of the screen.
I can't remember the movie chronology as well, but didn't movie Sam also hear Gollum around the same time frame talking to himself and loudly declaring that he would kill the hobbits while they were sleeping, to which Sam impulsively tried to throttle Gollum?
Theoden's exorcism is much worse.
7:16 - 7:30 I don't think Sam being buried would've caused that much damage. He's a hobbit, so being buried to the middle of his torso would've been, what, two and a half feet of gravel?
that's weird, because i read the books before the movies came out, and i remember there being a part with the cloak saving them. could be a mandala effect...
scene/event tied into the more detailed description of the cloaks Galadriel gave them when she gave them all their gifts. like, when she was describing the elven rope (which explained why it hurt Gollum), she said something about the cloaks that i can't/too lazy to quote.
imo, the worst thing PJ did was what he did to Faramir. Faramir was basically the only human to not be tempted by the ring, ever... Faramir was special.
Still better than all the Rings of Power combined.
I found it really weird how much the changes from the source material kept the essence, plot, and overall lore. The movies - especially the extended edition - did a really good job of it. It's extremely rare for a movie or show to do that. It's unsettling in a good way.
Edit: To the point made at the end, most of the changes feature events that are in the books, but at different times and places. For instance, they did use the cloaks for camouflage, and did nearly get caught due to something akin to the landslide caused by Sam.
Yeah, I remember the Black Gate scene in the movie feeling really weird and cringeworthy, back when I first saw The Two Towers movie in the cinema. And although I had encountered and played The Hobbit as a text-adventure game on my ZX Spectrum as a teen in the '80s. It hadn't really left me compelled enough to read any of Tolkien's books like the movies did.
- I guess what I'm trying to say is that, my first feeling of cringiness from watching the scene was completely unaffected by Tolkien's original version, since I had not read any of his books by that point... It just seemed to stick out like a sore thumb, even before I knew the original story.
‘I did not mean the danger that we all share,' said Frodo. 'I mean a danger to yourself alone. You swore a promise by what you call the Precious. Remember that! It will hold you to it; but it will seek a way to twist it to your own undoing. Already you are being twisted. You revealed yourself to me just now, foolishly. Give it back to Sméagol you said. Do not say that again! Do not let that thought grow in you! You will never get it back. But the desire of it may betray you to a bitter end. You will never get it back. In the last need, Sméagol, I should put on the Precious; and the Precious mastered you long ago. If I, wearing it, were to command you, you would obey, even if it were to leap from a precipice or to cast yourself into the fire. And such would be my command. So have a care, Sméagol!’
************************************************
This alludes to a theme in the books that Sméagol has to keep his oath to Frodo taken 'on the precious', otherwise it will punish him. It results in the climax in Mount Doom, when Sméagol breaks his oath and as a consequence the ring (!) makes him stumble and fall into the cracks of Doom, and effectively destroying itself. That's an interpretation of course, but not an uncommon one. It's an important moral point of the entire trilogy: Resist and endure evil, until eventually it destroys itself.
Peter Jackson changed this whole theme, wanting Frodo and Gollum to fight for it at the end. Hence this scene here was also not important any more.
For a lover of the books, that's a a shame, but I assume they needed the climax at Mount Doom to be more dramatic for mass audiences...
I thought the cloak scene was well dome, and makes up for the lack of the scene when Eomer misses the hunters in Rohan.
Hated the landslide. Loved the impossible stealth of the cloak. It shouldn't work on Nazgul, but a few men pledged to the enemy or some orcs? Why not, it was cool. If only the rest with like body-crushing rocks and a soldier who was looking right at them until they Solid Snake into the nearest Elvish Cardboard Box … er, I mean, hide under Frodo's cloak … no, that was dumb. If the cloak trick had been used to hide from a patrol or something, that'd be one thing, but this scene was ridiculous as it was.
Wish as always that they'd allowed Pippin to be seen as having grown some more. He did a lot of growing up in a year.
The deeper you get into Two Towers, the more I remember why I ended up hating Peter Jackson's trilogy. Visually stunning, and a great film, technically speaking, but a very poor adaptation of the source material.
Another thing about the "cloak scene", I am pretty sure the ring would have given them away if they had wondered this close to Suaron's army, it had powers.
The cloaks do help them in Mordor in the book. Just not that close.
How would ordinary men be aware of the Ring when it's not being used? That wasn't Sauron's army, but one from the Southrons, the Swarthy Men, so the concept you present doesn't work. Frodo could don the Ring and just stand there, and they wouldn't know.
Had he done so, he'd risk attracting the attention of worse, but that had nothing to do with orcs, elves, dwarves, or men. As for the scene, I found it implausible, but it was a point made in the book, that the cloaks weren't magic, but were great camouflage. Jackson condensed all the times they helped that way down to that goofy magic rock scene in order to include those cloaks more emphatically without taking too much time.
I see nothing absurd with the cloaks hiding then the way they did. It wasn't some. "absurd" or "unrealistic", thing. I always just chalked it up to Elven magic.
And it makes no sense to complain about things being unrealistic when the entire story is about Elves, Orcs, and all other manner of fanciful thing.
@@daemonthorn5888 It is elven magic. The books - and I think the extended editions of the movie - explain that the cloaks are a special gift from Galadriel, made by her and her handmaidens, and thus are blessed with a special ability to hide their wearers.
The worst scene in Two Towers is when Faramir is tempted by the ring.
Yeah okay the Cape thing is nonsencial but that horn sound was fantastic and the Easterlings looked very cool
Oh yea the door and the Easterlings are cool. Even with Jackson’s errors, he made things look epic. 👀
Also, after they successfully hide from the evil dudes, they immediately get up an hide behind a big rock.... when they are hidden by the cloak the shot of the dudes, there is no big rock. The hobbits get up an take one or two steps an hide again. If the men were standing right infront of the cloak, they would be standing on the rock or atleast it would be in shot...
I don't mind either scene personally, neither one takes me out of the movie or makes me think less of the picture as a whole.
Don't kill me, but while I love Bernard Hill as Theoden, it is hard to take his crying scene at the death of his son seriously when seems so hammed up.
What I want to know is how Frodo and Sam expected to get through the black gate without getting caught. How was that supposed to work? 😂
I remember the cloak covering them was a stretch. Overall, the Peter Jackson adaptation of Lord of the Rings books was the greatest movie series ever!
I've been fast forwarding the scenes with any hobbits since about 2004
To be fair, the Merry/Pippin cringefest (including the "appropriation" of Old Man Willow from Fellowship) were in the extended edition of The Two Towers, not the Theatrical Cut. I guess we know why they were cut. As for the Elven Cloaks resembling rocks, that felt pretty far fetched, even for Tolkien.
The cloaks were a gift from Galadriel, and as such had the magical gift of hiding the wearers from unfriendly eyes. The books did it a little more subtly, but only a little - in the Two Towers, when Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas are being approached by the Riders of Rohan, they don't hide in a cleft - they stand in the middle of the field and let the Riders approach. And the Riders run right by them. These three are standing in the middle of an open field, and the Riders of Rohan who are traveling right next to them, don't see them. I should also mention that all three had the hoods of their cloaks up, at this time. It isn't until Aragorn throws back his hood and calls to the Riders, that they finally realized that there are three people there, that they all are passing right by.
That's how the cloaks work.
I liked the Black Gate scene better when it was in The Wizard of Oz.
Did JRR Tolkien kill an elephant IRL? I remember reading an autobiography in school of some british writer who was a soldier in one of the world wars where he was in india or somewhere like that and he had to kill an elephant that had previously rampaged through a village. The point of the chapter was that he only did it so he wouldnt look stupid or weak in front of the natives and he regretted it. I cant remember if it was from Tolkien or someone else though
So what was the original path for Frodo and Sam ? Enterring Mordor by the Black Gate ?
Man I wonder how the films would be like if there were no changes made!
50 hours combined 😂
not a commercial success
Speaking of the Old Man Willow in the moiview - it's not actually a willow. Why? Because the leaves that Merry and Pippin got buried under are from an oak. So, either you can call this tree "Old Man Oak" or just think that this is just one of the trees that, like Old Man Willow, became carnivorous and agressive.
Good point!
@@factorfantasyweekly I thought in the extended Old Forest scene we had Old Man Willow. When I watched the elf-cloak scene as a child, I was surprised that the cloak did look like one of the rocks: I believe the criticism over it being unrealistic (which I have seen on 2016 answers on Quora, as well as Random Film Talk's discussion of the Extended Two Towers), refers to the fact the Easterling gimps who look at the cloaks should have seen what the "rock" was at close range, and the fact they should have seen Sam: however, it seems Sam quickly was swallowed by sand, which is why his bones were not broken and how Frodo quickly got him out. It also should be said they were wearing their elf-cloaks the whole journey, and used them to watch the Haradrim enter the Black Gate (they and Gollum were on the height of course and hidden by rocks: all three were careful to make sure the Haradrim didn't spot them).
Yea, that must have been a lot of work!
I love this series. Thanks.
You are incorrect the men marching into the Black Gate are Easterlings(in the book inplied to be from Rhun), and are a different allied people to Sauron. The Haradrim are from the South, and have a more direct path into Mordor from the South, Morder is completely cut off from the North with the Exception of the Black Gate. There are in fact four main ways into Mordor and Two of them are in the South East of Mordor, Minas Morgul, and the Black Gate. It makes no sense for Haradrim Foot Soldiers to wander across Ithilian to the Black Gate when they can(and later do in the movies) use Minas Morgul to enter Mordor.
So in conclusion the Wicked men in this scene are Easterlings.
I was never fan of the scene with elven cloak. Now, after being Dungeon Master in DnD for two years, I dislike the scene even more, as my players use it as excuse to abuse item called Cloak of Elvenkind, saying "but Frodo and Sam did it too!". The only worse scene I can think of is Legolas jumping on falling rocks in Hobbit, but I will wait for you to make a video about that once LotR series are finished.
Just ask them, "But were the cloaks specifically made and blessed by Galadriel and her handmaidens?" Even among Tolkien's elves, not all of them could make cloaks that could do that - the cloaks in the movie were specifically made and blessed by Galadriel to "hide the wearer from unfriendly eyes".
The drama with the bread... worst, most pointless scene
I thought I was the only person who thought the first scene was stupid. I thought it was something I missed from the book but I guess nahh it’s just stupid.
Personally, I think the movie would've been better served to provide a little more info on huorns, too.
This video and all the comments are just so wacky and hilarious in equal measure 😂
I agree this bad scene could have been removed however I think it's not so bad because it reminds us these hobbits are really just young kids, not superheroes, normal kids in extraordinary situations. Lost and a long way from home. But that they are still just kids out of their depth.
Frodo has turned 50 and Sam is in his forties...
Relative to a 3000 year old Legolas,, a 200+ year old Gimli, a 80+ year old Aragorn, a 8000 year old Gandalf and a 10,000 year old treebeard, the hobbits are children compared to them etc
@@94462 Are you under an impression that Legolas would be faring any better going to Mordor? It was a quest where _everyone_ would be out of their depth.
And Gandalf was the oldest of them all - older than the world itself, actually.
Is there a reason you called them evil men and not men of Rhun or Easterlings? Because I'm pretty sure those soldiers are Loke-Gamp Rim, which is a part of the Rhunic army.
I know its not a big thing but I was just curios because the evil men armies do have names which is Rhun, Harad, and Umbar.
Nah, they gotta be evil, otherwise we'd have to re examine how we feel about our heroes gleefully slaughtering them while keeping score as if the lives they were ending had no value beyond fueling their bro bonding.....
yeah I don't know, I often refer to them as easterlings, haradrim and corsairs of umbar (or the corsairs for short) because I don't believe them to be evil but simply corrupted.
@@DrewLSsix they could still be evil what I'm saying is that you could use the faction name. I mean it can still be shown that they are evil by the fact that they are allied with Sauron. Shows that not all of the men are good.
@@CursedAnqxl yeah I get that with the Corsairs. They are pirates and possibly only really care about coin, Sauron probably just brought them into loyalty. But still the Easterlings/Rhun and Haradrim are pure evil. Though I do not really know why. Is it ever said why those two are evil?
Quick answer for all of you: It’s easier to say “evil men” cause, as you all have mentioned, there are multiple names for them and the different regional groups. If I called them one name, I’d probably get comments telling me I forgot the other possible names. 😂 So to make things easier, I think we can just call them “evil men”.
I simply hate how Jackson did Mary and Pippen in the whole thing. I was a fan for about 12+ years before the movies and any slight deviation pissed me off, so I couldn't enjoy the movies even today. it was mostly just the characters more than the plot deviation that pissed me off.
That cloak was never big enough t cover both young men.
The overall film was still a masterpiece an both these scenes weren't as relevant t the whole storyline as say Aragons,Frodo eyc
Very different Tree-O's.
💀😂
Having a "negative" opinion about something isn't toxic that's so gay
Tru ☝️
There is a difference between having a negative opinion and being toxicly negative. Negativity get views and likes on social media, it's the lazy way of getting big
How is it gay? Most gay people I know are very positive.
Am I trippin or did you change the title of this video while I had it paused waiting to finish it later..... Hmmm...
Great as always! The scene of them drinking the water and growing is among my least favorite in the movies and should have been left out. I know it was an homage to Tolkien's original story, but it just came out silly and ridiculous. For example, if the Hobbits want to be taller, why not just keep drinking the water until they were 6 feet tall or whatever? Just not a good scene.
As for the Black Gate, I have one thing to add to what Gibby said. It may just be me, but those two soldiers by the cloak/rock looked like women to me. I know you can't see much, but their eyes just look like women and we know Jackson often used women made to look like men. Look closely and see what you think.
That brings me to what I think is the absolute worst scene in the whole movie trilogy. Unfortunately, it's in the last movie and won't be talked about for a long time. I am dying to talk about it as I do think it's the worst and was totally unnecessary. But I'll wait (I'm not really "dying" in case you're concerned).
As always, I love the analysis in this great series!
Hey, I have a question I feel like I haven't been able to get a straight updated answer from google.
Is there an Omnibus set of all the published Tolkien material? Failing that,mfors anyone have an updated list in canon chronological order? I want to include all hisfa letters and the Father Christmas letters. I also can never tell which short stories are in which book because sometimes google talks about them ile the stories are sold individually too.
Thanks to anyone that can help me!
Easterlings.
Sorry but I think these movies were flawless. You just c it lent ask for more. I don’t think anyone could have made a better movie closer to the book and the way I envisioned the book, which was the only thing better: my version ;)
19:54 I feel you are incorrect about the films showing Pippin "shrink back to his normal size". You seem to be reading way too much into an extremely brief and non-specific scene. I'm not saying that you are definitively incorrect, but to state that this is objectively in the films, is simply not true. At the very most, your perspective is just one of several possibilities. (Dear Lord, I'm never getting back the time it took to post this, lol... Priorities, damn it! Priorities!!)
Have you ever adapted a screenplay from a book? have you ever designed a production for a highly complex film with a vast shooting schedule? I took 3 years of technical theater and have read all of tolkien's primary Works multiple times and I wouldn't deign to criticise the style choices of a movie that was deemed to be unmakeable, until Peter Jackson stepped up and had the courage to adapt these films and maintain a truly impressive level of Integrity to the original material so that you could critique it, if you want your criticisms to be taken seriously you should probably present some sort of body of work or experience in the field of what your critiquing. I haven't seen any evidence of anything like that in your presentation. have a little respect and maybe pay attention when professionals are doing the best work that's ever been done in their field. Attempting to elevate your own stature by nitpicking little things that you don't like and you don't think are lore Worthy? So you felt tree beards reciting of the poem spoken by Tom Bombardier in a similar situation in the Old Forest as an homage to the fact that that material was removed and that's one of the scenes you're referring to? Frankly you're not presenting with the credibility for me to take this criticism seriously I'm just going to go watch my extended editions again cuz I love them and I seriously doubt that anybody will ever top them, certainly not you.
This series is great!
You shout-out mistakes in the films, but you use an animation of a hobbit wearing BOOTS?!
SUE ME (but don’t actually… pls)
Too longo to get to the point of the video and too may digressions…digressions are interesting and cool, if done properly though
The rocks Sam gets stuck under are volcanic pumice. Very light compared to dense rock and it's plausible he got trapped largely unharmed.
Interesting way to look at it. 👀 That could definitely be possibility!
I loved the rock slide/cloak scene. It was just a bit of amost gravel, not a big deal. And the magical cloaks hid the hobbits as they should.
🤠👍👍
Paused at the 39 second mark. Sorry, with an intro like that this comes off with the same energy as those Star Wars channels that exist simply to bash things. I won't be returning, life's too short man.
I watched the latest episode yesterday.. I fell asleep afterwards. I refuse to watch it first thing in the morning. I'll come back after breakfast 🫡