(2/2) Showing my sister The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (Extended) for the first time! 

Well that's awesome, he is how he is

Never knew that. That is a great backstory!

@@rexbo29 The DVD commentaries are filled with stories like that. Highly recommended!

I never knew this! Thank you for sharing that behind the scenes story!

At the moment, I don't remember seeing this one-eyed character. I will have to watch again and look for him. I also only have one functioning eye.

That was really fun to watch. :)

The editing in that was perfect

genuinely laughed out loud at the moment

Its rare these days to see such agreement. . .

No! Um, wait, I mean, Yes!

Speaking of which, these films can be a bit confusing first go round and Carly is really good at picking up on the films’ nuances and foreshadowing.

@@Sir_Osis ..if not into books?

@@Sir_Osis I think that's because she is into fantasy in general. They talked about that I believe before Fellowship of the Ring. Pretty much all of the fantasy stories since LOTR have emulated some part of it. She can probably see right through it now. Still the best fantasy story ever written

Seeing her without her usual emotive expressions made me realize she looks a bit like Ali Larter. I've been watching this channel since the start and I never noticed that before.

character assassination was movie Faramir. The elves showing up to helms deep was also dumb.

I'm going to memorize this statement and resite it at work,in my apt complex,at the laundry mat,etc,etc,..

The very best besides Sam❤

@@admrob I'm saying that to anyone who will listen quite often. also the somewhat bigoted portrayal of gimli as comic relief.

@@squaaaaak3178 . . . Do you think Elves did the screenplay?

That would be Mike! He's a really wonderful editor that is the lead editor on the PIB team and handling all of the LOTR reactions.

Right?! It’s so good! I’m always a little bummed out when someone edits some of that speech or even all of it ugh

@@michaelortiz9359 for me, it’s the opposite. It’s overly saccharine, especially that part about there being “some good in this world”, and clearly just Oscar bait: and, if the past two years have been any indication, tone deaf and utterly wrong. Also Tolkien never wrote that line at the end. Two thumbs down.

Mike is his name? He is a master. Zoomed in on the lip bite the first time Strider showed up and the “look to the west” editing here was sublime.

Agreed! It's the best editing of all the reaction videos!!

I'm to this day astonished it got cut from the theatrical. It's only a few minutes long and it does a HUGE amount of story lifting. The studio must have been absolutely adamant about a runtime and this got cut too.

@Niclas Lööf I disagree actually. The Saruman scene, while good, doesn't actually add anything to the story and is a big deviation from the books.

The Sons of Gondor scene from this movie was my favorite restored footage. For Fellowship it was the Gifts of Galadriel, and for Return it was the Voice of Saruman.

@@StinkyBuster It's closer to the book than him just disappearing from the story forever.

@Chuck Shingledecker wasn't even the point I was making so I won't argue it.

So true. There are lesser CGI movies that it's cringely obvious the effects were not holding up.

The CGI isn't really better. It's because a better story makes the flaws less noticeable. If you aren't involved in the story, you spend more time looking looking for where the FX come up short.

@@richardb6260 maybe, but I've seen even in Avatar the CGI lines began to be very obvious years ago. I'm just seeing it now in LOTR.

@@ashleywilliams1060 I watched Harryhausen stop-motion Sinbad movies as a kid and thought they were the greatest FX in the world. Then I watched a reaction with two people complaining about the stop-motion in The Empire Strikes Back saying the CG isn't very good. It's all relative. Personally, I think the FX in both Avatar films are some of the best I've seen. While some of the FX in Avengers: Endgame fall short, but it doesn't matter if you're wrapped up in the story. I watched men dressed as Godzilla stomp on cardboard cities as a kid and loved every minute of it.

the same people who did the FX for LotR did them for Avatar. I see no lines in Avatar. On a huge IMAX screen and 3D, both films are flawless. The only time I thought it was flawed was in some of the added scenes for the extended edition. Like the hunt on direhorseback. You're right, the Balrog in the dark looks great. The cave troll? Not so much. There's a scene in Returns of Legolas taking on a Mumakil. Terrific, fun scene. But Orlando Bloom looks pasted in. Doesn't bother me. I grew up with heavy matte lines, obvious miniatures, rear projection, and people in rubber suits. Iron Man may fly more covincingly than Christopher Reeve did. But I still love Superman: The Movie.

This was the horse Arwen's stunt double rode when carrying Frodo to Rivendale..

One more movie that shows viggo's equestrianism is the movie Hidalgo.

It's even better than that; the stuntwoman's intended horse went up for auction and a New Line exec had his eye on it, but Viggo went to the auction and outbid him, then gave the horse to the stuntwoman.

love this, thanks. that is amazing

Don’t forget the horse that played shadowfax.. such a beautiful house.died in 2014 I believe!!😢😢

Or when he has an apple ready. Ask Bill from bree how good Sam's aim is 😏

@@georgechapman9688waste of a good apple 😉

Without a doubt!

this is how the battle in Game of Thrones should have looked instead of that mess we got

The first look at Saruman's army, is when fantasy feudal war, looks at the nightmare that is industrial war. It is a war decided by endless numbers to be thrown at a problem until it's beaten into paste.

I wouldn’t call it “the best book adaptation”. Because of executive decisions by Peter Jackson and Co. to move the ending of book 2 into the beginning of film 3, they had to pad the runtime with melodramatic doomer talk in the Rohan plot while doing what I consider to be the worst offense of this movie (and one of two reasons why it is not my favorite of the trilogy): assassinate the character of Faramir in order to manufacture dramatic fluff. Jackson did the same thing in The Hobbit trilogy. Though, since he was “laying the tracks right in front of the train”, so to speak, with those movies, it’s a bit more understandable than here, where he had years of preparation and his writing team signed off on this terrible decision.

When people say marvel is better it makes me want to rip my ears off

Carly

Galadriel is over 9000. Counting of years started with the coming of the Sun, and Galadriel and most other First Age Elves existed before the Sun and Moon.

I've always said Arwen is way too old for Aragorn.

@@ugaladh Galadriel was born during the zenith of the years of the Trees. I think each year was like 1500 years long or something

@@paulwagner688 Yoda definitely needs to talk to Galadriel about his skin care routine.

@@ugaladh And do we even know about Tom Bombadil?

In one version of the books, the other Rangers arrive instead of the elves - though Tolkien revised that out in later printings. I wish they'd kept that instead, including Theoden's line "if all fight Aragon, 30 will be worth 3 thousand"

@@JBWinter Isn't that just moved to, let's say the "next" battle in the books? I definitely remember the Rangers helping and that line from a later edition of RotK (book).

@@JBWinter The Rangers arrive for the Battle at Pelennor Fields.

@@CorakYT Yes! It's moved to RotK, where it makes more sense than dragging them through the Pass of Erech

That makes sense when you think about the context in which it's written, with Tolkien's World War experiences. That seems to be the overarching interplay in both World Wars, a villain manipulating other great powers to fight each other so as to not interfere with their scheming.

I love that poem: the older I get, the more it means to me.

In fact, that poem is inspired by an old anglosaxon poem or song that Tolkien translated himself.

Do you know the origin of the word Saxon? Isaac's Son's.

@@Scarla2U Tolkien was a great poet, though relatively humble

Hwǣr cwōm mearg? Hwǣr cwōm mago? Hwǣr cwōm māþþumgyfa? Hwǣr cwōm symbla gesetu? Hwǣr sindon seledrēamas? "The Wanderer" is a 10th century poem, collected in the "Exeter Book". Modern English: Where have the horses gone? Where are the riders? Where is the giver of gold? Where are the seats of the feast? Where are the joys of the hall? There is a good video about this poem here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-tSJ7Sl-Q-HE.html

Also because human and elven pairings in Tolkien's world are very rare. When one happens it's of major significance to the main plotline of the history of middle earth. So Tolkien would never throw a romance into the story that also doesn't serve another plot function.

I''ve said it before but Carley is quite good at following and predicting the plots of films. I like how she got excited at predicting the next film line in Part 1 of the Two Towers. I always smile when I do that too. :)

Yes, because we are watching our favorite reactor react with the same joy we have when watching her react to our favorite movies.

It's our reaction on her reaction on her reaction.

I liked seeing that smile on Cassie's face from Boromir's big heroic speech fade the moment she heard Denethor's voice.

@@joelwillems4081 Carley has a great feel for 'Story'.

Bernard Hill was absolutely brilliant as Theoden. In a cast of excellent actors giving stellar performances he stands out the most to me.

Theoden is my favorite character. A flawed hero.

Yeah, for a character introduced in the second film, as a feeble minded invalid, Theoden really steals the show. He and Aragorn also have a interesting intertwined dynamic, as a King who feels he has failed and is struggling to lead his people and fight his own despair, and the King who fears he will fail and has rejected his position being forced to help the former and see that there is a way forward even if you fail.

Totally agree. He jumps off the screen every time. Everyone has great moments in these films, but it's like every moment of his is great.

theoden is actually my least favourite character, i think he's a weak king and i feel like his speeches are just pretty lame, i wouldnt be prepared for battle after listening to him, the only moment i liked was when he was free from saruman and had to bury his son, loved that scene and still brings a tear to my eye

It is a cinematic roller coaster. A seesaw of they are f*cked and they are gonna win!

Sadly it is quite contradictory to the book. Faramir never attempted to bring Frodo and Sam back to Gondor. He quite quickly understood what it was all about, and had a much higher moral than Boromir. Boromir didn't try to take the ring from Frodo because of Denethor in the book, but because he wanted it himself. But Boromir did redeem himself after the stint of madness.

@@sillbit I really need to read the books. I feel like the movies added some stuff that kind of bugged me, despite me liking the movies overall. Hey, can you answer a question for me. Do the books have so many death fake outs? It gets really tiring in the movies. A couple worked, but most were just superficial. SPOILERS (obviously heh) From Fellowship: The hobbits in Bree (first one, so I give it a pass, plus it was a good way to reveal their decoy plan) Frodo getting stabbed in the mines - again, it revealed the mithril, but why did he act like he was dead, only to be fine minutes later. Gandalf in the mines - totally works, given the story From Two Towers: Merry and Pippen - cutaway before trampled by a horse, Legolas then says blood was spilled. Can't stand this one, I have 'cutaway deaths'. Aragorn off the cliff - again, cutaway Return of the King: Frodo getting stung Gollum over a cliff It's like, 7 times where the movies said "they're dead....ah, got ya!" by the 3rd time I was like 'just stop' hehe.

@@sydhamelin1265 You should really read the books. There is a lot of things in the books that was totally dropped from the movies. Anyone remember Tom Bombadil? Or Ghan-buri-ghan? The whole story beginning when the hobbits are leaving the Shire is completely different. And the ending, with the real final moments of Saruman as well (which happens in the Shire). And yes, the fake deaths are pretty much completely Hollywood. Frodo in the Moria is the one that did happen sortof similar, if not so exaggerated. I agree that it gets tiring. And like most things, it feels very unnecessary. The story was good as Tolkien wrote it. No need to go and change all kind of things all over the place. I think the changes to Faramir were among the more criticized ones among a lot of people who had read the books, but the creative freedom taken with the story is quite extensive.

@@sydhamelin1265 in the fellowship, all those do happen although played out differently. They do set up the riders I think but it already let's you know that the Hobbits were staying with Aragorn. With frodo being stabbed, he is down for a bit but he gets back up as soon as the troll is dead. The big reveal there though is that he's wearing mithril, the rest of the company don't find out until a good moment afterwards. As for gandalf that's pretty much scene for scene except gandalf just falls, he doesn't hold on. As for Two Towers, that's all just Hollywood. Can't tell you from the third one, haven't got there yet

@@sydhamelin1265 1) The hobbits in Bree: it is said to have happened, but it's not showed: they sleep in the parlor in the inn, and the innkeeper and his servants fake the hobbit shapes in their beds, so when the morning after they go and see their room, they see pllows and mattresses ripped up to pieces: clearly the Ringwraiths broke into their room and stabbed the pillows thinking they would kill the hobbits. 2) Frodo stabbed in Moria: yes, it's almost the same in the books, just a tad less dramatic: Frodo is hit by the Troll's spear, but they have no time to mourn, Aragorn takes Frodo on his shoulder and they flee, and while they're fleeing Frodo comes to his senses and asks Aragorn to put him down, Aragorn tells him he believed him dead, Frodo has some problems to breath and, anfter they go out of Moria he is taken care of by Aragorn, and then they discover his coat of mithril. 3) Gandalf in Moria: yes, almost scene for scene; the same goes for his meeting with Aragorn and Co. in the Fangorn Forest. 4) Merry and Pippin during the attack of Rohan riders to the orcs: not showed but implied: the hobbits are taken away by Grishnàkh before the real battle, but when the battle begins, a rider kills Grishnàkh with his arrows, and the horse that trample him oversteps the hobbits without noticing them; when Aragorn and Co go to the place, they find the pyre and they fear indeed that the hobbits could be dead and burned with the orcs; then Aragorn find the signs on the ground and the scene is almost word for word as in the books; but the readers already know that the hobbits are safe with Treebeard because their meeting happens in the previous chapter. 5) Aragorn off the cliff: invented for the movies, since the whole sequence of the attack of the werewolves and wereriders is invented for the movie. 6) Frodo getting stung: not showed in the books, but it happens: since in the books Frodo never sent Sam away, they are together when Shelob attacks them, but Frodo runs ahead and Sam is attacked by Gollum, so when he finally frees himself, he finds that his master has already been stung and wrapped up in Shelob's web (the scene is told by Sam's POV). 7) Gollum over a cliff: invented for the movies.

I read it as a sort of 'terrified awe', he's a weak coward that loves power, it thrills him like nothing else. He doesn't love Eowyn, he lusts for her, he was trying to manipulate and groom her by isolating her. He really is a pathetic corrupt man. So in today's world he would just be some basement dwelling edgelord that loves authoritarian strongmen.

Despite everything. Grima is just a other victim that's been corrupted. Probably by Saruman. I like to think of that moment as Grima see's the impossible large army, he understands the true consequences of his actions.

I hope she had tissues when she watched the third one, if she was misty eyed here the emotions just go higher in return of the king.

I still get misty over that speech, and I’ve probably seen it 1000 times….at _least._

That’s right.

unbelievable that they shot all three films in just over 1 year!

I remember buying the extended editions and watching every behind the scenes DVD in awe of what went on making these films.

The craziest part to me is that Peter Jackson fished the idea of doing a Lord of the Rings trilogy to several studios with Miramax being the first to have an interest but they weren't willing to do three movies, only one. Jackson held out, but when he couldn't find any studios to do three, he was almost going to settle and see if he could get two movies. He went to a friend at New Line who got him setup with New Line's president who is said to have been disappointed that the presentation was for two movies when it should be three. The investment in the project was frankly ridiculous at the time as no other studio had spent even close to that much. It turned out to be a worthwhile investment, literally inventing an entire practical and special effects studio, Weta Workshop in New Zealand, and bringing in nearly 3 billion at the world wide box office, and with the help of Harry Potter paving the way for multi-million dollar investments in previously unprecedented production scales. One could expect that the MCU wouldn't exist if not for the results of Lord of the Rings. After Lord of the Rings other studio's went actively looking for stories of a similar scale to tell, which is how we got The Hunger Games, Divergence, and Twilight.

@@SeanBlader those last three were a huge flop tho. Except twilight saga, they didn't do so well. And much of twilight was just teenage angest.

A couple years ago they did a rerelease event with the extended editions. First weekend was fellowship, a week later was tower's, then return. My brother and I got to watch in a brand new theater with food and everything.

40 minute battle scene. Epic!

And up in the North, Mirkwood and Erebor and the Iron Hills are all under attack as well.

Keep in mind that this is an ancient mythical world in which magic is not spells and potions, but baked into the very fabric of the world; Tolkien defined it as "art perfected". Beauty is honored in Middle Earth because it confers actual magical power, not just ordinary glamor. Arwen is said to be the reincarnation of Luthien, the most beautiful and thus the most powerful elf who ever lived. In the book, Galadriel's transfiguration is not into that strange green witch thing, but into a shining goddess whose beauty threatens to engulf the world. (I think Jackson messed that one up because he was used to making horror movies and didn't know how else to convey the crippling awe that her beauty inspired except to make it scary.)

Yup! Only 3 movies in history have ever won 11 Academy Awards (including best picture). Bernard Hill had a significant part in TWO of them. Quite the unique feather for your cap :)

Bernard Hill! He had my favorite behind-the-scenes anecdote about filming that he mentioned on the TTT cast commentary. He had been having problems getting comfortable sitting down in his full armor using the chairs provided to everyone. One day after filming, he was driving back to his rental house in Wellington when he saw a garage sale in the subdivision. He stopped to see what they had on offer, and he saw two metal spikes that were about hip height with a cushioned seat on top, made to be driven into the ground to provide a seat while fishing, etc. He took them both to his trailer the next day, and on a Friday, a crew member noticed them and the rather ratty appearance of the seats. He asked Bernard if he could reupholster them for him, and he gratefully accepted, expecting just some new leather seats. Instead, what he got back on Monday were two gorgeously decorated leather mini-thrones, embellished with Rohirric emblems chased all over the seats, very appropriate for a king!

@@kathyastrom1315 I love that story. The commentaries for these films are a treasure to listen to. The amount of pure love that every single person working on these movies had for them is astounding. And it shows in things like this... something that will never be seen on film, but that the King of Rohan would appreciate. Most of the sets have large parts never meant to be seen on film, but they dressed them, and put carvings and runic writings on them anyway, because the actors would see it and feel it. Or Aragorn literally going everywhere with his sword. Or sleeping outside roughing it and eating only fish he caught in a lake/stream for a few days to really wear in his costume and character. Everyone involved just understood the scale of the thing and gave everything they could to it.

@@ajackdrew he also had a small role in Gandhi; which I think won 8 Academy Awards so his total streak is 30 Oscars lol.

It's not the staying, its being wedded to a mortal that makes the choice for her.

Yes, in the end she made the same choice as Uncle Elros.

I think the whole question is covered quite clearly in the epilogue of TLOTR. A mound in Lothlorien. After many years in mourning. But not dead. So both immortal, but choosing a mortal life. Also. From what is intimated in the books. Elven powers are gifts not genetic. Elrond and Arwen are immortal and can leave Middle-earth, despite being half-elven. Two brothers and an orphan seemed to have made their own choice. Three hobbits are gifted also. The lone dwarf is unclear whether gifted or just given. For the difference you will have to read the books.

@@sjdover69 Not exactly: Elrond and Arwen (and her brothers Elladan and Elrohir), being half-elven, MUST choose their destiny. Elrond chose his destiny way before TLOTR and he chose to be immortal like Elves, while his brother Elros (half-elf too) chose to be mortal like Humans. And while all descendants of Elros, included Aragorn, are mortal (though with a lifespan three times the one of common humans), all descendants of Elrond must choose personally their own destiny. They can delay the choice, but not forever. Nothing is said about Elladan and Elrohir, Tolkien only wrote in a letter that they postponed their choice and remained in Middle-earth after their father's departure. But Arwen chose to be mortal when she decided to marry Aragorn: she wasn't obliged to do so because of that, but because Aragorn himself told her that if they would marry, she would have to choose to be mortal, unless she would face "all ages of the world alone" (words of the movies, not in the books) after his death. So she WAS mortal (the choice had to be made once and for all, and couldn't be reversed), but with a longer lifespan than any other human. And when Aragorn died (chose the right moment to die: another grace gifted to Elros descendants), Arwen surveived him for a while, but not forever: in the appendices it is said that she "passed" and that in Lothlorien there is "her green grave". Moreover, Aragorn on his deathbed clearly tells her that they're BOTH "not bound forever to the circles of the world", and that "beyond them there's more than memory", implying that they will meet again (unlike what woluld be if she went to Valinor, where she would "bear away... the memory of our days together, that shall there be evergreen, but never more than a memory").

@@Laurelin70 Yep. Agree entirely. However my response was to the comments who didn't know. I stand by my statements, as intended to the audience.

I think it adds conflict to the story and the character. I think I understand where you’re coming from but this is a change I like

I actually appreciate the change for the film. It makes me appreciate Faramir MORE that he can put his desire to please his father aside despite the ring pulling him in a bit. He fights off the ring himself, it makes his character so much stronger for me.

I appreciate the change because it proves how wrong his father was to favor one son over the other. Both were tempted.. both over came.

as others have said in this thread, I have always viewed Faramir's actions as more him trying to please his father and get the recognition he thinks he needs rather than a genuine pull to the ring. Faramir is my favourite character in LOTR, and is really the only "regular" human character that truly resists the temptation of the ring

@@dodohead147147That's how I feel as well. The Ring had NO pull over Faramir. Its not power he craves, its love. A Fathers loves.

*Pippin

@@slow_runner we are used to Scottie :P

i love watching new peoples evolution too... many first time reacts ive seen of LOTR... cant wait to find someone irl and record it myself...that would be so fun

Out of everything out there lotr reactions are my favourite, I can only experience watching the film for the first time once, but I can sort of live it again vicariously through reactors seeing it for the first time.

Wow. Wow. Well said! I knew about the "things that grow" and "Sam the hobbit gardener" and that the dark side here can not create anything only destroy/twist but it only now clicked because of your comment. Thank you!

@@raylangivens7151 regardless they were canonically part of the choir of creation and they each do have a token governance. i.e. Anor presides over the light of the sun and its creation.

@@raylangivens7151 i see what youre saying but in the official legndarium they are quite literally reffered to as GODS. tolkeins pantheon reflects a more polytheistic group of deities. Eru just happens to lead them as a father figure.

@@Cheezeblade Sounds like a very catholic interpretation of angels

I would also add to the poetic justice element. Tolkien didn't glorify war. So the plot of the story is not to take something from evil through battle, but to return something that doesn't belong in this world.

it is one of those Silmarils on the bow of Elrond's father's ship that is the star whose light is in Frodo's glass that Galadriel gave him...lots of history there

The audiobook is fantastic

On the FotR Director/writers commentary, Phillipa Boyens was teasing Fran and Peter, and said that Peter got Fran to scream her Ringwraiths scream in the recording studio by telling her that he had acquired the rights to The Silmarillion.

I'd recommend starting with Children of Hurin, then Beren & Luthien, then Fall of Gondolin first before reading the Sil. It can be quite overwhelming for beginners.

@@ShifuCareaga I tried reading the book numerous times. It took the audiobook to get me through it.

Not just the charge to Helm's Deep, but also Pellenor Fields!

Wow. I must read up on that.

The seige of Vienna 1683. 20k horsemen with 3000 Winged Hussars leading charged into the Turks who numbered 150k. John Sobieski led his Winged Hussars into battle. Likely the insperation for Theodin.

My biggest fear before the release was what were they going to do with Boromir.

Treebeard is voiced by the actor who plays Gimli.

Ents aren't just strong because of size. They basically can do immediately, what trees can do over long periods of time, like split rocks, dig deep, etc

In the novel the burning Ent, whose name was Beechbone, burned to death, and his death sent the other Ents into a fury.

Yeah, but Legolas could totally get it too...

And to think, he wasn't originally cast, so his involvement was pure serendipity.

Im a guy and I still think Aragorn is hottest man ever

hopefully Christopher Tolkien will allow studios to adapt the Silmarillion, in the near future.

I'm not sure how well entire movies of Elves Behaving Badly could be pulled off. The current mainstream fantasy hippy elves and Tolkien's noble elves are very different that the very Viking stories of the first age. I remember how shocking in the Hobbit I found the elves throwing the Dwarves in jail and trying to take their kingdom from them.

The Fall of Gondolin, attacked by an army of Balrogs. Or we could go for the deeply twisted Turin and Glaurung where he marries his sister after being cursed. Man, I would pay to see every one of those stories made into a film on this scale.

@@mycroft16 And of course a trilogy about the Sons of Feanor, one movie for each kinslaying they committed.

They really are. Watched the extended versions this Christmas in 4K. The quality of the 4K remaster is outstanding.

You sure your name isn't Joel Spawn? You breed faster than Isengard birthing out Orcs!

He wasn't actually in a MoCap suit, just a tan bodysuit. The animation was still done using Keyframes by the animators, but using Andy's movements as reference.

And the spit you see un the stew scene is Andy’s actual spit.

The one vestige of his actual physical self remaining in the film is Gollum’s spit when he blows a raspberry at Sam for his cooking.

@@Tensen01 well kinda yes and no. The original filming with the other actors was just him in a tan suit. Then he later recreated his blocking in a special green screen style room in a motion capture suit, though it was pretty rudimentary compared to modern motion capture suits and only captured rough limb/body action and nothing of the face. The animators then used the motion capture as the starting point for driving the limb motion of their digital puppet, tweaking it as necessary and added the facial expressions by imitating the film footage of Serkis’s face.

Little bit of spoiler for the early part of ROTK?

Your quite right. Both Denethor and Saruman were noble and good people that thought they could resist and gain advantages by using those "cursed" things. But it turned them into what we see in the movies. Denethor is but a shell of the great man he once was. Saruman is drowned in despair and thinks its just impossible to fight the might of Mordor. So he joins Sauron instead. When Saruman tried to convince Gandalf to join him, he was really trying to save his friend from pain and death.

Peter Jackson was also the pirate that got shot.

And also chomping on a carrot in Bree in Fellowship

@@murraypft That's not until next movie.

Pretty much all of the producers and various effects leaders from WETA Workshop and WETA Digital make cameos throughout the films. A lot of the actors families even. In this one, the boy Aragorn talks to about his sword, is his own real life son who told him he needed to take this role. The little kids at Bilbo's party when the trolls turn to stone the camera cuts to them jumping (boy and girl) are Peter Jackson's kids. They are also a pair of the kids in the caves under Helm's Deep in this. Sean Astin's daughter makes an appearance in the next film.

@@DrLipkin your right, Watched TOO many reactions. They all run together.

Agreed. The Rohirrim's epic charge down the hill to end the battle of Helm's Deep always moves me to tears. I love them so much I named my second son Rohan. ❤

Yeah I don't particularly like that they did Faramir dirty in this movie, but I get why they did it. Since we don't get any of Frodo's inner dialogue or POV in the movies they had to make changes to Gollum and to his relationship with Frodo, which worked pretty well to show Frodo's inner turmoil and how much he's struggling. But then they had to make the changes with Faramir in order to get Gollum back on the correct trajectory of plotting against Frodo.

@@themourningstar338 Yeah, it's pretty jarring coming from the books, but it absolutely does make sense in terms of the film. It's gotta be a nightmare to adapt even a normal book for film, but something as beloved and massive as LOTR?

@@mycroft16 No doubt. They are two totally different mediums, and there are some things that just do not translate well from book to screen. Then those changes cause other things later down the line that have to be changed. Definitely very difficult to do it well. They did an amazing job with LOTR, it's incredibly impressive how little they had to change the story to still make it work for film.

@@themourningstar338 the other reason is because the timelines do not match, much of what you read from frodo and sams journey in the book actually happen part way through return if the king, it works in book format but on screen trying to cut it together with aragorns etc journey it means they have nearly nothing to do but walk by the time helm's deep happens.

The ring is only resisted by a couple of people, If every other character was like "nah you keep it" it might diminish the threat level no?

Big difference between this and that abomination Amazon churned out recently.

With some rutting Elk calls added in at the Buckleberry ferry. when my boys were very little, I took them out in the middle of the night at the Grand Tetons during elk rut and let them listen to all the calls. When my oldest first saw Fellowship of the Ring, he said, "Why do the Nazgul sound like Elk?" I explained that most people in the world probably don't know that sound.

No, it wouldn't have been too unbelievable. Jackson made it seem like only young boys and elderly men were defending Helm's Deep, but that was not the case. He could have stuck to the book plot and it would have been fine. The Elves showing up makes me cringe every time.

I appreciate the elves being present for the seige, there is only so much dumb stuff I can suspend my disbelief for with LOTR.

@@NigelIncubatorJones My point is that even if there were more able-bodied people there to defend Helm's Deep before the Rohirrim charge down the mountainside, they'd STILL have been so overwhelmingly outnumbered that I appreciated the elves showing up to provide a boost. They were still outnumbered, and adding the elves in the movie was a choice that worked and worked well. I say that having read the book once and enjoyed it. I respect that you disagree though. No worries here. Also, I'll add this observation from a friend of mine who read the books annually: While there were obviously changes from page to screen, not every one was going to be a hit with everyone. That being said, he appreciated the movies for the manner in which they captured the story and the care and love that went into them from Jackson's POV. Overall, he got three straight A's, and for that he should be applauded. (The Hobbit movies, on the other hand...is it wrong that I simply didn't like those?)

Richard Taylor really was a driving force for that company!