The Two Towers

I didn't mention yesterday that Fellowship of the Ring is my favorite of the three films. It's actually my favorite film of all time. My brother in law commented about seeing it for the first time and how it impacted him. Same for me. I was brought to another world. I wish I could have that experience with films all the time. A few have done it for me--Die Hard, Dances With Wolves, Forrest Gump, Titanic... But this was just an absolutely amazing experience! Nothing can top it for me.

Anyway, on to Two Towers. Great film! I love the music of this film. It has some beautiful themes created by Howard Shore. 

My three favorite scenes:

3. Gollum's schizophrenia-I love when Gollum is having a conversation with himself. He allows Smeagol to take over and for a time dismisses his evil side of Gollum. Not only is it a great performance by Andy Serkis, but it so greatly hits on one of the strong themes of LOTR: addiction and the ability to overcome it.

2. The Warg Rider attack-Such a great intense scene to come just at the right time. Two Towers can be a slow-moving film (one word: Treebeard), but this scene comes right at the middle and offers some needed excitement. Legolas is awesome in this scene: firing his arrows across the valley and then hopping up onto Gimli's horse like Tony Hawk on acid.

1. Samwise's Speech-How do you wrap up a movie like this? It has no real beginning and no real ending. So they give Sam one of the best speeches ever put on film! "I know. It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.--That there's some good in this world and it's worth fighting for." That's how you end a film.