Outraged KC Star columnist rips "The Two Towers" - too much disgregard for the text

`The Two Towers' fails to follow best instincts of Tolkien's trilogy
By JOHN MARK EBERHART
The Kansas City Star

Hollywood has a spotty record in adapting books to the big screen. Anyone who saw John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany get minced up into "Simon Birch" knows what I mean.

Before this diatribe officially begins, let me be clear: I think Peter Jackson's version of "The Fellowship of the Ring" is excellent -- which makes me wonder how in Middle-earth the director went so wrong with "The Two Towers," the second part of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy.

I do not expect films to parrot books; they are different media. I have learned to deal with disappointment over missing passages; films must be concise.

But when I walked out of the cinema after viewing "The Two Towers," I walked out seething. Jackson has wronged Tolkien fans with this manipulative corruption. What's so sad is that so much of the film is good: "The Two Towers" admirably depicts the epic battles, the gloom of Mordor, the fear that goodness is being shrouded in a fog of evil.

Before you read on, know this: If you haven't seen "The Two Towers," you are about to encounter a couple of spoilers.

OK...ready? One of the reasons the book version of The Two Towers works so well is that it is a tale of two wizards.

The good wizard is Gandalf, who in the first book fell in battle with a demonic Balrog. Now he has been rekindled, only to face the evil of Sauron, the Dark Lord of Mordor. Sauron is seeking to find his lost Ring of Power, which would allow him to enslave all free people and rule over Middle-earth.

The bad wizard is Saruman, who once was good like Gandalf but now has fallen under Sauron's spell. Saruman has yielded to his lust for this most magical Ring. Gandalf, though, knows that even someone as learned as Saruman cannot wield this Ring. It represents absolute power; it will poison anyone who uses it.

In the first half of the book version of The Two Towers, the pivotal passage is Gandalf's meeting with Saruman. Gandalf's forces have bested Saruman's, and now the two wizards stare each other down at Orthanc, the tower at Saruman's fortress of Isengard.

In the mighty sweep of The Lord of the Rings, no scene enraptures me more than the one in which Gandalf breaks Saruman's staff. Gandalf punishes Saruman for taking the path of least resistance. Gandalf knows the war against Sauron can seem hopeless, but he will not brook the sin of Saruman's despairing hunger for the Ring:

"He raised his hand, and spoke slowly in a clear cold voice. `Saruman, your staff is broken.' There was a crack, and the staff split asunder in Saruman's hand, and the head of it fell down at Gandalf's feet."

Why? So he can put it in 2003's "The Return of the King," the concluding movie. And why do that? Because otherwise, Christopher Lee, who plays Saruman, would have almost nothing to do in Part 3.

Jackson pumped up Saruman's part in "The Fellowship of the Ring," but that was OK. There are descriptions in that book of Gandalf tussling with Saruman, though they are presented as part of a tale Gandalf tells to Frodo the hobbit.

Some may say, "So what? Jackson will let Gandalf rebuke Saruman in the third movie. Who cares?"

Tolkien himself wasn't happy about seeing The Lord of the Rings broken up into a trilogy. He preferred it be published as one mega-novel -- too expensive at the time, though such a version is available now.

But, for good or ill, the trilogy structure has become beloved of Tolkien fans. For half a century, they have debated the merits of each book. For my part, I think The Return of the King is the weakest, The Two Towers the strongest. Maybe that's one reason Jackson is saving some of The Two Towers for later.

But it's still wrong. Jackson has removed from Installment No. 2 the greatest face-off in the entire Lord of the Rings. After all, we never really see Sauron; he is a spirit. Saruman serves as his Evil Stand-In. Now we have a movie in which Saruman's orcs are defeated, in which the treelike Ents demolish his stronghold of Isengard...yet we are expected to wait a year to see Gandalf scold him?

And it's antithetical to the spirit of Tolkien's books. Whether he knew it or not, Tolkien was writing a trilogy. The Fellowship of the Ring is very much Frodo's book. The Two Towers is Gandalf's. And the third, The Return of the King, is more about Aragorn, the dusty traveler who reveals himself as worthy monarch.

One of Tolkien's strangest characters is Treebeard, an Ent. And an Ent is a kind of itchy tree that can speak, walk and herd real trees around.

Treebeard hates Saruman because Saruman directs his orcs to kill trees to feed the furnaces of Isengard's war machine.

In the book, Treebeard calls his fellow Ent to an "Entmoot." They discuss whether to battle Saruman. They conclude they will.

But in the movie, Frodo's young kinsmen, Merry and Pippin, must goad the Ents into it!

I suspect Jackson was trying to give Merry and Pippin -- Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd -- more to do in film two. But handing them this role in their dealings with Treebeard is a violation of Tolkien. Merry and Pippin are young, spirited hobbits; they are not supposed to "grow up" until The Return of the King.

Worse, their nudging of the Ents diminishes the tree creatures. In the book, the Ents are the oldest thing in the world. They are elementals, Earth spirits, ultimately unknowable. The scene in which Pippin shows Treebeard a stand of dead trees is hooey. Treebeard is wise; he knows his forest. He doesn't need a hobbit to show him the way.

Peter Jackson is a good film director. After the first movie, I was ready to crown him Tolkien's greatest contemporary champion.

But how did he display such reverence for the books in his first film and such disregard in the second? For there are other things wrong with "The Two Towers": Much more material has been added than was added to "The Fellowship of the Ring."

Maybe it was the screenwriting. The first film's screenplay was credited to three writers, including Jackson. "Towers" is credited to four. In filmdom, there's a rule: The more the writers, the more monkeyshines.

Is the new writer, Stephen Sinclair, to blame for us enduring a cheap gag about dwarf women having beards? Is he the one who decided to have Frodo not just detained in Gondor but threatened? Did he conjure the gratuitous shots of the weeping children of Rohan?

But I do believe Jackson himself has caved in to the forces of commerce on this film. Yes, Christopher Lee is a fine actor; his Saruman is superciliously wicked. But to put off his clash with Ian McKellen's Gandalf until the last film is a piece of grandstanding that grates upon me.

Fortunately Jackson has a chance for redemption. But "The Return of the King" had better be dynamite.

This is the age not only of the big screen but of the DVD. I suppose I could stop bleeding if, sometime in 2004, I could own all three movies on DVD and watch them as I please -- you know, view "The Two Towers," then pop in 20 minutes of "The Return of the King," then go to bed, smirking to myself that I saw 'em my way.

Yet I still feel cheated. "Towers" could have been a monumental film, not merely exciting.

To reach John Mark Eberhart, books editor, call (816) 234-4772 or send e-mail to jeberhart@kcstar.com.

No story is so sacred that it can't be retold by someone else who grows it, gives it their own flavor and perhaps embellishes it with a few things he wishes had happened.

Hmm. The Last Temptation of Christ. Well, is no story so sacred, after all? ;-) :-D

Whether he knew it or not, Tolkien was writing a trilogy.

So, this guy's beef is that the movie doesn't keep true to the pacing of the trilogy Tolkien didn't know he was writing, and didn't like when he saw it published?
Sounds objective and well-reasoned to me.

Well, even Matthew, Mark, Luke and John each told Christ's story a little bit differently. Also vital to a retelling is a shared love for the story that doesn't mock it.

I think PJ, and the cast for that matter, love the story as much as we do... so I accept their flaws in not reading it exactly the same as HairOfTheDog. I am just glad they liked it too.

But it's still wrong. Jackson has removed from Installment No. 2 the greatest face-off in the entire Lord of the Rings.

Beg to differ.

The greatest standoff involves Eowyn and the King of the Nazgul.

By comparison, Gandalf vs. Saruman is anti-climactic. The outcome is already pre-determined, even if Saruman doesn't know it.

The Last Temptation of Christ.

Ever read the book by Kazantzakis? Not saying it it isn't controversial, but Scorsese butchered it worse than he did The Scarlet Letter. For example, the boudoir scene between Jesus and Mary Magdalene never happened in the book.

Well, even Matthew, Mark, Luke and John each told Christ's story a little bit differently. Also vital to a retelling is a shared love for the story that doesn't mock it.

Good point. But I don't think any version of their story fundementally changes who Christ was. Jackson felt the need to change fundementally who, for example, Faramir was. He also changed who Treebeard was and what Ents are.

And who Aragorn was. Thanks to the return of Gandalf, Aragorn had great faith in Gandalf's reappearance at Helm's Deep: "Now get you gone! No man knows what the dawn will bring him!" Jackson didn't share that faith and lessened Aragorn to show some human aspect of his character that was already displayed at when Boromir died.

A lot had to be explained with a few lines of dialogue. Tons. Just to play one of the scenarios... How are you going to show Aragorn's faith about what the dawn will bring? A confident stare? Why couldn't that hope come from Gandalf? I don't see it changing anything.

The key was their decision to ride out and face what comes. With or without hope, and that the moment they did that, salvation arrived when they needed it most.

Finding help and friends when you least expect it. That was Faramir. Faramir was met, and had no loyalty at all to Frodo's mission, only his own, and those missions appeared to conflict. Faramir was told from Frodo's point of view. Frodo was intensely afraid of Faramir, and in order to show that, along with Frodo's growing weariness and turmoil, was to make Faramir appear to be a threat, at first. And yet he did not act out of weakness, but strength... He took the prisoners so he could deliver the ring to his father and Gondor. He did not snatch it for himself. he showed his quality, along with the patriotism to Gondor, that in the end, made him come to the decision to release him. Why should Faramir never have to struggle with the ring? That would argue with the basic premise of the story would it not? - And yet, these fears, thoughts and descriptions and explanations on paper, need to be reduced to dialogue and picture. How do we show the peril the ringbearer felt?

Aragorn will the the King. He needs to show us confidence and faith, not Gandalf. There would be time for his words at Helm's Deep if Jackson hadn't pitched him over a cliff instead.

Jeepers Brady! I just don't see a deal breaker here... All of us who know the characters can give them whatever thoughts they must have had. The book forced us to use our imagination to see all these events. The movie gives us some of the pictures, but that doesn't mean you have to turn off your imagination and accept only what is on screen.

Use your imagination. Give your characters the thoughts and virtues and struggles you know they had to make your story work. In Aragorn I see everything I need to see to make the story work for me. Much of it told to me well by Jackson, and the rest filled in by my own experience.

He makes an excellent point about the ents, though, don't you think? I was disappointed in that also. In the books, the ents needed no goading whatsoever, but were hellbent to destroy Isengard after their entmoot. This was completely distorted in the movie... (Ents of the movie acted like an indecisive United Nations). He has some good points about Saruman as well, IMO.... But definitely not dealbreakers! Movie is still a 9.95 out of 10 for me!

I think much of the cutting happened in the dialogue with the ents. I can see lots of places in this film where there is dialogue that happened but was cut. I look forward to the extended, for the added character time we got in the extended FoTR.

I think it is interesting to give the Ents a "not our war" attitude. I think it plays to the feelings many have about wanting to avoid war until it hits your back yard. "Its not our war" was proven to be not true in the case of the ents. Through Merry and Pippin, and the wasted forest around Isengaurd, they all realized that this was in fact "our war"... and that they were indeed facing a threat that affects everyone. And that message is a good one that may cause some to think.

I liked that about the movie. None of our heros wanted this war. It was not a war to take anything, but defend everything. It was upon them, whether they wanted it or not. I don't think it diminishes the valor or honor of the ents to have us see a decision made to do something. I think the messages rang true, even if the route to get their was different.

I think the messages rang true, even if the route to get their was different.

I agree, and I think I understand some of the (audience marketing) reasoning behind why he did it. But the fact remains that he took far more creative license in this film than in the first. I have been very forgiving of the license he has taken, it's just that there is more to forgive in TTT than in FOTR. And I hope that trend does not continue into ROTK or he will go too far. The way Tolkien wrote it has to be the ultimate guide and should be strayed from only with great trepidation....

Well, he did say that TTT strayed the most...

But I see only tiny details changed. I think it is just easier to talk about what we don't like than what was right. We take everything that was right for granted.

When I look at the film, I don't quibble with the plot on this one, but the presentation, and then only in a few areas, they just move to the forefront when we don't talk about the good.

I wouldn't have switched it back and forth so often. It felt like someone with an itchy trigger finger was on the remote.

See my quibbles are with the art of the film, not the story. Sam's speech told us much that we already should have known, without making anyone think for themselves. It felt like exposition to hit people over the heads if they were too dumb to figure that part out. OK, maybe they wanted to do that. If some people needed it, then I am glad it was done, but I didn't need it, and felt after the first view that PJ thought we were dumb. Well, some in my audience were.... so OK.

And gollum was too close to us. Again, art rather than function. I would have had him more mysterious, more slinking away, rather than coming right up to me (the audience) and looking me right in the eye. He gave us an intimacy he didn't have with Frodo and Sam.

And yet, after three whining paragraphs, all I can say is, I loved the rest.

I was not saying that the film versions says this either; only that the ambiguous reference to Dwarf women (in either book or film) is taken by some to mean a "canonical" confirmation that Dwarf women grow beards. Believe it or not, this is a serious debating issue amongst some Tolkien purists, right up there with "do Balrogs have wings?"

I had a good time at the movie. I'll give credit to PJ for being faithful to the story up to the point of Edoras. He brought Middle-Earth and the characters to life in a way that I didn't think possible in the first movie. After that, he's begun trending toward the mean for Hollywood and, enjoyable as it is, it isn't the story in the books. I'll be there for ROTK. I expect to have a good time watching what happens to the characters that Jackson has borrowed for his story. I'll probably catch this one a time or two more and then I'll await the conclusion. Surely PJ should be happy that I put over the cash for three films? I saw Fellowship six times! How's that for acceptance from a "purist?"

It seems to me that the guy is nitpicking. At three hours, the movie is long enough without the showdown between Gandalf and Saruman. And it would be anti-climactic after the Battle of Helm's Deep.

Meanwhile ROTK is the shortest of the books. It makes sense to spread out the story a bit. Besides, who really cares? I just got back from seeing TTT and I loved it.

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