With his three epic films of one epic book shot back to back, it’s amazing that Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, and Philippa Boyens found a path through the stories to build a film that works as well as this one does. Sure, it has elements of many famous middle films in trilogies, but it still stands strong. Join us – Pete Wright and Andy Nelson – as we continue our journey through Middle Earth with a conversation about Jackson’s 2002 film The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.

How well do the extended and new scenes work in this film? We quite like them. Our characters are split so we have a number of story threads to track. Do they all work? Lots of new characters. Gollum is often brought up as the biggest and most important addition to the film because of the process of motion capture with Andy Serkis to bring him to life. He’s astounding and certainly worth a discussion. Does the CGI still generally work? Jackson’s cinematic style comes through a few times. Does it always work? What about his epic battle sequence in Helm’s Deep? 

There’s plenty to talk about with these films and this franchise. And we talk again about the plight of the cave trolls. We have a great time talking about it, so check it out then tune in. The Next Reel – when the movie ends, our conversation begins!

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