Classic CC2K: The Two Towers Strike Back
Written by: The CinCitizens
Tower of Power
Though it’s not perfect, I think you may have gone a little far calling the novel The Two Towers “bloated.” I’m about as big a fan as the books as you can find out there, and running in these book-as-holy-text circles, I have yet to find a single Tolkien fan who objects to the movies as much as the straw man you create because of their deviations from the books–except maybe Christopher Tolkien. And since he’s J.R.R.’s son…he gets a free ride.
But you do bring up a good point: for the most part, Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, and Philippa Boyens strengthened what slack there was in storytelling and characterization when adapting the movies from book to screen. You mentioned The Two Towers as the case study here in book-to-screen improvement, but The Fellowship of the Ring is the real imperfect novel in Tolkien’s trilogy. Tolkien spends far too long dicking around in the Shire in that book, forcing himself to cram in the trip through Moria, Lothlorien, and the breaking of the fellowship into a couple of short chapters. The stuff in the Shire has its charms, to be sure, and serves the valuable function of memorably establishing how great the Shire was as its inhabitants who’ve left to fight the War of the Ring pine back for it–but how much Farmer Maggot and Tom Bombadil can a 21st century reader reasonably be expected to take?
You really get the feeling that Tolkien was discovering what The Lord of the Rings was going to be about when he was writing The Fellowship. This is reinforced if you pick up The Two Towers immediately afterwards. We as readers blindly assume that the whole trilogy was written all at once and of a piece by the same exact person, but writers are usually learning and perfecting their craft during their first couple of novels before they really hit their prime, and J.R. R. was no exception. Tolkien makes a quantum leap in terms of his writing sophistication between The Fellowship and The Two Towers. The storytelling, the narrative cross-cutting is much more sure of itself. Tolkien seems more confident in his ability to just tell the story, rather than ladle on exposition about the made-up culture his characters are moving through.
Plus, it’s the middle chapter in a trilogy, and though people always bitch about the middle chapter being the toughest (and Jackson and Co. certainly do on the Two Towers appendices), it invariably end up being the best (Empire Strikes Back, anyone?) Why? Because it gets to skip the clunky exposition mandatory in the first chapter of a fantasy epic, where the world, its inhabitants, and its rules have to be established before the story can really take place; and it avoids the two pitfalls epic creators invariably fall into in the last chapter: 1) having trouble summing up and saying goodbye to their beloved characters, and 2) running out of imaginative steam (Jackson and Tolkien only run afoul of the first pitfall in Return of the King, but they do run afoul of it. George Lucas fell into pitfall two in his original Episodes 4-6, and all pitfalls in 1-3). The middle section avoids all this and becomes a lethal, no-nonsense, story-telling death machine. We jump right into the action, and stick with it all the way to the end. There’s no slack in sight. Since the action’s going to continue, we only have to pause for breath before the end credits, not have all the characters tearfully hug and give one another flowers for their journeys home.
In the book version of Towers, Tolkien jumps right into Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli in their chase after Merry and Pippin (he even jumps forward a few days and then catches the reader up on what’s went down even as he propels their hunt forward–a narrative technique he never really learned how to use in Fellowship and the first sign of his growth as a novelist). Great. Perfect. Jackson manages to do Tolkien one better: he starts out with Gandalf fighting the Balrog as they fall through Moria. This is a scene that is only alluded to in the books; we never get to “see” it. It’s kinda classy that Tolkien refuses to satisfy our carnal lust to see this Battle of the Titans firsthand, and in keeping with his very Oxford-bred refusal to flat-out titillate, and his probably wise decision to keep all the magic in Middle Earth mostly off-screen to preserve its mystery…but come on, no one’s complaining that the crass, provincial Kiwi Peter Jackson ordered his SFX army to recreate this kick-ass scene. That’s what computer graphics were invented for. What a way to open a movie.
One more thing I’d like to respond to from your post: You are dead right to single out Sean Bean’s performance. I’d go so far as to say it’s the pivotal performance of the trilogy, because I always felt the character of Boromir was totally underwritten by Tolkien, and he could have really sunk the show. Just by the fact of Bean’s warm presence on-screen–and one little scene Jackson and Co. added of Boromir clowning around with the Hobbits early in their journey together–and you feel a sympathy and identification with Boromir that you never do in the books, where he comes off as just a pompous idiot, really. Bean gives Boromir the pride the role requires, but he eliminates the prickish stiffness that Boromir emits on the page. The casting of Bean and his intelligent performance completely rescue the last fifteen minutes of the movie. In the book, all the characters are mourning the tragedy of Boromir after he’s slain, and I as the reader am just rolling my eyes, glad that the asshole’s gone. Boromir read basically as a high school jock, a bully, and good riddance. Bean brings humanity and pathos to the role, and his passing is something to be mourned, both for him as a person and because of what he could have contributed to the upcoming War of the Ring. I had never really liked Sean Bean all that much before LoTR (I think because he scared me as a kid in Patriot Games), but he turns in a key, rock-solid performance here.
I cede floor to any who dare challenge my assertions.
— Lance Carmichael