I watched The Two Towers extended cut tonight

[PSXer]

I have never read the books and I watched the first movie a couple months ago and liked it enough.

This movie I thought was boring and I don't know what is going on / who any of these people are. I don't know what the point of this movie is. I like the parts with Frodo and Gollum but there is all these other battles going on and it's like what's the point. And Frodo seems to end up at the same point in his ring quest as he ended the first movie, so I don't get the point.

And why are the credits so long. I have to watch the hole credits so I sat through a list of 10000 names at the end.

[Peremensoe]

Originally Posted by PSXer

I have never read the books and I watched the first movie a couple months ago and liked it enough.

This movie I thought was boring and I don't know what is going on / who any of these people are.

If you're unfamiliar with the books, you probably need to watch all three movies in a run (over three days if you're not 'ardkore!)--you took a two-month intermission after one-third of the story, no wonder you're a bit lost now.

[Miller]

What parts in particular didn't you understand?

[PSXer]

Why do we need to see this big battle going on who are all these people why are they being attacked what are those other two hobbits doing why are they being attacked. Why can't we just watch Frodo on his way to Mordor.


I have no desire to read the books or watch the movies again but my friend says I have to see the movies so maybe tomorrow I will watch ROTK and be done with it.

[Mahaloth]

Uh, you told us your friend doesn't exist in your drunk thread.

Just stop posting rambling, drunk, threads.

Just watch the movies in order and it isn't that confusing.

[PSXer]

that particular friend doesn't exist

but I do have other friends.

Maybe I should have said "a friend" in this thread to differentiate it

[Snarky_Kong]

Are you drunk right now?

[Miller]

Originally Posted by PSXer

Why do we need to see this big battle going on...

Lord of the Rings isn't just the story of Frodo. It's the tale of the last great war between the forces of Sauron, and the beleaguered free nations of the West. The story is meant to encompass the full sweep of the war, not just Frodo's journey into Mordor. The actions of all the members of the Fellowship are crucial to the defeat of Sauron. By resisting him, the armies of the West are buying him more time to complete his quest. At the same time, the escalating warfare demonstrates that Frodo doesn't have time to waste: he must destroy the Ring before Sauron's conquest is complete.

...who are all these people...

In this movie, the two main forces in conflict are the armies of Saruman, a corrupted wizard who now serves Sauron, and Rohan, one of the free nations of the West, under the command of King Theoden. The Rohirrim are one of the major military powers of the West, but they are caught unprepared by Saruman's attack, and are forced to retreat to their stronghold in Helm's Deep. No nation in the West can hope to stand up against the forces of Sauron and Saruman by themselves. If Rohan is destroyed, then the other nations, such as Gondor (of whom you will see more in the third movie) will be left with no strong allies with which to resist Sauron. Thus, the outcome of the battle at Helm's Deep will be central to determining the outcome of the war.

...why are they being attacked...

Because Sauron is pretty much Hitler. He wants to rule the world for the sake of ruling the world, and Rohan does not intend to submit peacefully. Thus, war.

...what are those other two hobbits doing...

If you recall, at the end of the first movie, Merry and Pippin were kidnapped by orcs. By luck, they manage to escape, and flee into the forest. There, they meet the walking, talking tree guy. That's an ent. Ents are big on environmentalism. What they don't know is that Saruman, who historically had been an ally of the ents, is now working for the other side, and is clear cutting the forest to make war machines by which he intends to conquer Rohan. Merry and Pippin must convince the ents that Saruman is a threat to the forest that the ents live in. This takes some doing, but eventually they stir the ents to action, and they attack Saruman's fortress, Isengard. (Isengard is one of the two towers mentioned in the movie's title - the other is Sauron's fortress in Mordor.) Saruman's army is away besieging the Rohirrim at Helm's Deep, so he's pretty much caught with his pants down, and gets his ass kicked by the tree people.

...why are they being attacked.

As explained above, the other two hobbits aren't actually being attacked: rather, they manage to raise another army (of ents) to attack Saruman and take pressure off the Rohirrim. By the end of the movie, Rohan has been saved and stands ready to aid Gondor, which is the other major power in the West, against the armies of Sauron. In the process, they also manage to neutralize Saruman, who is one of Sauron's strongest allies.

Why can't we just watch Frodo on his way to Mordor.

Because Lord of the Rings is meant to be an epic tale, but Frodo's struggle is largely personal. His quest is a small (but, ultimately, crucial) part of a world wide struggle, and the trilogy is meant to cover almost the entirety of that war (there's a lot of other stuff going on elsewhere that we never see directly, because none of the Fellowship was directly involved). If Lord of the Rings were a trilogy about World War II, Frodo would be one of the scientists working on the A bomb at Los Alamos. Certainly, a crucial part of the struggle, but you'd also want to cover Normandy, and Iwo Jima, and other key parts of the war.

Also, because the stuff with Frodo is kind of tedious after a while. I can only watch so much footage of short people lost in a swamp before I want to see some decapitations.

[PSXer]

no I am not drunk I just ramble because I am not sure how to express my thoughts about the movie, because I don't understand what is going on. I am however really tired and maybe if I had been more alert I could have followed the movie better.



Yeah that all makes sense I guess this just isn't the series for me.

[Mister Owl]

Act II is always slow.

[Tangent]

Originally Posted by PSXer

And why are the credits so long. I have to watch the hole credits so I sat through a list of 10000 names at the end.

Why do you have to watch all of the credits?

[GuanoLad]

The first time I read the book, when I was 12, I also found the battles boring and an increasingly confusing array of unpronounceable names of endlessly pontificating characters, so decided instead to just follow Sam and Frodo's story.

I have since read it again, but even though I read the whole thing this time, I still prefer just the Hobbits' adventures.

My preference for journey stories over battle scenes remains to this day.

[fachverwirrt]

Originally Posted by PSXer

And why are the credits so long. I have to watch the hole credits so I sat through a list of 10000 names at the end.

In the extended edition, the credits basically end with everybody who belonged to the fan club when the DVD was produced. Skip it. There's no point.

[PSXer]

I started watching the credits, and then I noticed how long it was going, but I couldn't stop. It became a challenge. If I had skipped the credits, I would have lost

[Cuckoorex]

Stop fucking with these people.

[Hampshire]

I never read the books but loved the movies. However, I did have a lot of questions after TwoTowers . It took a lot of answers off the internet, from people that had read the books, and a couple of repeated viewing to take it all in. Thankfully I had that 2 year lapse between films.
For instance, at the end when they drag Frodo to Ithilian(?) I had no idea where they were. I thought they were at some side entrance of Helm's Deep and kept wondering when they were going to meet up with the others.
And earlier near the beginning there is a shot of human men burning down a village of humans? WTF? When we left the first movie it was Sauron/Saramon and a legion of evil orcs and beasts who wanted to wipe out humans. Who are these bad guy humans now?
Without a map of middle earth on hand and a glossary or people's names and places it can get confusing real fast.

[Smeghead]

Pearls before swine.

[silenus]

I prefer "Get Fuzzy."

[BigT]

Originally Posted by Cuckoorex

Stop fucking with these people.

You know, in my entire time here, very few people have alleged someone was trolling, and actually been correct. People have their troll senses turned up way too high.

That is your implication, is it not?

[PSXer]

ok I watched The Return of the King (theatrical version) last night

I am not satisfied with how they just walked in there and destroyed the ring. I thought there would be more to it. I guess I just had set up my expectations that there would be some big thing there, and what happened wasn't as grand as I had made it out to be in my mind. I also expected some great big backstory about Smeagol to be revealed, and it was a little bit, but nothing really you couldn't guess from the second movie. And my friend told me that he would be much more important, and I guess I expected more from it. In this movie I did like the battle scenes they were pretty cool. I don't know why the ending was 45 minutes long and I had forgotten about Bilbo since the first movie I thought he died or went off to live in the woods or something.

how did the ring end up in the bottom of the lake anyway

[Hampshire]

The extended cut of ROTK has much more Golum backstory even showing him when he looked more human as Smeagol and exactly how he happened upon the ring in the first place.

[Lemur866]

Originally Posted by BigT

You know, in my entire time here, very few people have alleged someone was trolling, and actually been correct. People have their troll senses turned up way too high.

That is your implication, is it not?

Have you read any of PSXer's other threads?

[PSXer]

the cut that I saw showed Smeagol as a human and killing his friend who found the ring in the lake while fishing. is there even more in the extended cut?



I guess I had such a high expectation of his story in my head that nothing could satisfy me

[kenobi 65]

Originally Posted by Hampshire

The extended cut of ROTK has much more Golum backstory even showing him when he looked more human as Smeagol and exactly how he happened upon the ring in the first place.

Actually, Smeagol was a hobbit (technically, a Stoor) before the power of the Ring slowly corrupted him into his Gollum form.

It was at the bottom of a river (the River Anduin), not a lake. In the beginning of the first movie, there's a prologue, in which it's shown that Isildur took the One Ring as a prize from the defeated Sauron in an earlier battle (about 3000 years before the events of the movie). Isildur attempted to use the Ring's power to make him invisible and sneak past some orcs by swimming across the Anduin, but the treacherous Ring slipped off of Isildur's finger. It sat at the bottom of the river for thousands of years, until Deagol (Smeagol's relative) found it.

[Mahaloth]

Originally Posted by PSXer

how did the ring end up in the bottom of the lake anyway

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't it fall off Aragorn's ancestor when his body fell in the water after he got show with arrows?

[kenobi 65]

Originally Posted by Mahaloth

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't it fall off Aragorn's ancestor when his body fell in the water after he got show with arrows?

Close. It slipped off of Isildur's finger while he was swimming away from orcs (wearing the ring in order to be invisible). Once it slipped from his finger, he was then visible to the orcs, and then they shot him full of arrows.