Hey, Fingolfin, anyone – wasn’t that trailer for The Two Towers due out by now? Mr. Pug wants to go and see LOTR for the second time this weekend, but I want to wait for the trailer to be appended to it. I can’t get through to the theater, as they don’t employ human beings to answer phones anymore. Anybody got the scoop?
According to an item on Dark Horizons on March 6th:
Say, I just had a bizarre thought. Does anyone think that people will be so hypersensitive to the events of 9/11 that they’ll want to change the title from The Two Towers ?
I think I would douse myself with gasoline and practice match juggling if that happened. And I probably wouldn’t be alone. Don’t mess with Tolk-meister’s titles, man.
I read on imdb (see the trivia section for the Two Towers), that Peter Jackson considered changing the name, but didn’t, because he figured the Tolkein fans would kill him.
Fear not! Fingolfin is here!..But alas, I am too late!
Torque is right. I heard that it was pushed back to the 29th. It’ coming tho! I…can…not…wait!!
Cal, there has been some talk of changing the name, but I don’t think it’s going to happen. Tolkiens “Two Towers” was around a long time before NYC’s Two Towers. A name change would be difficult and uneceassary.
Thanks, guys, for the info. Gotta wait another two weeks, dammit!
I don’t know why it never occurred to me before to think about the meaning of the title of TTT before this very instant – it must refer to the towers of Orthanc and of Barad-Dur, right? Unless Gondor has a tower in there that I’m somehow not remembering right now . . .
JRRT was not happy with the choice of “TTT” as a title. He was always conflicted about what the towers were himself. Here’s some quotes from “Letters by JRRT”
Letter #140:
“The Two Towers gets as near as possible to finding
a title to cover the widely divergent Books 3 & 4;and
can be left ambiguous - it might refer to Isengard
and Barad-dur, or to Minas Tirith and B; or Isengard
and Cirith Ungol (1).”
The footnote (1) to this letter reads:
“In a subsequent letter to Ranyer Unwin (#143),
Tolkien is more definite that the Two Towers are
`Orthanc and the Tower of Cirith Ungol’. On the
other hand, in his original design for the jacket of
The Two Towers (se #151) the Towers are certainly
Orthanc and Minas Morgul. Orthanc is shown as a
black tower, three-horned (as seen in Pictures no.
27), and with the sign of the White Hand beside it;
Minas Morgul is a white tower, with a thin waning
moon above it, in reference to its original name,
Minas Ithil, the Tower of the Rising Moon (FotR p.
257). Between the two towers a Nazgul flies.”
Letter #143:
“I am not at all happy about the title `the Two
Towers’. It must if there is any real reference in
it to Vol II refer to Orthanc and the Tower of
Cirith Ungol. But since there is so much made of
the basic opposition of the Dark Tower and Minas
Tirith, that seems very misleading.”
It’s probable all you other geeks have seen this already, but just in case, here’s a link to aint-it-cool-news and a review of the trailer by some lucky guy who just saw it: