Exposing the WORST Scene in “The Two Towers”

Welcome to Ep. 26 of Movies vs. Manuscripts: Lord of the Rings edition! Today, we dive into two of the most contentious scenes in the "Two Towers" film... at least, contentious for me. Maybe my most opinionated video yet, so buckle up at as discuss Frodo and Sam's visit to the Black Gate, and Merry and Pippin's time with Treebeard!

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Music:
"Arthur-Marie Brillouin - Bien-Aimée" is under a Creative Commons (CC BY 3.0) license.
@arthur-mariebrillouin4496

"Scott Buckley - The Long Dark" is under a Creative Commons (CC BY 3.0) license.

"Alexander Nakarada - Frost" is under a Creative Commons (BY 3.0) license:
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Timestamps:
0:00 Two Crazy Scenes
1:55 Movie Recap...
4:14 Character, Timeline, and Location Changes
6:06 Plot Differences
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Sources:
"The Fellowship of the Ring," directed by Peter Jackson, New Line Cinema, 2001.
"The Two Towers," directed by Peter Jackson, New Line Cinema, 2002.
"The Return of the King," directed by Peter Jackson, New Line Cinema, 2003.
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#tolkien #tolkienlore #lordoftherings #lotr #peterjackson #newlinecinema #warnerbros #jrrtolkien

[quillanjacobson]

I never took that Pippin shrank to his original size, but rather that Merry grew enough to remain taller than him from the Ent Draft he stole from Pippin.

[hansa]

I loved the cloak scene. It was a magical cloak, not some rag from second hand shop.

[lorien]

Yeah, for me it's Frodo casting out Sam. They get seperated because Gollum attacks Sam in the middle of Shelob's lair, NOT because Frodo and Sam fight. That PISSES me off. Their friendship/partnership is way too strong for Gollum to mess with it.

[bitterzombie]

I always thought that Frodo's threats to Gollum were not actually from him at all, but a rare moment of the ring itself sort of using Frodo as its talking-piece. The ring itself abandoned Gollum because he was "too good" at keeping it concealed for himself. It WANTS Frodo to take it into Mordor, or get caught along the way, & Gollum taking it back underground would undo all of the progress it's made trying to be discovered. So this is an example of the "evil" of the ring spelling out its own doom- it is warning him, "you take me from this hobbit, & I will send you straight to hell", not knowing that this curse it lays upon him will result in Smeagol taking the ring down with him.

[Alexquints]

For me, it's when the witch king beats Gandalf and yet in both the book and first movie he manages to hold off all 7 at once on weathertop while his power is handicapped.

[Seriously_Unserious]

One thing Gibi seemed to miss which is an important change between the books and the movies is while it's true that Sam never fell and got buried in rocks in the books, their movements DID still attract some unwanted attention from the Haradrim, as some of the soldiers did see rocks sliding down the steep slope from Sam, Golum and Frodo's movements farther up the slope and did to to investigate, and the hobbits did use their lothlorien cloaks for camouflage to help them avoid being spotted. I think Jackson was trying to capture that event in his Sam fell scene, but just want too far into the spectacle that he broke imersion there, which it did have that affect for me too, as I could never figure out how the Haradrim soldiers couldn't see Sam and Frodo as they were going down the slope nor when Frodo was trying to help Sam up before using his cloak to conceal them. Nor did the extent of Sam's burial make any sense. I think that was a scene where the producers got too caught up in making spectacle that the forgot the storytelling they'd been doing elsewhere in the movies.

[lumbagomason]

For me it was the absolute lack of acknowledgement that Theoden king receives after his death on the Pelennor fields. No one grieved or mentioned him, but Eomer runs to his injured sister and then there is a whole mini scene of Aragorn using his elven skills to heal her wounds. Yet they could have taken the same time to show king Theoden's dead body. He was one of the main characters in the whole trilogy. NOT ONE MENTION. Not even in the extended edition of the third film.

[Dark_Jaguar]

Personally, the part I disliked the most was adding in that "movie style" misunderstanding scene where Gollum frames Sam for eating all the hard elf bread.

[nathancole]

Maybe you are just speaking hastily, but in the movie, Pippin doesn’t shrink, Merry just also has enough Ent draft to balance things back to their respective heights.

Though I don’t remember their heights being noted as different in the books.

[lida]

Treabeard doesn't know how the entwives look like, not because he doesn't remember, but because ents – as he explains at another point – tend to be changed by the world that surrounds them. Therefore, after the centuries of separation, the entwives might look quite different from when Treabeard last saw them.

[orthicon]

"Scouring of the Shire" aside, I think they missed a real opportunity when they changed the meeting of the resurrected Gandalf at the edge of Fangorn Forest.
In the book, Legolas has an arrow nocked and ready to loose because they were not sure who they were meeting. Legolas was the first (I think) to recognize Gandalf the White and he fires the arrow straight up into the air, shouting "Mithrandir", and Gandalf sets the arrow on fire as it flies up.
That would've been so cool, and it would only take like 5 seconds of screen time.

[znkr]

"Absurd moment of stealth" isnt that an elven cloack? Always assumed it was imbued with powers like the rope.

[tindog]

One thing JRRT didn't have to pay as much attention to was pacing. Pacing is one of the first rules of filmmaking, it's about taking your audience on the journey without leaving them behind or pushing them too hard. There was much that would never be filmed, but Jackson wanted the ideas included and had to make different points at different times to move the plot. I agree, the cloak scene could've had a little better timing, but the point is made. This gag is taken from the scene in the book when Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas encounter the Rohirrim while following Merry & Pippin's trail. In the movie they just hide behind a rocky outcropping, in the book they use the Elven cloaks to hide themselves, just like Frodo and Sam in the movie... but I think Jackson wanted a more authoritative confrontation that would show the overall mistrust across the land and still wanted to keep the gag. Same with hobbit eating tree... he took out the entirety of Tom Bombadil but still wanted to keep that gag. I thought it all worked well... to do it absolutely correctly would be horribly paced and even boring, and would take three more movies of the same length (which wouldn't have bothered me at all, but he would never have gotten the funding).

[metagames.errata]

I kinda disagree with your take on Sam in the rocks. That bit did confuse me for a time, so I started overanalyzing it. Gotta remember how short this dude is, and if you watch when he falls there is a good amount of loose rock falling with him. And we get that shot from a ways off, directly from the Easterlings' perspective. There's no visible hobbit, just a cloud of dust and rubble. Not to mention if their boots are clearly loud, and the loudest part of the rockslide will be right at the end and they're far enough away the sound they hear will be at least half a second late. Not sure how they don't see Frodo, tbf.

Assuming Mr. Baggins can quickly get to Sam in the dust cloud before they see him, there is a little bit of a ditch they are in. It was not visually shown well, because everything is just grey rock (including the hobbits) but it looks like it to me. So from far off, they really aren't visible to men's eyes. Probably only had line of sight when Frodo looked up, and then ducked his head down to grab the cloak.

As for the cloaks, that is exactly how they shrouded the Three Hunters before meeting The Riders of Rohan. If you've read The Fall of Gondolin (I don't remember if this but it's in the Silmarion version), Tuor gets a similar c cloak from Ulmo. But ... back to Sam again. While it's effect is primarily a visual camouflage enchantment, it's not unreasonable that it would protect against scratches, bumps, and bruises of a 60-70lb hobbit falling in a gravel-based accident. And when you look at those rocks burying Sam up to his chest, you have to remember that he and those rocks are all half the size of Sean Astin and the rocks he was in. He's really not that deep. Frodo wasn't able to pull him out as much as Sam was able to pull himself out after he's had a moment to catch his breath and Frodo have him a stable arm to hold onto.

Overall, I'm right with you. And after reading the Tom Bombadil chapters, I don't like PJ's scene in Treebeard's home anymore.

[patrickfritsch]

A bit of clever foreshadowing by Tolkien with Frodo’s threats to Gollum; given after Gollum takes The Ring back from Frodo that he immediately falls off a cliff into fire.

[lida]

Regarding timeline: The day Frodo spent watching the black gate was the same day when Gandalf, Theoden and comp. visited Isengard and Gandalf broke Saruman's staff (i.e. 5 days after Merry and Pipin set off with Treabeard for the Ent Mood.

[danm]

I mean it was a magic cloak. I dont see the issue with that scene

[captaincool]

I saw the movies before I read the books, I was about 12 or 13 when the Two Towers came out. The scene where Sam falls and Frodo covers him with the elven cloth, always threw me off, even as a kid. In the movies you don't know the elven cloth can act as camouflage, but even still... that and the idea they planned on running through the front door of Mordor was unbelievable.

[cparle]

I find it odd you have a problem with the magical elf cloaks hiding Frodo and Sam from the evil men when just a few books ago they allowed a whole pack of Rohirrim to run past the three hunters without seeing them.

[ssjdeadpool]

I don't mind either scene personally, neither one takes me out of the movie or makes me think less of the picture as a whole.