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Exposing The Real Reason “The Two Towers” Is 3 Hours Long

Fact or Fantasy

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Welcome to Ep. 29 of Movies vs. Manuscripts: Lord of the Rings edition! Today, we are uncovering 8 different scenes in "The Two Towers", which were all made up... That's right, Aragorn's near death experience, his love story with Arwen, and more, were all scenes that you won't find anywhere in the books. So why were they added? And could they have been removed?

Arwen & Aragorn Full Story: The Love Story of Aragorn and Arwen

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Timestamps:
0:00 The "Cut For Time" Debate
2:53 Movie Recap...
5:36 Character, Timeline, and Location Changes
7:53 A special gift for my fellow creators... 👀
8:36 Plot Changes
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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

20 Comments

@factorfantasyweekly Creator 1 year ago Pinned

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@EALS-pb5rs 1 year ago (edited)

Eowyn's food is so bad Tolkien didn't even include it in the books.

@mattballotti1134 1 year ago

For the records, the little girl does mention another horse the mom could have had access to, so the mom could have sent the children in one direction while riding herself in a different direction to draw away any followers.

@OrinThomas 1 year ago

"All dwarfs have beards and wear many layers of clothing. Their courtships are largely concerned with finding out, in delicate and circumspect ways, what sex the other dwarf is" - Terry Pratchett

@kitch139 1 year ago

This has easily become my favorite series on YouTube.
Keep it up!

@janpokorny7698 1 year ago

Merry and Pippin do actually witness the departure of Saruman's army in the books, and from a much closer distance at that. They're right by the gate with Treebeard, when the gates open and they wait there for a long time while the uruk-hai march out to war. Chapter 9 for reference.

@danielpomeroy 1 year ago

When i first saw two towers i was somewhat lost because it's so different than the book

@MatthewCaunsfield 1 year ago

The Aragorn fake-out scene is the worst offender IMO - everything else at least fits within the restructured scenes of the film and isn't just a pale rip-off of something which already happened.

@fristi61 1 year ago

Helm's Deep was actually shot with Arwen fighting alongside Aragorn, and she was edited out of the cut in a last minute decision.
She is still (barely) visible in the background in a few shots, and somewhat crudely painted over as a Rohirrim in the wide shot of the final cavalry sortie.
With this in mind, it's easy to see why Jackson included the Arwen scenes. He was building Aragorn's love story up to a sort of intermediate pay-off at Helm's Deep, but changed things around again at the last minute.

Also I think Jackson had to adapt for the cinema-going audience who maybe only watch the movie once, who (if they're not familiar with the books) only have a limited bandwidth for information and need to have certain plot points taught and reinforced through "repetition", Arwen's personal significance to Aragorn being one of those things.
I think there would have been a significant risk of certain movie-goers forgetting who Arwen even was by the end of the third movie, two years after they'd seen the first one in theaters. You can't expect your entire audience to be pre-existing Tolkien fans.

@MarkFilipAnthony 1 year ago

It would've been interesting to see what elements of aragorn and arwens love story from the apendix was incorporated into the movies

@lordofuzkulak8308 1 year ago

7:36 - also, iirc, in the film the wall of Helm’s Deep curves inward, whereas in the book it curved outward. Iirc, in one of the special features on the dvd, Jackson or one of the Weta guys mentions they made that change deliberately because from a defensive standpoint it made more sense as it would allow defending archers to maximise how many could fire on besieging enemies, whereas in the book it’d be harder for them to bring weight of numbers to bare.

@eimanb3887 1 year ago

I like to think that Eowyn's stew was SO bad that despite Aragorn being a Ranger, he STILL spit it out.

@kevinmcourtney 1 year ago

The battle of Helm’s Deep wasn’t nearly as substantial in the book, so it needed a little filler and more build up in the movie. And Jackson sneaking in items from the appendices and other parts of his writings kept it all sound within the lore and was a masterclass of adapting book to film, while still showing reverence to the original author.

@thomasgomez4263 1 year ago

I think the flashbacks were necessary from a movie standpoint to maintain the Arwen Aragorn relationship, i disagree with how they did it, but i think it was a good idea to include it
However, i will point out that one place where they could save on time is the battle scenes and their buildups, the whole buildup and battle of helms deep is one chapter, but about half the movie...

@anthonybernacchi2732 1 year ago

Tom Shippey calls this section of the film the "Aragorn Intermezzo".

Minor correction: Aragorn is a year older in the book than in the movie when he's riding from Edoras to Helm's Deep. Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli meet Gandalf the White in Fangorn on Aragorn's birthday.

@CynthiaWarren 1 year ago

Merry and Pippin did see the forces of Isengard ride out. Pippin tells the Three Hunters in the chapter “Flotsam and Jetsam.” He even recognized the half-orcs as being similar to the Southerner the saw in Bree.

@tincano-beans2114 1 year ago

20 minute pauses in the plot for songs and poetry would have been a bit of an abrupt halt in the movies 😂

@jantheman2 1 year ago

These differences mostly are due to the adaptation originally being written as a two film adaptation. When the project officially became a three film deal, there wasn’t time to rewrite from scratch. So the two film scripts were modified to fit a three film structure, and TTT suffers the most as an adaptation….

@billsimmons2858 1 year ago

I think the more appropriate classification of Jackson’s cuts would be a cut (or change) for pace. Not necessarily a cut for time. Jackson had to deal with a visual medium and an audience that needed some sort of action every 30 minutes or so to stay entertained. A straight adaptation would have huge stretches with dialogue or meandering adventure that would not have been visually stimulating.
That said, I love the writing on the books, and it suits the medium of a written story.

@henrikscania-1st 1 year ago

Actually, no we don't know for certain that Saruman used explosives. It could be a magical contraption or even a spell of sorts.

"Even as they spoke there came a blare of trumpets. Then there was a crash and a flash of flame and smoke. The waters of the Deeping-stream poured out hissing and foaming: they were choked no longer, a gaping hole was blasted in the wall. A host of dark shapes poured in.

‘Devilry of Saruman!’ cried Aragorn. They have crept in the culvert again, while we talked, and they have lit the fire of Orthanc beneath our feet."

So it simply states that "there was a crash and a flash of flame and smoke" and not that it was packed explosives of any kind. So it can be interpreted as either explosives or magic.