By skyforbes I'm rewatching after 20 years. I just finished watching The Two Towers. A few thoughts I have.
- Despite issues I have with the movies, the most surprising thing is how watchable these movies are. Two three hour movies passed by amazingly easy. That in itself is amazing
- Unusually, to me, The Two Towers works better than The Fellowship. Unusual, because The Two Towers is the middle part of this epic story. Even more amazing, this agrees with how I experienced the movies as a little boy back in 2001 and 2002, when I watched both of them in theaters. The first one I really disliked, back in 2001 and 2002, while the second one made me excited to watch the climax entry. Two decades later, I liked both movies a lot more, but The Two Towers remains the superior one.
- The Fellowship does an amazing job of introducing us to Tolkien's complex world, but it then feels like it does too much, in too little time. The movie feels like piling on of climaxes. In other words: there is too little building up of tension and conflict. It felt tiring and overstuffed.
- I remember when the movie came out. I remember that a major criticism from Dutch critics about The Two Towers was the storyline with the Ents and the trees. Watching this in 2025, I found this entire storyline to actually be terrific.