The Two Towers

[gfish]

The extended version of The Two Towers is excellent. It really helps even the pace out, and the added backstory makes the whole Faramir debacle almost palatable. They even worked in a reference to Old Man Willow and Tom Bombodil, which was kind of cute.

But, while improved, it still isn't up to the standard set by Fellowship. So now I'm pondering an act of great hubris: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers: The Phantom Edit.

• Get rid of the inexplicable recap by Galadriel.


• Tone down the Arwen dream sequence. There is some useful plot information in there, so I probably can't axe all of it.


• Remove the shots of Legolas skateboarding and Gimli hitting an orc's crotch.


• Remove about half of the dwarven "comic relief".


• Horizontally flip the footage at points to fix topographic errors 1 and 3.


• Tone down the comedy when Merry and Pippin find the pipeweed, possibly when they drink the entish draught as well. (These scenes are only in the extended edition, if you're confused.)


• Look at shuffling everything to match the order presented in the book. First the Rohan story, then back to the Ringbearer. This might not work in practice, but I'd like to see it.

Anyone else have some ideas? I'm mostly limited to deletions, so it would be pretty hard to make major changes. I also like the idea of making 'phantom edit' the standard term for doing things like this. I certainly have had ideas for a phantom edit of The Matrix for the last 4.5 years.

Comments

[grinninfoole.livejournal.com]

The recap by Galadriel doesn't improve with extensions? Drat. I thought it was a neat idea that failed, that Galadriel and Elrond are somehow communicating across the distance via their rings. Of course, only she speaks, and he doesn't even react to her words, it's hard to be sure, and surely isn't much of an interaction.

[gement.livejournal.com]

It did lead to an awfully funny fanfiction moment (in the Ring Diaries, founder of the phrase "pervy hobbit fancier") with the ringwearers IMing each other across the continent to discuss whether or not Elrond looks good in purple.

Other than that, pretty worthless.