In regards to tomorrow's much-anticipated
release of The Two Towers...

I first heard a few weeks ago from my good
friend The Scotsman that the new movie was
"cropped short." He was referring to the
absence of Frodo & Sam's encounter with
Shelob, the climax of the second half of the
novel. According to this article (link below),
some fans are, or will be, upset by this,
enough for one person to claim that he "was
robbed."

Ridiculous. Hogwash.

Sorry. But I say it's downright idiotic to let
something like that ruin the film for you. Yes, I
am disappointed that I won't get to see that
exciting part of the book committed to flim until
next year. Who wouldn't be? I'd like to see The
Two Towers and Return of the King back to
back if I could. Still, it's nice to have something
to look forward to in 2003.

I approved of the ending of FOTR, even though
it didn't stop exactly where the novel did and
went a bit into the beginning of TTT. And while
I am disappointed that Shelob won't be in the
second film, I think the decision to move her to
the third movie makes sense.

For one thing, there's plenty of action to cover
without including the last chapter. Compare
this to ROTK (the novel). The first half has a lot
of action, but the first three chapters of book VI
have Frodo & Sam walking... and walking...
and walking... until they actually arrive at Mt.
Doom, there just isn't much action. So I think it
makes sense to reserve some of the Frodo &
Sam action from the end of book IV for the
third film.

Also consider this: books I and II (FOTR) have
all the events in chronological order. Once the
fellowship breaks up, and until they reunite,
the two halves of each novel cover different
periods of time, and are not concurrent. Book
IV (the second half of TTT) is chronogically
longer than Book III. There are references in
books III and V to what is going on with Frodo
& Sam, and book V mentions events that took
place for Frodo & Sam in book IV.

I don't know how the film version of The Two
Towers will portray this disparity. Will it stick to
the book format, and follow the larger part of
the Fellowship though Rohan, Fangorn, and
Isengard, then cut suddenly to Frodo & Sam?
Or will we move back and forth between all the
characters throughout the movie, and show
things chronologically? If the latter is true, then
it makes even more sense to hold Shelob for
the third film.

Well, I've made my case. If only I could rant
this much about more important topics...

Gri"his longest post in months and it's a film
rant... I thought only Sam did that"shny