Product Description
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DVD Special Features and Technical Information:
Disc 1: The Feature
* Feature (approx. 179 minutes)
* Widescreen (2.35:1) or Fullscreen version of the film
* Dolby Digital EX 5.1 Surround Sound
* Stereo Surround Sound
* English subtitles and closed captions Disc 2: Special Features
- Bonus disc featuring hours of additional content:
* 2 in-depth programs that reveal the secrets behind the
production of this epic adventure, including:
On the set The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Return to Middle-earth
* 8 featurettes originally created for lordoftherings.net:
Forces of Darkness
Sounds of Middle-earth
Edoras & Rohan Culture
Creatures
Gandalf the White
Arms & Armor
Helms Deep
Gollum: Andy Serkis, Bay Raitt
* Exclusive 10-minute behind-the-scenes preview of The Lord of
the Rings: The Return of the King
* Emiliana Torrini "Gollum Song" music video
* Short film by Sean Astin The Long and Short of It +
behind-the-scenes "making of"
* Preview of Electronic Arts video game, The Lord of the Rings:
The Return of the King
* An inside look at the Special Extended DVD Edition of The Lord
of the Rings: The Two TowersDVD-ROM Content:
* Exclusive online content
.co.uk Review
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With The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, the focus of
Tolkien's epic story moves from the fantastic to the mythic, from
magic and monsters towards men and their deeds, as the expanding
panorama of Middle-earth introduces us to the Viking-like Riders
of Rohan and the men of Gondor. Which is not to say that Peter
Jackson's three-hour second instalment doesn't have its fair
share of amazing new creatures--here we meet Wargs, Oliphaunts
and winged Nazgul, to name three--just that the film is concerned
more with myth-making on a heroic scale than the wide-eyed wonder
of The Fellowship of the Ring ( /exec/obidos/ASIN/B00005RDP8/${0}
).
There's no time for recapitulation, as a host of new characters
are introduced in rapid succession. In Rohan we meet the
initially moribund King Theoden (Bernard Hill); his treacherous
advisor Grima Wormtongue (Brad Dourif); his feisty niece Eowyn
(Miranda Otto); and his strong-willed nephew Eomer (Karl Urban).
Faramir (David Wenham), brother of Boromir, is the other
principal human addition to the cast. The hobbits, though,
encounter the two most remarkable new characters, both of whom
are digitally generated: in Fangorn Forest, Merry and Pippin are
literally carried away by Treebeard, a dignified old Ent; while
Frodo and Sam capture the duplicitous Gollum, whose e is
inextricably intertwined with that of the Ring.
The film stands or falls with Gollum. If the characterisation
had gone the way of Jar Jar Binks, The Two Towers would have been
ruined, notwithstanding all the spectacle and grandeur of the
rest. But Gollum is a triumph, a tribute both to the computer
animators and the motion-captured performance of Andy Serkis: his
"dialogues", delivered theatre-like direct to the audience, are a
masterstroke. Here and elsewhere Jackson is unafraid to make
changes to the story line, bringing Frodo and Sam to Osgiliath,
for example, or tipping Aragorn over a cliff. Yet the director's
deft touch always seems to add not detract from Tolkien's vision.
Just three among many examples: Aragorn's poignant dreams of
Arwen (Liv Tyler); Gimli's comic repartee even in the heat of
battle; and the wickedly effective siege weapons of the Uruk-Hai
(which signify both Saruman's mastery and his perversion of
technology). The climactic confrontation at Helm's Deep contains
images the like of which have simply never been seen on film
before. Almost unimaginably, there's so much more still to come
in the Return of the King.
On the DVD: The Two Towers two-disc set, like the Fellowship (
/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00005RDP8/${0} ) before it, features the
theatrical version of the movie on the first disc, in glorious
2.35:1 widescreen, accompanied by Dolby 5.1 or Dolby Stereo sound
options. As before, commentaries and the really in-depth features
are held back for the extended four-disc version (
/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00009RGAA/${0} ).
Such as they are, all the extras are reserved for Disc Two. The
14-minute documentary On the Set is a run-of-the-mill publicity
preview for the movie; more substantial is the 43-minute Return
to Middle-Earth, another promotional feature, which at least has
plenty of input from cast and crew. Much more interesting are the
briefer pieces, notably: Sean Astin's charming silent short The
Long and the Short of It, plus an amusing making-of featurette; a
teaser trailer for the extended DVD release; and a tantalising
12-minute sneak peek at Return of the King, introduced by Peter
Jackson, in which he declares nonchalantly that "Helm's Deep was
just an opening skirmish"! --Mark Walker