#Two towers battle movie

In the books, Aragorn, Legolas, Gilmli, and King Théoden and his fast-moving mounted warband rush to Helm’s Deep, a fortress that guards a valley and is the home to Erkenbrand, the master of the Westfold (who, alas, doesn’t appear in the movies) to prevent Saruman’s army from swarming across the greater part of Rohan. It doesn’t make a lot of sense from the standpoint of the books, or really in a practical sense, as Bret Devereaux explains in detail in this post from his blog, ‘A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry’. If they don’t, everyone dies, the orcs and Uruk-Hai burn Rohan to the ground and then head for Gondor, game over.īut. This makes sense from a cinematic point of view, as the average viewer needs to see how high the stakes are for the upcoming battle, and being able to show women and young children being chased by and later hiding from orcs shows just how important it is for the good guys to win this battle. In Peter Jackson’s films, the entire population of Edoras heads out to Helm’s Deep, along with the army. This is a big change from the book, as Book Aragorn and Book Théoden lead the Rohirrim to the fortress of Helm’s Deep, but the people evacuate to Dunharrow. The People of Rohan Evacuate to Helm’s Deep.Movie Théoden is under a spell, Gandalf comes in and breaks the spell, and we’re off to the races. I just wanted to see if that Aragorn fella married that pretty Elf girl.

#Two towers battle movie

I didn’t realize this movie was going to have a lecture about having hope in the face of despair, and how one must stand up to fight evil even in the face of hopeless odds. Do you really want to watch Gandalf expositing on the subject for five minutes? I thought not. See? You’re yawning through that explanation. Remember Jeff and Phyllis from Fargo? And remember that they haven’t read the books and so don’t understand Saruman’s insidious nature? In the book, Tolkien can take his time and have Gandalf explain how Saruman has used Gríma to influence Théoden, but can you imagine that happening in a movie? You’d have to have Gandalf standing there explaining how Théoden’s had a rough ten years, and that he’s lost hope, his son is dead, and that Saruman is taking advantage of this fact to use Grima as a philosophical weapon that prevents the king of Rohan from sending his warbands against the enemy, thus allowing Saruman’s forces to encroach deeper into Rohan’s territory until it’s entirely too late, the Uruk-hai are everywhere, and there aren’t enough warriors left to defend the vast plains of Rohan.