as I procrastinate watching the next movie (not bc bad but bc long), here are my two towers during-movie thoughts:
why did theoden's signature and the overall image of the statute give me trump vibes... can't even escape reality during a fantasy movie anymore.
does eomer actually not remember aragorn from the first time he came to rohan? or was he not there? not a note on the movie but rather on the og story. or maybe in the book it was not eomer who found them. this would be easy to find out if I wasn't too lazy to look it up...
I completely forgot about the environmentalism theme and how good the story of book 2 was in general. like frodo slowly understanding why gollum is the way he is and having sympathy for him. gollum becoming an antagonist rather than a villian. also still stand by the drug addiction metaphor I proposed in the book posts.
I like how they designed the marshes, kind of what I thought the barrows would be like. but makes sense they only wanted to do that once.
"new gandalf is more grumpy than the old one" I thought the exact same thing as gimli, only more bitchy than grumpy maybe.
back to my problem with aragorn in the movies: I think, to me, it's also bc he seems more human than elvish as opposed to in the books.
"sam went with him" "did he? did he indeed…" gandalf smirking.
love that the hobbits are canonically stoners (no wonder they eat 7 times a day), I almost forgot. although I doubt tolkien intended it this way (but you never know).
yees let's go eowyn with the sword! eowyn's actress is also perfect for the role (unlike others...), both in looks and acting.
why are aragorn and eowyn acting like they haven't met before though? is this an evasive maneuver to throw others off? bc I stand by it, aragorn likes eowyn a little more than he should.
the depiction of the haradrim is quite problematic imo, they are clearly reproducing middle eastern stereotypes. I mean, it's the same in the books but they were written in the 50s and this from the early 2000s.
ok faramir just gave me more butterflies than aragorn. hot take: this actor would've made a better aragorn than viggo mortensen (pls don't kill me). but then again I also liked faramir a little more than aragorn esp in the third book. and they definitely have intentional parallels. it also doesn't help that mortensen keeps reminding me of jared leto... (again don't murder me)
my subtitles don't work, so sometimes I'm just watching a movie in elvish lol. I can mostly gather what they are saying from the context though.
backing down on the aragorn-tries-to-ignore-feelings-for-eowyn: bro feels so guilty, he actively thinks and dreams of his girlfriend. I loved the dream scene though, it was so much more natural than when they talked in the first movie. also arwen could do asmr, great breathy voice. and her character design is really well done, she is so ethereally pretty.
also love that we get some arwen + aragorn backstory in the movie(s). in the books, it's always a big question mark to who this woman actually is, until the very end. I'm confused though, was this flashback scene right before the fellowship left from rivendell or earlier when aragorn first left rivendell? I think subtitles would've been great after all...
I know back in the day I would say that the hp movies were not long enough, but these movies are definitely too long. after 2h 15min when galadriel made the prophecy, it would've been a perfect time to end it.
I swear after sam's speech in osgiliath he and frodo should've kissed. also this should be the end of the movie 2.0
ok aragorn, very first thing as you return from the dead with the help of your girlfriend, is to go hug your not-girlfriend.
again "frodo wouldn't have gone far without sam" they look at each other so lovingly and frodo giving sam compliments- stop flirting, start kissing! (I always have to think about that one elijah wood interview or whoever it was, where he goes "who said frodo and sam didn't make out at one point?")
maybe I'm just more awake and chill than last time, but I liked the pace of this movie much more than the last (still too long overall). I might've also just not liked the first book as much as the others and forgot. so my problem with the first movie (although I still enjoyed it) might partly be bc of the plot, not the movie itself.