response 281 of 289:

Dec 17 05:15 UTC 2002

There was a time where you had more to fear from people dropping 
cinderblocks from the overpasses....

response 283 of 289:

Dec 17 22:24 UTC 2002

Re #281:  It was worry enough.  A co-worker of mine was killed by
a cinderblock.  She left behind a husband and an infant son.

response 285 of 289:

Dec 18 08:51 UTC 2002

And I think Mike has more sense about this sort of thing than I, so I bow to
his experience.

In the process, I completely missed that this drift was part of the movie
item.  So here we go:

I caught Two Towers tonight, in a typical "midnight of" gathering that brings,
er, interesting people from all four corners of the greater Ann Arbor area.
Typically, there were lots of familiar faces in the crowd, which is not
notable except that "lots of familiar names" is pretty much the feeling I got
from watching this movie.  Beautiful landscapes, impressive action sequences,
and a story that is *loosely* based on Tolkien's book of the same name.  Quite
loosely.  I can accept and even appreciate dramatic license in some
circumstances where the book does not flesh out certain concepts, and Jackson
did a nice job of illustrating some themes that he feels are important to the
story.

However, there are a *substantial* number of departures from the text, and
most of them seem to have no purpose.  They do not clarify parts of the book
that would be obscure on film, and they don't particularly add to the drama.
Some create their own drama, of sorts, but it is cheap and unbecoming.  My
friend and I regularly exchanged confused glances, and at one point in the
middle of the film he quite literally threw his hands in the air and gave up
on trying to understand where the movie was going.

I knew going in that Two Towers would take liberties with the story, but I
wasn't prepared for how many it took or how fundamental some of the changes
were.  I suppose this will make Return of the King interesting, since I no
longer have any idea what's going to happen, but it's bizarre.

Good movie, though.  On its own, it develops some plotlines fairly well and
shows impressive amounts of action.  Certain characters get less focus in this
film than in the first one, but due to the pace of the movie that is
ultimately forgivable.  It's a nice, watchable film, but don't expect it to
be anything that it is not--which is to say, don't expect it to actually be
"The Two Towers" in any sense a reader fo the book would think it to be.

If Jackson could just cut it out with the comic relief characters, we'd be
in good shape for part III.

response 287 of 289:

Dec 18 23:30 UTC 2002

It's fairly violent.  Most of it isn't excessively gory, but there are a fair
number of intense battle scenes and one particularly notable scene where the
camera pans past an Orc's head mounted on a stake.  You might want to wait
on it for a while--or see it yourself to make sure you know what to prepare
for.

response 289 of 289:

Dec 20 04:26 UTC 2002

Saw "The Two Towers" this evening.  Great visuals, although a few effects (the
Orthanc, Saruman's tower in particular) looked rather model-esqe.  I was more
bothered by character problems, both differences from the text
(understandable) and even within the movie inconsistencies.