Synopsis:

If Fellowship of the Ring and Return of the King could speak, they would say, “Oh, Two Towers Rebuilt, how we love thee, in the way that you complete me!”.

Intentions:

To put The Two Towers on a cinematic par with its companion movies and thereby complete the trilogy.

Change List:

CUT LIST: *All timecodes correspond to Rebuilt edit timeline* 0:04:27 – Rebuilt title added. 0:15:01 – Numerous cuts in following scenes. Aragorn and crew chase scenes get spliced together & Mary & Pip scenes get cut. Prologue scenes introducing Rohan characters get for pacing reasons and because they tell us nothing we don’t learn through our main characters in their journey just like in the book. 0:18:26 – Saruman monologue tightened. section cut after “a new order will rise.” 0:19:38 – tiny changes to kids on horse scene & some slow motion. 0:20:29 – cut to fellowship meeting Eomer. here and later through gandolf we learn every thing we need to know about the state of affairs in Rohan. Anything not told we quickly figure out with the characters once arriving at Edoras. 0:25:28 – much reordering, splicing, cutting, trickery, & audio work to keep fellowship scenes together so that we feel what they feel about the fate of the hobbits. 0:26-35 – flashback to Mary & Pip with orcs camped at edge of Fangorn Forest. 0:27:00 – Cut to make Mary more ignorant about Ents & not give away that surprise for audience. 0:27:28 – much splicing, score, & foley work to keep all mary & pip scenes together. also some slow motion. 0:50:34 – Resequencing of Forest landscape pan shots in this scene. Some used for later scene at end. some slow motion & new fades. 0:56:29 – Some cuts & audio work to make it more convincing that Frodo wouldn’t be scene running down the hill & trying to rescue Sam. 0:59:34 – Cut the drinking of the ent water for pacing and to skip the getting buried by the roots scene that looks terrible IMO. (this one was a hard cut for me because I do love the banter here between mary & pip). 1:19:00 – Cut mad horse stable scene. Also cut Wormtongue & Saruman discussion about Aragorn. Also cut a few Theoden lines. 1:21:05 – Major resequencing, audio work, & cuts to remove all warg stuff. Two different wormtongue scenes are combined with new voiceover as Rohan people trek toward Helm’s Deep. Gandolf reveals his army much earlier and sends them off to war. Time is of the essence for our heroes. Tension maxed (hopefully) for audience right at middle point of this movie. 1:22:39 – All ent scenes except for end battle are now resequenced to come earlier in movie as well so overall timeline is as close to accurate as possible. Here we cut to Treebeard & hobbits watching Saruman’s army marching away, and then entmoot begins. (Remember that in order for the trees to march all the way to Helm’s Deep in time to squash orcs, they shouldn’t leave more than a day or two behind the orcs.) 1:34:24 – Minor slow motion, removal of to be continued, cut to resequenced scene of Aragorn revealing his age to Eowyn. 1:38:45 – The Arwen flashbacks are shortened to the essentials & intercut with Aragorn speaking wtih Eowyn while they march. I very much like the idea that Aragorn doesn’t know whether or not Eowyn has departed these shores. His doubts gnaw at him here. Hopefully the way it is cut retains the poinancy of the Arwen & Aragorn relationship while getting through it faster. 1:42:52 – Some purty slow motion & crossfade. 1:43:12 – Resequence and small section cut from conversation between Elrond & Galadriel. No reference is now made to “The Captain Of Gondor” specifically. 1:45:30 – Resequence of scene about dwarf women. 1:46:44 – Many changes. All warg stuff & Aragorn going off cliff and relevant Arwen stuff related to this cut. Instead everyone enters Helm’s Deep together. 1:48:04 – A bit of foley work & foreshadowing of what we were told about earlier now regarding the weakness of the wall. The original voice over in this scene was movied to earlier in the movie. 1:48:09 – Resequenced cut to Forbidden Pool. 1:52:08 – Small trim to beginning of Boromir flashback & some audio work. Beginning speach is pointless and works better starting flashback focused on Faramir, considering it is his memory we are seeing. I also prefer the audio fading in with the “For Gondor” chant. 1:55:51 – small trim & fade out tweak for consistent looking flashback transitions. 2:03:16 – Resequenced cut to night entmoot scene (with small trim) in which it is decided that hobbits are not orcs. Audience is left hanging on entmoot decision. (a previous entmoot scene is cut entirely for the sake of pacing & flow.) 2:05:06 – Numerous small cuts to remove some lines where fellowship is pointlessly undermining and questioning Theoden’s orders except for Gimly’s line about “this is no small band of orcs.” That line is relevant. The rest just weaken Theoden’s character and make the fellowship sound whiny, or even worse, the fellowship gives bad advice such as sending out riders. That is what Gandolf is doing! And as if riders could accomplish anything at this juncture even if they somehow managed to not get killed by the approaching enemy army. 2:06:38 – Numerous small trims & tricks throughout these scenes to hide as best I could the ripped & bloodied patches on both of Aragorn’s arms. The “You must rest” line is kept. It might seem out of context now, but it wouldn’t feel that way if you had never seen the original version. You would just assume that this means his is working harder than everyone else and not sleeping in order to get everything ready before army arrives. This is a good thing for Aragorn’s character. 2:08:25 – Scenes of Aragorn fight with Legolas and acting like a whiny bitch cut. Pace quickened. 2:10:10 – Aragorn is our superstar giving everyone hope and being the man he needs to be. 2:11:47 – Cute loving fellowship scene that is now an expression of love and support amongst friends before the battle instead of an apology. 2:17:14 – “So it begins” Theoden line cut. 2:19:39 – Beginning here in the battle many cuts start to occur to keep the battle more realistic and serious. Less ladders knocked over, which is completely unrealistic in medieval warfare. (consider the physics involved & consider that if it were possible, why wouldn’t they just do that to every ladder before a single orc could climb up?) Legolas shenanigans toned down. 2:22:49 – All of ent scenes removed here and resequenced later in movie. 2:24:20 – Aragorn no longer commits suicide by jumping off the deeping wall into the entire horde of orcs with spears raised and then somehow surviving all alone and getting back on the other side of the wall. Oh, also cut to resequenced osgiliath scene. 2:28:09 – Orc doesn’t jump on Aragorn’s back like a fucking tard. The remote possibility that Aragorn & Gimli might survive their heroic sacrifice to give time to bar the door now more believable. 2:28:43 – Very important cut back to resequenced osgiliath scene. In original this flows right into next Helm’s Deep scene where they fall back to the keep for the last stand. Effectually it makes it seem as if Aragorn’s and Gimli’s sacrifice was totally pointless since they break through moments later. 2:29:50 – minor trims & setup for major obvious change with all new flashback scene where everything clicks for Faramir at the realization how his brother died. The death of and love for his brother and the revelation coming in this place where he last saw Boromir is the trigger that allows Faramir to break free of the ring’s hold over him. NOT SEEING FRODO TRY TO HAND THE RING TO A FRIGGIN NAZGUL! That would only succeed in driving any sane man to take the ring from Frodo immediately and never let that weak-ass hobbit anywhere near Morder. 2:33:13 – Deleted nonsense about there being a way to get the women and children out. How could there be? Plus it was already stated earlier that there wasn’t any way out. Why not have everyone escape that way then? Plus it just robs the movie of tension if there is a way out. 2:35:12 – Horse charge down the bridge cut back to a plausible looking length of charge instead of bowling through every single orc down the entire length of the bridge. 2:36:25 – Minor trim to tighten up gandolf horse charge so that horses hit orcs right as the sunlight blinds them instead of when they are only halfway down the hill with time to adjust and reset the defensive line. 2:36:39 – Lots of resequencing, cutting, slow motion, & audio work to quickly segue to Sam speech without jarring audience more than necessary in the transition. 2:38:10 – New forest shots (one shot taken from Planet Earth) for Sam voice over. 2:39:36 – small cuts and audio work to remove lines about “You know the rules of your father” stuff. 2:40:37 – New transition after orcs get squashed by trees at Helm’s Deep to Treebeard at Isengard. Treebeard scene is cut to show that Entmoot definitely decided on war. We see the trees head off to chase down the orcs, which hopefully cues the audience in that these events are actually taking place earlier (days earlier) in time prior to the Battle of Helm’s Deep. The scenes of Ents attacking Isengard are all spliced together. Even spliced together the scene is still only five minutes long. There is never much doubt that they won’t succeed, so instead of intercutting with Helm’s Deep and breaking the tension of that scene (as well as confounding the timeline), we now get a happy ending epilogue of Ent ass whooping. Many splice cuts, music, foley & slow motion work in Ent battle. 2:45:14 – Unfortunately quick shot of Aragorn embracing Eowyn was necessarily cut. It just didn’t flow properly anymore. 2:45:50 – Small trims to Mary & Pip epilogue scene referencing the growth spurt scene earlier that was cut and some not-so-great comedic lines. Scene ends on the stronger line about “could be a distant relative” instead of “don’t be hasty.” 2:53:48 – Credit additions & adjustment.

Additional Notes:

I would not have embarked on this massive project if not for my deep love of the books and Peter Jackson’s movies. Peter Jackson’s trilogy came so near to perfection, which is an amazing feat in its own right but also serves to make this flawed middle chapter all the more painful. Once a year I watch The Lord Of The Rings trilogy, and once a year I cringe through the viewing of The Two Towers. It does not help either that this is my favorite of the books. The Extended Edition (runtime 235 minutes) improves upon the theatrical edition. Some problems such as the total emasculation of Treebeard’s character (who is of central importance to the story) are greatly improved, but it doesn’t solve all the problems, and it even creates a few new ones with pacing and timeline. When one really starts to analyze it, both the theatrical and extended editions look beautiful but feel like they had incomplete and sloppy post production editing work. There are numerous problems with narrative, characters, plausibility, pacing, tension, & timing. The Two Towers Rebuilt Edition (runtime 195 minutes) includes many small trims, scene re-ordering, and a couple major narrative changes, as well as some re-scoring & foley work. Many extended edition scenes are used even though the runtime is comparable to the theatrical edition. Scenes such as the Battle of Helm’s Deep should now have an intensity that carries all the way through to the end. Whether you are a critical or casual viewer, the overall movie should flow better and feel more satisfying. Technical considerations with medieval combat and the laws of physics are now considered. The character arcs of Faramir & Frodo have a very different conclusion. Other characters such as King Theoden & Treebeard are more empowered characters with a stronger presence. Problems Peter Jackson faced with chronological intercutting of the storylines as it relates to tension and narrative have been resolved. Continually we are robbed of tension by being told too much. (Ex: “What’s that noise?” “Well Pip, back in the shire I once heard this story about trees that could come alive!”) The Ent story arch now fits with the overall timeline of events without sacrificing dramatic tension. The overall pacing in the movie is now much faster with a stronger focus on the central characters leading the narrative. The tension and believability is much greater because: 1) Nothing is given away ahead of time, 2) Better timing cuts, 3) Less stupid antics, & 4) An improved narrative with a timeline that makes sense. The highest video & audio quality standards have been used to create this edit, including HD 1080p video & DTS 5.1 surround audio on the blu-ray release. The Rebuilt DVD release has been meticulously downsized from the high definition source material and surpasses the quality of the studio DVD release in many scenes. The DVD includes a dolby digital 5.1 surround audio track. All this and more is discussed in the “Through the Looking Glass” joint documentary about the making of the movie AND the fanedit. It compiles ~20 hours worth of material into one comfortable viewing session and can be found as a bonus feature on the enclosed disc. Hopefully this edit will achieve for many of you what it has for me, which is to put The Two Towers on a cinematic par with its companion movies and thereby complete the trilogy. Peter Jackson and team have my eternal gratitude for coming close to perfection in their telling of The Lord of the Rings. It has been my honor to take it to the finish line. Hope you enjoy, Geminigod

Other Sources:

Special Thanks:

1) Captain Khajiit for coming up with the name and his amazing technical help. 2) AEmovieguy for being there for me in a pinch. 3) Chris Taylor for his excellent vector based map design of Middle Earth. 4) Kerr for paving the way with his excellent book-based edits. 5) All the frequenters of my In-the-works thread and chat room who have tolerated 6 months of cyclical bragging and a bitching about this thing I have birthed.