A lot of good points. The spears especially. They took that one shot where a line-up of spears from the orcs pointing to the Rohan riders coming down the hill- it was almost exactly like a similiar scene with pikes in Braveheart. The Braveheart scene was original as far as I know and infinitely better, in fact it is one of the emotional peaks of the movie. The Scots used the pikes to turn the tide at Sterling and massacred the English heavy cavalry; the movie depicts how this happens very well, since the pikes are longer than the cavalries’ lances. So you are right that the riders of Rohan should have been killed.
Besides this, there was a kind of anti-work, anti-industrial strand through the whole thing. I thought the orcs were very well organized, intelligent, and industrious. I admired their little mine, despite that I didn’t want to. The orc that ran with the torch also was pretty heroic, cause he charged into the wall after he’d been shot. Ah well.
The film is fantastic, no doubt about it… i think it deserves the 9 BAFTAs it’s been nominnated for.
Of course it’s not like the book, however the script is very well written and we should give credit to Peter for that. To do it like the book they would need 6 3hours films… and there are irrelevant parts that woudn’t make much difference. The only thing i don’t like is the time wasted with Aragorn and Arwen’s romance. I think they could have stick to the beginning of the book a bit more (Frodo’s birthday and his leave from the Shire) instead of the tons of romantic scenes.
However, i love both films… i’ve watched The Two Towers 4 times now,… and probably watched more than 200 times the Fellowship of the Ring (ok ok… i am pathetic, i know )
Regarding the war. You have to remember that Tolkien’s world was far different than ours. He was born in 1892 and went through wars himself and probably put in his books many of the experiences he had.
I’ve always thought that the relationship between Sam and Frodo was a bit odd and the film caught it very well… whatever it meant to be.
In 1892 the wars were stilll pretty much as they were in the old days, gunpowder wasn’t advanced enough to be much more than a fancy bow. Even WW1 was fought in pretty much line em up and let em charge type of way. What was always key in those type of battles was morale. They still formed square when cavalry was about cause of the whole idea of cavalry, which was to breakup a line and create confusion in order to get easy kills. Charging in to what essentially was one ginormous square in the battle of helms deep would have meant certain death for the riders of rohan, I’m sure tolkein would have known that, pity the director didn’t. I’m not sure what awards it’s up for, but I wasn’t particularly impressed with the directing, even if I forget about the battle scene.
The battle should have been several waves of Orc attack, each time penetrating further, with a last ditch charge of the riders which managed to break the orc line scattering them, causing a massive rout on the orc side. Not hard or comlpicated, and I’m sure the director was probably told that that should have happened.
It was only WW2 where the rules of warfare changed dramatically with the new type of weapons involved, though WW1 was the start of the change. That’s why the Americans got their arses so badly wipped and suffered massive casualties right at the start of their eventual involvement of the WW2.
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