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List Price: $28.98 | | Label: New Line Home Video
Salesrank: 4116
Released: August 29, 2006 |
| Our Price: $3.88 |
| Used Price: $3.28 |
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MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
The Award-winning $1 billion dollar franchise is revisited with three new 2-disc limited editions. Each DVD features the theatrical and extended versions of the film and a new documentary. Filmmaker Costa Botes, who was personally selected by Peter Jackson, created three ground-breaking documentaries using rare behind-the-scenes footage.
DVD Features:
Documentaries:Never-before-seen behind-the-scenes documentary by Costa Botes, the filmmaker director Peter Jackson personally hired (106 minutes)
Other:Part I - 107 minutes (Extended); 80 minutes (Theatrical) Part II - 129 minutes (Extended); 99 minutes (Theatrical)
Description of The Lord of the Rings - The Two Towers (Theatrical and Extended Limited Edition):
Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films gave "double-dipping"--releasing a DVD then releasing an improved version shortly afterward--a good name by offering both a better film and stupendous extras in the Extended Editions. This "triple-dip" 2006 Limited Edition falls far short of that standard but is still of interest to devoted and casual fans.
What do you get?
Both the theatrical and extended versions of The Two Towers are on one double-sided disc. The versions use seamless branching, meaning that the scenes that are common to both versions are stored on the disc only once. If you choose to watch the extended version, the disc "branches" out to the added or extended scenes. What does this mean to the viewer? Not much. The viewing experience is the same because the branching is imperceptible. But because both versions of the film don't have to be stored on the disc in their entirety (which would be almost seven hours total), both versions together fit on two sides of one disc. The downside is that whichever version you watch, you have to flip over the disc halfway through; the film breaks at the same spot it did on the Extended Edition, right after Faramir finds Frodo and Sam. Also lost are the meager features included on the theatrical edition, plus the four commentary tracks, two discs of bonus features, and DTS 6.1 ES sound from the four-disc Extended Edition.
What's new?
Costa Botes' 105-minute documentary reminds us just how rich The Two Towers is. It covers the mechanics of Treebeard, Gollum, Rohan, and other elements, and all that is before we get to the half-hour segment on Helm's Deep. What's interesting is how Peter Jackson and others appear in the documentary, but even more time is spent interviewing the extra actors and the lesser-known technicians who get into the nuts and bolts of how the film was made. Most of the cast members aren't interviewed at all, though Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd's clowning serves as a framing device. Some of the shots are quite funny, including the anachronistic glimpse of someone vacuuming the Great Hall of Rohan. It's entertaining, but because there's no structure (there are chapters, but no menu or chapter listing), it's not as convenient to watch, and go back to, as a documentary broken up into bite-size pieces. Oddly, the documentary is in widescreen, but not anamorphically enhanced for widescreen TVs. Note: New Line Home Entertainment couldn't release this material on its own a la the King Kong Production Diaries due to contractual restrictions.
Bottom line: Do I need this edition?
This Limited Edition combination of theatrical and extended versions plus new documentary seems likely to appeal to two camps. One is the devoted fan, who already owns both editions but has to have everything LOTR. The other is the casual fan who liked the movie in theaters, heard good things about the Extended Edition, and doesn't need a ton of bonus material. This edition is attractively priced for that buyer, and the packaging is quite handsome. In between is the devoted fan who already owns both editions but doesn't feel the need to watch more bonus material. When watching the whole movie, that fan will always choose the Extended Edition, but keeps the theatrical edition for (1) watching with guests, (2) Sean Astin's short film, or (3) the convenience of skimming through favorite scenes without having to change discs. That fan can safely skip this edition, as can home-theater fans who love DTS. --David Horiuchi
The Lord of the Rings - The Two Towers (Theatrical and Extended Limited Edition) Reviews:
Best movie ever! 
2009-12-26 - The Lord of the Rings movies have the perfect combination of emotional acting, fantastical scenery, and thrilling plot twists. Peter Jackson and his team did a superb job and deserved every single Oscar they got. The movies are a wonderful tribute to the books. Fortunately, they've been made so well that they can be enjoyed by all, from the Tolkien aficionado to kids who haven't yet read the books. If you haven't seen this movie, you haven't seen the greatest adventure in cinematography during the past decade.
Two Towers is well done, but probably my least favorite of the trilogy. However, the battle scene at Helm's Deep is very emotional - probably the most realistic and emotional war scenes I've seen in a movie outside of a World War II movie. The 10,000 Uruk-hai marching on Rohan is a sight you'll never forget.
A great interpretation of Tolkien's The Two Towers
2009-12-10 - Any Tolkien or medieval adventure fan should own this movie. It's fairly useless without the first movie (Fellowship of the Ring) and the last one (The Return of the King). You gotta have all three!
LOTR
2009-12-07 - Arrived when seller said it would and was in excellent condition, thank you, highly recommend this seller.
Two Towers
2009-11-22 - Movie is great loved it all the way through! Has so many extra feature that the regular version misses out on. If you liked "The Fellowship of the Ring" and "Return of the King" extended version this one is a must have for your collection!
Abysmally boring, hokey, long-winded, dull, ugly film 
2009-11-16 - Disclaimer 1: I am a Tolkien fan. I enjoy the Lord of the Rings books immensely for the grand, epic sweep and dignity of the narrative; the moving nobility of the characters; and the pretty much non-stop one-thing-after-another events of the storyline (not as gory or sex-filled as a modern novel, but definitely one menace after another).
Disclaimer 2: I was not going into this film expecting it to be faithful to the book -- and it isn't. You can recognize a few names here and there, a place or two (mostly by name or appearance), but it's so mangled and altered that you might as well call it "Peter Jackson's fantasy story with character names cribbed from Tolkien." Again, this isn't a criticism, though -- I know Hollywood can't stand to stick to a plot, and I wasn't expecting Jackson to, or judging his work on that basis.
However, I was prepared to judge it on its own merits, and by those merits, it's a stinker.
For one thing, the movie drags on .... and on .... and on. We get long views of these ham actors snarling and moping histrionically at each other, going on and on and on. There's never a normal discussion, anywhere -- it all has to be a snarling, prolonged argument, preferably with the actors flinging themselves around or twisting up their features like they've just gotten the world's worst wedgie.
For another thing, for God's sake, have them wash their hair. You get so tired of seeing every single character except Legolas with their faces smeared with everlasting dirt, their hair hanging in uncombed, matted, greasy ropes, their stubble always half-shaven. They look like a group of half-drowned hobos, perpetually. And while they were at it, they might have gotten a lead to play Frodo who doesn't look like Michael Jackson, a woman to play Arwen whose lips aren't so puffed out with silicone that she has a hard time speaking (literally), and practically ANYONE else to play Elrond.
And finally, the movie is cinematically hideous. The color of everything is grey. The lush green grasslands of Rohan are grey. The people are grey. The sets are grey. The clothing is grey. The sky is grey, even when it's sunny. The movie is so grey that it looks like a black and white film, except with less contrast than in one -- at least in a black and white film, you know the colors exist. This film, by contrast, is like staring into a bowl of tapioca for 4 hours.
There are a couple of good scenes -- specifically, the (Jackson-invented) worg fight and the Ent attack on Isengard. The last mentioned, especially, was actually interesting and exciting. But it only lasted about 90 seconds, alas. I will give Jackson his due for those two scenes -- and it shows the wasted potential. He should have ditched the original plot entirely, since he wasn't going to follow it anyway, and made a LotR action movie. His attempts at human interest are hokey, forced, and almost literally painful to watch, but when he goes to action, he occasionally produces a gem.
Except, of course, for the scene in Helm's Deep where Legolas skateboards down a staircase on a shield ....
