andrewducker | Two Towers

Some months later, I got involved in a discussion of the Two Towers that highlightes what I didn't like about The Two Towers.

Rohan.

Rohan's not mentioned in the first film (except in passing while discussing possible routes they can take rather than be killed in an avalanche) and it basically seems in the second film as if Aragorn stumbles across it looking for Hobbits and gets sucked into defending it. Which is all fine and good, but it doesn't really give me much reason to care about them.

What I think I needed was more of a guide to what was where in the geography of Middle Earth. I know I could have gone and read up on this before going to see the film, but I've been deliberately avoiding this as I wanted to see the film without spending all of my time comparing it to the book.

So it would have been nice occasionally to have a reminder that "Rohan is the large plain between Saruman and Gondor. It's vitally important that he conquer it before he move on to help Sauron destroy Gondor", which just took me 10 minutes to work out from studying a very cool map here and a great guide to Middle Earth placenames here.

Amazingly huge battle scenes are all well and good, but I really do need to care about the people under threat a little more than "These are the Rohirrim, they ride horses."

The same is partially true of Faramir's lot. "Off to Osgiliath" they say, leaving me wondering how far out of the way that is for Sam and Frodo.

You know, what I really needed was one of those big maps with a little red line on it, telling me where everyone was and what direction they were going in.