The Two Towers - The Shortening

[Valandil]

I recently watched "The Two Towers" for the first time in awhile. I made some observations.

I know there were some things added (Aragorn falls off cliff into river, Elves show up at Helm's Deep, Faramir takes Frodo to Osgiliath) - but as I thought about it, no major parts of the story seemd to be deleted. So - I started to wonder if the story as written lent itself to being shown a little more fully within the constraints of a movie.

I realized though that the first chapter (The Departure of Boromir) was moved to the first movie and the last two chapters (Shelob's Lair & The Choices of Master Samwise) were moved to the third movie.

But I'm also re-reading LOTR and am in The Two Towers right now. Just today I realized that even MORE had been shifted. The last four chapters of Book 3 (The Road to Isengard, Flotsam and Jetsam, The Voice of Saruman, The Palantir) were also ALL moved to the third movie.

So... wow - of 21 chapters in the book of The Two Towers, only 14 chapters went into the movie.

Maybe that's why that movie is my least favorite... it really has the least amount of story in it.

It also makes one wonder - if the movies had kept the breakdowns a little closer to the books (and stayed away from all those little adds), how much more of the deleted book material could have made it in? Old Forest, Tom Bombadil, Barrow Downs - dare I say the word 'Scouring'?

Still - I'm not sure it's a great way to approach things. The more I think about all this matter of the movies cutting out so much of the books (and yet each still in the 3.5-4 hour range) - the more I conclude that books can generally just contain much more story than a movie can - and a movie based on a book will almost inevitably have to leave out some of the story to get the movie done. In other words - I don't think a movie can generally contain as much story as a book can.