Special Screening: The Two Towers

Last night was the second of three special screenings of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. Last week’s screening was The Fellowship of the Ring, this week, The Two Towers, and next week will obviously be The Return of the King. As mentioned last week, the movies have been remastered for Blu-Ray and the extended versions will be released on Blu-Ray next week. I have all the extended versions on DVD and love them. If you’ve never seen the extended versions, you should try to rent them or buy them because they make the movies that much more wonderful.

Erika joined me for last night’s viewing of The Two Towers. I didn’t think to tell her about the screenings and she didn’t know about it until she read about it here last week. So, she asked if she could come along and I was happy to say yes. I honestly didn’t know she was a Lord of the Rings fan. I met her at the theater at about 20 minutes before 7:00. We got our tickets and I got myself a large popcorn and I’m not ashamed to admit that I ate almost all of it. Our friends Randall and Janice were there once again and we sat with them and settled in for a long night of movie watching.

I think I mentioned last week that each of the extended versions is around three and a half hours long. I can’t remember which one if the longest of the three, but if it’s not The Two Towers, then it’s a close second because it was about three hours and 45 minutes long. In other words, it was almost 11:00 p.m. when the movie let out.

If I had to pick a favorite of the three movies, I really don’t think I could do it. Most people love Return of the King the most, and really, I probably do too; but, The Two Towers has some of my favorite scenes in it and while most people like it the least I often wonder if it might not be my favorite. I think I know the most lines from The Two Towers and it was hard not to recite each one while sitting in the theater last night. My favorite scenes were even better on the big screen and each one gave me chills. For example, I have always loved since the first time I saw it when Legolas grabs the reigns of that horse as the horse in running and in slow motion hoists himself onto the horse – it’s just not the same on the TV screen. I think my most favorite shot in all three movies is when Aragorn is thought to be dead but then he opens those double doors and walks through looking like he’s been to hell and back. I think that’s the sexiest scene out of all the scenes in the movie and I’ve been known to rewind it and play it again. It was great to see it on the big screen once again. Then, of course, there’s one of the scenes that makes me laugh the most and was often a source of laughter for me and Tony when we were dating. When Gollum, Frodo and Sam are walking to Mordor and Sam is fixing a stew of coneys and he mentions it sure would be good to have some taters, and Gollum says, “What’s taters?” And then Sam says, “PO-TA—TOES. Boil ‘em, mash ‘em, stick ‘em in a stew.” LOVE IT! Makes me laugh every time. I really don’t even have the time or the words to get started on how great those battle scenes at Helms Deep are! The Two Towers – it’s a classic! Obviously I enjoyed the movie and so did Erika. She had never seen the extended versions (the horror!) and so a lot of the scenes were new to her.

The night at the theater was interesting as well. Right as the movie was starting, a guy on the row in front of us must have gotten a phone call or something because with his Smartphone lit up he jumped over the row of seats in front of him to get out to the aisle and take his call. When he landed on the “platform” in front of the seat he jumped over, he made the loudest noise and when he came back minutes later and jumped over them again, it was again loud. The girls behind us would “whisper” from time to time and I put whisper in quotation marks because it was the loudest whispering I have ever heard. It was if they were having a conversation at the lunch table. Then, about half way through the movie someone went in to the room where the movie projector was and turned on a light. Now, that might not seem all that odd, but this light was BRIGHT! I mean, you could see the faces and features of nearly everyone in the theater. The light went off a few seconds later and then back on and then back off and then on for two or three straight minutes and then off for the rest of the movie. It was rather interesting to say the least. I mean, did the person going into that room seriously not realize that he or she was lighting up the whole theater? Maybe they just didn’t care. Also during the movie someone had apparently brought in canned drinks. Look, I’m not going to knock anyone for sneaking in food or drinks, I do it all the time; but, the empty cans were not strategically placed and someone kicked them two or three times and made a racket so loud it caused Erika and me to chuckle.

Despite all the chaos at ghetto Hollywood 18, we still had a good night at the movies. I did take a bathroom break last night – with about an hour to go, I got up for the lone bathroom break of the night. I think I could have skipped it if I had wanted to, but as I told Erika last night, I really needed to stretch my legs. There were people in the seat in front of me, Erika to my right and Randall to my left and I don’t think any of them wanted to hold my legs in their lap while I stretched out for a bit. So, I took the opportunity to get up and stretch out and I was glad I did.

There’s one more opportunity to take in a special screening of Lord of the Rings. Next Tuesday, June 28 Hollywood 18 will be showing The Return of the King at 7:00 p.m. Erika and I will be there and I’ll be back here on Wednesday to report all the odd things that take place during the showing.