Lord of the Rings: Why The Two Towers Book & Movie End Differently – Screen Rant

Peter Jackson decided to switch around the book ending to The Two Towers for his Lord of the Rings trilogy. Here's why the changes were made.

InThe Lord of the Rings, why doesThe Two Towersend in a completely different place compared to Tolkien's original book? Broadly speaking, Peter Jackson'sThe Lord of the Rings trilogy is a faithful big screen representation of the source material, but the director still makes some fairly significant alterations. Entire sections such as encountering Tom Bombadil and the Scouring of the Shire are omitted, while the general tone of the movies is made more accessible and action-orientated for a wider audience. Elsewhere, moments such as Denethor's death are rewritten in ways thatshift their original emphasis. One of the biggest book-to-movie changes concerns the ending ofThe Two Towers.

Inthe 2002 live-action version ofThe Two Towers, an alliance of men and Elves (the pointy-eared allies themselves were addedjust for the movie) overcome the Uruk-hai forces at Helm's Deep, with Gandalf making the last minute save. Elsewhere, Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee convince Faramir to let them continue on their mission and move forward with Gollum as their Mordor tour guide. The imp-like creature ominously hints that he intends to betray the Hobbits by leading them to "her." In Tolkien's The Two Towersnovel, Gandalf leads a party to Isengard where he has Saruman imprisoned before riding off to Gondor with Pippin in tow. The trio of Frodo, Sam and Gollum discover "her" is Shelob, a massive ancient spider whoseemingly kills Frodo with her sting. Sam fights off thebeast using the Phial of Galadriel and takes the burden of the ring for himself, only to later realize Frodo ismerely paralyzed and has been taken by Orcs.

Related:Lord of the Rings: How Gandalf The Grey & White Are Different

Both of these sequences were filmed forThe Return of the King, rather thanThe Two Towers. The Tower of Orthanc material added a death scene for Saruman but was ultimately cut, much to Christopher Lee's chagrin. The Shelob scenes were retained, appearing at the beginning of the final film, rather than the end of the second.

The primary motivation behind this shuffling of scenes was to create a more balanced, linear narrative.As pointed out by Jackson himself, including Shelob inThe Two Towers would give Frodo and Sam little to do in The Return of the King other than toss the Ring and wait for the eagles.

Furthermore, Tolkien'sThe Two Towersis set out so thefirst half deals with the Rohan storyline, while the second half charts the journey of Frodo, Sam and Gollum. This format doesn't work for a blockbuster movie, and Jackson weaves the two narratives in the style of a conventional film. However, this risked confusing viewerssince the timelines don't always match up. IfJacksonhad adhered to the book ending, Sam would discover Frodo was still alive at the end ofThe Two Towers, then Gandalf and Pippin would arrive in Gondor duringThe Return of the King's first act. In the story's chronology, however, Gandalf rocking up to Minas Tirith on Shadowfax happensbefore Frodo is captured by orcs. Consequently, it made sense to include the Shelob material at the beginning of the third movie to ensure a simpler narrative structure and give Frodo and Sam a proper arc before finally reaching Mount Doom.

A second possible reason for the changes concernThe Two Towers' climax. The Helm's Deep battle provides Peter Jackson'sThe Two Towers movie with a stunning conclusion that's hard to top. The audience would be so exhausted from this epicLord of the Rings clash that adding Shelob onto the end would potentially feel like a tacked-on epilogue in amovie context. Using Helm's Deep as the final battle and ending on the cliffhanger of Gollum's betrayal created a more traditional film structure and ensured the Shelob fight could be afforded more prominence inThe Return of the King.

More:Lord Of The Rings' Faramir Change Was Good For The Two Towers

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Lord of the Rings: Why The Two Towers Book & Movie End Differently - Screen Rant

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