The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towersmay be considered the worst of Peter Jackson’s initial trilogy, but it still earned a significant number of Oscar nominations.Much ofThe Two Towers’legacy is underwhelming only by comparison, but few would ever say that it is not a magnificent movie. TheLord of the Ringstimelineis essentially a single, very long adventure, as this is how J. R. R. Tolkien wrote the source material. The result is that the individual movies do not differ much in tone.
WhileThe Two Towersisn’t favorably compared to the installments that preceded and followed it, the sequel also faced significant competition from other movies at the 75th Academy Awards. This was a year when one of thebest movie musicals to win Best Picturearose, as well as another Martin Scorsese crime drama. Therefore, a handful of movies competed withThe Two Towersin almost every category for which it was nominated.
Ultimately,The Two Towersis still a landmark fantasy and action movie that showed Jackson breaking down genre boundariesby earning another shot at the top award in Hollywood. Other major fantasy action movies came out in 2002 and were nowhere near as acclaimed, making their own bids for maybe one award at the Oscars. Meanwhile,The Two Towersremains a vital part of one of thebest fantasy movies of all time.
6Best Visual Effects (Winner)
The Two Towers Won Best Visual Effects Thanks To Gollum & Treebeard
Lord of the Ringschanged the fantasy genre forever with its sheer scale, but also made its noteworthy contribution to the advancement of special effects, building upon the work of VFX artists in the 1990s. FollowingThe Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ringswinning in the same category the year before,The Two Towersagain won Best Visual Effects.Overall,Lord of the Ringsare oldermovies with special effects that hold up very well.
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The Two Towersmeant special effects again being used for the Nazgûl and their mounts, the Balrog, and general Middle-earth wizard magic. However, new beings such as the Ents had to be rendered on-screen, while wider shots of the Nazgûl would also have been challenging. All the new elements inThe Two Towersseamlessly live up to the movie’s predecessor, most monumentally with the additional screentime given to Andy Serkis as Gollum, still constituting some of the most impressive CGI ever done.
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A surprising amount ofLord of the Ringswas accomplished with practical effects: Jackson famously relied on forced perspective shots to create the different heights between the Hobbits, dwarves, elves, and humans, while the Orcs' appearance is created with prosthetics and makeup, before using more CGI in theHobbitmovies. Yet these movies would not have been possible without the VFX team doing Oscar-worthy work, earning them this Oscar three years in a row.
5Best Sound Editing (Winner)
The Two Towers' Editors Layered The Sounds Of Battle, Dialogue, & Music
The sound categories have since been merged into one award at the Oscars, but sound editing used to be specifically awarded to crew members who specialized in manipulating the various sounds at play in any given scene. Composers are in charge of the movie’s score, but sound designers must render the sounds of shouts, explosions, weapons clashing, and so on. From Helm’s Deep to Gollum’s solitary monologues, the sound editors altered voices and background noise to the best effect.
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Minority ReportandRoad to Perditionboth also saw additional nominations this year. In the case ofMinority Report, it is easy to understand how the sci-fi action adventure also garnered a nomination for sound editing. Less obvious is the work done on the crime drama and psychological thrillerRoad to Perdition. However, neither offered significant competition toThe Two Towers. Notably,Chicagowas not even nominated in this category.
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ringwon four Oscars in 2002, whileThe Lord of the Rings: The Return of the Kingwon 11 Oscars in 2004.
However,Best Sound Editing is the only other OscarThe Two Towerswon, in what was ultimately a down year forLord of the RingsbeforeThe Lord of the Rings: Return of the Kings’sweep in 2004. Elements like special effects and sound might be considered “soft” categories at the Oscars, which are often more open to blockbuster movies. However, theLord of the Ringsmovies are true masterpieces because all the work that went into them is Oscar-worthy.
4Best Sound
The Two Towers' Creation Of Sound Lost Out To A Musical Spectacular
In creating sound from scratch,The Two Towersalso delivered. The epic score must come in at the right time, there are sounds accompanying magic and Orcs charging into battle, and the team is working with the actors to create amazingly heroic moments or hype up aperfect fantasy movie villain performance. The process of sound mixing refers to layering sounds; this means numerous massive battle sequences where the shouting and general chaos of the conflict, the important dialogue, and the score must be acutely balanced.
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However,The Two Towersfaced an insurmountable obstacle in the sound categorywhen it was competing with a movie musical.Chicagodominated the Oscars the year it won Best Picture, and sound was only the beginning. As amazing asLord of the Ringsis, the first musical number ofChicagodemonstrates how perfectly the team behind that movie transitioned the Broadway musical to the screen. The jazz instruments punctuate each moment perfectly, making Catherine Zeta-Jones' entrance dazzling.
Fellowship of the Ringalso lost Best Sound, whileReturn of the Kingfinally won Best Sound Mixing (the category definitions being altered slightly from year to year). Sound was vital to rendering Middle-earth, but what makes for the truly great sound is hard to describe. In the case of this year’s Oscars, there was another movie where sound was at the forefront as a musical adaptation.
3Best Film Editing
The Two Towers Moves Seamlessly Through Battles & Different Locations
Similar to the sound categories, with film editing, if it is being done well, the average audience member probably doesn’t notice it. They are too busy being immersed in the overall world, which is an interaction between the various elements of sound, editing, design, acting, and so on.WithThe Two Towers, the editors are responsible for arranging footage in sequence so that the chaotic battle scenes flow,making for the optimal viewing experience.
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The Two Towersalso changes perspectives throughout the movie; while scene-to-scene changes are bigger and require more direction from the writers on how they want the story to progress, cutting between two different places is still an important editing task. Notably, theTwo Towersbook focuses entirely on Frodo and Sam for one half, while covering the rest of the Fellowship in the other half; Jackson and his team completely reworked the narrative.
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However,Chicagoalso pulled off an impressive adaptation feat where the editing was concerned, having the characters perform their musical numbers in a kind of alternate reality, singing on a glitzy stage while they move through a prison at the same time. Editing between two performances of the same song in multiple places was ambitious but worked perfectly forChicago.The Two Towerswas mostly doing what other action movies had done before it.
2Best Art Direction-Set Decoration
Middle-earth’s Settings Are Always Breathtaking
EveryLord of the Ringsmovie’s art direction/production design is stunning. For this category, there is a clear trend where the Academy seems to have predetermined which year it is going to favor Jackson, simply because it’s the year when they are going to win everything. Then again, the similarities between the two moviesFellowship of the RingandThe Two Towerslost to suggest that the Academy genuinely considers a certain type of set design more impressive.Fellowship of the Ringlost toMoulin Rouge!;The Two Towerslost toChicago.
Art direction: Dante Ferretti; set decoration: Francesca Lo Schiavo
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Art direction: Grant Major; set decoration: Dan Hennah & Alan Lee
Art direction: Dennis Gassner; set decoration: Nancy Haigh
Pertaining to the secondLord of the Ringsmovie, the art and set designers were charged with the locals of Rohan, Helm’s Deep, parts of Mordor, and the open plains of Middle-earth. Some of this is simply the spectacular scenery of New Zealand, where the movies were filmed. However, it is enhanced in key places, while impressive sets are constructed for the fictional world’s architecture.
The Fangorn Forest and Helm’s Deep are the two most awesome feats of production designthat aren’t in the other twoLord of the Ringsmovies. The former is soothing, but still foreboding, considering the secrets it holds. The Ents instill it with this characterization, but the design stands on its own. Meanwhile, Helm’s Deep is a complicated setting given how much action takes place there but it is believable as both a formidable fortress and a place in dire danger.
1Best Picture
Fellowship Of The Ring & The Two Towers Set Up The Best Picture Nomination Streak
Lord of the Ringslost Best Picture once toA Beautiful Mindand again toChicagobefore it finally took home the grand prize the third time around. Looking atThe Two Towerscompletely outside the context of being a bridge between the beginning and the end, it is, of course, a stellar movie. All the disparate elements are working together to create an epic experience, while different beats inLord of the Rings’overall themes of endurance, bravery, and fellowship appear.
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The Two Towerscovers more ground, both with story and themes, when the Fellowship isn’t required to be together. It shows doubt and fear overcoming the characters in different ways when they are in different circumstances. Motifs of the heavy weight of duty are elevated by new characters like Faramir and Éowyn, facing their own obstacles in this regard. However, many of these subplots aren’t fully resolved when every individual storyline still has another movie.
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The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towersboats some individual moments that can’t compare to their arguable counterparts in other movies. Serkis' performance as Gollum is at its best when he gets his longest sequence on screen alone, and the Helm’s Deep battle only happens once. While otherLord of the Ringsmoments may be better, they are doing something different from the franchise’s sophomore installment, which led a valiant campaign at the Oscars when it simply wasn’t this series' year.
Cast
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers is a Fantasy film by director Peter Jackson and is based on The Two Towers book by author J. R. R. Tolkien. A sequel to The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, this installment continues Frodo’s journey to take the One Ring to Mount Doom to destroy it.
Release date
Metacritic score
2001
92%
2002
95%
87%
2003
94%
