22 minues, 22 seconds: The Lord of the Rings - The Two Towers

-
Right, following up from where we left off in the 22 minutes, 22 seconds screenshot series, we get to the second installment in the Lord of Rings movie trilogy, The Two Towers.

Not only was The Two Towers my favourite of the Tolkien books, but it also emerged as my favourite of the films as well. By far. The awesome siege-battle at Helm's Deep, Shadowfax, Ent attacks, Gollum's schizophrenia and the minimal amounts of Sam and Frodo making goo-goo eyes at each other. Combine this with intelligent cross-cutting between the different events, and it's cinematic perfection. Much better than Return of King with its seven different endings.



Anyway, 22 minutes, 22 seconds into The Two Towers, hobbits Merry and Pippin are making a dash, or rather a crawl, for freedom as their orc captors turn on one another over the issue of food. This scene is one of the few in the LOTR trilogy where the orcs (both the generic kind and their enhanced super brethren, the Uruk-hai) get to do more than simply pull grotesque faces, and run bloody errands for their evil masters Saruman and Sauron.

At exactly 22 minutes, 22 seconds into the film, a foot comes down hard on the hobbits' backs. And the ugliest of the orcs - who has been quite vocal about wanting a tasty meal of hobbit legs - appears in close up.


Orc: Go, on. Call for help...



Orc: Squeal...


Orc: No one's gonna save you now...


A spear strikes the orc in his back.


The orc shrieks and collapses.



Hooray for the cavalry! In rides the banished Éomer and his renegade band of Rohirrim to slaughter the orcs. Not that Merry and Pippin hang around to witness this.


--------------------------

Just a totally unrelated heads up, tomorrow you can expect my Curious Case of Benjamin Button review.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is the rebooted Lara Croft gay? Evidence for and against...

-
Image
As some of you know, I’ve been fangirling hard over the new Tomb Raider , the first entry in the video game series since 2008, and ostensibly a reboot for the entire franchise . Taking the form of an origin story, Tomb Raider 2013 depicts the events that transformed a beautiful, if bookish, archaeology graduate into a pistol-packing adventurer with a devil-may-care attitude. We meet Lara Croft as a pretty, fairly ordinary 21 year old, brooding over her work notes, listening to her mp3 player and very much confined to the shadow of her male mentors. By the end of the game, however, she’s taken charge – she’s had to! – and, battered, bruised and bloody, she’s both a survivor and hero, right down to rescuing the princess and carrying her away in her arms. Yeah, this is probably the best point to mention that there will be some Tomb Raider 2013 spoilers in this post, so read ahead with caution. Anyway, I loved the game. Technically it’s near faultless, it looks beautiful, the ov
Read more

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and Queer Icon (Part 4)

-
Image
Part 4: The mystery of Lara Croft’s sexuality “Now what’s a man gotta do to get that kind of attention from ya?” – Larson Conway (Tomb Raider, 1996) Despite being an icon for many queer pop culture consumers, Lara Croft’s own sexual orientation remains ambiguous. Outside of the Top Cow comics and live-action films – where Lara is blatantly heterosexual, with a fondness for slightly scruffy bad boys (who keep betraying and hurting her) – the character comes across as primarily asexual. Kurtis Trent is the only male figure who even comes close to being a love interest in the game series. Lara's apparent sexual disinterest is despite the adventurer appearing very sexually attractive herself; a figure of desire with bee-stung lips, voluptuous breasts, toned stomach and impossibly long, athlete’s legs. Yet Lara is never dominated by sexual yearnings or romantic affections. She is very much in control of herself at all times. It’s worth noting, however, that over time th
Read more

Ladies I Love: Part 2 - Rhona Mitra

-
Image
Following on from the first post in this series , you may realise that I have a very definite type. Anyway, today we profile model-turned-actress Rhona Mitra . This 36 year old Briton is of English, Irish and Indian descent. You'll have seen her pop up on the big and small screen multiple over the past decade and a half, although Mitra's claim to fame is that she was the second ever model (some say first if you rule out "unofficial"  Nathalie Cook ) to play iconic video game character Lara Croft . From 1997-1998, Mitra could be found in PR material, as well as at trade shows, events and conventions as a flesh-and-blood embodiment of Tomb Raider 's kick-ass archeologist lead. There have been many official Lara Croft models over the years , but as far as I'm concerned Mitra remains the best. In my mind, of all of them, she most closely resembles the video game character in terms of facial features. Plus she comes from money and had a rebellious boarding
Read more