[dancing spawn of ungoliant]

Originally Posted by alatar

Painfully we walk through Fangorn, along with Merry and Pippin on their perches on Treebeard, and I can only think of skipping to the next scene. Surely the hobbits are tired and bored not only by their recent ordeal but also by their transportation’s speech. Did we have to be bored to see that the hobbits were bored?

I wonder why we had to see that the hobbits were bored in the first place. I guess that the point is to make it clear to the audience that Merry and Pippin aren't afraid of Treebeard anymore, but is boredom really the only way to show it? When Treebeard first met the hobbits, he prepared to squeeze their guts out (although in the books it actually says that he "gently but irresistibly" lifted them up). Now that Merry and Pippin are traveling more pleasantly on Treebeard's shoulders with, apparently, quite a few of their ribs still unscathed, and they have met Gandalf, I think that speaks of comfort quite sufficiently.

In the books Treebeard was someone whom the hobbits respected even though they weren't scared of him. Yawning in a situation like this is really disrespectful. Couldn't there have been a more appropriate way to make it crystal clear that we can trust Treebeard as a friend (if Gandalf's approval isn't enough)?

Originally Posted by Essex

the cinematography when the camera pans across the forests of new zealand is stunning as we hear treebeard's lament.

I agree that the shots over the forests are very pretty. Showing landscapes like that is a good way to enhance the feeling of a fairy tale world. No doubt there could be moving and talking trees in a misty and beautiful forest like that! However, Treebeard's voice kind of ruins the nice views.

Treebeard's voice is described to sound like a "very deep woodwind instrument" and he could make a noise like a "discord on a great organ" - rather musical voice, one could say. I can only wonder why in the films he was made to sound like a chain smoker with a whooping cough.

Originally Posted by Essex

Jackson can't win here can he? he plays the character like he is in the books, and he's boring (let's be fair book treebeard is a little boring isn't he?) - if he played him as an 'action jackson' then there would be lots of gnashing of teeth from us devout book followers.

so as he's like he is in the book, we can't really complain, boring though this extra scene MAY be. We moan (quite rightly) at added scenes in rotk (drinking scene for example) that has nothing to do with tolkien and is an affront to us book reader's sensibilities(!!!!), but at least here we have some build up on a character and not some comic relief......

I, for one, didn't find Tolkien's Treebeard boring, and that's why I think that PJ's Treebeard doesn't do justice for the character. Now, there's much good in the movie Treebeard, too; I liked very much of the look of him, but once again, I can't help feeling that this is one of the situations when a character, this time Treebeard, is being made a laughingstock encrusted with cheap jokes while they could have inserted some 'quality' humour to the scene if they wanted to lighten up the atmosphere. For example, Treebeard's memory rhyme of different races "Hound is hungry, hare is fearful. . ." is just hilarious, but now the viewers are being encouraged to roll their eyes with Merry and Pippin while listening to a wheezy recitation.

Maybe I have just seen the movies so many times that if a scene's dialogue isn't very good and if there isn't much to watch (no good action or extraordinary acting), I get bored. I don't really remember what I thought when I first saw the whole EE of TTT, but I assume that I was happy for every added minute, and I got more exacting only after multiple viewings when the charm of the new scenes had worn off, and I realised that this is the version of the Two Towers we are going to get, nothing more.

Speaking of extraordinary acting, the way Sir Ian McKellen delivers his line, "Did he? Did he indeed? Good. Yes, very good", makes the whole scene between Aragorn and Gandalf worthwhile. McKellen is the Gandalf I learned to know while reading the books, and his performance here is spot on.

Originally Posted by alatar

And what Gandalf mean when he says, “it’s an old device of Saruman’s.” at time 01:01:33?

The whole line is: "The king's mind is enslaved, it's an old device of Saruman's. His hold over King Théoden is now very strong."
Apparently Saruman has been in a habit of playing with people's minds in the past, and now he is using his skills again to keep Theoden under control. Maybe Gandalf is trying to assure that after his comeback, he is now versed in the current events of the Middle-earth, and as Saruman is using an old trick of his, Gandalf knows how to deal with it.