Good Things about the Two Towers Movie

Gollum was good. A lot of the Sam and Frodo bits were good. Theoden at Theodred's grave, and the foretaste of Arwen at Aragorn's grave in Rath Dinen? Oh, very nice. But as for a lot of the other stuff? Don't get me started.

In an attempt to stay positive, here is my list of good things:

Very few spoilers for the book.

No pesky subtlety about the magic.

Exciting new character motivations. (Previous ones are 50 years old, after all.)

Frodo and Sam get to see more of Middle-Earth than in the original. A whole city more.

Acting like an impulsive idiot works again and again! So liberating.

Entish democracy exposed as much less effective than monarchy.

All other Rohan women retire their swords to give Eowyn more screentime. (Well, unless you count the little boy with a girl's name.)

Elves bravely sacrifice the defense of their own homelands so as to save the day. (The other orcish armies which will show up after burning Lorien are beside the point.)

Great dream sequence after Frodo and Sam are overcome by the Nazgul's Black Breath and taken to Mordor. (Either that, or the Nazgul was just being darned nice about holding his Black Breath....)

Eowyn made to look even more self-sacrificing by turning her future husband into a big fat jerk.

Helm's Deep turned into Thermopylae. I guess in the book, they just weren't outnumbered enough.

We learn that the horses of Rohan can defy the law of gravity and leap past pikes.

No need to write 'missing scene' fanfic; it's in the movie. In fact, only half of the book was filmed to allow for more fanfic time!

Here's hoping that The Return of the King will have a little more to do with Tolkien and less to do with somebody's huge crush on Aragorn.