Loressar Erchamion writes: I just got my Nov/Dec issue of scr(i)pt, a screenwriters’ magazine available at Barnes and Noble. It features a 4-page interview with Fran Walsh and Phillipa Boyen discussing The Two Towers. Very interesting from a screenwriter’s point of view, cruelly uninformative from a spoiler seeker’s point of view.
For the first page or two, they mostly talk about the work involved in writing the script, what it’s like to work on a project of this magnitude, etc. This is followed by something about how TTT gets more into the world of men.
The part that follows could count as a semi-spoiler as to the film’s opening, so I’ll give it verbatim here:
scr(i)pt: Will there be anything to help a novice find his/her way into The Two Towers, some recap of what has happened so far, or will we plunge right into it?
Philippa Boyens: Pretty much a big plunge, you might say – a rather large plunge! [Both laugh as if sharing a wicked, private joke.] – the deep breath before the plunge. Well, it’s a terrible pun; and you’ll understand it when you see it, but I think it’s one of the most amazing openings ever – pure Peter Jackson!
They then talk about intercutting the two halves of TTT, a bit about Ents and their place in the story (Boyens mentions the challenges brought to scriptwriting by the long-winded Ents!), and the moving of Shelob to RotK.
The interviewer asks about the dialogue between Frodo and Sam about “tales”. Walsh and Boyens are adamant about how much they love that passage, but don’t tell us if it’ll be in the film.
There is a question about looking at the movie in light of the events of September 11, which the interviewer acknowledges happened long after they began work on the screenplay. Both writers are hesitant to reply, but then offer some nice insight from the pages of Tolkien. Walsh quotes Eomer (“How shall a man judge what to do in such times?”), and Boyens quotes Frodo (“I wish none of this had happened”) as well as Gandalf’s response (“So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for you to decide. All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to you.”) On that note, the interview ends.
