On November 6th, Decipher released on sale the complete The Two Towers Trading Card Game. TheOneRing.net hopes to have all 365 cards as soon as possible! In the meantime, here’s a taste of what’s in store from these incredibly revealing pictures:
(from L to R): The Forbidden Pool, a herd of Oliphaunts, Men of Rhûn, the Black Gate, some more Oliphaunts, a group of Southron warriors, some faces in the Dead Marshes, the fallen bodies of the Uruk-hai, the Caves under Helm’s Deep and Saruman overlooking his Orcs.
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Not that there ever was any in the first place…check this out from Fergus: I recieved this update from Odeon concerning TTT – it seems the sexual content was a mistake! The fil has been confirmed as a 12A which means there may be more violence than FOTR.
1) The actual release date for The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers is December 18th and NOT December 13th as reported.
2) The certificate for The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers is confirmed as 12A. However, the correct certificate addendum is in fact, “contains intense combat and fantasy horror scenes”. It is NOT, “contains moderate action, violence and one sex scene” which was attached by mistake. This is in fact the correct certificate addendum for James Bond: Die Another Day.
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Fergus writes: Just thought you might like to know that odeon in the UK are listing TTT as a 12A (which is a new cert) and higher than lst years PG rating for FOTR.
And Doddy sends this in:
I just recieved an e-mail from Odeon cinema UK, with this info on TTT;
Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (12A*)
Released 13th December
Eagerly awaited sequel to last year’s blockbuster The Fellowship of the Ring.
*Contains moderate action, violence and one sex scene.
Any number of queries with that – is 13th a typo? And what sex scene? Although this is the first confirmation I’ve seen of a certification, and it’s using the new (in the UK) 12 advisory rating.
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I’ve received dozens of reports from people throughout Europe about the R2 Easter Egg mystery.
Summarising quickly:
Everyone seems to have been able to play the second Easter Egg fine. However, a number have had issues with the MTV clip. These people all seem to live in the UK and Ireland.
Nevertheless, a (not insignificant) number have not had trouble with it. This includes people in Sweden, Finland, Germany, Norway, France and the Netherlands. No-one in the UK or Ireland has been able to play the MTV clip so far.
Conclusions:
It could be that the MTV was the bit that fell victim to the axe of the BBFC (British Board of Film Classifications). Although, Mad_Iguana points out that BBFC has no jurisdiction in Ireland, so what’s going on still remains somewhat of a mystery. We shall continue to investigate.
Thank you to the dozens of people who wrote in and helped contribute to this report.
Update: I followed this up with the BBFC. They wrote back saying that they had never passed the MTV Spoof and that it was not included on the UK R2 release.
The full reply is below. This discusses the MTV Spoof fairly explicitly. If you are easily offended, you may wish to read no further.
“Thank you for your e.mail.
Two DVD extras for THE LORD OF THE RINGS caused the BBFC difficulties. The first was a ‘behind the scenes’ documentary in which bad language and offensive hand gestures were used by members of the cast. These would have been unacceptable at the ‘PG’ level so the bad language was dubbed out and the hand gestures removed, allowing the documentary to receive a ‘PG’. These cuts are reflected in the website record you mention (1 minute 16 seconds cut).
The second extra that caused us problems was the MTV spoof you refer to. Unlike the above documentary, however, the entire sequence was a problem at ‘PG’ and could not be saved by cutting.
The sequence in question showed a spoof of the Council of Elrond at which one of the characters announces that, after a drunken session in a piercing parlour, the Ring has been attached to his penis! We gave the distributors the option of removing this sequence entirely so that the disc could retain its ‘PG’ or, alternatively, accept a ’12’ certificate – in which case the whole box set would have to become a ’12’. The distributors decided they did not want to raise the box set to a ’12’ so they did not proceed any further with this particular sequence. This is why there is no formal record for the MTV sequence on our website – the work was simply never passed by us in any version.
We hope this clarifies the situation.”
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Been wondering what’s on the cards for Hall of Fire for the rest of November? Here’s the schedule for you …
November 16&17
Everything about the Palantiri
What are these “stones of seeing”? How do they work? What’s the difference between a minor and a major stone. How vital were they during the War of the Ring and could they have saved Arthedain/Arnor from destruction?
And how is it that Denethor uses one and (eventually) goes nuts while Saruman goes to “the dark side”? What is the influence of the attitude of the user in the success in one’s will or integrity? (And much much more … remember there’s a whole chapter of reading in Unfinished Tales on these things!)
November 23&24
The Two Towers – Book 4, Ch 9: Shelob’s Lair
“Presently they were under the shadow, and there in the midst of it they saw the opening of a cave. `This is the way in,’ said Gollum softly. `This is the entrance to the tunnel.’ He did not speak its name: Torech Ungol, Shelob’s Lair ….”
Nov 30 & Dec 1
Gender imbalance in LoTR
Is there a gender imbalance in LoTR? A simple head count supports this, but what of the relative strengths of the characters in this?
What is the effect of gender imbalance on LoTR? Does it reduce the tale to a giant “boys own adventure”? If so, is this a bad thing? And how does this affect/diminish one’s reading of the book. (Could be some interesting personal experiences here)
Look forward to seeing you at one of our upcoming chats.
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Dennis sends this along
I know that there has been a lot of back and forth talk about the “Death of Saruman” on the spiked wheel thing, but as I was sifting through the 4th disc looking at the stills from the Orthanc miniature, two pictures of a EXACT replica in miniature of the spiked wheel in the picture that shows a white robed figure with a beard impaled on one of the spikes!
Xoanon here, I’ve gone through our archives to provide you with a little background on this story. Years ago when the films were being made a NZ newspaper crew captured this fascinating picture of what appears to be a white wizard with a LONG beard impaled by a spikey water wheel of some sort.
Click here for the picture and article in question.
TheOneRing.net was also given highly sensetive call sheets (day to day information on what, who, where, when, and how many things were being filmed on any given day) from the same day.
Click here for a scan of the exact shot being refrenced
It mentions Saruman bring impailed by the wheel and dropping the palantir into some water.
‘Nuff said!
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