Watched the Two towers last nite. Fantastic. I want to move to New Zealand. The sound is Dolby only, and was very good. Rattled stuff in the walls on a few scenes. I saw a couple instances of image artifacts, but on the whole, image was very very good. I like the LOTR story too. Icing on the cake was I picked it up for $15 at Fry's.

Rented this last night, waiting to purchase the 4 disc set in November, saw it in the theaters last December. This is a bass heavy movie compared with Fellowship. Thought the first movie had more going on in the surrounds that added to the movie, (such as birds, horses, woodland creatures), that might make you duck or flinch. The Towers is a treat and test of your speakers, not just the sub. The battle scenes really give your center and mains a work out. The flapping of the wings is a way of identifying any loose items on walls or shelves. All in all, it is a home theater treat.

Alejate,

I had a misfortune of not seeing The Two Towers in the theater. If you can recall your theater experience, at the moment the wall explodes at Helms Deep, did you feel that the sound (not the rumble) was a bit subdued for such a spectacular scene? I watched it at home and I wonder if a typical home theater set up isn’t adequate for it because it did sound soft (enough to disappoint me). BTW, I have a sub that can rattle all the bones in my body. Here’s more detailed discussion of it towards the bottom: http://ubb.outlawaudio.com/ubb/Forum15/HTML/001031.html

Do you think I really missed out by not seeing it in the theater?

IMHO, while there are pros and cons in the “commercial theater” vs. “home theater” issue, I find that I prefer home theater over the average commercial theater. As similarly expressed in the “Outlaw to Outlaw - Rip It and Pass It On” discussion thread on October 15 & 16 regarding creative people in the music industry, I think that most commercial theaters are not constructed with visual and audio enthusiasts making the decisions. It seems to me that in most commercial theaters, the very high and the deeply low frequencies are well outside the effective roll-off of the equipment and venue while a fair amount of the frequencies in-between have peaks, valleys and various sibilance problems. The problem is the dollar-per-seat initial investment in expertise and infrastructure. I think most theater goers don’t know the difference and therefore will chose the ticket costing less over the slightly more expensive ticket to an exceptional venue, so I don't blame theater owners for their decisions. I just wish it could be different, so I invest in home theater.

So, if your home theater does a decent job, I would say you haven’t missed enough to fret about. According to an news report,

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=638&ncid=762&e=1&u=/nm/20031016/en_nm/film_rings_dc

if you wish to experience a commercial theater viewing, some commercial theaters are running Fellowship and Two Towers, extended versions, during the two weeks before the third film is released for commercial theaters. Other theaters have scheduled 11 hour marathons for all three films in-a-row, but those sold out within hours of being available.

Spiker; Sorry it has taken me so long to reply but I have not had an opportunity recently to keep up with Outlaw postings. This may sound strange but I can't recall what the theater sounded like, (it's been almost a year). Plus, I usually am not impressed with the way movies sound in the theater, I definately prefer the way it sounds in my living room. I only rented the Two Towers so once again I can't recall how this scene sounded. In November I will be buying the 4 disc version, I will then pay close attention to this scene and post my opinion. Sorry I can't be more help right now.

Spiker, we had some friends over to watch a movie on Saturday so I rented the Two Towers again since they haven't seen it and my curiosity over this scene was getting the best of me. Yes the wall explosion is felt more than heard, but I believe this is more the way it should sound. I have had the unfortunate experience of being present during an explosion, it is felt more than heard. You can feel it hit your chest, car alarms hundreds of yard away go off, and yet you don't hear much bass but a deep low rumble. So I think Two Towers actually did a fine job with this scene.

Alejate,
I guess the point is I didn’t forget any audio settings while watching The Two Towers. In that case, I feel that they've missed the target during that scene. Making the sound close to the real life explosion has it’s place such as in a movie based on true stories like Black Hawk Down or U571. But The Two Towers is a fantasy. I think they could’ve highlighted more. For that reason, I’m placing Star Wars, Attack of The Clones DVD above The Two Towers in audio department.

I’d like to know if there are better ones than Attack of The Clones when it comes to low-end sound. I do have a craving for low frequencies for some reason…

I would suggest that the goals of the sound editors and directors of each movie was very different. Star Wars is a "far far distant fantasy," with comic and action hero type characters throughout. The use of direct and metaphorical references to popular culture lends itself to over the top, super-realistic images and sound.

The Two Towers has a far different goal, in that the characters and sub-plots are more complex and contextual to the story itself. The role of sound in making a fantasy become a more involving and realistic experience is the intent of the images and soundtrack. It is painful to imagine the damage that a highly stylistic, and super-exaggerated set of images and sound effects would have on this movie.

As an architect, you may appreciate the difference between Michael Graves and Violet-le-Duc. As both would be considered designers of "fantastic" structures, they couldn't be more different in their use of materials, and the vocabulary of elements and forms. Especially in respect to the metaphorical and symbolic nature and intent of their designs.

Personally, I don't dig Graves... and I don't own any of his overvalued home appliances. They remind me of the "licensed authentic collector edition" Star Wars junk you can find at the same K-mart.

Aalto rules, and best wishes to all this holiday season...

Allan

[This message has been edited by AGAssarsson (edited October 26, 2003).]

Interesting analogy AGAssarsson.

I guess there aren’t many architects in this saloon or perhaps in audio community in general (they must be more of visual people). So, I’ll try to keep the architectural terminologies to minimum if at all before the other Gunslingers start to loose interest in this thread.

After seeing the LOTR, Fellowship of The Ring, I could not help thinking about the term “special effect” when I heard about its sequel The Two Towers. The book has been around and many people already know the story just like Harry Potter movie. What people did not know was how its going to look (and sound) beyond their imagination and some drawings shown in the book if at all. Don’t get me wrong, I like both LOTR movies. I think they are very well made. Yes, the character and sub-plots are complex. Another movie that has even more complex character and sub-plot with similar imagery (medieval) as LOTR is Brave Heart. The movie does not have to have tons of special effects to be liked by me.

What I’m saying is that in The Two Towers, the entire movie leading up to the explosion scene during the battle of Helms Deep, there are series of fantastic visual and sound effects such as in the beginning scene just before Froto wakes up. BTW, that is one of the coolest beginning of the movie I’ve ever seen. It made my jaw drop! What about when Nazgul flies over the marshland on a dragon. The sound of dragon wing flap was spectacular, thanks to my good subwoofer. Now, if that isn’t exaggeration, then I don’t know what is. After that scene I was getting into the groove and thus far, The Two Towers has not disappointed me. In fact I was impressed all the way until the wall explosion scene at Helms Deep. For a while, I thought something was wrong with my audio system but now I’m beginning to realize that it ain’t so. Intuitively, I felt that compare to the rest of the movie, the sound just didn’t quite give enough punch. Its as if during that split second, was hit with a cotton ball instead of a hammer as it should’ve been. Like I said, its just my gut feeling. So, I still stand with my decision to consider Attach of The Clones as my Favorite Demo over The Two Towers as far as the sound effect goes (we are in audio company chat room).

BTW, Violet-le-Duc was one of the great architects in history. Graves has many followers but considering him as one of the designers of “fantastic” structures may cause a lot of controversy at this point. May be someone can in about hundred years from now. Perhaps this discussion about architect deserves a separate chat room in a different website. I’ll bet there are already but I don’t know because I’m not a big fan of Graves. I’ll give him credit for his gutsy move though.

No arguement here. I mention Graves not because he is fantastic, but only because of his use of symbolic and metaphorical elements to create fanciful architecture. His very sylistic and "pop culture" work will not survive as Viotet-Le-Duc's.