— Ch. 1 · Three Paths Into Darkness —
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.
~6 min read · Ch. 1 of 7
Frodo Baggins awakens from a dream of Gandalf fighting the Balrog in Moria, finding himself and Samwise Gamgee lost in the Emyn Muil near Mordor. They discover they are being tracked by Gollum, a former bearer of the One Ring who has been watching them for some time. Capturing Gollum proves difficult, yet Frodo takes pity on the wretched creature and allows him to guide them into Mordor despite Sam's deep reservations about trusting such an untrustworthy ally. Meanwhile, Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli pursue a band of Uruk-hai to save their companions Merry and Pippin, entering the kingdom of Rohan where danger lurks at every turn. The Uruk-hai are ambushed by a group of Rohirrim, allowing Merry and Pippin to escape into Fangorn Forest before meeting Aragorn's group again. In Fangorn, Aragorn's party encounters Gandalf, who after dying in battle fighting the Balrog was resurrected as Gandalf the White to help save Middle-earth once more. This resurrection marks a turning point for the Fellowship, bringing back hope to those who had lost it in the dark tunnels beneath the mountains.
Motion Capture Revolution
Andy Serkis played Gollum by providing his voice and movements on set, performing in the motion capture suit later during production. His scenes were filmed twice, with and without him, creating a unique challenge for the visual effects team. Originally, Gollum was set to be solely a CGI character, but Jackson was so impressed by Serkis' audition tape that they used him on set as well. Weta Digital doubled their staff of 260 during production, producing 73 minutes of digital effects across 799 shots. Over Christmas 2001, the crew reanimated all previous shots accordingly within two months when they realized the cast performed better in takes that physically included Serkis. The CGI Gollum was rotoscoped and animated on top of these scenes, using Serkis's motion capture to animate Gollum's body except for difficult shots like crawling upside down. Gino Acevedo supervised realistic skin tones, which took four hours per frame to render, setting new standards for what audiences could expect from computer-generated characters.