However, Jackson made a choice to beef it up as the climax of The Two Towers, which helps the film exist as a standalone storyline. It serves as one of several battles that lead up to the final climax at the Battle of Pelennor Fields.
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Tolkien’s novel, the Battle of the Hornburg (called the Battle of Helm’s Deep in the film) is not nearly as large in scale as Peter Jackson’s adaptation. “When these characters are in groups they need to ‘see’ and ‘hear’ what’s around them,” said visual effects supervisor Jim Rygiel, “MASSIVE has both artificial sight and hearing to aid in that process.”
#The two towers mud software#
This software used a kind of AI to determine how each member of the crowds needed to move. It has been used ever since in a variety of films and television including 300, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (in the finale episode, “Chosen”), and the Hobbit films.
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MASSIVE (Multiple Agent Simulation System in Virtual Environment) is a software that was developed specifically for the Lord of the Rings trilogy to handle the massive crowds needed for these battle scenes. The Two Towers swept the first annual awards from the Visual Effects Society, claiming two-thirds of the awards it qualified for. Multiple sets were used to film this battle: a scale fortress built in a disused quarry and two smaller scale models (1/4 scale and 1/85 scale) for distance shots. As a result, they look as good now as they did at the turn of the millennium. The Uruk-hai were created from makeup and prosthetics rather than mocap and CGI. This is partly due to the sheer number of practical effects used. Seventeen years later, the effects of this battle hold up surprisingly well. As a result, the action and actors expressions remained remarkably clear in the dark (looking at YOU, Game of Thrones). To keep the scene intelligible, a misty blueish backlight was used, ostensibly emulating the light of the moon. On nights when there was no precipitation, gallons of water was rained down upon the cast. It took three and a half months of freezing night shoots to finish the sequence. Filming it was entirely another kind of struggle. Taking place almost entirely at night and in the rain, the sheer scale of this battle sequence was unheard of in film at the time. Throughout the battle, the defenders must fight against that hopelessness as they are forced to retreat again and again in the face of overwhelming odds. But when Aragorn ( Viggo Mortensen) brings news that 10,000 of Saruman’s Uruk-hai are en route to eradicate Rohan’s people, the King begins to despair. Théoden seems confident that this will be enough to protect his people and he boasts that the Deeping Wall has never been breached.
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It is nested within a steep canyon, meaning that the enemy can only attack them head-on. The result of their effort is one of the greatest battles in cinematic history.Īfter the burning of the Westfold, Théoden King ( Bernard Hill) takes his people to the stronghold of Helm’s Deep.
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As the heroes slog through rain and mud against an otherworldly foe, so did the cast and crew slog through months of difficult night shoots to finish this cinematic masterpiece. It ends in victory for Mankind, but that victory was far from assured. The battle of Helm’s Deep is the first major battle in the War of the Ring and serves as the climax for the second part of the quintessential fantasy trilogy: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.