Some of the most beloved fantasy films borrow elements of medieval lore. For instance, Collider recently spotlighted some of the most popular fantasy movies molded from medieval folk tales by releasing a list of “the 10 greatest medieval fantasy movies of the last 25 years.”
The ranking included hit fantasy films like A Knight’s Tale, released in 2001, The Northman from 2022, and 2021’s The Green Knight. The publication put the 2002 film The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, based on J. R. R. Tolkien‘s 1954 novel The Two Towers, at the top of the list.
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, which is the second film in theLord of the Rings franchise, has a score of 95 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.
Viggo Mortensen Noted That the ‘Lord of the Rings’ Books Has Aspects of Different Mythologies
In a 2002 interview with Charlie Rose, alongside the film’s director, Peter Jackson, and his co-star Elijah Wood,Viggo Mortensen, who played Aragorn in the trilogy, noted that the Lord of the Rings books and films are inspired by different mythologies. He explained that while he hadn’t read Tolkien’s books before being cast as Aragorn, he understood aspects of the text.
“It wasn’t such a foreign thing to me after all, that a lot of there were elements that were familiar to me. I mean, the sources for Tolkien’s writing were not all unfamiliar, you know, a lot of it is based on Nordic mythology, Celtic mythology sagas, fairy tales. I mean, there’s such a gold mine of information in there,” said the actor, now 67.
He also said that he “could relate” the characters and storylines in Lord of the Rings “to Western movie archetypes,” as well as “Samurai movies.”
Peter Jackson Explained that ‘The Two Towers’ Isn’t a Traditional Sequel Film
During the 2002 Charlie Rose interview, Jackson explained he didn’t consider The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers a sequel in a traditional sense.
“We’re not in a situation where The Fellowship of the Ring came out last year, and it made a lot of money, and everyone said, ‘Oh good, let’s make a second one of these.’ And we kind of figured out what the magic formula was. And we kind of rushed off and made another one,” said Jackson during the 2002 interview.
The filmmaker explained that the three films, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, “was shot as a trilogy.”
“There was 9 hours of movie, all shot at the same time, basically,” continued Jackson.