If any film in the genre beats Jurassic Park, it should do so in honor of creating a device that audiences have not been accustomed to beforehand. Phantom Menace’s effects weren’t all out-of-this-world, but it so happened to be a (movie) concept that had been gone from multiplexes for so long.

Moviegoers no doubt wanted the Lord of the Rings sequel to pass The Phantom Menace’s $431.1 million finish, but that was also the first Star Wars film in theaters for sixteen years. It was a big deal at the time because it hadn’t been around for ages, and fans of all demographics were eager as hell to go at least once. With The Two Towers here now, it’s not quite the same feeling. Fans rushed to midnight screenings the Tuesday night before its real premiere, but as for the average moviegoers that it would take to really make a difference on the all-time chart, Two Towers is not a big ordeal. People have seen the stuff before.

I’ve taken the time to go through all these topics simply because it’s irritated me how so many moviegoers or simply Lord of the Rings fans are so crazed for the sequel to hit every record there is. I think we’ve been all mislead in some ways due to huge openings and huge long-term box office performances that our perceptions are different than it once was. But even so, expectations are sometimes just too high. And some moviegoers occasionally forget that what we’re able to see on the big-screen today can sometimes be a "thanks" to a movie that came out in the past due to the new technology available. If a movie with nothing really new to offer (but uses previously created devices to build the experience) surpasses a landmark film that may have been the recruiter to this idea, then it is in my humble opinion very unfair.

You can agree with me or walk the other way, but I feel that sometimes we get distracted due to the technology available that it can be easy to look at a film and think it’s performing something really special or unique. But also, it seems that there are those who really don’t have the big fundamentals of what a great movie is. And when fans rank The Two Towers as an A or an A+ film it sort of makes me wonder what other films they saw that year, as they must not have been blown away by other films’ acting or stories or not totally accustomed to absolute quality in general. If they saw other pictures which featured powerhouse-acting deliveries or complicated stories, then I might imagine they’re opinion on Two Towers could be different. There are small movies like Igby Goes Down and even Rules of Attraction which I think are levels above Lord of the Rings, but nobody saw them. I’m going to get criticized for that reference, but I strongly feel both have material Two Towers lacks.

I think box office expectations might be crazy by the time Return of the King gets released. I can’t officially classify this with an opinion yet but I’m not placing high bets that it’ll be worth a mega-blockbuster status either. Matrix Reloaded might not have the best acting in the world when it is released, but it holds a chance to break new ground visually speaking which is what I think a movie should do in order to kill off Jurassic Park. The Spielberg film was not a big quality movie, but it was a fun popcorn ride that changed the way we looked at the big-screen in terms of visual effects. Looking at Two Towers, I saw nothing new I hadn’t seen before. I also felt as if I witnessed a better execution visually at The Phantom Menace despite the latter being somewhat of a reasonable film but nothing really unique.

The third Lord of the Rings sequel will garner discussions galore as to how much it’ll make and no doubt fans will argue that it’ll pull a $400 or 500 million run. But seriously, I don’t think some people have the basic understanding to how a movie like Spider-Man made it to $400 million without a sweat. Two Towers is not Spider-Man and while I thought TTT was better than it, audience wise Spider-Man had a lot more to offer to a larger group of people. The Lord of the Rings sequel is simply the version of Attack of the Clones that Star Wars fans hoped for but didn’t exactly get in return.