January 20, 2003

Faramir and Others
Mithril Miner

No, this is not another complaint section. I, for one, was pleased with Faramir and Haldir and Treebeard.

First off, Faramir is still the opposite of Boromir. It is best described in one of Arwen's lines:

"One day you will face the same evil, and you will defeat it."

Faramir triumphed where Borimir failed. I have seen the movie three times already, and I have watched Faramir closely throughout the entire thing, and he has something else going on. It is his chance to show what Faramir, captain of Gondor, is made of. One of his last lines is "I think we finally understand eachother, Frodo." He is listening to Frodo. He is seeing what is happening. Faramir is fighting for exactly what Sam is talking about. Faramir isn't evil. He isn't working for evil.

He isn't mean, he's just more serious, as he is in the book. Even in the book, even after he has a pretty good guess of what Frodo is doing, he says that Frodo & Co. will go with him to Minas Tirith. Then he learns more about the One Ring, and lets Frodo go. In all essentiality, that is what happens in the movie.

Haldir's part was enhanced greatly, and I liked it a lot. It shows that the elves are not completely aloof and unconcerned, thinking:

"hey, as soon as trouble comes, we'll just high tail it out of Middle Earth and go to a better land!"

as it would have seemed if that had not happened. It shows Galadriel is actually fairly nice, a fact that was missed in the Fellowship.

Besides, Haldir's whole "elves and men dying together" speech was really awesome, and I think it gained some honor for "common" elves that was missed in the first one. All you see is the princes, and royalty.

And also, Treebeard's neutrality enhanced Merry and Pippin's desire to help. And it also builds up suspense for Merry's big schpiel with the King of the Nazgul in ROTK.

And one of the most powerful parts in the movie was when Pippin realized that there might not be a shire to go back to.

See ya!