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I thought that now all three have been one (although amazingly ROTK is STILL in cinemas!) First off I really enjoyed these movies, mainly because I tried to not have any preconceptions going in. These were visually majestic, taking full advantage of both real and CG (Computer Generated) scenery to depict the epic scale in Tolkein's works. Jackson is, like George Lucas a believer in the sensory impact that a movie can have on an audience. He couldn't have included every line or even every character (Alas Tom Bombadil -a personal fave- was lost, his lines given to Treebeard) even in three movies, but there were some points where the cliché line from Rove Live [b]What The[/b] comes to mind. Rather than listing all of them I'll head for the biggest one for me. [b]FARAMIR is a WIMP and SAURON is a tactical NIMROD(?)[/b] Now that I have your attention ,) Faramir is in every way described as everything Boramir tried to be, yet failed to live up to. Combine that with huge quotients of humility and you have an interesting look into how different two siblings can be. [b]Whooooops![/b] No wait I got it wrong didn't I? For he is no different than Boramir. No wait he is WORSE, for while Boramir realizes fatefully too late that the ring was evil? Faramir sees it and without so much as a hmmm maybe, he is taking the ring, bearer and companion to his father in defence of the realm. This all seemed to be in effort of a reasonable lead up to the confrontation between Frodo and a Nazguhl. And the inexplicable return of Faramir's wisdom once Sam tells Frodo what is right and what is wrong. Overhearing this he wakes up from his delusions... Oh wait that never happened in the book. Now if we take away any loyalty for the character Faramir and look at what it did for the story as a stand alone piece... From my point of view it took AWAY from the story. Eowin's fascination with Aragorn transfers to Faramir, but now instead of the wise-beyond-his-years-duty-before-self hero of the book. A man who goes into battle knowing his father is sending him to his death. A man set to replace Aragorn in Eowin's heart? We now have a weak willed sap whose motivation for following orders blindly draws a line from his inability to resist the ring until a hobbit -whom he seems to disregard as something between a man and a dog until that point- reminds him of what it is to be honourable. Now if something is shortened for the sake of brevity in order to fit within the scope of a movie's time frame I am all understanding. You are trying to squash a mountain of information into a short span. But that scene added to the timeframe. Without it, Faramir would have let them go on their way, realizing the danger of the ring and the temptation it represented. The most important reason for that scene to never exist? Tolkein is building up the tension all the way up to that point. Sauron is looking for the ring, he has all his resources out there dredging through the populations of middle earth to get the ring back. The whole point of Frodo and Sam slipping in under the 'radar' was that Sauron's agents had not come in close proximity to the ring since Rivendel. He knows it's out there, he knows via Wormtongue that Gandalf travels with a Hobbit. In this version, Sauron doesn't bat an eyelid at the presence of Frodo and his ring, despite it being within drooling distance of the nazguhl... so Sauron, the man/creature able to hobble middle earth is a twit isn't he?