LogFAQs > #914174283

Return > Fellowship > Towers.

The good points about Return have already been mentioned in other posts, I think, so I won't repeat. The excision of the Scouring of the Shire, while regrettable, is understandable from the viewpoint of making a movie since it's not a good idea to introduce a whole new bout of conflict at the very end and hastily wrapping it up. Better to finish Saruman off like done in the extended edition.

Fellowship suffers from the fact that its first half was originally the weakest part of the books in the first place. Still, it manages to be solid.

Towers... I won't say I dislike the movie as a whole, because I certainly enjoyed it generally. But there are a few points where I disagree with how the production went. I won't complain about the added minutiae here and there, such as Lothlorien archers appearing as support forces in Helm's Deep, or Eomer subbing in for Erkenbrand instead of fighting off the siege with Aragorn and Theoden as in the book. The details of the Entmoot are also changed, it's portrayed as if they only newly realize what Saruman has been doing to their forest, when originally they should've been stewing in their anger for quite some time with Merry and Pippin only providing the tipping point to it. I would have preferred more detailed descriptions into Ent life, but eh. This version is still acceptable.
The most egregious thing I fault is the portrayal of Faramir in Towers(no problem with him in Return), which directly contradicts the book's description of the character. The whole scene in Osgiliath should have never happened in the first place. He was supposed to be wholly different from the other Men of Gondor, a glimpse into what the old Numenoreans were like, and that sets him apart. In this movie, he's essentially a copy of Boromir, someone who's supposed to be portrayed as the paragon of the 'modern' Man of Gondor, until he randomly gains some insight post-battle for no reason and decides to let the hobbits go. This is not just merely added material, it's added material that runs counter to the book's intentions and it haunts all of Frodo/Sam/Gollum's portions of the movie past the 3/5 point. To me, that docks enough points from Towers to make it the least of the movie trilogy.
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