Like many posters here, I did not care for the film's treatment of Faramir. Tolkien defines the greatness of his characters by their deeds, specificially in response to the temptation of the Ring. We acknowledge that Gandalf, Aragorn and Galadriel are great because they are able to resist that temptation. Faramir belongs in that group. It is doubly disappointing because Faramir's greatest quality is supposed to be wisdom.

Another gripe I have is Frodo. I, too, am sick of his endless whining and rolling around clutching at the ring. I know that this struggle is a key characteristic of his journey to Mordor but c'mon, give us some redeeming qualities too.

I really liked the first half of the movie. The actor playing Eomer was great. I wish they showed more of him.

It's darker and looks different for a reason, the land is beginning to be shrouded in shadow. It is happening fast, remember comments like "Time? What time do you think we have?" from Saruman and others in FOTR. Sauran was expanding his power rapidly.

It's interesting to see that all of the fanboy babbling has shifted from complaining about Arwen's expanded/modified role in FOTR (which has laughably been forgotten) to Faramir's treatment in TTT. How quickly the hounds have shifted their sights.

That being said, I don't have much to gripe about with the hobbits being taken to Osgiliath or Faramir wanting to take the Ring to Denethor. As others have pointed out, it might detract from Galadriel, Gandalf and Aragorn's resistance to the Ring. Having another human (one who is even related to the tainted Boromir!) so close to its power yet unaffected might seem a bit odd to some I think.

In the end, Faramir witnesses the affect of the Ring and has the wisdom to allow Frodo, Sam and Gollum to continue on to Mordor. Not only does it prove that Faramir is stronger than his brother, but it gives the hobbits some nice scenes in which to work with - I thought the addition of Frodo threatening Sam was tense and appropriate. Your mileage may vary of course!

The one redeeming quality he has is his resistance to the Ring. Which, of course, is failing the closer he reaches Mount Doom. It would be a little ridiculous if Frodo was able to be heroic, untainted and withholding despair when all hope seems so small and fragile. These are hobbits who have never left the confines of The Shire! What do you expect?!

Eomer was decent, but there wasn't enough of him for sure. I thought the actor who played Faramir was fantastic. Not only did he play the part given him with skill and believability, but he looked like he could be related to Sean Bean as well - how good is that?

Brad Dourif was also wonderful as Grima Wormtongue. Some of the facial expressions were astonishing - and the single tear and look of absolute awe when his character witnessed the sheer magnitude of Saruman's army was incredible. Kudos also to Christopher Lee who managed that scene with a smug arrogance.

Peter Jackson has truly spoiled us not only with his vision, but the incredible casting job. Oi vey!

-matt

I need to see the film again (and I definitely can't wait for the EE), but I was disappointed w/:

I wish they would have had more screen-time for Faramir's storyline, as was mentioned earlier.

The lack of the Ents/Huorns at Helm's Deep, lets hope for some of this in the EE or ROTK (I didn't mind the addition of the Elves to Helm's Deep, actually)

I wish they had more screen-time for the Ents destruction of Isengard and its flooding - hope for more in the EE or ROTK, too.

I liked it so far, though, I didn't mind the cutting back and forth - it kept a great pace and didn't seem like three hours to me - need to see it a few more times.

I saw it again today. I agree some of the things I disagreed with have been lessened. Though I'm still pissed with Faramir. That bothers me more than the excessive and not needed Arwen. Mostly everything else is fitting in a bit more. I'm still bothered by something but it is sinking in. I am hoping that this was a bridge and that ROTK will be more true to Tolkein's views.

PJ has said that TTT takes the most liberties with the story of the three films.

I actually admire how they've done it. Tolkien always considered it one big story. The filmmakers have looked at it as one story and divided it up accordingly instead of rigidly sticking to the structure of the book divisions.

As much as I love the books, I have to agree that this needs to be considered more of its own film and less of a translation.

I agree with most of the gripes people have had about Faramir, Aragorn and the Cliff, lack of Ents, Elves at Helm Deep, etc, but you have to at least attempt to see the reasoning for these choices before condemning them.

1. Faramir's character was altered to enforce the concept of the corruption of men. I don't agree with this, and think we really needed some redeaming for men, but I am guessing that all the redemption is going to come from Aragorn's character in ROTK.

2. Aragorn and the Cliff, still haven't figure this one out, seems pointless to me. Maybe someone else has figured it out.

3. Elves at Helm Deep makes the battle more believable in terms of sheer numbers, and makes the battle more important. Its not just a battle for Rohan anymore, it has implications for the whole Middle Earth, and so the Ents and Elves come to help.

4. Lack of Ents, I think PJ and the writers were probably just scared to give them too much screen time because they would seem strange to viewers. Again, I think its a mistake as its the greatest metaphor for Middle Earth doing its part in the war, literally.

The one thing that I think nobody else noted was the beginning ... why start with Gandalf and the Balrog, then just cut away and not see him until much later? couldn't this have been better left in its original place when he tells Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas in Fanghorn? Maybe it would have added to the confusing cuts.

Overall I thought the film was confusing and many of the motivations of the characters were strangely mixed up. Why was Gandalf against going to Helm Deep in the film?

hopefully the EE smooths things out.

I don't feel the exclusion of the Ents at the Battle of Helms Deep is a major problem. The finale of the battle worked fine with Galdalf leading the riders down the mountain for a final melee.

Aragorn and the cliff is a real puzzler. It served no real purpose, other than to make him groggy for a dream sequence with Arwen.

Faramir and his band need some fleshing out. Faramir says his brother has died, but we never find out how he knew, and there is no clear reason why they are hiding behind the waterfall ambushing people going to Mordor.

I think the fact that he is tempted and does not ultimately cave to that temptation is quite a powerful statement of the strength of Man.

To illustrate my thought, instead of the ring think of the temptation as a bottle of whiskey. Which is more powerful Faramir having no interest in the whiskey and letting it go, or Faramir being an alcoholic (like his brother) but able to pass on the whiskey as he sees the danger?

LOTR is littered with scenarios demonstrating that one should not give up hope (Old Man Willow, Barrow Downs, Weather Top, Flight to the Ford, Caradhas, Balin's Tomb, Gandalf's "death", Helm's Deep, etc.,) situations where someone seemed to be certainly doomed or there appeared no hope, yet somehow they prevail. This just adds to the message never give up hope. Necessary, no, but it doesn't harm the spirit of the book.

After reading a few other TTT threads, I think I now understand why Jackson had the Faramir character take the Hobbits to Osgiliath. The wraith who saw the ring there will relay this information to Sauron. He, in turn, will now believe that the ring is on its way to Gondor -- causing him to escalate his campaign against the race of men. This will also have the effect of leaving his own territory under-defended and make it more plausible for Frodo and Sam to sneak past Minas Morgul.

This change does tighten up the plot a little. But I still don't really believe that it is nearly as justifiable as some of the other changes from the books.

I read TTT so many years back it is just a fog in my mind, so I don't know how the book went about it, but about the Aragorn cliff scene:

I saw it as a way to set up the almost hopeless atmosphere before the battle for Helm's Deep. Because Aragorn personally saw the 10,000 Uruk-Hai march on Helm's Deep, he is able to report this to Theoden and the others, thus setting up Legolas' defeatism and Theoden's defiance in the face of all odds.

Or did I miss something, and the people of Rohan already knew that an army of 10,000 was on their way?

Aragorn seeing the army is the only reason I can actually believe for having this scene, but I still think the scene is weak and doesn't really fit. I think the information could have come from somewhere else, at the very least Gandalf could have known because he seems to know almost everything, plus he talked with the ents who knew what Saruman was up to.

About the feel of the movie, I think it will look different on the DVD. I watched the trailer again from FOTR: EE and the look of it is much more darker and less brownish. It felt more like an "epic" than the now that are in theaters right now. It's hard to explain but I also liked the feel of the FOTR: EE than the first version that was released. The cinematography seemed more "it's not earth, it's in a different place." The first FOTR that was released looked more like a place on Earth, while the EE didn't. Anybody feel the same way?

I felt the same way about FOTR after 1 viewing as I do now about TTT. The first time i saw FOTR i thought it was great, but it seemed a bit rushed and therefore didn't have the epic appeal i thought it would. FOTR:EE changed that completely. By extending the background info and slowing down the pacing just a little bit I felt the story came together into a brilliant film. I am hoping for the same thing with TTT.

I think the reason that FOTR:EE seems more like a different world is the extra material that gives the hobbits and elves a greater presence in the film. I agree that the EE had a more magical and fantasy feel to it.

View from a dope who didnt read the books so I KNOW NOTHING!

What didnt work for ME:
- BIG ONE - NO PERSONALITY!!! FOTR introduced the characters and each one had its own distinct personality. TTT had destroyed that all. Other than gollum then everyone seemed boring and preachy. 90% of the lines couldve been said by any of the fellowship.

- After reading here that the Aragorn cliff story wasnt in the book, im quite pissed that it exists in the movie. It just seemed so boring with its sole purpose being to let aragorn dramatically open those doors to see the king. Bah.

- Too many gimli jokes. He didnt get enough personality development in FOTR and now that ive seen him in TTT im very embarassed for him. From warrior dwarf to leatherback turtle. Ugh. I do love him though so they best toughen him up and lose the dwarf tossing references.

- Surfing legolas. I saw it coming and accidentally said out loud "no, please dont" and whish... he's surfing. I was waiting for him to do a handplant on the castle walls or ride through town towing onto the back of a horse with his hover-shield after that.

- Love story. I hear its not even in the book. But even if it is, WE GET THE POINT!. I dont need to see the saliva exchange at 100x close up for 5 minutes. And if youre going to do a gratuitous shot of arwens chest then at least allow some nip slip for the men in the audience.

- Hobbits. (my ignorance speaks) I didnt like them in fotr. but after watching it again on the ee then i decided that i understood and liked them alot. now im back to not liking them much. how useless can one be?

-humans suck. orcs are begining to suck. boring humans replaced gandolf and sauramons screen time. orcs were cool in fotr but i think im getting sick of seeing them. its just me though because big battles arent exciting to me. too much going on, so i wont enjoy that battle until i get the dvd and wtch it again.

- pacing/editing. i thought its way off. battle/tree's/battle/sams speech etc. bah.

I need to see it again to appreciate it more i think.

If I have one problem with the movie, it's this. I wanted to pull my hair out during these scenes. Of course, it doesn't help that Faramir is one of my favorite characters, and I love the way Tolkien plays off the flaws of his older brother.

Faramir in the book is a very rich, very noble character, who does have some problems with figuring out the right thing to do, but in the end, behaves more like Aragorn at the end of the movie version of FOTR, and much less like Boromir in the book or movie.

In the movie, Faramir is reduced to a cheap carbon copy of his brother, and why in the world does the ring go to Gondor? It never came near Gondor in the book, and there's no reason for it to go there now. It requires reworking a great deal of the plot lines of the book (not that the entire plot line wasn't just thrown out -- but I digress) and for no good reason.

This was simply unexcusable. There were other changes I didn't like, and some things I thought could be handled better (one minute Gandalf is falling into the bowels of the Earth, then cut to him climbing the last stairs of a tower far above anything else), but this one ....

It's all in the appendix. In the book, Arwen comes out of nowhere to marry Aragorn. The appendix was needed to explain to readers what her deal was. All they did was include it in the body of the story.

Here's what P. Jackson said in an interview (posted in another thread) about that subject, and I for one, agree with him:

QUESTION: In the book, for example, Faramir is very pure and very noble, but here in the film, he's got this evil touch. He's even tempted by the ring.

PETER JACKSON: For a short time, yeah. We made that change, just to use that example -- and this is really where being a filmmaker differs from being a writer. You make decisions as a filmmaker and, rightly or wrongly, you change things if you think they need to be changed. We wanted the episode with Faramir in this particular film to have a certain degree of tension. Frodo and Sam were captured. Their journey had become more complicated by the fact that they are prisoners. Which they are in the book for a brief period of time. But then, very quickly in the book, Tolkien sort of backs away from there and, as you say, he reveals Faramir to be very pure. At one point, Faramir says, "Look, I wouldn't even touch the ring if I saw it lying on the side of the road."

For us, as filmmakers, that sort of thing creates a bit of a problem because we've spent a lot of time in the last film and in this one to establish this ring as incredibly powerful. Then to suddenly come to a character that says, "Oh, I'm not interested in that," to suddenly go against everything that we've established ourselves is sort of going against our own rules. We certainly acknowledge that Faramir should not do what Boromir did and that he ultimately has the strength to say, "No, you go on your way and I understand." We wanted to make it slightly harder, to have a little more tension than there was in the book. But that's where that sort of decision comes from.

The reality is that The Two Towers is the slightest of the books, I think. We kind of have all the memorable moments of the book in the film and what we've done is to actually enhance and add bits of story that weren't in the book. For instance, we have Frodo and Sam arguing with each other at one point in the movie so that you can see that the tension of what they're doing is getting to them. And that wasn't in the book, but we wanted to develop these characters a bit.

Here's the full text

I just came back from my second viewing and I still have the same problems as before. I feel that all the changes are half and half, some I can live with, others I think were just mistakes and should have been done differently.

I realized after this viewing that the whole "hope inspite of feeling hopeless" motif is totally overdone. It seemed to me that every other event became a symbol or metaphor for that single theme, and to me that is just too much. I personally enjoyed Sam's speech at the end of the film, and it alone was enough to give a good sense of the hopelessness of the journey, yet show that the characters move on despite this. But scene's like the Aragorn cliff scene do little to reinforce the theme while taking characters where they should not be. I also found it strange that he was so badly hurt in this scene, yet straightens right up when he gets to Helm's Deep.

I would also reinforce my gripe that the Ents got the shaft in this film. For over an hour of the film Treebeard, Merry, and Pippin are walking through the forest. The walk forever, and never do anything! I think the Ents could have been given a much better treatment.

My third and final major problem is the dynamics of the Helm Deep battle. I loved this battle all the way until they retreat into the caves. From a realistic standpoint there would be no way to win once this happens, and it seemed totally wrong that they just come riding out at the last minute and charge into the middle of the orc host. I also think this battle still doesn't seem winnable even when Eomer and the others come with Gandalf. From my POV I think they needed the Ents or something else to contribute to the battle for them to win. In the scene where you see Gandalf and Eomer appear there are still a whole ton of orcs left in the valley. For these reasons I felt that the Helm Deep battle just didn't play out in a plausibe manor.

I now await the EE.

The major thing i came out of the movie was the apparent distinction between the "king" and Faramir's Gondor. The film makes as if they are two different groups, but in fact from my memory it is not that way. (won't say any spoilers) I know it would be too confusing to show Theoden as a Steward and make it stick about his authority, but to separate Theoden and Gondor didn't feel right to me.

I also thought Theoden's home was very shabby for a "king".

Now i did like the part where Aragorn had a slight pause when bowing to Theoden.

Overall i liked the movie, will see it again shortly, but had to use my free ticket

I think the whole point of that final charge was that they did not expect to win. When the King agreed to the charge it was simply a suicide attack that would buy the children time to escape and die with their boots on. An attack that ferocious could surprise an enemy (for a bit). And being flanked by 2,000 trained horse warriors could very easily win the day. The enemy had its back against the wall of Helm’s Deep and was facing the sun. Don’t forget, as fighters they seem to simply suck. Gimli alone killed like 19 within the first 30 seconds.

As far as the king’s “Great House” looking shabby, I think it was designed after Viking King’s houses.

That's because Theoden WAS King of Rohan. Denethor II is Steward of Gondor and Boromir and Faramir's dad. They ARE two separate kingdoms.

Also, of course Theoden's home was shabby. He'd been under Wormtongue's spell for a while. Visual shorthand to show the audience how things have been "let go" while he was not of his own mind.

Here's a map. Theoden rules Rohan and Denethor II stewards Gondor which will be reunited with Arnor if and when the King returns (Considering the next movie is "Return of the King", even Tolkien felt that was a spoiler)

so if i were one of the 10,000 Uruk-Hai attacking Helms Deep and i'm way, WAY in the back. at what point do i say, "F this, I'm not gonna see any action. I'm gonna bail rather then hangout till i get to the front where the action is."

i mean at daylight, there is maybe a couple thousand left. no way could they have taken out THAT many before Gandolf returned with Eomer's army.

Okay, now having seen TTT for a second time, here are my probs with the movie (as pointed out by others as well): the Battle scenes. The assault on Osgiliath never seems threatening. Catapulting stones, the winged Nazgul.. that's it?... for an attack it was very underwhelming.
When Gandalf arrives near the end of Helms Deep, there is but a minutes worth of battle action, oh come on, the camera should have pulled back for us to witness the full power of battle and see the retreating defeated orcs.

Secondly, in the book, how do the ents know about the battle at Helm's Deep, what persuades them to attack there as well?