[Kalimac]

I can see how Mortensen might have gotten the movie Aragorn out of the book Aragorn, mostly because when I first read the books I wasn't really sure WHAT was holding him up - it's explained rather obscurely. All you see at first is that he's the heir and waiting for his time to come, and meanwhile has spent most of his life with various armies and being a Ranger. If you haven't gotten to the appendices yet or have read the book quickly, you could very easily think "All right, what's holding him back? If I had spent 70+ years drifting like this" (because that is what it looks like) "What would be holding me back?"<P>Obvious answer would be Doubt. And of course, you need some sort of dramatic climax to take away doubt and give him resolution - in the case of the movies I'm sure that the death of Boromir was it. It would be the wrong answer ultimately, considering Tolkien's explanations, but it's nonetheless a plausible one, and it does give him a very visible character arc.