[Lily Bracegirdle]

I agree with Sharku and TolkienGurl. Even though certain parts of the scene were well done (especially the interactions between Frodo and Sam), the whole thing was a giant HUH?! as far as I was concerned.<P>1) It seemed silly for Faramir to take the Ring to a place that was (for all he knew) about to be overrun by the Enemy.<P>2) The Ringwraith gave up too easily. If I were a Nazgul, and I saw the Ring of Power, I wouldn't leave until I had it IN MY HAND. I wouldn't care how many arrows people shot at me. At the very least, I'd have all of my forces charge the Ring's position. [Edit, 1/26/03: Now that I've seen the movie again, I'm convinced the Nazgul didn't actually notice the Ring, silly as that sounds. See The Indecisive Nazgul thread.]<P>3) Frodo was too far under the sway of the Ring. If he's already trying to kill Sam before they enter Mordor, he's going to be a gibbering pre-wraith for most of the next movie. (Not that that scene wasn't effective, mind you. I was holding my breath the whole time! I just agree with the others that it's too soon.)<P>4) Faramir's "I think we finally understand each other" line made no sense. He had just seen Frodo just about HAND the Ring over to the Nazgul. At that point it would have made more sense for him to say: "You are a menace and can't be trusted with that thing! Give it to me! Right now!" Instead, he turned Frodo loose in the middle of the battle. WHY? The sudden change of heart didn't seem believable.<P>5) Faramir's men also know that Frodo has the Ring, yet none of THEM tried to take it when Faramir decided to let Frodo go. If the Ring is so powerful that it (even temporarily) corrupted Faramir, do you think his men would just say: "Okay, Boss, we'll let the thing go to Mordor. We're just sorry that you're going to die for it"?<P>6) After being so pale and despondent in Osgiliath, Frodo looks remarkably healthy and cheerful in the next scene. (The Osgiliath scenes were done in pick-ups, so I guess the "Samwise the Brave" scene was one that had been shot earlier when Faramir was still going to be a good guy.)<P>In short, I think the Osgiliath scenes were pretty to look at, but didn't really add anything significant to the plot, nor did they do much for the characterizations. Their internal logic also seemed questionable. <P>If PJ needed to show the ring to the Nazgul to give Sauron a reason to attack Gondor, I wonder if that means Aragorn won't be showing himself in the Isengard palantir.<P>PJ could have just as easily shown what Gondor was up against by having Faramir fighting at Osgiliath (or Cair Andros) after the hobbits leave.<P>I would have prefered it if we had just cut from the "A chance for Faramir...to show his quality" scene to Frodo and Sam back on the road talking about stories. Barring that, it would have been nice if Faramir had given them food and advice as he did in the book. (Something for me to look forward to on the extended version DVD.)<P>It's unfortunate that Faramir actually saw the Ring in the movie. I think the reason he was able to withstand its power so easily in the book is that he didn't actually see it (nor did he want to). It just didn't have as much opportunity to work on him the way it did Boromir and Aragorn (who travelled for months with it). That doesn't necessarily make Book-Faramir better than Aragorn, so I think the whole PJ fix of Faramir's character (and thus the Osgiliath scene) was unnecessary.<P>What do you think?<P>-Lily<p>[ January 26, 2003: Message edited by: Lily Bracegirdle ]