[Boromir88]

Essex, you have brought up a few good points about Boromir and Aragorn fighting in the books. I will say that's what I like about Boromir, he's honest and he speaks his mind. He spoke out against going into Lorien, him and Aragorn tustled for control a couple times on where to lead the party, despite all these battles between the two I believe they had developed a strong friendship. The movie has Boromir at the council of elrond spewing "Gondor needs no king, Gondor has no king" (or something to that affect). That's one thing PJ did, to Boromir, I could not agree with. From reading the books a few times and studying some of the parts of Boromir (since he is my favorite character), he never came off to me as stubborn man who wanted to keep Aragorn away from Gondor. Boromir's main concern was to save Gondor, he would do anything to save Gondor, and was content with the coming of the king and the sword to Minas Tirith. Problem is Boromir didn't think that was enough he only saw victory for Gondor if he had the ring. Which of course was Boromir's downfall, he slipped into madness, but for only a few minutes, after realizing what he had done he felt sorry, (this PJ does show well and the book talks about). What one thinks of Boromir is there own opinion, I understand completely if one would not maybe hold him in the respect that I myself do, but here is one thing that is not an opinion. The Fellowship wouldn't have survived without Boromir. Boromir carried Sam and Pippin through the snows on Caradhras, he was the strongest member of the fellowship and without his strength the fellowship would have never gotten as far as Amon Hen. Aragorn would have been the only strong person in the fellowhsip if Boromir wasn't there, and his fighting skill would have been missed, as it clearly states in the "Bridge of Khazad-dum" both Boromir and Aragorn slew many.

The punching bag,
I didn't think highly of the scenes betweent Gandalf and Denethor, they were quite dissapointing. Denethor's character was totally crapped on, and even though Gandalf did not like the steward of Gondor they both respected eachother. To me it seemed like there conversations together were more of a mockery towards eachother (if that makes sense). They would say compliments about eachother but it would be in a sarcastic way. The whole Gandalf throwing and whacking around Denethor urked me, and why does Gandalf get credit for Denethor killing himself? Gandalf and Pippin had nothing to do with Denethor killing himself, they were trying to stop him from killing Faramir. From the movies most of Gondor's characters were crapped on (Denethor, Faramir, Imrahil and Beregond weren't even there), it just seemed like Gondor had no strong leader, everyone was just a soldier that got their butts kicked by the orcs. If you watch ROTK, Sauron's army when fighting Gondor are like super warriors, just throwing and killing Gondor's soldiers like nothing, but when Rohan comes they are as dumb as rocks, they just kind of stand and let the horses run them over (if you watch closely and orc even flings himself into a riders path). But that could lead to a whole nother topic so I'll just stop there. Gondor had probably the superior armies to Rohan (Rohan's aid was needed) but no enemy entered Minas Tirith. The Witch-king breaks the gates of Minas Tirith then Rohan arrives, but I can see why PJ has them on the 5th level or whatever, people would be dissapointed in seeing 400 000 men not being able to break through the walls of Minas Tirith. That only takes away from the strength of Gondor, and in conclusion I think you see Gondor, and its Leader, Denethor, totally crapped on to show that Gondor needs a king, and to play up the role of Aragorn.