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Faramir, the way PJ has done this, allowed PJ to add a lot of the things that happen to Sam and Frodo, which in fact happen later in the book, but which for whatever reasons he decided not to put into ROTK. My only quibble is that he did not seem to establish well enough why Faramir changes his mind. I can accept changes from the book, but they have to make sense. Perhaps something was cut out to get the movie down to three hours, which explains PJ's version of Faramir better. Faramir will also be important in ROTR, when we see Denethor and what happens to him.

Other quibbles: wargs are most definitely giant wolves, not hyenas. And the oliphaunts were too freakin' huge. Someone got a little too carried away with that one.

Hullo! - Good morning. And Welcome to the Hobbit Hole!

PJ certainly did move Frodo along in his mental journey, and the relationship of Frodo to Sam and Frodo to Gollum... and Sam's resentment of Gollum, all that was really good. Loved it!

You are right about Faramir being necessary. I was playing with it in my mind last night when I realized so much of the good stuff is yet to come! How will PJ fit all that, and the war, in RoTK?

I think Faramir's decision was made in three steps, but we are going to have to interpret his glances to see it. On further viewings, we will see him as thinking about it. He is given the information he needs to decide, in Frodo's "the ring will not save Gondor, it has only the power to destroy"... and in seeing what became of Gollum because of it, and then I think he was finally convinced both by by seeing Frodo in what must have seemed to be a bizarre invitation to that Nazgul, and by overhearing Sam's speech.

Those things would all happen, and PJ would cut to Faramir thinking about this. We have to interpret his thinking by his actions.

PJ did the same thing to us when Frodo decided to leave the Fellowship. Frodo decided to leave, and Aragorn, Merry and Pippin all understood and agreed. Why? - I know why he left, of course, but I had to explain that to two different friends who saw the film with me but had not read the books. They didn't think it made sense. PJ explained it with thoughts, if you know the characters well enough, you can see their thoughts... if not, it may not make sense.