Great Movies. One issue.

Rating: 9/10 (22 April 2016)

I could start off by claiming that all the characters in the Lord of the Rings are two-dimensional, with little depth, and hardly any character development. I could state how there is nothing interesting about some characters in the universe and they are all black and white with some having little to no motive. I could say that it's foolish to focus so much on the creation of orcs just for them to die an hour later in the film. But it's simply not the truth. Now let me begin by saying I truly love the Lord of the Rings films. I do. However, a particular problem within the trilogy is a lack in development of a large amount of characters. Specifically within The Fellowship of the Ring I'm here to talk about one of the movies biggest flaws. With the lack of development of character in the films, one of the biggest crimes was killing off one of the most full-fledged characters in the first movie, Boromir. Why was it essential to kill this character fairly early on within the lore? What purpose does it serve to the story and overall arc? Why focus on the development of his character to kill him off so early on?
Boromir was something of an exception to the Lord of the Rings trilogy. In a universe where every character is regarded as good or evil, Boromir is one of the few in the gray area. His character is neither good or bad. His character has depth to it, it has struggles like the everyday man does. He is a good man who is struggling with the weight of his legacy within the fellowship. The ring sees this and prays upon it to tempt his will. It's something that makes him a 3-dimensional character, and one of the very first in the overall story. Though he was willing to do evil to get the ring, the ring was tempting him with a good purpose, to save his people. There are few people in The Lord of the Rings trilogy who experience the same kind of character exploration throughout their time on screen, needless to say how short his was. This is what makes Boromir such a greatly developed character, which is why it's bitter-sweet when his character meets an end.
His death is especially criminal to the character in general. As in the books Boromir's death occurs within "The Two Towers" rather than "The Fellowship of the Ring". Had they kept it true to the original text they could have interpreted more in the second movie, rather than spending a large portion of it waiting for the Ent's to decide if they would help the twins or not. There would have been more content within the storyline, and it would have kept a great character rolling throughout more than just one hour within the entirety of the films. This could have made him more of a key character. However, they decided to cut his character short and leave us departed from a great character sooner than what was necessary.
So what's the point of all of this, you might ask. As great a character as Boromir is, the flaw within the story is that his character is only within the story for a mere hour. And over this hour, this one character had more of a story to him than other characters such as Legolas and Gimli, who had been covered for 3 movies. In fact Legolas only had 37 lines throughout all three of the films, only one of these lines was said to Frodo. Yes, Boromir seems like a minor role when compared to others, however, the fact that we got to see all sides to Boromir within his struggle, and only seemingly generic stories, in comparison, from other characters who were panned through all 3 films, speaks for itself.
The lacking choice of character development, and where, is one of the trilogy's major flaws. Leaving your characters who were maintained through a larger amount of time underdeveloped and exploring characters who have minimal screen time is not ideal for the development of roles throughout the films. Underdevelopment in lengthier characters is a poor choice, especially when the time used on Boromir could have been used to expand on a larger character, maybe such as the twins, or even Frodo a bit more, learn more about Sarumon and his motives, etc. The character of Boromir should have been extended into the second film for the use of further content, which would also help extend the point of him being as developed as he was, and driving the plot to be more correct to the original lore.