Great Movie But Not Faithful Enough to Tolkien

Rating: Null/10 (21 December 2002)

Contains Spoiler My wife and I went to see THE TWO TOWERS last night and I can't tell you how excited I was to be able to see what I had waited so long for. I did enjoy the movie very much. It was captivating, enchanting and full of action, but I cannot say I don't have my criticisms too. I can well understand that Peter Jackson must take certain steps to cram this fantasy classic into three bite-size chunks for the general public's viewing. I also understand that certain omissions must be made and that we cannot expect to savor certain story-lines as a careful reader can, but I'm quite disappointed with certain elements of the story that, in my opinion, need not have been changed.
Elrond, as far as I can remember, did not try to press his daughter into leaving Aragorn nor did he express such pessimism as to the success of Frodo's mission to destroy the ring.
As far as the Battle of Helm's Deep, it was very impressive, although it was often difficult to follow (I'm sure as such a real war would be, but I'm in a theater and I need to see and understand a bit better than if I were actually there.) I was completely thrown off as to a troop of Lorien Elves coming to the aid of Theoden in Helm's Deep. I would have been far more impressed with the Huorns appearing the next morning to finish off the Orcs.
Speaking of Huorns, I was also dismayed that Treebeard and the Ents didn't decide on their own to take action against Isengard before being "tricked" into seeing the destruction Saruman had caused firsthand.
I was probably most bothered by the actions of Faramir. In the book, he was briefly torn about what to do with the Ring-bearer and the One Ring, but he quickly resolved this and showed himself much more honorable than Boromir. Since the movie had him act 180 degrees in the opposite direction, and only changing his mind after the Nazgul episode at Osgiliath, I lose a great deal of respect for the movie version of his character.
Finally, in the book, Aragorn was far more respectable to Eowyn in making her understand that his heart, in no uncertain terms, belonged to another. To me, his movie-self was "leading her on" when he should not have been.
I'm sorry if I've stepped on anyone else's toes with my comments, but I just would have thought that there would have been omissions or briefer versions of what happened and not introducing behavior that Tolkien himself was careful not to display in the novels.
Don't get me wrong, the movie really was great and I heartily encourage anyone to watch it, it's just that from a more purist's standpoint, I was disappointed with the directions taken. If you haven't read the books or don't remember them that well, you'll probably tremendously enjoy the movies and think that I'm off my rocker.