It’s fair to say that Boromir received a fairly good representation in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy. The novels by JRR Tolkien are admired for their depth of description, as well as the complexity and nuances of the characters. Boromir, however, has been mostly neglected by his creators.
Peter Jackson, thankfully, changed that and gave Boromir more space in the script, including many extra lines and even an entire scene – unfortunately cut from the theatrical release– of his training Merry and Pippin. And there’s another deleted scene that would have given Boromir a lot more of the credit he deserved.
The deleted scene was set soon before Boromir (Sean Bean) first joins the Fellowship.
He and the army of Gondor are in the middle of celebrating the victory of cracking the city of Osgiliath. Boromir gives an enthusiastic speech to his men, and he praises his brother Faramir (David Wenham).
Unfortunately, their father Denethor, and Steward of Gondor (John Noble), arrive to congratulate Boromir but belittles his younger brother’s achievements. At this point, Denethor also recounts Boromir of Elrond’s meeting of the Fellowship at Rivendell. Predicting it concerns the one ring, he urges him to leave to represent Gondor’s claim.
The scene is brief and provides a little additional information that affects the ongoing narrative of the film; which is likely why it was ultimately cut. However, it does give the audience a greater look into Boromir’s character.
It shows clearly that his will to possess the ring did not exist before he first came into contact with its presence.
At first, he questions whether he should leave Gondor at all. However, his father manages to convince him. Faramir even volunteers himself for the mission but is refused. Ironically, we know that Faramir may have ultimately been a better choice, as he was not as tempted by the ring as his brother was.
Boromir was always a good man, who cared more about his people than himself. The ring used this to its advantage to corrupt him to believe it would be better used to help Gondor than to be destroyed.
Without this deleted scene, the audience will never understand Boromir’s true motives and character. Thinking of him as greedy and power-hungry, when actually Boromir was a strong and attentive leader. And considering how he stuck up for Faramir, an all-around nice guy.
The scene may have been deleted from the theatrical cut of the movies, but was added once again into the ‘extended cut’ of the trilogy release.
The scene appears during the Two Towers and is represented as a flashback of Faramir thinking about his dead brother and the last time they were together. Yet considering how crucial it is in explaining Boromir’s backstory, maybe it should have never been cut at all.
