10 Deleted Scenes Which Totally Change Classic Films
3. Boromir And Faramir Are Okay After All
It's hard to pinpoint where in his filmography the truism of "Sean Bean always dies" began but the first Lord Of The Rings film certainly seems like the moment we all noticed how susceptible the Yorkshire actor's characters were to the icy touch of the reaper. It also makes sense that he would perish in The Fellowship Of The Ring because he's the only member of Frodo's ring-ferrying entourage who seems to have less-than-noble intentions. Frequently Bean's character Boromir is openly critical about the plan to go and chuck the hobbit's magic ring into the fires of Mount Doom, and it soon becomes clear that he wishes to posses the enchanted jewellery himself.
At the end of the first of the JRR Tolkien adaptations sees Boromir redeeming himself for previously trying to snatch the ring from Frodo, as he dies during an orc attack whilst protecting other hobbits Merry and Pippin. If Peter Jackson had left in a little more of the character's background, however, the audience wouldn't have felt like Boromir needed redeeming in the first place. Thankfully, if James Cameron is the spectral embodiment of the deleted scene then Peter Jackson is the grand overlord, having released vastly extended versions of the Lord Of The Rings films that add in a bunch of excised scenes. Case in point:
That deleted scene, restored in the Extended Edition of The Two Towers, reveals that Boromir isn't just a power-hungry jerk. He's actually well-intentioned in his pursuit of the ring, if a little oblivious of the potential danger. It's up to a flashback via his brother Faramir that he just wanted to save his people from the obvious Bad Things prevalent in Middle Earth, which totally changes how you viewed the character in the first film. He wasn't a bad guy from the start, he was somebody trying to harness an evil power in order to do good. And maybe he got lead a little astray by the influence of the ring but, well, so did Frodo, and he's meant to be he hero!