camillavirgil replied to your photoset Book Faramir IS the best Faramir …
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Book Faramir IS the best Faramir
The change to Faramir’s character in The Two Towers was by far my biggest disappointment with the movies. I discussed it with other fans back in the day, watched and rewatched the BTS features and listened to the commentary tracks, and ended up mostly defending the filmmakers’ decision in online debates. But it was always a little (or more than a little) sad for me that they did that.
I know the arguments on both sides. I know why they felt they had to do it. No one is giving me hundreds of millions of dollars to adapt a sprawling, multi-book epic to the big screen in a way that will justify its enormous budget and satisfy everyone from lifelong lovers of the source material (*waves*) to new fans and casual “eh, sure; I’ll watch it” types.
But I’ll always regret that they couldn’t find room for the actual character from the books, the one who wasn’t going to undercut Aragorn or his struggle just by existing, but also wasn’t going to beat up Gollum or send the Ring to Denethor, because those things were wrong, and he saw himself as bound by that.
There’s a clip of David Wenham describing how he went to Jackson/Boyens/Walsh (or maybe it was just a story recounted by one of the latter trio; I can’t remember now) after he’d read the books (which he hadn’t when he was cast), and saying hey, you know, this actually seems like a significant change to my character. And them telling him yeah, we know, but we need to for all these reasons (*enumerates reasons*) and anyway he ends up in the same place, right?
Yeah, no. I mean yeah, he ends up having made the same decision. But he’s not the same person. How he gets there matters.
I want to believe a movie could have been made that didn’t sacrifice his character in the name of storytelling. It wouldn’t have been the same movie; might not have been as successful a movie. But I would have loved it.
I’ve mentioned that I’m reading the books again, out loud with my co-conspirator at night, the way we used to do. We just finished the Council of Elrond, and it was a thrill to realize that the brother Boromir referred to (though not by name) in his account to the Council, and who we’ll be meeting later on, was the real Faramir, my Faramir.
I can’t wait to meet him again.
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