Also see:
The Nature of Faramir: A Response - Eleanor the Eldest
Hall of Fire chat transcript - multiple fans
Hello? Two Kings (humerous fanfic) - tbossjenn
The Faramir changes: Arguments against - multiple fans
What happened to Gallant Captain Faramir?
Weighing in on Faramir - multiple fans

Henry (fan)
I'm sorry. I have to say that Philippa Boyens' comments are too similar to what many of the critics have had to say about many of Tolkien's own words: "Faramir's character is completely static in the books, and this wouldn't translate well filmically." The beauty of Faramir (in the books) is that he IS "sea-green incorruptible," and that Tolkien makes his "sea-green incorruptibility" work. He demonstrates that one CAN be a Wizard's Pupil (in the best sense of the words), that he can be soft (softer than Aragorn), vulnerable (ultimately smitten down on the Field of the Pelennor), and (ur-ultimately) almost preternaturally wise.

Hurin (fan)
So much for the blood of Numenor running true. So much for one of the key characters carrying the central theme of humility. A classic example of subtlety and craft being sacrificed for the sake of a cinematic climax. Someone should have reminded Peter, Fran and Phillipa that there enough bloody Bond movies in this world without turning my favourite book into one of them. Shame.

Mich (fan)
Probably the one character change that PJ made that I could have dealt with, without it ruining my whole experience, was the change in Faramir. Fine, if you want him to be more battle-hardened and desperate, quicker to give in to temptation to use the ring to save Gondor, I could have stomached it. But what was the event that converted him? Seeing Frodo almost give the ring to the Nazgul? Sam berating him about being like his brother? That's all it took to shake the temptation, accept penalty of death, and trust that this hypnotized hobbit could make it all the way to Mordor to destroy the ring? Sounds like PJ didn't know what to do with the change he had made, he only knew he had to make the change for the sake of making it "his" story, as opposed to telling Tolkien's.

Vent (fan)
Just disgraceful the treatment he gets in the “revisionists" hands. In the book, Faramir learns about the Ring from a slip of the tongue by Sam, but he resists the temptation to take it. He’s the counterpoint to the weakness that befalls his brother, Boromir. He gets the shabbiest treatment of any character in the movie, IMO. He is nothing but the most honorable of men in the book, not the almost-Boromir-twin he’s become in the movie. And did we need the scenes at Osgiliath? What did they really add to the movie?

Una (fan)
I sat in furious incomprehension as Faramir dragged Frodo and Sam to Osgiliath to make them hand the Ring over to Denethor. Anyone who has read the books knows that Faramir is a wise, noble, and gentle character who can't help but win admiration and love from his beleaguered countrymen; a man who does not rush into things and who does not wish to even look at the Ring, let alone to take it. His final lines to Frodo, taken again from the book: "at last we understand each other" were the ultimate travesty - he had shown nothing in the way of talking to the Hobbits or of trying to understand them - and then suddenly saying that he would let his life be forfeit so the Ringbearer could continue made no sense following what had just happened. Even if they redeem his character immeasurably in the third film, it still won't be the same. I really can't understand what Peter Jackson thought he was doing there, although I'd genuinely love to know. Even the sense of mistrust apparent in the book is completely lost since Faramir is so rash and overbearing. He may have been Boromir's brother, but that's no reason for them to have to act the same. The scenes I'd most been looking forward to, Faramir in Ithilien and at Henneth Annun were, I felt, the most dramatically ruined of all, and I can't help feeling Tolkien would turn in his grave. David Wenham did a brilliant job of an appallingly mutilated part, but the real shame is that people who don't know the book will leave thinking that Faramir is really like that.

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