![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaydeefalls
For everyone with TTT quibbles -- and who doesn't have one or two? -- check out this interview with Peter Jackson and Philippa Boyens. You may still hate the changes, but at least you can hear the script writers' POV. A couple of points worth noting:
Peter Jackson: And Frodo and Sam and Gollum's story, we felt, was the psychological story of this film. Aragon and the whole Helm's Deep story and the saving of the people of Rohan story was like the action story. We didn't really want to have the action story, the Helm's Deep climax, at the same as having Frodo and Sam start their own action story by fighting a giant spider. We just felt that would be too much. So we wanted to keep them strictly as the psychological characters. That was the reasoning, really. And we've got a great spider scene for the third film.
Peter Jackson: We made that change, just to use that example -- and this is really where being a filmmaker differs from being a writer. You make decisions as a filmmaker and, rightly or wrongly, you change things if you think they need to be changed. We wanted the episode with Faramir in this particular film to have a certain degree of tension. Frodo and Sam were captured. Their journey had become more complicated by the fact that they are prisoners. Which they are in the book for a brief period of time. But then, very quickly in the book, Tolkien sort of backs away from there and, as you say, he reveals Faramir to be very pure. At one point, Faramir says, "Look, I wouldn't even touch the ring if I saw it lying on the side of the road."
For us, as filmmakers, that sort of thing creates a bit of a problem because we've spent a lot of time in the last film and in this one to establish this ring as incredibly powerful. Then to suddenly come to a character that says, "Oh, I'm not interested in that," to suddenly go against everything that we've established ourselves is sort of going against our own rules. We certainly acknowledge that Faramir should not do what Boromir did and that he ultimately has the strength to say, "No, you go on your way and I understand." We wanted to make it slightly harder, to have a little more tension than there was in the book. But that's where that sort of decision comes from.
Word.
Peter Jackson: And Frodo and Sam and Gollum's story, we felt, was the psychological story of this film. Aragon and the whole Helm's Deep story and the saving of the people of Rohan story was like the action story. We didn't really want to have the action story, the Helm's Deep climax, at the same as having Frodo and Sam start their own action story by fighting a giant spider. We just felt that would be too much. So we wanted to keep them strictly as the psychological characters. That was the reasoning, really. And we've got a great spider scene for the third film.
Peter Jackson: We made that change, just to use that example -- and this is really where being a filmmaker differs from being a writer. You make decisions as a filmmaker and, rightly or wrongly, you change things if you think they need to be changed. We wanted the episode with Faramir in this particular film to have a certain degree of tension. Frodo and Sam were captured. Their journey had become more complicated by the fact that they are prisoners. Which they are in the book for a brief period of time. But then, very quickly in the book, Tolkien sort of backs away from there and, as you say, he reveals Faramir to be very pure. At one point, Faramir says, "Look, I wouldn't even touch the ring if I saw it lying on the side of the road."
For us, as filmmakers, that sort of thing creates a bit of a problem because we've spent a lot of time in the last film and in this one to establish this ring as incredibly powerful. Then to suddenly come to a character that says, "Oh, I'm not interested in that," to suddenly go against everything that we've established ourselves is sort of going against our own rules. We certainly acknowledge that Faramir should not do what Boromir did and that he ultimately has the strength to say, "No, you go on your way and I understand." We wanted to make it slightly harder, to have a little more tension than there was in the book. But that's where that sort of decision comes from.
Word.
