While I was mooching around the net, I ran across the assertion (but did not note the page) that Sam Gamgee was the only person to resist the lure of the Ring. Alas now that the film version has come out, that will probably be the way it is remembered. I thought the films were nothing short of brilliant, but there is a handful of things I do take issue with, and the biggest is the misrepresentation of one of my favourite characters:

“So it seems,” said Faramir, slowly and very softly, with a strange smile. “So that is the answer to all the riddles! The One Ring that was thought to have perished from the world. And Boromir tried to take it by force? And you escaped? And ran all the way–to me! And here in the wild I have you: two halflings, and a host of men at my call, and the Ring of Rings. A pretty stroke of fortune. A chance for Faramir, Captain of Gondor, to show his quality! Hah!” He stood up, very tall and stern, his grey eyes glinting.

Frodo and Sam sprang from their stools and set themselves side by side with their backs to the wall, fumbling for their sword-hilts. There was a silence. All the men in the cave stopped talking and looked towards them in wonder. But Faramir sat down again in his chair and began to laugh quietly, and then suddenly became grave again.

“Alas for Boromir! It was too sore a trial!” he said … (JRR Tolkien. The Two Towers)

The BBC radio adaptation gets it right. No muddled temptation. No stupid cavalry charges. The radio adaptation also gets right the Paths of the Dead – it’s much, much spookier heard on the radio than seen on the screen, as a march in pitch darkness with a dead army following should be. And Robert Stevens’ (Aragorn) somber rasp has been fixed in my ear for years.

In his entry in the new Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy Themes, Works and Wonders, Gary Westfahl offers this insight on the film:

The Lord of the Rings is unquestionably the story of Frodo, with the adventures of the other characters functioning as subplots, their battles and activities clearly labeled as diversions of only secondary importance. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and its sequels, as others note, seem more the story of Aragorn and other human and elf characters, with Frodo shifted to a subordinate role … while Tolkien primarily describes a quest, Jackson is primarily describing a war.”