I mean I am a hardcore fan of the books for my whole live, and I certainty have some small issues with the movies, but damn. Saying that Peter Jackson is not a good director is quite the statement.

It seems to me that because you love the books so much you are applying and insanely high standard. Given where Fantasy has been before and since in movies what was achieved was almost unbelievable how amazing it is.

> In the movie, though, Faramir succumbs to the ring initially and leads the hobbits around for 15 minutes.

I think this is not even a bad change. It made Faramir and thus Boromir and the family dynamic a bigger part of the story. It gives it way more impact later when Faramir rides out.

> He did the same thing to even worse effect in The Hobbit.

In the Hobbit he had to jump in last minute and the studio forced it to 3 movies. There was no saving that thing. The only reason he directed it at all is because they might have pulled the movie from New Zealand.

> And yet with all that padding, he left out The Scouring of the Shire, one of the most important parts of the book.

There is just no practical way to include this even in the extended editions. The movie gets made endless jokes about how it has like 7 endings. It just not how movies work.

Remember even the cinematic editions had to cut so many things, it totally insane to think they could have added what amount to a whole other part at the end that can arguably be its own movie.