Film Review: The Lord of the Rings "The Fellowship of the Ring"

**Spoilers**
If you have not yet seen this film what's wrong with you...how are you still alive?! please go and do so before proceeding.

Or you could just watch this:

            Okay. Do you have the general gist of the story figured out yet? You do? Great! Let's proceed with the review then...complete with spoilers. Because the only way to talk about Lord of the Rings is to just spoil away. Shall we begin?

           In 1937, Oxford professor and philologist John Ronald Ruel Tolkien, published his first full-length novel The Hobbit to great critical acclaim and reader enthusiasm. It was so popular, in fact, that the publishers (Allen & Unwin) requested that Professor Tolkien craft a sequel. Fourteen years (and two failed attempts at pushing The Silmarillion) later, Tolkien finally had completed, edited, and rewritten his masterpiece: The Downfall of the Lord of the Rings and the Return of the King...to give it its proper title. Originally written as a single work, segmented into six smaller books, the publishers split the Bible of all Geekdom up into three volumes, creating what we today know as the Lord of the Rings Trilogy.

        The books have become household names - popular with everyone from hippies in the 60's to nerds in the 90's. It seems as though just about everyone has at least heard something about the story, even if they haven't personally read them. There have been several adaptations made (two animated films and a BBC radio drama) and the saga only seems to gain popularity with each new generation.

      But, aside from those loose animated features and the cut-down BBC audio, Tolkien's monster book was thought to be unfilmable. Certainly it could NEVER be faithfully made into a live-action flick. We all remember what a disaster the script for the first and last attempt was...Professor Tolkien himself turned it down in disgust. (The lembas was changed into 'compressed concentrated food stuff', as I recall...and that's not even starting on what was done to the plot!) Fans had all but given up on the idea that a faithful and enjoyable live-action adaptation of The Lord of the Rings was even feasible. Enter this guy:

            Director Peter Jackson (or 'PJ', as I call him) dreamed of filming this 'unfilmable' story for years and, in 1997, he was finally able to start storyboard work on The Lord of the Rings trilogy after finally securing a three-film contract with New Line Cinema. After years of hard work and anticipation from fans, The Fellowship of the Ring premiered on December 10, 2001 in London.

           I will be reviewing from the Extended Editions of these films...because that is the version I own and is also the one that is the best. If you haven't seen this version, I strongly suggest that you find one of your Tolkien Junkie friends and bully, beg, and bribe them until they let you borrow their copies (and they will have one). One thing I really love about the Extended Edition (hereafter going to be referred to as 'EE') is the actual extra material that was shot. This isn't just a version that adds in all of the little scenes that were trimmed for time. No, PJ actually went back and shot extra footage, including a new introductory scene for the hobbits that talks of their history and just what a hobbit is. I understand why these touches were cut out of the theatrical edition as most of the extra scenes are just for the benefit of hardcore fans and sometimes disrupt the flow and pacing of the film, but that doesn't mean that everyone claiming the title of LotR Fan shouldn't see them as they really enhance the experience.

       Right from the first bit of Elvish chanting at the beginning of this film I get chills. I remember the first time I watched this film. I was SO excited because it had PG-13 rating and my parents were very strict about letting me watch things higher than PG. I was only twelve years old and it felt so grown-up (and naughty) to be watching a PG-13 film! That opening gave me chills then and it still does today, nearly a decade later. Right away it takes you back thousands of years to an age when there was more green and less smog and where hobbits were still numerous.

    One thing that was done just about perfectly for this films was the casting. From Sir Ian McKellen as Gandalf to Sean Astin as Sam pretty much everyone was the embodiment of how I had pictured the characters from the books. Except for Hugo Weaving as Elrond. I still don't know what happened there (rumor is that David Bowie wanted the role too..) but he was definitely jarring whenever I was first watching The Fellowship of the Ring.

       I'll admit that I did a fair amount of fangirling whenever I realized that Ian Holm was playing Bilbo Baggins. For those of you who don't realize the significance of that fact, you should now be educated that Ian Holm (in addition to being a wonderfully talented actor) is also a LotR veteran, given that he provided the voice of Frodo Baggins for the BBC Audio Drama of the trilogy. Yes. That's right. Holm has now portrayed both of the famous hobbits from Tolkien's Middle-Earth stories. And, naturally,he simply knocks it out of the park!

        Another thing that makes these films so wonderful is the love and care put into the adaptation. Oh sure I'll jokingly moan and groan about ol' Bombadil being cut from the finished script or about Arwen replacing Glorfindel, but that's just a minor complaint because everything is done so well and with such love and care that you know they considered every cut and change closely (rather than just going in and hacking with focus groups/demographic scissors like so many other franchises seem to do).

      Just within the first ten minutes of the film I have counted at least thirty different subtle references to the original text. It's an Easter egg hunt for avid book fans as a lot of dialogue is either lifted directly from the books themselves or is a direct reference to descriptions and observations given in the books. This is great for two reasons. Not only does this show the great love and care for the source material that I talked about above, but it also makes it so that the films never get old. Every time I watch them I notice something new.


         One reason I always say that you should watch the EE of these films is that the theatrical release really doesn't do it justice. Take Boromir, for instance. Now there is a character who I don't actually think Tolkien liked very much. Indeed within the books themselves, he seems to be just there to serve as the 'noble man corrupted by evil' character. He's not very well developed and much of what we then learn about his good qualities come from reminiscence by his brother, Faramir (who Tolkien really liked). But here, in the films and especially in the extended editions, we get to know Boromir as a person before he is a plot device. Probably carrying over from his own relationship with his brother, Boromir immediately takes a liking to Merry and Pippin (the youngest hobbits) and pretty much turns into the surrogate big brother of the Fellowship. He teaches them to fight, he protects them whenever they're attacked, he is always the first to defend and the last to retreat...he even is the only one to reach out to Frodo immediately after Gandalf dies. The Boromir of the films is just a great character and you'd be missing out on half of that great development if you stuck with just the theatrical release.

         And you wouldn't get to hear this song:

        Another thing that this film does so well is the casting of Middle Earth itself. I remember going into these films and just being utterly BLOWN AWAY by the beauty of the New Zealand landscapes. Everything is so green and gold and the locations perfectly picked that they line up with my imaginings from the books almost perfectly. In a way the scenery is as much of a character as Gandalf or Frodo is because so much time and effort was put into finding and growing the right places and because so many of the shots in the film just show off the utter gorgeousness of it all. These days big, long, sweeping shots are more or less a dime a dozen...but back whenever FotR first came out, we had never really seen this before on the big screen.

     In my humble opinion, I think that by far the hardest thing to make work in this adaptation is the Ring itself. How do you show a band of gold that is malevolent and has a will of its own? How do you do that without your narrative falling apart and the audience laughing in their seats? Well first of all you set it up, in the prologue, as something that can drive men mad and then leave of its own volition, making it look like an accident. That's right. All you need to know about the Ring is set up in the opening ten minutes or so of this film and then is built upon throughout the entire story. They talk about the Ring as if it is personified. It's never described as just an object...it is treated as a character. That gets the point across more clearly than any amount of special effects could do.  

        It helps that they went out of their way to make the prop itself unsettling too with the fire occasionally reflected on the surface, the creepy ambiance that is the Ring whispering, and the fact that it seems very heavy for its size.

         Now there are a few things in this film that don't work so well as others. I've already mentioned the bewildering casting of Elrond, but now I'm going to complain about the character relationships. For the most part they are perfect. This was the dream cast and they all work together wonderfully. Frodo and Bilbo, Merry and Pippin, Gandalf and Elrond, Legolas and Aragorn...pretty much all of the cast is so good and has such excellent chemistry that you forget you're watching a bunch of actors being paid to prance around in leather and chainmail. The weak link in this chain, though, is the Aragorn/Arwen storyline. Liv Tyler is absolutely gorgeous and is exactly what I imagined Arwen to look like. Viggo Mortensen, again, is perfect for the role and simply embodies the character of Aragorn. But their love story...ehhhh, it doesn't really work for me. Seriously just try and imagine for one moment that none of their lines were in elvish. Look at what they're actually saying and then try to picture a couple uttering those lines in English. Yeah. It's some of the funniest stuff you've ever heard.

         But those are just minor complaints that don't detract from the movie-going experience in the long run. Do I think that the race to the Bridge of Khazad-Dum is a bit over-dramatic in places? Yeah. Am I annoyed that they took out Frodo's heroic moments in favor of him tripping? Yeah. Does the Aragorn/Arwen scenes still crack me up? Yeah. But that doesn't make the film as a whole bad. Whenever we first watched these film we were so caught up in the wonder and magic of seeing The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring on screen that these little grievances did not completely turn us off. We get together and have quote-wars and complain about the changes and missteps, but we still love this movie for what it is. I think a lot of the problems people have with the recent Hobbit films is not that they're necessarily inferior to the original trilogy, but because now we're harder to please. The Fellowship of the Ring was one of a kind whenever it came out. It, along with Harry Potter, sparked the fantasy-films renaissance. Before this point they had been primarily low-budget, independent films that might be cult classics but certainly could never dream of obtaining blockbuster status. FotR was so different and so wonderful and so amazing that it changed the way we look at fantasy films all-together. It was the unfilmable trilogy, and yet it was done. While there may be problems, those issues are utterly over-shadowed by the sheer awesome weight of everything that was done right.

...and yet after a hundred years, they can still surprise you.

        It should also be noted that some of the problems with the movie can be cleared up by the EE where it is explained about the elves leaving Middle Earth and explains more about Elrond's misgivings and explains why Frodo chose to go through the mines and explains why Boromir came to Rivendell and explains many of the things that are expanded on in the books. That's why I always recommend that people watch them.

        Is this a perfect film? No. Nothing is really perfect. There's always a flaw somewhere. But sometimes you have to look at a film or an episode or a book as an experience rather than just as a set of tropes and literary devices. Does the story work on the emotional level? Does it get its point across without beating you over the head with it? Did you gain something from the experience? Are you able to connect to the characters and get immersed in the world? The answer to all of those questions is: YES! The Fellowship of the Ring and its sequels are a wonderful experience (one that everyone should go through) and they are a cultural phenomena that has been passed down through generations of fans. I would say that, structurally, this first film is the best out of the trilogy. Emotionally, it hits all the right points with delicacy and understanding. The Fellowship of the Ring is a 5/5.

What did you think? Do you agree with my rating? If not - what would you say differently?