The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship Of the Ring
So - will The Lord of the Rings be our generation's Star Wars? The trilogy is one of the most highly-anticipated silver screen endeavors of our time, and die-hard Tolkein fans have been awaiting a well-constructed movie interpretation of the world-famous books for decades. So, does the first installment live up to the hype? In a word - hell yeah!
Storyline
This is the best-known fantasy series of all time, but for those who aren't yet up to speed on the world of Middle-Earth, here's a brief summary of The Fellowship of the Ring. Middle-Earth is a world like and yet unlike our own, populated with the mundane and magical alike - men share the world with elves and dwarves, dragons and giant eagles soar through the skies, and goblins and trolls are a constant threat. Into the hands of a hobbit (also known as Halflings) falls a Ring of great power; a Ring that was crafted by the Dark Lord Sauron, created to gain dominion over all the Rings of Power - a Ring believed lost for thousands of years. Thus begins the quest of the hobbit, Frodo Baggins and his companions to destroy the One Ring and strike a deathblow to the power of Sauron.
For the most part, the storyline follows the book incredibly faithfully. Purists will complain, as purists are required to do, that "too much was left out." What they fail to realize is that a 500-page book cannot be translated into a 2-hour movie without cutting things out (as is evidenced by the fact that the final version was three hours long, and still didn't have everything). Parts that didn't have a direct impact on the plot had to be sacrificed - Tom Bombadil is one of these, as are the Barrow-Wights. A movie adaptation has to be made in such a way as to reproduce the feel of a book, while also making it accessible to those who have not read the book. And as such, the storyline of Fellowship is, for the most part, wonderfully constructed.
Characters
One of the very few places this film slipped was in introducing characters and their motivations. Why was Sam so loyal to Frodo? Why did Legolas, Gimli, and Boromir show up just in time for the big meeting in Rivendell? What was up with Aragorn and Arwen? Were we supposed to be scared of the Black Riders? Was Saruman ever a good guy at all? Why were Merry and Pippin in the movie? Who the hell was Galadriel??
In contrast, however, we have the three best characters in the film - Gandalf, Bilbo, and amazingly enough, Gollum. Gandalf the Grey, the wise old wizard, was alternately friendly and jovial, mysterious and knowledgeable, powerful and relentless - but at all times, he was the Gandalf we all know and love. Bilbo, the carrier of the Ring for so long, was not strong enough to avoid all of its seductiveness, but he was strong enough to discard it when the time came, and was better off for it. And Gollum - what can I say? One of scariest and most pitiful creatures in fantasy still today, and even the brief glances we got of him in Fellowship reminded me of this fact.
Don't get me wrong - the other characters didn't suffer overly from their lack of proper introduction. I would pay big bucks to see the battle between Yoda and Legolas. ~grin~ And Boromir made a very respectable transformation from a complete prick in the book to an at least mildy sympathetic character in the movie.
Effects
The cinematography in this film was over-the-top incredible. Stunning. Breathtaking. Magnificent. And that's all I have to say about that.
CGI is definitely getting better. The cave troll, Gollum, the eagle, the Orc armies, the statues, the Balrog - oh my Lord, the Balrog. I have never seen anything as cool as the Balrog on the big screen. None of these computer-generated creations seemed out of place in the film; they are inserted nearly seamlessly wheverev they are seen. And the hobbits! Holy crap, what a great job. You'd never know they were so little until they stand next to someone like Gandalf, but they don't look like they've been "shrunk" at all. Perfection.
Best effects - when Frodo puts on the One Ring. The "shadow world" is terrifyingly bizarre and spooky, but it pales next to the Eye of Sauron. ~shivers~
Worst effect - Three-way tie. Worst effect #3 - Galadriel. Would've been nice if we could have actually understood a bloody word she was saying. Worst effect #2 - the wizard battles. Gag me with roughage. Worst effect #1 - Bilbo's "Gollum" moment. Sir Ian Holm had already proven he could be convincingly rabid when it came to the Ring - why the face effect? Because they could, I suppose. Ugh.
Monsters, Etcetera
Did I mention the Balrog? Hehehe.
Goblins and Orcs - damn, there were a lot of them! The spider-goblins in Moria were especially spiffy-looking. The cave troll was alright, I suppose, though I didn't see as how he was strictly necessary. There was a lot of build-up for the creation of the Urūk-hai, but they went down as easily as regular Orcs - perhaps they'll do better at Helm's Deep.
The Nazgūl, for the most part, were exceedingly cool, and even cooler than that in the "shadow world." Too bad they caught fire like friggin' scarecrows and ran away. ~grumble~
As for Gollum - I think I'll reserve judgement until The Two Towers comes out. Just didn't see enough of him to form an opinion.
Acting
Who on earth cast Hugo "Agent Elrond" Weaving? Maybe it's just because The Matrix is the only other movie I've seen the man in, but everyone in the theater laughed at his appearance. He's going to become as typecast as Mark Hamill, I'm afraid. Other than that, some really great performances were put into this film. Sir Ian McKellan was a perfect Gandalf - he may be an old guy, but he's not someone to be trifled with. Sir Ian Holm was the ideal Bilbo Baggins - he put more emotion into his character than any three characters put together. Christopher Lee (what, is he every creepy guy in every movie released this year?) is, of course, suitably creepy. And Sean Bean actually manages to make Boromir, if not exactly likeable, at least a more believeable and sympathetic character than the books portray, which is a good thing.
Romance
So yeah, apparently Aragorn and Arwen have somethin' going on. Why? No one's telling. What's the story? Notta clue. What's the point of expanding Arwen's role in the movie if they aren't going to tell us anything about her? Ah well, at least that's the only so-called "romance" in this flick.
Overall
Wee! This is easily the best book-to-movie adaptation I've ever seen. And what really made the movie was the little touches. The stone trolls in the background; Legolas traipsing on top of the snow; and the coolest part, little snippets of dialogue pulled straight from the book. Frodo wasn't made into some sort of superhero - he was just a little guy with a big mission, he took his hits and kept trooping. The battles were big, and they'll only get bigger as the series progresses - woohoo!
The only problem I really had with the feel of the movie was, unfortunately, Frodo. A major theme of the book was how "even the smallest person can change the course of history" - i.e., the hobbits are the real heroes. However, Frodo is consistently rescued and protected by the secondary characters, and isn't really given his chance to shine on his own merit. I think this takes away from the message, but with a little luck, Frodo's courage and strength will step to the forefront in the next two installments.
All in all, this is an epic. And it's only gonna get bigger. If the next two films are anywhere approaching as good as Fellowship was, this is destined to be one of the best trilogies of all time.
Overall rating:
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