Excellent Movie and Excellent Adaptation

Rating: 10/10 (20 December 2001)

I give this excellent movie a 10 out of 10. I need to mention something important. Tolkein, who wrote The Lord of the Rings, was also a good calligrapher and talented artist. He rendered many scenes of the Lord of the Rings and of Middle Earth and Marquette University, here in downtown Milwaukee, Wisconsin, has purchased many of them and they are on display here in Milwaukee. This is important because Mr. Jackson, the director, and others, made alot of the sets look alot like how Tolkein wanted them to look like and drew them. Examples include Rivendell, Bag's End (Bilbo's hobbit-hole mansion in a hill, a glimpse of Minas Tirith (the white city) and Isegard where Saruman stays. This authenticity extends to the characters as played by the actors (you can look them up) including Gandalf the Grey, Frodo, Bilbo, Sam, Pippin, and Merry, Saruman, Sauron, Aragorn, and others. They were very well done likenesses and close to how many pictured them while reading the books. I have read the books several times over the past 15 years, most recently last year, and I can tell you that this movie is an excellent adaptation of the plot and events and details of the movie. It follows it really well and only really cuts out one sequence of events of about three chapters between when the Hobbits cross the small ferry across the Brandywine River and when they arrive in the run down town of Bree. In this missing part of the story (you should read the book as it is a classic and is much more exciting than the movie) they have an adventure in the Old Forest and a plain of mound tombs called the Barrow Downs. This is not a crucial element for a movie but added to the suspense of the quest in the book. Mr. Jackson and the others who made the movie stuck to the book really, really well and you can tell that they had a great love for The Lord of the Rings and tried to do NOTHING which would offend Tolkien. Also, this movie has ground breaking special effects. Battle and fight scenes are wonderful. Tolkien thought the movie could never be made but that was before computer graphic technology. Every creature is based on drawings and descriptions by Tolkien. They really respected his intent alot and he would be very proud of it, I believe. The soundtrack was wonderful and heroic and perfect and I give it a 10 out of 10. The cast was awesome and I give it a 10 out of 10. The effects were awesome and were a 10 out of 10, they fit what you imagine when you are reading the books! The adaptation is a 9.5 out of 10 and the plot, which is all Tolkien, is a 10 out of 10. Please remember that Tolkien reinvented the genre of fantasy writing in the 20th century and millions have read his books. The scenery, it was filmed in New Zealand, was a 10 out of 10. Overall, the movie was a 10 out of 10 from the Shire to Moria to Rivendell to Lothlorien to Gondor and beyond. (I just wish they also had the Old Forest and Barrow Downs and Tom Bombadil in there but they probably had to keep the time, it is three hours long, in check. I HOPE those scenes were shot and there is a Director's cut with them in there on DVD when that comes out some day!!!!). Excellent, 10 out of 10 movie!!!!