Peter Jackson, I salute you....

Rating: 10/10 (17 April 2002)

First things first - I've read LOTR probably 3/4 times. & the Silmarillion and bits of the Unfinished Tales and yadda yadda yadda....I however have grown up enough to know that LOTR (the book) is for many a great novel because it relates to when they first read it...it is great within it's context but not the greatest book ever or any of that tosh...IMHO all lists are bunkum anyway.
So having got that off my chest, here is another confession....I was worried, very, very worried about LOTR on the big screen. Would it be a 'Krull', a 'Willow', a 'Beastmaster', a.........urgh,,,Dungeons & Dragons? You know what I mean...fantasy is damn hard to do. The Tolkien imitators that plague the bookshelves prove this as do the whole stackfull of cheesy, hammy fantasy movies with cheesy, hammy names chasing after magical McWidgets to save the nation / planet / galaxy / universe from eternal damnation. I had prepared a crushing hex for Peter Jackson if he inflicted this fate upon LOTR.
But there was a sign of hope, like Glamdring's pale fire in the smoke and flames of the Balrog (er, enough of that) - 3 films. Not 1 mish-mashed jampacked farce-fest. No, 3 full-length films giving the book's epic scale a chance to work it's wonder on the filmgoers.
Well Peter Jackson pulled it off - by resolutely avoiding the 'big-name' actors, by insisting on New Zealand for filming, by used WETA for effects, by nipping & tucking the story where required (I suspect even Jackson could not have kept Tom Bombadil from looking like total clown), by expanding where needed (another writer is very correct that Arwen's importance is only clear in the book during the Appendix).
If you don't like fantasy one little bit...which makes me wonder where exactly your imagination resides....then even with this appalling handicap LOTR 'Fellowship of the Ring' can still enthrall you. If you love the book, the film still does the trick. If you just like being contrary for the sake of it then I guess you won't like this film. But then I doubt you like much else in life either.