The Lord of the Rings: The Forging of a Superior Series.

Rating: 10/10 (16 November 2016)

The Fellowship of the Ring is the starting point for the now classic Lord of the Rings film trilogy, and while aspects of the movies haven't aged too well (like the rubbery CGI rag-doll stunt effects), they're still joys to watch and you are truly in Middle-earth. Peter Jackson brings his bombastic and theatrical sensibilities with these movies and his direction brings something from across the emotional spectrum of many different cinematic genres; and the experience works so well.
For any lover of Tolkien, such as myself, it's notable and incredibly obvious when Jackson takes creative liberties; but the changes from the novels are necessary. In spite of some of the inevitable changes when making the movies, they play out fine in the end: the changes add nice drama to the story and there's still nice visual subtlety in the performances from the magnificent cast of Ian McKellen, Christopher Lee, Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Sean Bean, Viggo Mortensen, Billy Boyd, Dominic Monaghan, Orlando Bloom and John Rhys-Davies.
The film is full of classic moments like the Mines of Moria sequence, the LothlÃ³rien scenes and of course the good-old Shire: the locations of the Baggins of Bag End. There are so many remarkable things in this movie. Everything right down to the music is well done here and adds to one of the most well-realized fantasy film settings in history.
I'd want to thank Peter Jackson personally for giving us the three movies of his fantastical magnum opus based on one of the greatest novels of our time.