Incredible Book Becomes Incredible Screenplay

Rating: 10/10 (21 December 2001)

WARNING: SPOILER INFORMATION AT END (additional warning below)
"The Fellowship of the Ring" movie is excellent in many ways, but what impressed me the most was the quality of the conversion from novel to screenplay.
The Harry Potter movie stands in my mind as a great example of how to keep a movie faithful to the plot of a book, but nonetheless, it lacked in several areas. The movie was too concerned with covering as many details as possible, so it tended to jump around from piece to piece. If you were to make a general outline of the book, you could then use it as a checklist of what to expect next in the movie. That ensures an accurate telling of the story, but that doesn't always translate well to the screen.
On the other hand, "The Fellowship of the Ring" defines how a book should be presented on screen. The plot remains completely intact, with details changing only when they enhanced the visual telling of the story. Having recently read the book, I was a bit disappointed in the exclusion of certain major events, but such omissions were necessary given the movie's epic running time of nearly three hours. Tolkien filled his story with an incredible number of elements that recur throughout the trilogy, and Frances Walsh did a flawless job of relating only those elements essential to the plot.
The overall perfection of this movie left me with only two minor gripes, the first of which is the casting of Elrond. Hugo Weaving has appeared in many movies, and he performed superbly in this one, but having seen him only in "The Matrix" before now, I had a hard time seeing him as anything other than Agent Smith.
WARNING: SPOILER INFORMATION BELOW!!!
My second gripe is the change in Frodo's actions at the end. The book has him trying to sneak off without being noticed, for fear that others will want to follow him into impending doom. But the movie has him telling everyone of his decision. The end result remains the same as the book (he and Sam leave together), but the way he handles his decision changes the mood and tone of the other characters. It also eliminates what I deem to be one of the first key elements in the shaping of Aragorn. The book leaves Aragorn torn between wanting to aid Frodo in his quest and wanting to rescue Merry and Pippen from the Orcs. In my mind, that decision marks the culmination of the Fellowship's progression under his leadership, and is a major step in his life as he develops into a king.
Beyond those two gripes, this movie is almost without flaw. The combination of exceptional work by Writer Frances Walsh and Director Peter Jackson solidly upholds Tolkien's desire to not only tell an epic story, but to also create and describe a whole new world.