Strikingly Inspiring

Rating: 10/10 (22 December 2001)

So, I read the books in the 70's. More precisely, I read the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings in the Summer between 3rd and 4th grade. I read them again a few years later. I am a fan.
I snuck into Star Wars when it first came out. I was 11. I still remember 'feeling the force' for weeks after that. The most impressive movie for an impressionable boy.
Where am I going with this?
The Fellowship of the Rings brings me back to the visual images I created for myself when, as a boy, I read the series. It brings me to a place where I can feel the importance of the journey that Frodo is forced out of honor, dedication, and fear to endure. I felt, while in that theatre, the same feelings that 27 years ago chilled me in an embrace that forced me to continue reading, late at night, with a flashlight under the covers. It may not have included every single detail of the novels and it may not have had the seamless effects that everyone craves, but it gave me everything that is required to journey back to Tolkein's world.
This movie is as good as Star Wars. This movie may not be the best written or the most seamlessly edited but it is important: Important in the way that a great story conveys a mood, a story, and a journey of imagination so poignant that for weeks after the experience one recalls, during the day or more importantly, the night; the feelings of desperation, fear, and awe that were part of the experience.
The feeling is true and the story is sound. I loved it and only by making it twice as long could those details that others complain about be corrected.
I loved it!
Bravo!