"All that glitters..."

Rating: 10/10 (19 December 2001)

I first devoured these books when I was 10, and I have read them seven or eight times since. The inhabitants and issues of Middle Earth are important friends from my childhood, and the trilogy's sensibilities are part of my adult makeup. The full quote "All that glitters is not gold, not all those who wander are lost," has been an apt theme for my life. (Since the quote is not in the movie, I'm sure only the readers are reading on at this point!)
Which is all to suggest that the bar was pretty high for me in these movies. And it is with a very deep sense of gratitude and relief that I can say the Fellowship of the Ring has passed...summa cum laude.
I reject the most effusive commentary here. I've only just seen the film, and just seen it once, so whether or not it surpasses Citizen Kane, or whatever is being implied, is premature. However, it is as fully realized a vision as I could have demanded.
For the book lovers, the movie will not have the same rich detail and nuance. But it shows and tells the story masterfully. The upwriting of Arwen Evenstar's role is seamless and well-played by the very young actress. In fact, all of the casting is astounding, especially Bilbo, Gimli, Gandalf, Saruman, Boromir, Galadriel and Samwise. And the actors live into their characters well.
The least successful for me is Frodo. Elijah Wood is excellent, but too young. Throughout the film Frodo is shown as the holy innocent, while in the book he is an eccentric bachelor approaching middle age, a generation older than his hobbit companions. Maybe this is just important to me as self-description...but then maybe it was important to Tolkien too. Adventures do not happen only to the young.
In any case, this was probably an inevitable casualty of a moviemaker's responsibility to sell tickets, but it changes the story just a little. To Jackson's and Wood's credit, a bit of the steel (or mithril) in Frodo's character begins to assert itself at the very end of the movie...but it is a bigger part of the book from the beginning. I trust it will be an important part of the other two films.
But that's a quibble. One other quibble is that the mallorn woods of Lorien were too dark. But overall I thought the special effects in the movie showed true vision and excellent craftsmanship. All the details of plot that really matter are presented in a logical and manageable, if rapid scale. The characterizations have been well written. I didn't really notice the score or shots much, but I tend to catch those things on second viewings with any movie.
I thought the back-story synopsis at the beginning was genius, a far better way to exploit the medium than having Gandalf and Frodo talking it all over in front of the fire. It throws us right into Middle Earth, a place where history is never far below the soil.
Mr. Jackson et al.: thanks for showing the entire birthday party, right down to the Proudfeet. Thanks for containing both Aragorn and Strider in one man, and hats off to Viggo Mortenson for surpassing my expectations. Thanks for allowing a 3,000-year-old elf to look ageless, even at the risk of confusing the non-reader audience. Thanks for those waterfalls in Rivendell, and for bringing Orthanc and Moria to life. Thanks for distinguishing the Uruk-Hai (in fact, I think the movie does this better than the book...making me look forward to The Two Towers a lot). Thanks for Gwaihir's flight. Thanks for using so much of New Zealand, already familiar to me as the planet's most beautiful place.
I have a long list of other things I'm grateful for...but I'm going to be too busy heading out for a second viewing!