Not a Good Film

Rating: 1/10 (5 June 2014)

What kept me from not falling asleep during this movie were the memories that I had reading the books and the shocks I got from realizing how far this movie was from these very books. Yes, I might be a Peter Jackson basher that provides a one-sided review but what else can I do?
First of all, even a trilogy is not a suitable format for this wealth of literary material. Sadly the time of the mini-series had not come at that point yet, so this option was not in the picture.
Did Jackson really need to stretch the love-story element between Aragorn and Arwen? Well, perhaps. Why? To please the crowds or more precisely to get more people to like the movie enough to go to see the second part and spend more money. Was it for the good of the movie? No. This is the aftertaste I had after watching the movie, that it was overly commercial with all the flaws that potentially go along with it. I actually don't mind movies for the masses, e.g. Transformers, Avengers, etc. These examples, nevertheless, do not only invite a screenwriter's fantasy but they require it and they did not seem like a sell out. Other than the vague story lines of comic books, however, the Lord of the Rings trilogy already has one that is pretty developed.
Jackson's documentary on the movie Salome reveals his utter fascination with the production of a movie of an epic scale. I got the feeling he simply wanted to produce something massive. Massive amount of people to direct, massive amount of film filmed, massive amount of props, etc. I never really got the feeling that he actually really is a fan of Tolkien's work. That was just an excuse. There simply wasn't any other epic story that he could sell to the money.
At the core of the Lord of the Rings books sits a grandpa or old professor that tells us a story. He doesn't gesture around making much noise going on and on about action or kissing sequences, these are boring to him. In a calm an pleasant voice he tells us of the last remnants of grace in a world in which the old way is slowly disappearing. Aragorn is the bridge between the mythical greatness of the elves and the oh so flawed humans that are busy with pointless strife and whatnot. As a side note, Elrond's brother Elros chose to become human when the gods gave him, an elf, the choice because he had spent so much time among them. Aragorn is an ancestor of the latter. He should not have been portrayed with so much anger and expressive passion. As another side note, Erlond should not have bashed him so angrily for not coming out of hiding since it was him who had the idea that Aragrons forefathers went into it in the first place. Surely some changes were necessary. All the singing in the book cannot work on screen, definitely not nowadays. I would have been fine with changes of the story but the changes of the characters and the whole atmosphere were too much. For example, he should have kept in mind that Gandalf belongs to a class of beings that were created before Middle Earth. He is, thus, older than the first dwarfs which were the first class of worldly beings created by the gods and of whom none is alive anymore at the time of the story. This makes it especially funny when a joke is on him. For Gandalf all the dwarfs, elves, hobbits, and humans are like children that need his care and guidance. This warmth should have been the underlying notion for his character. He should not have been portrayed as an old man that slowly gets too old for the job, he is immortal unless killed and not revived by the gods. When he says so, it is more of a momentary mood or a joke. It just gets to him that he tried to guide so many beings while it didn't always work out well over the years.
This review may stand also for the other two Lord of the Ring movies and the second Hobbit, the first was kind of alright.