W O W! with a couple of very small reservations

Rating: Null/10 (2 January 2002)

***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** I first read LOTR over 20 years ago. I've read the trilogy roughly 10-12 times. I don't think I have ever anticipated a movie this much.
It, gladly, did not dissapoint me. The visuals were incredible. The Shire was perfectly pastoral. Rivendell was fabulous - somehow I'd never been able to adequately picture it, but they did a wonderful job of that visualization. The beginning battle with Sauron was tremendous. The actors were all perfect.
They did, as all translations from novels must do, make some minor and major changes. In the book, Gandalf tells Frodo to leave soon - it turns out to be a couple months, in which he sells Bag End, supposedly moving to Crickhollow. Also, Merry and Pippin were in on the secret he was really leaving. In the movie, they wanted the extreme urgency of fleeing or dying, so Frodo ran out with little more than his backpack. This necessitated having Merry and Pippin stumble accidentally into the journey rather than plan to go with Frodo. That, I could live with. The immediate flight from the Ringwraiths was effective.
Replacing Glorfindel with Arwen was also OK. The added Arwen/Aragorn stuff came from the Appendix (if I remember right), so that wasn't really tampering.
However, though exciting, I don't see why they changed the end battle with the orcs. I think it would have been just as exciting if they had followed the book - Frodo runs from Boromir and Aragorn never sees him again; the orcs kill Boromir, take M & P and run; Frodo and Sam take the one boat across the lake; Aragorn finds Boromir; they put Boromir in the boat; Aragorn deduces what F & S did without seeing them across the lake, etc. Again, there's nearly as much action in the original, and I didn't think the final orc/Aragorn battle was necessary.
All in all - I give it a 9.5/10. I can't wait for the DVD nor the other two films!