A very good movie, to heck with the nitpickers!

Rating: 10/10 (5 January 2002)

Literary Spoiler (not for this film, but for part 3, Return of the King)
One thing out of the way first, I'll leave it to others to nitpick about
the few times that this film deviates from the novel. All things
considered, the movie adhered almost religiously to the novel, so I
don't think anyone should be complaining. To those complaints
that the film doesn't capture the "epic" nature of Tolkien's novels, I
think they should look at their use of the word epic. Robert
Jordan's Wheel of Time is an epic of the size that could never be
captured on film. Lord of the Rings is a little 3 book series that
doesn't even equal a single volume of Wheel of Time in length. I
think the duration of the film was perfect considering the content of
the novel.
The images in LotR are simply the best scenery shots ever seen
on the big screen. Fellowship of the Ring makes Phantom
Menace look like Carnosaur. Lucas should spend less time
creating stupid looking creatures and aliens and more time on the
big background shots (which did look good in Episode 1, the
Theed Palace and podrace arena especially.) Fellowship is
clearly trying to "wow" the audience with the effects shots, which it
certainly does! The collapsing bridge in Moria, the forge at
Isengard, and the library visited early in the film by Gandalf are
among the great shots this movie has to offer. My only complaint,
to echo another reviewer's remark, is that the fight scenes are
edited in the new style. One can hardly tell what's going on in the
overall scene because of too many closeups.
If you don't like the story, there's nothing to be done about that. The
reviewers who criticized the movie for dragging along can go back
to watching the usual Hollywood junk from people like Bruckheimer and get their quota of exploding cars and buildings.
The only warning I would issue to people who haven't read the
books is that the ending really leaves alot of unresolved questions,
and alot of viewers in the theatre were disappointed on both
occasions that I saw the film. Actually, some of what happens at
the end of this film is actually the *beginning* of the second novel.

Part 3 spoiler below:
I can only wonder how strictly they will hold to the shape of the
novels in part three, Return of the King, since the conclusion of the
main plot occurs in the middle of the book leaving 100+ pages
wrapping up loose ends. Personally, I think those last pages are
important to give the theme of diminishing beauty in the world
despite the victory (a sign of Tolkiens World War 1 experience.)
But that'll be seen in two years I suppose.