Finally, on-screen Tolkien worth watching

Rating: 9/10 (20 December 2001)

Ever since Ralph Bakshi made his disastrous 'animated' attempt at filming this epic tale (and only the first half of it at that), I had given up on it ever being brought to the big screen... I haven't read the trilogy since I was in high school, but so much of it came back to me vividly after 20 years that I could hardly believe it. Now, anyone who is expecting ANY movie to be a literal translation of a book doesn't understand the nature of film; that's why books and movies both exist. The idea is to tell the story as best you can, and I felt Peter Jackson did a magnificent job. Many of the scenes in the film were actually more impressive than the impressions I got while reading the books. Are there parts left out? Absolutely! It's already going to be basically a 9 hour film, and it takes a hell of a lot longer to read the series than that... so duh, there are parts left out! Look at what's there, not what's missing.
What's there is gorgeous. The characters more than fit their descriptions in the books; the Shire looks exactly the way it was described; Gandalf, the Hobbits, and the Black Riders look exactly the way they were described. The elvish is accurate (yes, Tolkien actually created both a written and spoken elvish language, among others... he was a linguist after all) and it more than lived up to my expectations, which were very high. The only downer is that it's going to take two more years to see the whole thing! (I sure wish I knew how it was going to end... heh heh)