3 hours was too short

Rating: 10/10 (26 December 2001)

I am a fan of the fantasy epic. The first one I ever read was LOTR back in the early 70s. I felt then, as I still do, that it was the template that all following fantasy epics would be structured on and measured against. It is a simple story with limitless subtleties and plenty of room for the reader's imagination to play in. Peter Jackson has duplicated this feel in the first installment of the LOTR Trilogy, "The Fellowship of the Ring".
To start, his selection of locations and the casting for the movie were perfect. Gandalf, Frodo, Strider, et al were so close to how I had imagined them to be when I read the books, that it was scary. The appropriate use of CGI to size the group and create the world of middle earth was so flawless that it was "natural" and the thought of them being effects disappeared almost as soon as the first scene in Hobbiton had barely started.
There were characters and events left out from the book and some characters were altered in the film adaptation but certainly not to the determent of the film. Quite the opposite, the creation of dread and fear concerning Saruman, the development of the humanity of Strider, and the expansion of the relationship between Strider and Arwen helped flesh out the film. The only flaw in the character development was with the 3 late additions to the fellowship, Gimli, Legolas, and Boromir. Time spent on these characters, why they were there, how the ring affected them and the history of their cultures interaction and why there was a built in animosity within the fellowship would have taken time to explore but it would have been time well spent. I say 3 hours is too short because I can't think of what could cut out of the 3 hour running time to add this character exploration. I would have gladly sat through another hour to see this accomplished but hopefully, Jackson will address the in the next film. This is the best adaptations of a novel I have ever seen (OK, Gone with the wind was pretty close). I gave it a 10/10.