But it could have been so much more...

Rating: 5/10 (4 January 2002)

If I had been given the means and opportunity to make a Tolkien movie:
1. I would have made the Hobbit first. Why in the world did this book not get made first?
2. I would have made each Lord of the Rings movie alone, and broken the books up into more manageable chunks (look at the three trilogies of the Star Wars series, for example). Part I of Book One could be one movie of its own.
3. I would have been more faithful to the books; having less material to cover per movie would have allowed this.
The Fellowship of the Ring suffers for having to cover too much material. And for all of its attention to detail, some of the most interesting parts of the book are skipped over, while silly additions like the "wizard wrestling" scene and the "all-seeing eye everywhere" and Arwen and Aragorn's romance are allowed in.
I cannot claim fanatical fan status; I'm very familiar with the Hobbit but only just now I'm finishing the Fellowship of the Ring. But for all the amazement and wonder I'm finding in the book, I'm more amazed to find so little that is wonderful about the movie.
A great book deserved better.