The LOTR trilogy: One of the finest literature adaptations ever seen...

Rating: Null/10 (5 August 2004)

SPOILER WARNING: This review contains some VERY general statements on the plot of LOTR. ______________________________________________________________________
In my opinion, there are two things that are essential to make a good movie-adaptation of a book: first of all, the moviemaker has to follow the original storyline as exactly as possible, not thinking that he can improve the plot by his own intentions what may be 'better', or 'more dramatic' or whatever. Changes should only be made at a minimum and for technical reasons only. Second  any fictive story leaves a part to the fantasy and the imagination to the reader  this part is strongly diminished by bringing the plot to the screen. When reading a novel, the reader creates his own interpretation of the story, places and characters within  in other words he is his own production designer and director. And exactly this is the point where the brilliance of the moviemakers fails or triumphs. When the world on the screen does not match the world in the mind, it will be disappointing.
When bringing J.R.R. Tolkien's epic novel 'Lord of the Rings', the archetype of modern fantasy literature, to the movie screen, director Peter Jackson reached these objectives better than in any other book-adaptation I have seen so far. There is no point in the movie trilogy, where he tries to change the original ideas and visions of Tolkien (as far as described in the book) in order to express his own 'freedom of art' or genius. He weights characters, locations, dialogues and so on exactly as the novelist did. Well, the story is somewhat shortened in the cinema version, but indeed was nearly completely filmed and is available as extended DVD version.
The second point mentioned above is, where Jackson's (and his team's) exceptional skills came to light, beyond their respect and dedication to Tolkien's opus. I have read the original novels and the 'Little Hobbit' for several times, and I felt that he has a very detailed and descriptive style of writing, creating Middle Earth in your mind literally 'by itself'. You get a sharply contrasted image of this world and it's inhabitants, even its fictive history, cultures and languages. But for the essential step from the pages of a book to the movie theatre they must be materialized  a scope perfectly reached by Jackson. And it is not only reached by running a multi-hundred-million-dollar-production, throwing any special effects technology and capabilities into the battle. There have been so many mega-budget-movies in the last years failing in the believe that they can substitute an 'artistic soul', good actors or even a good script by immense special effects orgies. So if the excellence of 'The Lord of the Rings' could be reduced to its CGIs and creature effects it would be only one of those 'I-have-seen-it-what's-coming-soon?"-popcorn-movies. And there are only a very few movies a year I watch more than one time in the theatre, 'The Lord of the Rings' belonged to them definitely.
Some people on this site criticize 'The Lord of the Rings' for being too long, too boring, too sentimental, pointing out that other films like 'Star Wars' or 'Matrix' are much 'better'. Well, these movies have been edited, designed and made AS MOVIES. They are living from an action-saturated, breathtaking high-speed storyline, using and tuned to climaxing dramatic art. When being written in the 1930-40ies, 'The Lord of the Rings' was far from being considered to ever become a movie, not even a best-selling novel (like 'Harry Potter'). It was intended as a tale, invented by Tolkien for 'personal use'. He created an own, very complex, multi-dimensional fantasy world, which cannot be reduced (and is not be reduced by the movie) to a simple 'action-hero-kills-the-villain-saves-the-world-and-falls-in-love-with-hottie'-story. And if Jackson would have done this simplification, he would have destroyed the literature heritage on which his movie is based, resulting in a TRULY bad movie (as shown by many other examples).
On the other hand this tale is an epic and, as in any epic, its core revolves around very basic, simple and general topics as good and evil, bravery, friendship etc.. You may not expect a complex, open-ending storyline with grey-shaded characters as e.g. in 'Pulp Fiction'.
However, I am convinced that if you have just seen the movie and you only compare it to other action or fantasy movies, somewhere in the line between 'xXx' and 'Spiderman', you may be disappointed or bored. To love 'The Lord of the Rings' it might perhaps be necessary to be addicted to Tolkien's original work. Or at least to be willing of being part of the world of Middle Earth for some hours  not just wanting to watch superheroes slaying super-monsters.