I can't understand how anyone could make a better film from the book.

Rating: 10/10 (21 December 2001)

I have read the Swedish translation of the LOFTR trilogy two times and the English original with the JRR Tolkien foreword once. I have read Bilbo and Silmarillon plus some of the articles about the myths and background stories of the LOFTR characters.
As you can imagine I had high, very high expectations of the movie... Is it even possible to make a film from this extraordinary literature? Well, I can only repeat: apart from some very small details, very much ignorable in view of the whole experience, I can't understand how anyone could make a better film from the book.
Some parts of the film, for example when Frodo puts on the Ring and is transported into the dark world, and when Elven Queen Galadriel sees a vision of herself powered by the ring, Peter Jackson (director) has succeeded in scenes which go far beyond anything even I (considered to be a pretty creative person) hadn't imagined. To have that vision, and to be able to transform that vision into a cinematic scene, that, ladies and gentlemen, is trades of a genius at work.
99% of the actors seem to have been born to play their characters; Gandalf (Ian McKellan), Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen), Frodo (Elijah Wood), Legolas (Orlando Bloom), Galadriel (Cate Blanchett) and pretty much everyone else really IS personified in the movie. Is it just good casting or is it the mark of outstanding directing? I don't honestly know.
Alright, as for the parts I did not think quite worked as well as it could, and believe me; I see these things in every movie, and since this film is competing up there with the top films I have ever seen, they are petty details really. 1) Some of the scenes could have been worked on a little more, maybe just one more take. 2) I would have personally preferred some other actors in the parts of Arwen (Liv Tyler) and Elrond (Agent Sm... sorry Hugo Weaving). 3) The digital effects department could have gotten a bigger budget. This is the 21th century, not the early 1990's, and technology have stepped forward from Jurassic Park. Look at The Phantom Menace and Harry Potter... But hey, I don't really care about that; like a said, these are petty petty details.
Thank you Peter Jackson, the actors and the entire film team for making the fantasies come true!