Excellent movie, but only considering the task

Rating: Null/10 (9 January 2002)

I've tried to seperate myself as a fan of the book and a viewer of the movie, but I can not do so completely, especially Having recently reread the Fellowship. They did do a creditable job of tackling a book that simply does not translate well to a moive. The series built a world, not just a few characters. There are books and books to explain things behind people and events mentioned in the main four books. How could a movie realistically handle that for the non-readers in 3 hours ? I think that some items were left in the movie that were never explained. Some of the recent and past tensions were not mentioned that explained the attitudes and actions characters had. One negative comment said that the hobbits were like this, the humans that, the dwarves like the other thing, and so on. Really, that comment was completely right, but the movie didn't help explain why they were like that. Unless you know Hobbits main pastimes were eating and smoking, then you may find their 'cuteness', as many called it, annoying. But they were a naive people whose cares were not too great.

Again - given the task a great job, but I think the task was too great to make a movie all could enjoy (although most seem to have enjoyed it, so, uh... not sure where that leaves me :-)