It is about time this film was made

Rating: 8/10 (28 October 2011)

This is one of those anticipated movies and to be honest it did not disappoint. A movie based on the original modern fantasy story was going to come out as a film sooner or later, the question was always going to be, would it be any good. An attempt at making The Lord of the Rings was made back in the 70's and it flopped, so it is no surprise that these films were a long time coming. Now, as we all know there are three films, based upon the three books, but the same plot and the themes run through each of them. Secondly, it is not so much the films that inspire me here but the underlying books. There are some out there that will regularly reread the Lord of the Rings, however I am not one of them. Most of what I say will apply to the books, but Jackson was reasonably faithful to the books (and I do say reasonably as there were a number of things he did cut out) but it is not possible to look at these films in isolation from the books.
The plot pretty much runs through all three books. The hero, a Hobbit named Frodo Baggins, inherits a ring which turns out to be a powerful artifact that the dark lord Sauron wants back. However, very bad things will happen if it falls into the hands of Sauron, and it is decided that the ring must be destroyed, but the only way to do it is to throw it into the 'Cracks of Doom', a volcano where the ring was originally forged.
Now, I will spend some time talking about the nature of the ring, and also look at the history of the middle earth as it comes up to the Lord of the Rings. Now, Lord of the Rings is unique in that the main antagonist is not so much Sauron, but the ring. The ring represents power, and whoever possesses the ring wields great power. However the ring has a very corruptive influence over all of its owners, and one cannot possess the ring without become made, or even coming under the influence of Sauron. This is what makes the ring such an awesome antagonist in that it cannot be used for good, no matter how noble the intentions of the owner are. It will always corrupt you.
When Tolkien originally drafted the books he did not do so in isolation. Many fantasy novels (and films) are simply created out of a vacuum. Nothing really existed before and nothing exists after. All we see is what occurs in the action of the story. Granted there might be a rough history that leads up to the events of the story, but nothing all that deep. This is not the case with the Lord of the Rings. When Tolkein drafted his story he did it against a very deep and rich background. His Middle Earth is not a trilogy about a hobbit and a ring, but a living and vibrant world with a deep and colourful history.
Granted, not everything in the history of Middle Earth is important to the plot, but it adds character and colour to the story. The actual story begins at the end of the second age when the king of men, Isildur, goes to war against the forces of Sauron, and while Sauron is defeated, Isildur does not have the last laugh. He removes the ring from Sauron's hand and is immediately corrupted by it, and then finds himself killed in an ambush as Gladden Feilds. That was 3000 years before the current events, and there is a lot that happens before and between them as well. This history is outlined in the appendix to Return of the King for those who are interested, and there are numerous other books containing tales from the history of Middle Earth (the best being the Silmarillion).
However, I will finish off with Sauron. Sauron is the bad guy, but in the grand scheme of Middle Earth he is not 'the' bad guy. That title falls to his boss, Morgoth. Now, Morgoth vanishes at the end of the First Age when Belariand is destroyed and the world is remade. However, Sauron is his lieutenant, and when Morgoth steps out of the picture, Sauron comes in. He is a subtle and manipulative individual, and while we do not meet him in The Lord of the Rings (he always floats in the background, and we know that he is their and that he is powerful, but he operates through his minions such as Sauruman and the Nazgul) he does make appearances in the earlier story. What comes to mind is the tale of Numenor, which is Tolkien's version of Atlantis (more on that later). Numenor was a mighty and powerful human empire, but they were corrupted, and this came about because they allowed Sauron to become their king. It is not that Sauron does evil explicitly (he does) but that he goads others to commit evil, and he does this with the Numenorians when he goads them into sailing west to take on the Valar (sort of very power angelic beings). It is not Sauron that is punished though, it is the Numenorians as their empire is destroyed and they are scattered to the four winds.