Never had more fun watching a movie....

Rating: Null/10 (22 December 2003)

This is not going to be any pseudo-intellectual, microanalytical, multifaceted diatribe review. Its merely an opinion. I go to movies to simply have fun. I dont write reviews so I can feel important or more informed than anyone else who has seen the movies I will review. That aside, I thoroughly had fun watching all three of these films. Each of them made me anticipate the next eagerly. Were things left out from the books? Sure, otherwise this would have turned into a quadrilogy or worse. Did the story suffer from what was left out? Maybe in some small spots (glad the council of Elrond was chopped up, wasn't that huge in the book? Like 15,000 words?), but overall the filmmakers kept it all together very well considering how much material they had to bring to the screen. I am looking forward to seeing what will end up in the extended DVD version of TROTK. Maybe some of the naysayers will go away then. The size of this project undertaken by P. Jackson and company is in my memory far beyond anything anyone has ever dared to take on to date and the fruits of their labor are in my opinion stunning. He has done exactly the same thing Tolkien did when he wrote these stories, he went against the grain. The emotion was there, the immensity of the battles was there, the strife, loss and suffering was there and so was the victory in the end. Im not going to downgrade these films because in the book Gandalf turned left, not right to look at Frodo or the grass was too long in the Shire. Too trivial. Films will never perfectly emulate any book because the book is in your head and only in your head. Each individual person will construct what they read and see with their minds eye. Other books of size have been brought to screen with disastrous results. (Battlefield Earth anyone?)
My only hope is that The Hobbit and Silmarillion will be brought to the big screen by P. Jackson and crew. Excellent job Mr. Jackson and WETA and thank god New Line had the brass ones to stick with it.