Masterpiece

Rating: 10/10 (3 January 2003)

It is a hazardous business, watching much anticipated films, especially when those are based upon greatly loved existing works - the new Star Wars films or the Judge Dredd movie are good examples. When it comes to a work that touches people so deeply, everyone has their own very personal opinions about how things should look, about which characters or events are most important and about how many alterations are acceptable. Some hold that if the story is not to be re-created exactly then it should not be done at all; others hold that as long as the spirit of the source material is maintained we should accept any changes that are made.
I am one of the lucky ones, as my vision of LotR and Peter Jackson's vision are remarkably similar. When I watched The Two Towers it was as though (with a few exceptions) my own imaginings had been sucked out of my head, polished, tweaked, filled out and generally improved, and then projected onto a giant white screen with Dolby surround sound accompaniment. I didn't mind the changes, and I didn't mind the fact that the film ends before the book does because I was too busy falling in love with the second part of what I consider to be the greatest cinematic work of all time.
Citizen Kane? Unimaginative! Star Wars? Old Hat! I know this will sound really tragic, but there were points during the film (and also, I found, when watching the extended DVD version of The Fellowship yesterday afternoon) where the vision before me was so exquisite and captured so well my understanding of the book that I worried I would embarrass myself by bursting into tears! To put it simply, there may be a few other films that achieve to greater effect individual aspects of this film, but as a whole experience LotR is, to me, simply without equal; no other film even comes close. This realisation of Tolkien's great classic is the pinnacle of a hundred years of film making, and I would compare it with the Sistine Chapel, St Peter's cathedral or Beethoven's Midnight Concerto as one of humanity's truly great artistic creations.
I do feel deeply for those fans who do not find Jackson's interpretation as wonderful as I do, and I am sorry that some do not see him as the great visionary that many others do. All I can suggest is that next time you watch the Two Towers, try and forget the details of the plot - ignore the alterations and the differences in interpretation and try to remember how you felt when you first read the books. Hopefully, with time, you will learn to love this film as much as I do.