If you want to watch the book, put it on a shelf

Rating: 7/10 (21 December 2002)

Having read a number of the reviews by fans of the books, i am dismayed at some of the reactions to this work. It appears as though they were mainly interested in comparing this film to the book and not looking at this as part of a film trilogy.
What they seem to forget is that Peter Jackson is a huge fan of Lord of the Rings. He has adapted the books and I have to believe that he has stayed faithful to his experiences of the book.
One of the beauties of novels is that they allow you to create your own landscape and vision of the characters. I have known of two people reading and loving the same book, but when they discuss it, they have what seem like completely different ideas of what the book was really about.
All I am trying to say is that this is Peter Jackson's vision of the books and I am sure the changes he made were forced upon him through the difficulty of trying to adapt a complex novel into a film.
When it comes down to it, a film is mainly the directors vision of the action, whereas a book allows us to create our own experiences.
I will only suggest that no adaptation which was made to pander to the experiences of the reader has ever made a good movie. The point of adapting a book into a film is to share your experiences of the book with others, not to collect their experiences up put them all together and release them back to the people that gave them.
Oh, I thought the film suffered through the limitations of the story which will end up creating a ten hour masterpiece but judging it on its own means that it will suffer
9/10 (in anticipation)
If you got this far, thank you and sorry for the rant.