Not true to the books, but an excellent alternate vision

Rating: 10/10 (9 January 2003)

I will cheerfully admit that I am a Tolkien fan, and was concerned about the changes that I had heard/read about on the web sites etc.
However, I decided to go and see it - keeping an open mind - and try to keep my rabid fandom under control (!)
Yes, the film is excellent. Yes, there are flaws, but not enough to change the experience significantly. Yes, the story is substantially changed from the book. So what?
I have read the book at least once a year since I was nine, which adds up to a "tidy few". I would just like to make one or two points -
1. Literature and film are two completely different media, with completely different strengths and weaknesses, problems and constraints, and those expecting to see exactly what was in the book - everything that was in the book - were always going to be disappointed.
2. In the book, Tolkien "travels" with each group in turn, skewing the timelines substantially until everything is tied up at the Black Gate. In film, it would be confusing to do that, as you would have subtantial chunks of the film based around each set of characters in turn, so many cuts and a "contemporaneous action" system makes sense, as Peter Jackson has so ably done.
3. The book finishes on a particularly grim note, and is not a suitable cinematic closing point.
The review bit - I thoroughly enjoyed the film. I thought the acting was superb, the technical aspects unmatched in any other film I have seen, and the production felt so much that this was a living, breathing world that we were somehow able to get a sneaky glimpse into. I thought that Orlando Bloom and Viggo Mortenson developed their characters superbly, with my only major niggles being the 'comic relief' role that has been given to Gimli - he is never very prominent in the book, but the "jokes" began to grate almost immediately. I was also very irritated by the fact that Gandalf's return was shown in the trailers - that completely ruined the tension and wonder of the moment.
My rating? 8.5 - maybe 9 if it does what the Fellowship did and improve on second watching.