Director: Peter Jackson
Writers: J.R.R. Tolkien, Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson
Photography: Andrew Lesnie
Music: Howard Shore
Editor: John Gilbert
Cast: Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Ian McKellen, Liv Tyler, Viggo Mortensen, Cate Blanchett, John Rhys-Davies, Billy Boyd, Dominic Monaghan, Orlando Bloom, Christopher Lee, Hugo Weaving, Sean Bean, Ian Holm, Andy Serkis, Peter Jackson
A friend once told me he thought director and cowriter Peter Jackson seemed intent and focused on “going after the whales,” by which I think he meant the biggest and most popular film subjects available: eight or nine hours on one part of the Beatles’ career ... a complex restoration of World War I footage ... the Nth King Kong picture. And, of course, arguably the greatest fantasy property of the 20th century, J.R.R. Tolkien’s trilogy The Lord of the Rings (Jackson would unfortunately later show his predilections for bloat in his adaptation of The Hobbit, which ran about as long as his treatment of the trilogy, though it’s by far the shortest of the four novels).
Until The Lord of the Rings Jackson was something of a schlockmeister, tucked away Down Under in New Zealand and Australia, lobbing gore and chuckles in the spectacles of 1987’s Bad Taste and 1992’s Dead Alive. He had transition movies in the ‘90s, notably the exquisite and disturbing Heavenly Creatures along with the mockumentary Forgotten Silver. We can see better now that everything before The Lord of the Rings was the work of a craftsman who was very good and getting better at making movies—and had the making of this movie specifically in mind. But was anyone prepared for Jackson taking on something of the scope and ambition of adapting Tolkien’s classic quest tale, complete with Middle Earth elves, dwarves, orcs, hobbits, and other creatures of the ancient Anglo-Saxon imagination? It is something Jackson wanted to do all his life and I, for one, was frankly amazed to see him get the opportunity. But he did and he made the most of it.
A friend once told me he thought director and cowriter Peter Jackson seemed intent and focused on “going after the whales,” by which I think he meant the biggest and most popular film subjects available: eight or nine hours on one part of the Beatles’ career ... a complex restoration of World War I footage ... the Nth King Kong picture. And, of course, arguably the greatest fantasy property of the 20th century, J.R.R. Tolkien’s trilogy The Lord of the Rings (Jackson would unfortunately later show his predilections for bloat in his adaptation of The Hobbit, which ran about as long as his treatment of the trilogy, though it’s by far the shortest of the four novels).
Until The Lord of the Rings Jackson was something of a schlockmeister, tucked away Down Under in New Zealand and Australia, lobbing gore and chuckles in the spectacles of 1987’s Bad Taste and 1992’s Dead Alive. He had transition movies in the ‘90s, notably the exquisite and disturbing Heavenly Creatures along with the mockumentary Forgotten Silver. We can see better now that everything before The Lord of the Rings was the work of a craftsman who was very good and getting better at making movies—and had the making of this movie specifically in mind. But was anyone prepared for Jackson taking on something of the scope and ambition of adapting Tolkien’s classic quest tale, complete with Middle Earth elves, dwarves, orcs, hobbits, and other creatures of the ancient Anglo-Saxon imagination? It is something Jackson wanted to do all his life and I, for one, was frankly amazed to see him get the opportunity. But he did and he made the most of it.
One of the smartest things he did was decide to shoot the whole thing all at once. Other popular film trilogies—Star Wars, for example—more often shoot their individual pictures separately, years apart, which opens up hosts of continuity problems—actors and crews wandering off to other projects, the usual march of time aging players at different rates, canon and non-canon story arcs. Another advantage Jackson had, as a New Zealand native, was a vibrant green-glowing landscape not often previously seen, which made it ideal as a stand-in for Middle Earth. Last but not least, Jackson’s horror background served him well here. This is largely a bucolic fantasy with simple markers of good and evil and much action, chases and fights. But the “One Ring” at the center of the story has terrible powers to corrupt its bearer, as seen briefly in a scene where Bilbo Baggins (Ian Holm) attempts to take the ring, Frodo (Elijah Wood) refuses him, and Bilbo’s face momentarily turns into a fearsome monster before composing himself again. It only lasts seconds, but makes its points. Only a horror director would do Tolkien the way Jackson does.
The Fellowship of the Ring ends the way it must, open to further and coming developments. Having absorbed all the movies now I’m struck by how little we see of Gollum (Andy Serkis). He becomes one of the main characters of the whole thing, but he’s only lightly foreshadowed here. Instead we get mostly the literal fellowship of nine: the four hobbits, Frodo, Sam (Sean Astin), Pippin (Billy Boyd), and Merry (Dominic Monaghan, later a major character on the TV show Lost); the unrecognized king of men, Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen); Gondor patriot warrior Boromir (Sean Bean); the elf Legolas (Orlando Bloom); the dwarf Gimli (John Rhys-Davies); and Gandalf the Grey (Ian McKellen), great and powerful wizard. Part of what makes this movie so good is the casting itself. These are uniformly great players and there are more here (Liv Tyler, Cate Blanchett, Christopher Lee, and Hugo Weaving, who looks like Brian Eno and sounds like David Bowie).
The fellowship is formed as a practical matter, supporting Frodo as he takes the dangerous ring into Mordor, the only way to destroy it. The fellowship at least gets Frodo and Sam to the border of Mordor, where the story continues in The Two Towers and The Return of the King. Because of the way Jackson conceived and shot his adaptation I have always taken the three together as the finished product, much as many Tolkien readers consider the original trilogy a long single novel. But most critics, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and even my beloved ranking index, They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They?, take them rather as three separate movies. I once had defiant plans to review them all as one but, alas, I am weak and likely unable to get to the rest for now, 12 or more hours in total in the extended editions. I’ve seen it that way a couple of times and still think they should be seen in close proximity for full effect. The Fellowship of the Ring in many ways is the best of them and it’s the first one you have to look at anyway if you’re going to look.
Even in the next two movies we see some bloat beginning to creep in whereas I don’t see too many places to cut in Fellowship. The extra 28 minutes its extended edition adds to the original release is largely a matter of listing fan club members by name in the credits crawl at the end. It does drag some at the midway point, an inevitable lull after reaching a climax where the fellowship is formed and starts out—early times on the yellow brick road, so to speak. But it’s not long before orcs show up and we are once again going pell-mell a million miles an hour. It has great fantasy ideas—summoning flood waters on the river to repel invaders, rescued off the top of an obelisk by a giant bird. And much of the action is great because the drama of the story is so often skillfully pressed into it. It’s not just stunts and effects, but stunts and effects with consequences to the story. You might need a hanky for some of this.
In the scope of the three movies together I consider the main and high point of The Lord of the Rings to be a story about best friendship—what it means to be a best friend, what it looks like. But the trappings everywhere are fantastic, beguiling, insistently moralistic, often wonderful and splendid. The special effects are not stinted on. The CGI holds up for me, though it creaks some here and there. Peter Jackson, it turns out, knows well how to mount a sumptuous entertainment. The best of Frodo and Sam is in the later movies, but the best of the trilogy at large is in The Fellowship of the Ring. But I wouldn’t miss the rest. There is a grand arc that works very well and there is little sign of the worst of the bloat that would come with The Hobbit.
The Fellowship of the Ring ends the way it must, open to further and coming developments. Having absorbed all the movies now I’m struck by how little we see of Gollum (Andy Serkis). He becomes one of the main characters of the whole thing, but he’s only lightly foreshadowed here. Instead we get mostly the literal fellowship of nine: the four hobbits, Frodo, Sam (Sean Astin), Pippin (Billy Boyd), and Merry (Dominic Monaghan, later a major character on the TV show Lost); the unrecognized king of men, Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen); Gondor patriot warrior Boromir (Sean Bean); the elf Legolas (Orlando Bloom); the dwarf Gimli (John Rhys-Davies); and Gandalf the Grey (Ian McKellen), great and powerful wizard. Part of what makes this movie so good is the casting itself. These are uniformly great players and there are more here (Liv Tyler, Cate Blanchett, Christopher Lee, and Hugo Weaving, who looks like Brian Eno and sounds like David Bowie).
The fellowship is formed as a practical matter, supporting Frodo as he takes the dangerous ring into Mordor, the only way to destroy it. The fellowship at least gets Frodo and Sam to the border of Mordor, where the story continues in The Two Towers and The Return of the King. Because of the way Jackson conceived and shot his adaptation I have always taken the three together as the finished product, much as many Tolkien readers consider the original trilogy a long single novel. But most critics, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and even my beloved ranking index, They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They?, take them rather as three separate movies. I once had defiant plans to review them all as one but, alas, I am weak and likely unable to get to the rest for now, 12 or more hours in total in the extended editions. I’ve seen it that way a couple of times and still think they should be seen in close proximity for full effect. The Fellowship of the Ring in many ways is the best of them and it’s the first one you have to look at anyway if you’re going to look.
Even in the next two movies we see some bloat beginning to creep in whereas I don’t see too many places to cut in Fellowship. The extra 28 minutes its extended edition adds to the original release is largely a matter of listing fan club members by name in the credits crawl at the end. It does drag some at the midway point, an inevitable lull after reaching a climax where the fellowship is formed and starts out—early times on the yellow brick road, so to speak. But it’s not long before orcs show up and we are once again going pell-mell a million miles an hour. It has great fantasy ideas—summoning flood waters on the river to repel invaders, rescued off the top of an obelisk by a giant bird. And much of the action is great because the drama of the story is so often skillfully pressed into it. It’s not just stunts and effects, but stunts and effects with consequences to the story. You might need a hanky for some of this.
In the scope of the three movies together I consider the main and high point of The Lord of the Rings to be a story about best friendship—what it means to be a best friend, what it looks like. But the trappings everywhere are fantastic, beguiling, insistently moralistic, often wonderful and splendid. The special effects are not stinted on. The CGI holds up for me, though it creaks some here and there. Peter Jackson, it turns out, knows well how to mount a sumptuous entertainment. The best of Frodo and Sam is in the later movies, but the best of the trilogy at large is in The Fellowship of the Ring. But I wouldn’t miss the rest. There is a grand arc that works very well and there is little sign of the worst of the bloat that would come with The Hobbit.
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