“Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men, doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.
In the land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.”
In the world of fantasy literature, there is none as revered as J. R. R. Tolkien and his Middle-Earth creation. It started with a simple, yet deep novel entitled The Hobbit, or There and Back Again, published in 1937. This novel was a critical and commercial success, and there was a demand for a follow-up. What followed would surpass it in nearly every way, including depth and scope. The Lord of the Rings was a nearly 1,100-page behemoth of a novel that was considered at the time to be too unwieldy in its original form. Rather than cut it down to a more manageable size, it was elected to cut it into three separate books and release them over the course of fifteen months. Modifications were made to the original text for The Hobbit to accommodate the new books into continuity, and The Lord of the Rings was published starting in the summer of 1954 with The Fellowship of the Ring.
This new trilogy of books was embraced by fans of the genre and of The Hobbit, and it wasn’t long afterwards that there was talk of adapting it to film. But that is a daunting task that most felt was impossible to accomplish faithfully. A radio adaptation was made in 1956 and was followed up with three more adaptations for the medium. But on the motion picture side, many attempted to make a film happen and failed, including Stanley Kubrick, John Boorman, and Jim Henson. Ralph Bakshi set out to adapt it in animation form, intending to create a two-part film that would cover the entire trilogy of books, but after the first half received mixed reviews, the second half was cancelled. A few years later, Rankin/Bass released their own animated film, a follow-up to their own The Hobbit film, that adapted the third book, The Return of the King. This, too, got mixed reviews, and the property fell silent again. Some low-budget foreign adaptations were made for television but were soon forgotten, including a Soviet Union live-action adaptation of The Fellowship of the Ring that was, until recently, considered lost.
Then, in the late 1990s, news began leaking to the public that a New Zealand director, known for his low-budget schlock horror films, had been given a sweetheart deal: three big-budget films, shot simultaneously, adapting the entire trilogy for the big screen. These three films would release a year apart in December of 2001, 2002, and 2003 and would be an epic scale adaptation of The Lord of the Rings. Fantasy lovers and Tolkien aficionados were ecstatic, but cautious. At last, their beloved books were getting a proper film treatment. Speculation as to how this would play out, what would be included, and what would be omitted, was running wild. People were traveling to New Zealand in a desperate attempt to catch sight of the film crews at work making it all come to life. The world was beginning to wake back up to The Lord of the Rings.
It was an insane gamble when you look back on it. Peter Jackson, along with his writers and co-producers Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, expected initially to be making two films and had prepared their pitch to the studios with that in mind. They met nothing but resistance and were resolved to whittle it down to a single film, though they had no idea how such a complex story could be distilled that much. New Line Cinemas, however, threw them a bone, suggesting that since there were three books, there should be three films. Their gamble paid off in the long run as all three films ended up being massive hits, earning billions at the box office.
They were critical darlings, too. All three films were nominated for the Best Picture Oscar, a feat only accomplished by one other trilogy, The Godfather. But voters reserved their final judgment until they had seen the entire story played out, and the third film, The Return of the King, was the only one to go all the way and win. It also happened to sweep the Oscars that year, winning in every category it was nominated for, a rare feat for a film with that many nominations.
For the purposes of this review, we are focusing just on the first film in the trilogy, though. The other two films have their own reviews on this site already, so it is about time I got around to rewatching and reviewing The Fellowship of the Ring.
The film opens with the arrival in Hobbiton of Gandalf the Grey (Ian McKellen), a wizard who is here to help Bilbo Baggins (Ian Holm) celebrate his 111th birthday. Bilbo, who hasn’t aged much in the many years since his adventures in The Hobbit, is feeling, more than looking, his age and has an obsession with this ring he acquired during that time. This troubles Gandalf, who has been concerned for his Hobbit friend, and, when Bilbo chooses to leave Hobbiton after the party, Gandalf, after a particularly harsh confrontation with him, convinces him to leave the ring behind with his nephew, Frodo (Elijah Wood). Gandalf suspects the ring of being the One Ring, the source of the Dark Lord Sauron’s powers. The One Ring was struck from the Dark Lord’s hand during a massive battle years ago and was presumed lost for many centuries. Gandalf leaves the ring in the possession of Frodo and rides off to verify what he suspects.
Upon returning, he verifies that this is indeed the One Ring and that the Dark Lord is once again raising an army to conquer Middle-Earth. But he needs the One Ring and has sent his dark riders, the Nazgûl, to recover it. Gandalf sends Frodo, along with his eaves-dropping friend, Samwise (Sean Astin), out of Hobbiton to meet up with him after he pays a visit to his mentor, Saruman (Christopher Lee), whom he discovers has forsaken wisdom in his pursuit of power. Frodo and Sam run into two other Hobbits along the way, Merry (Dominic Monaghan) and Pippin (Billy Boyd), who join them on their journey.
At the established meeting place where Frodo is to catch up with Gandalf, the wizard is strangely absent. But Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen), a ranger, meets them, defends off the Nazgûl, and gets the four Hobbits to Rivendale, the land of the Elves where Gandalf, newly escaped from his encounter with Saruman, welcomes them. A plan is then decided upon, to take the One Ring to Mount Doom where it was originally forged and throw it back into the lava, the only thing that can destroy it. Joining Frodo and the other Hobbits is Gandalf; Aragorn; Legolas the elf (Orlando Bloom); Gimli the dwarf (John Rhys Davies); and Boromir (Sean Bean), a man who wants to take the ring to his people and use it as a weapon against Sauron. And thus begins the journey towards Mordor that will make up the second half of this movie and the two films that follow.
Because this story was initially written to be a single book, the story didn’t have natural breaks that made for a satisfactory ending for each. Nowhere is this more felt than in this first book. To help with this, Peter Jackson and his writers shuffled some events from the second book into the finale of this film to give it a more satisfying climax. That works to a degree but it is still very obvious that this is a film that lacks a real finale. Because of that, some people coming into this film expecting some sort of resolution left the theaters dissatisfied and frustrated. Some never came back for the rest of the story because of that, too. This is a legitimate concern that Jackson tried to address but the simple fact of the matter was that, without heavily altering the story, the first third lacks a good spot to end that would satisfy most audiences unfamiliar with the property.
Because it is setting up the world for an audience that is mostly unfamiliar with the books, it also bears the burden of exposition and a great deal of setup. This is not a problem for those who just love being in this environment, but those with short attention spans that want to get to the action will be forced to sit through over an hour before anything really happens. Again, those who bask in all the lore and the setting will not have a problem with this; everyone else will be checking their watches, wishing the film would just get on with it.
Once the action does start to ramp up, it comes in fits and starts, too, making the pacing a bit of an issue. We have things like the fabulous Mines of Moria sequence with the emotional punch at the end, followed by a slow and deliberate introduction to the elves of Lothlórien and the lady Galadriel (Cate Blanchet). She’s beautiful to look at and the visuals are breathtaking but it brings the film’s pace to a grinding halt. Peter Jackson has utilized the gorgeous backdrop of New Zealand and enhanced it with award-winning miniatures, matte paintings, and digital enhancements to make this look like a lived-in environment, some of which he casually hides in the background, there for the Tolkien purists to spot and geek out on. On top of that, the action sequences are staged in such a way as to build excitement, though in this chapter they come a bit too sparingly. This will be greatly expanded upon and corrected in the other films.
This feels like an incomplete film. But that comes primarily because of the three-film format and the extensive use of setups. The other two films do not suffer from this problem, even the middle chapter, which usually is the one to have these kinds of issues. Still, this is perhaps the best this particular book could have been made without making too many sacrifices with the original story’s integrity. Fans of the novel shouldn’t have anything to complain about here.
But some fans did feel they had something to complain about: the exclusion of Tom Bombadil. Readers who insisted that not one moment from the books should be left out were frustrated that this character didn’t make the cut. Usually, complaints like this come from those who do not understand that books and films are different mediums altogether, and what works on the page won’t work on the screen. Likewise, Frodo taking 17 years from receiving the Ring before setting out on the quest, as he does in the book, would have killed the tension and the urgency on screen. These changes, as frustrating as they were to extreme fans, were the right choice for this movie.
This is a long film, especially when viewing the extended cut that debuted the following summer on home video. Unlike the other two films, though, this one feels some of that length. But it makes up for most of that with a rich tapestry of lore and world-building. Still, there are times when it can feel like too much, especially for those not attuned to the works of Tolkien. It’s a fantasy epic the likes of which we may never see again; not for a lack of trying, though. Peter Jackson did try to go back and recreate this magic with his The Hobbit trilogy, a prequel to this series that was unfortunately expanded to three massive films despite having a much shorter source novel. Not only was that trilogy excessively bloated, it replaced the fabulous matte paintings and miniatures with CGI, and the effect was lessor in nearly every way.
The Lord of the Rings was made at just the right time when CGI could be utilized to build massive armies while conventional models and miniatures could better supplement the world around them. It also supports a cast that, new faces and old, is spot on across the board. New readers of the novels will be hard-pressed not to envision Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, or the others as they read. For the most part, this film builds excitement for this world we will be spending more than nine hours (twelve for the extended cuts) in and promises a fantasy action franchise the likes we had never seen before, nor since. All this from a Kiwi director who specialized in low-budget gross-out horror movies.
Academy Award Nominations:
Best Picture: Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, and Barrie M. Osborne
Best Director: Peter Jackson
Best Supporting Actor: Ian McKellen
Best Adapted Screenplay: Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, and Peter Jackson
Best Art Direction: Grant Majors and Dan Hennah
Best Cinematography: Andrew Lesnie (won)
Best Costume Design: Ngila Dickson and Richard Taylor
Best Film Editing: John Gilbert
Best Makeup: Peter Owen and Richard Taylor (won)
Best Original Score: Howard Shore (won)
Best Original Song: “May it Be” by Enya, Nicky Ryan, and Roma Ryan
Best Sound: Christopher Boyes, Michael Semanick, Gethin Creagh, and Hammond Peek
Best Visual Effects: Jim Rygiel, Randall William Cook, Richard Taylor, and Mark Stetson (won)
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Release Date: December 19, 2001
Running Time: 178 minutes (229 minutes extended cut)
Rated PG-13
Starring: Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Liv Tyler, Viggo Mortensen, Sean Astin, Cate Blanchett, John Rhys-Davies, Billy Boyd, Dominic Monaghan, Orlando Bloom, Christopher Lee, Hugo Weaving, Sean Bean, Ian Holm, and Andy Serkis
Directed by: Peter Jackson
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