Saw “Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring” yesterday afternoon. I waited to post about it, since last night the images were racing around in my head so much, I wanted to take a little time to digest everything. All I can say is, Peter Jackson and his amazing cast did a sort of magic of their own, making the book spring to life on the screen in a way that I haven’t seen before. There wasn’t a moment or a decision Jackson made that took me out of the world he had created. While hard-core fans are wetting themselves over this movie (and rightfully so), I think it would be enjoyable to a much wider audience than the subject matter would have you believe.
It’s worth contrasting this movie to the inert “Harry Potter,” which dutifully moves through the paces in order to cram as much of the recognizable plot into its 2-1/2 hour running time. The plot of LOTR, on the other hand, is definitely streamlined. But it has what “Potter” sorely lacks – real magic and soul. You feel this movie as much as watch it.
My friend Paul, who hasn’t read the books and is generally disdainful of anything fantasy-related, walked out of the three-hour LOTR and turned to me and said, “Now when is the next one coming out?” That’s about the best endorsement this picture could ever hope for.
Helpful review. Thanks! I just may have to see this after all.
I can’t go to see it until between Christmas and New Year. I’m feeling all fidgetty about it, it looks so amazing and I so don’t want it to be a disappointment. From what people are saying about it, though, I don’t think I need worry.
This will probably get me in trouble….but I experienced a severe disconnect between the books and the movies. The scenery in the movie _looks_ somewhat like what I had in my head from the book, but the action is a lot more like a typical 20th-century cliffhanger flick. I thought it was an excellent movie in terms of directing, acting, etc., but it’s getting hyped all to hell, which puts me off (although thank god it’s apparently outstripping that Harry Potter thing). Tolkien’s son may be a tightassed Englishman who won’t speak to his brother, but I think he’s right in saying the book is essentially unfilmable. Tokien consciously wrote an epic which depends a great deal on the narrative voice, and you just don’t have that in the movie, not even as a voice-over.
From an alternative perspective, my husband, who’s never read the books, saw the movie and immediately began reading them. Expressed no interest in them before. He’s picking up on a lot of the differences, though, and says he wishes Sam’s role had been expanded in the movie.
//duck//
Short point which may better illustrate what I mean. In the book, the first glimpse you get of a Ringwraith is of a man sitting on a horse (an ordinary horse — no glaring red eyes, no spiked hooves) in a black cloak with a hood. Compare that to the first glimpse of them in the movie. No Frodo-running-to-the-wharf-pursued-by-Ringwraiths scene, either. And while you hear about the Nazguls ripping apart the beds in the inn, you don’t see it, and for my money it’s a lot spookier in the book when they come upon the wreckage rather than seeing the knives splitting apart the pillows. It’s moviemaking — damned good moviemaking at that — but how true is it to Tolkien’s vision?
One great thing about the movie, though, is that apparently a lot more people are buying and reading the books, although I have to wonder how many of them will hang on through the whole trilogy. Harry Potter had stuff like troll boogies to keep you going. Tolkien doesn’t stoop to that.
I agree that there is a vast difference between Tolkien’s narrative style and Jackson’s (et al.) cinematographic one.
But that’s not a bad thing. It’s a good thing. I frankly wouldn’t want to watch Aragorn declaim like a character out of Beowulf. But I don’t mind reading him that way.
Did the Nazgul get dressed up a bit? Yes. Could you have done a movie with them much plainer, with their violence in Bree or the Shire implied rather than shown? Yes. Would it have been as scary? No, I don’t think so.
It’s a different medium. I think the movie-makers did a very good job translating most of the basic story and ideas from Tolkien’s wonderfully stilted prose and poetry into a fashion that was appropriate to the medium.
I just think the “it’s a different medium” argument doesn’t fly here. Leaving aside the fact that you don’t hear about what happened between Gandalf and Saruman until I think Book II, in the movie there’s a big fight scene. No fight scene in the book. But at this point it’s not a question of “what’s not in the book” anymore, but how much the story is being turned from a subtle, long, complex work into scenes which are nearly without exception fast-and-scary. If it’s not going to be that different from a lot of other movies, except for the gorgeous visuals which do capture something of Tolkien’s world, why make a movie of the story? I’d argue too much of what is essential about the story is being left out, yes, because it’s a movie, which makes it a really unsatisfying interpretation. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad movie; that doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy it, even.
I wouldn’t want to watch that actor declaim like Beowulf, either, but I think someone like Alec Guinness could have given it a go.