Fabulous Frodo and Simple Sam (The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (Extended Edition, DVD))

Member Name: Gwenick

Product:	The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (Extended Edition, DVD)
Date:	03/01/02 (158 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: story, characters, scenery

Disadvantages: slight poor graphics in a few places

Many years ago a man named John Ronald Reuel Tolkien created his own world called ‘Middle Earth’ and using it created stories which will blow your mind away – involving creatures which could only be created in an incredible mind. That man is better known as J. R. R. Tolkien and his best loved book, which was 12 years in the writing, was the Lord of the Rings – which is made up of three books “The Fellowship of the Ring”, “The Two Towers”, and “The Return of the King”. Some 50 years later Peter Jackson directed the making of three movies – each bearing the name of one of the books. The first – “The Fellowship of the Ring” was released in December – and watched by me today.

I went with very high expectations – I read the book twice a couple of years ago and loved it so much that my parents bought me a hardback copy of three books. The story is about a young Hobbit (small ‘people’ with hairy feet and live in tunnels in hillsides), called Frodo Baggins (played by Elijah Wood), and his quest to destroy the One Ring. In order to do this he has to leave his home – The Shire – where he’s lived all his life and make an extremely difficult and dangerous journey through the Middle Earth to where the Dark Lord lives and destroy it there – where it was first forged. He doesn’t go alone though he’s accompanied by his fellowship (hence the title of the first book and movie) of friends. First of all he has three other Hobbits Sam (played by Sean Astin), Merry (Dominic Monaghan) and Pippin (Billy Boyd), then they are joined by Gimli the dwarf (John Rhys-Davies), and the two humans Aragorn – who is first known as Strider (Viggo Mortensen) and Boromir (Sean Bean). This group of companions are guided by Gandalf the Wizard (Ian McKellen) – a great friend of the Baggins’, and the elves called Arwen (Liv Tyler), Galadrie
l (Cate Blanchett), Legolas (Orlando Bloom) and Elrond (Hugo Weaving).

As they travel towards the lands of the Dark Lord of Mordor – called Sauron (Christopher Lee) they are faced with many dangers. Sauron know that Frodo has his all powerful ring, because of Gollum – a creature that once had possession of it, and wants it back. He uses all kinds of methods of trying to retrieve the ring – from the Black Riders, Orcs and Men to fight them and try and deter them from their quest – all to no avail. Basically it’s the story of Good and Evil – with Good always prevailing in the end.

I won’t say too much more about the story – you’ve probably already seen it, or don’t want to know to much and have your enjoyment spoiled. Did I say enjoyment? Well that’s probably an understatement. From the moment this movie started, to its end almost 3hrs later I, and Nick, were transfixed. The start of the movie gives a voice over giving a brief introduction as to what The Ring is and how it came to be in the Baggins’ possession. After this we are launched into a miraculous world of fantasy and fiction. The scenery, and costumes lead us straight into Tolkiens own fantasy world of Middle Earth creatures. Elijah Wood made a wonderful Frodo, young and quite fearful of the task ahead of him – yet a quiet determination to complete the task. His friend Sam (Sean Astin) was equally good as a rather simple Hobbit, but one with great loyalty – Gandalf made him promise never to leave Frodo’s side and he obeyed.

Cate Blanchett as Galadriel was also very good, but for me the star of the show was Christopher Lee as Gandalf. I have a poster that I bought years ago with a picture of Gandalf the wizard – it was a drawing that was very old and had been mass-produced into a commercial item. Ever since I bought this poster I’ve had this picture in my mind of a kindly looking Wi
zard with a long pointy hat – and that was exactly how Christopher Lee looked. Not only did he look the part – he acted it. I could quite easily have been sat at home reading my book and imagining the scenes for myself (perhaps I should have done what Peter Jackson has done).

The setting in New Zealand gave the opportunity for the wonderful images of rolling countryside, jagged mountains and beautiful lakes – all crucial areas that the story is told in. Many of the fearsome creatures in the film where created with Computer Generated Graphics (CGG) and so indeed was the height differences between tiny Hobbits and huge humans. I personally only noticed the use of CGG once in the entire 3hrs, Nick noticed it twice (but both within a couple of minutes of each other). In fact, it never occurred to me until I sat down to write this opinion that they used CGG to make the Hobbits as small as they were in the film……no I’m not blonde – honest! Thinking about it now, it’s hardly surprising that they are having to make the releases of the films 12 months apart to work on the graphics – most of the battle scenes (of which there are many) are also Computer Generated! Phenomenal stuff in my opinion. The soundtrack wasn’t a particularly exciting one in terms of tunes but it fitted the scenes perfectly.

This was an absolutely sensational movie, it didn’t always follow the story which is in the book, but it did stick very closely to it with some lines of speech coming directly from the book. Both Nick and I were glued to our seats for the entire movie something which is VERY rare – I like Romance and Comedy, he likes Action – and I was quite disappointed when it ended. I only really have two complaints about this film

1 Why do we have to wait so long for the next part of the story?

2 Why do they not make cinema seats more comfortable for long films – the only reaso
n we felt like we’d been sat watching it for a long period of time was because our bums were sore!!

So, what are you waiting for? Get on the phone and book some tickets – unless you’re a VERY picky person when it comes to film details you’ll love this one – even if you’ve never read the book…………Nick hasn’t (yet).

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