Hobbit of a disappointment... (The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (Extended Edition, DVD))

Member Name: nikkisly

Product:	The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (Extended Edition, DVD)
Date:	26/01/02 (372 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Magical, Marvellous, Mind Blowing

Disadvantages: Confusing at times

I've never actually written an opinion in the film category before, for two main reasons. The first is that I have always felt sure that any attempt I made to write in this category would pale into insignificance when placed alongside the opinions of the most (or even the least!) respected film buffs. The second is that I very rarely go to the cinema. Since we live so far away from civilisation, a film has to be pretty spectacular for me to want to drive fifty miles to see it. And, by the time it arrives at our tiny local cinema - assuming it ever does - it's usually very old news indeed. So why am I breaking the habit of a lifetime and attempting to review this particular film, especially when there are already so many good reviews of it on Dooyoo? Simply because few of the reviews I've read so far have fully answered the one question that I, as a potential viewer, needed answering before booking my seat.

My husband and I received the news that The Lord of the Rings was to be made into a film with mixed feelings. We are both great Tolkien fans and have read his books many times. We even have an audio book of Lord of the Rings that we have listened to over and over again. As a result, we have, over the years, developed our own mental picture of the characters and settings of Tolkien's epic fantasy. We were apprehensive about seeing them portrayed visually rather than in our minds' eye - would the film manage to ruin the illusion? Or could it possibly enhance it?

For anyone who hasn't read the books (or seen the film), it is the story of Middle Earth, a place inhabited by all sorts of creatures, both good and bad. 'Goodest' of the good are Hobbits - peace loving homebodies with a general dislike of adventure in any form. Yet one Hobbit,Bilbo Baggins,once had an adventure, one that Tolkien described in his book "The Hobbit". During that adventure, he chanced upon a ring - not an ordinary ring, but a very s
pecial one indeed.

The film begins as Baggins' 111th birthday party is being arranged, after which his nephew, Frodo, is charged with destroying the ring. It's a thoroughly nasty piece of jewellery, with the power to infect all that possess it with evil and is sought by the Dark Lord Sauron so that he might rule the world. Hobbits, however, seem largely immune to the rings evil influence. Thus, this film covers the first part of Frodos epic journey to the only place where the ring can finally be destroyed,the fires in which it was forged. (The remainder of the journey will be covered in two sequels that have already been made but are not yet on general release.)

On seeing trailers of "The Fellowship of the Ring", the first of director Peter Jacksons' three films, it appeared as though our worst fears were to be realised. Elijah Wood (Frodo), Dominic Monaghan (Merry), Billy Boyd (Pippin) and Sean Astin (Sam Gamgee) just weren't Hobbits as we had always imagined them. (Our illusions were not helped by the fact that Astin bears an uncanny resemblance to a close friend of ours!) As for Bilbo Baggins, played by Ian Holm - no, we weren't impressed at all. He looked too much like an ageing and overweight David Essex to be anyone's idea of a Hobbit.

We dithered for several weeks, trying to decide whether or not we wanted to see the film, then finally decided that, yes, we did. Did we rue the day?

Well, Hobbits apart, we were very impressed. Ian McKellen was the perfect Gandalf and Christopher Lee a suitably scary Saruman. In fact,we were impressed by the entire cast (listed below), even more so when we read that they had all had to undergo rigorous fitness training to endure 274 strenuous days of filming. Not only that, but some had even had to learn a new language (Elvish), created especially for the film and based on Celtic. They certainly worked hard for their money.

The scenery in the film wa
s awesome, both the real life locations in New Zealand and the computer generated ones. Nobody could fail to be impressed by that. Attention to detail was meticulous, hardly surprising since, as we later discovered, a team of 120 people were employed just on special effects alone. The town where the Hobbits lived (Hobbiton) was actually planted with 5000 cubic metres of plants a year before filming began and was truly impressive, even if parts of it did bear a strange resemblance to Teletubby land.

The film is three hours long, (178 minutes to be precise) and, luckily for our bladders, our cinema showed it with an intermission after one hour, although some cinemas do not. By the intermission, neither my husband nor I were enjoying the film. The biggest sticking point for us were those damned Hobbits. Elijah Wood as Frodo gave a terrific performance from start to finish, as did Astin as Sam Gamgee (not for nothing was Wood voted Young Star of the Year in 1994). Yet they didn't look anything like we had imagined Hobbits to look and we both felt that Pippin and Merry were portrayed very differently indeed from the way their characters were intended by Tolkien. In the film, their antics seemed to be aimed at providing light relief, far more so than in the books where they were much more staid and straitlaced.

However, by the second part of the film, something suddenly clicked. We stopped watching it quite so critically and simply allowed ourselves to be immersed in the fantasy - and we loved it!

We had complaints, although most were very minor. The biggest was that the film was rated PG. We took my seventy-eight year old father with us and he was utterly terrified, almost from start to finish. In fact, he has had nightmares ever since, even though he actually covered his eyes during some scenes. (If there had been a sofa handy, he would have been watching from behind it!) Thus, I would recommend that a large amount of Parental Guidance be
exercised, both for impressionable children and Senior Citizens.

Not only that, but we all felt that some of the action scenes were performed too quickly, with lots of dizzying brief flashes and ever-changing camera angles that made them almost impossible to follow. The special effects were excellent, with particular praise going to the Hobbits (or Halflings) who, in comparison to the other members of the cast, were only half their size. The mines of Mordor and the home of the Elves were both spectacular. It was therefore surprising to learn that many of the special effects had been constructed from polystyrene sprayed with polyurethane, since they managed to look both centuries old and rock solid into the bargain.

In our party of six, we all struggled to understand some of the lines spoken by Gandalf but, other than that, the sound quality was superb. My biggest criticism of the BBC audiobooks has been its extremes in volume - one moment you're straining to hear a whispered conversation, the next you're flattened to your seat by the unbearable decibel level of a pitched battle. Thankfully, this was not a problem with the film.

So, as certified (or certifiable!) Tolkien addicts, we were extremely impressed and will be first in the queue for the sequels when they are released, although probably without father. Another member of our party had never read any Tolkien and pronounced the film "the biggest load of tosh " she had ever seen. Two others had read The Hobbit only - and loved the film. Our experience has been that some foreknowledge of Tolkien's writing enhances the films' appeal greatly and, contrary to our fears, definitely doesn't spoil the magic of Middle Earth.

Thus, our advice for other Tolkien fans would be to leave your expectations at the door and to watch the film for what it is. Treat it as a separate entity, a great fantasy and a good all-round action movie. For the most part, the f
ilm stays very true to the book and I'm willing to bet that there are others for whom the Hobbits were "perfect", yet who found that other characters didn't match up to their mental images. It's a film that prejudice almost prevented us from seeing - if it had, we would have missed a real treat.

Cast:
Frodo: Elijah Wood
Pippin: Billy Boyd
Merry: Dominic Monaghan
Sam Gamgee: Sean Astin
Gandalf: Ian McKellen
Saruman: Christopher Lee
Bilbo Baggins: Ian Holm
Boromir: Sean Bean
Elrond: Hugo Weaving
Arwen: Liv Tyler
Legolas: Orlando Bloom
Gimli: John Rhys-Davies
Aragorn: Viggo Mortensen
Galadriel: Kate Blanchett

Direstor: Peter Jackson

Producers: Peter Jackson and Barrie M Osborne.

Summary: