Dec 21, 2001 | Q
Shannon, Anil, and I went to see Lord of the Rings last night, and I have to say that there’s a lot more hype than there is movie. The whole thing felt rushed (which is a feat for a three-hour movie), with little to no exposition for any of the characters. Before seeing it, I understood the movie to have garnered quite a few accolades of the “best film of 2001” type from reviewers; afterwards, I can’t understand how that possibly could be the case.
Just saw the film this morning.
Agreed, too rushed. My comfort is knowing that the director, Peter Jackson, has ample footage of missing bits — the gift of the Elvish cloaks with brooches, the Tom Bombadil and barrow-downs scenes — and plans to put them into the DVD release. I’m looking forward to a leisurely 4-hour cut in a couple years (hopefully.)
Scenes to which I’d like to see Jackson add considerable time:
- Council of the Ring (Elrond and company)
- Sam and Bill the pony
- the Moria gate scene
- and Frodo and Bilbo and the Shire in general.
We’ll see. Good thing is, the next book (The Two Towers) is slimmer in scope and pagecount, and heavy on character development. I hope Jackson doesn’t take as many liberties with the story as he did in the first installment.
Overall, I have to say Jackson did a monumental job in filming this book. I doubt he could have avoided cutting it down to just under 3 hours, anyway.
• Posted by: Jubal Kessler on Dec 21, 2001, 6:43 PMActually, one of the things that I enjoyed about the movie was the pace. It added a sense of urgency and danger that a more leisurely approach might not have conveyed. I would have liked seeing Tom Bombadil, though…
• Posted by: Alwin Hawkins on Dec 22, 2001, 1:45 AMThe movie gave a stronger impression of the pressure on the party, being constantly hounded and racing against the clock, which I think was faithful to the spirit of the book if not the letter. Given that a full adaptation of the series would be days long, I think this was an excellent compromise.
• Posted by: Chris Adams on Dec 23, 2001, 2:37 PMWell, personally I feel he and the other writers did a wonderful adaptation. You can’t have several elements like Tom Bombadil and the elapsed time in the shire and be able to hook in non readers of the book aswell. You have to create a since of urgency aswell as stay true to the story.
Peter Jackson I feel did an exceptional job in this. Especially in his attention to detail.
The only thing I felt that was left out that was extremely important to the development of the plot was the giving of the gifts when they depart from Lothlorien. Just because they all play key roles in the next two instalments.
But, they will be adding that in to the special DVD release. So, overall it was a wonderful movie to me and gave justice to Tolkien’s masterpiece. I only pray he can pull off the next two with the same success.
• Posted by: Katie Hoke on Sep 21, 2002, 9:38 PM