Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The (2001)

Posted on Dec 26, 2001 under Fantasy |

Directed by Peter Jackson
Written by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, and Peter Jackson, based on the novel by J.R.R. Tolkien
Starring
- Elijah Wood
- Ian McKellen
- Viggo Mortensen
- Sean Astin
- Liv Tyler

I had previously gone on record as saying that if anyone could make a respectable film version of The Lord of the Rings, it was Peter Jackson. I also noted that “if” is a really big word in that sentence.

I will now go on record and say that Jackson’s version is probably the best possible screen adaptation of the novel. But I will also say that the film version highlights just how hard it would be to have to make that adaptation.

In fact, I’ve added that to the list of characterizations of my own personal hell: Being forced to adapt The Fellowship of the Ring to a screenplay with a running time of under three hours. (In the lower levels of hell, I’d also have to be listening to country music.) I mean, how many hours does it take you to read the novel? How long would it take even if you took out all of the poems and songs and historical asides? Even if you took out Tom Bombadil? That’s still an awful lot of novel to cram into one sitting in the cinema.

“Thousands of Uruk-Hai underlings, and I still have to dust the corners of Orthanc myself.”

So kudos to Jackson and friends in coming up with a workable and working blueprint for a good movie based on a great book.

The following comments assume a familiarity with the original novel; I don’t ask that you know Middle-Earth backwards and forward, but for heaven’s sake, if you’ve never read The Lord of the Rings, what the hell are you doing wasting your time on my site? Shut down the damned computer for a while and re-acquaint yourself with print! Take care of your basic cultural literacy! (Self-serving hint: if you need a copy of the novel, I’m sure you can find it at the Amazon.com link to the right.)

Now, on to the movie:

Again, as I said, this is an adaptation, and probably one in the truest sense of the word. It is not a pure attempt to translate print to screen, which simply doesn’t work. Nor is it a wholesale Hollywoodization which takes the basic premise (or the flashiest part thereof) and “develops” it into a final product little resembling the original (as with the upcoming adaptation of The Time Machine — that’s what they’ll be showing in the circle of hell one lower than referenced above). Instead, it is an honest effort to take what makes the book work, and find a way to show that on the screen. If some things need to be removed or changed for the good of the whole, so be it.

“What? NOBODY brought the sunscreen?!”

Thus, instead of having the whole history of the Ring parted out little by little, we have an engaging and visually impressive prologue on the Ring, explaining its origin and how it got from Sauron to Isildur to Gollum to Bilbo (Ian Holm). Despite the fact that prologues rarely work well, this gets the movie off to a bang.

The storyline then proceeds as expected: Bilbo’s eleventy-first birthday party, and his subsequent disappearance. Gandalf (Ian McKellen) suspects something about the magical ring Bilbo found in his travels, and so once it is safely in the hands of Frodo (Elijah Wood), he disappears for some research.

Here, we see adaptation at work on the storyline. In the novel, it’s a decades-long timeframe before Gandalf returns with sure suspicions of the identity of this particular ring; here, it seems to be scant weeks in which he does his research in dusty tomes and also finds that Mordor is on the move, which adds haste to his return to shuttle Frodo out of the door to safety while he goes to consult with Saruman (Christopher Lee, who is absolutely dead-on perfect).

“My name’s Boromir, and I’m a meadoholic.”

At breakneck pace, Frodo is set up with his companions, and after an abbreviated scene in Bree, they make with Strider (Viggo Mortensen) and try to stay ahead of the Nine, Frodo finally making it to safety only with the help of Arwen (Liv Tyler).

Huh? What? If you recall, Arwen only gets a couple of paragraphs in the novel; here again, her part is beefed up, partly to cut out extraneous characters and partly to make her an established character when she comes up again in The Return of the King. Also, one presumes, because all three novels of the trilogy are very very male, and we needed more of a female presence in this day and age.

The Fellowship established at Rivendell, they set out for an extended battle and escape in Moria, and an absolutely kick-ass Balrog. Then through to Lorien, and on to the death of Boromir (Sean Bean) and the breaking of the Fellowship.

“Yes, your conditioner’s very nice. Now back to this Ring business…”

There are, thankfully, no major departures from the novel, and Jackson had the good sense to break the movies at about the same point that the novels are broken.

Naturally, the visuals were all exquisite (yes, everything does look as good as it looks in the publicity stills), the music was stunning, etc. But fancying myself something of a student of scriptwriting, I was most interested in what changes were made and why.

For instance, while Sam’s attachment to the quest is at least similar to the book, Merry and Pippin (Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd) are introduced first messing around with Gandalf’s fireworks, then running into the escaping Frodo and Sam while filching vegetables from Farmer Maggot. They end up coming across as much more immature and comedic than in the book, and I am more than a little worried about how they will fill their expanded roles in the next two movies.

I also regret that there wasn’t more time spent in the inn at Bree, if for no other reason than added character time for Frodo (I could gladly have sacrificed some of Arwen and Aragorn’s face-time for that); on the other hand, it is now Frodo who figures out the “riddle” of the doorway at Moria, which helps establish him as an active participant in this epic drama, rather than just a short guy who happens to have the Ring.

Them’s some damned big crossing guards.

While some of the casting was dead-on (I had already pegged Elijah Wood as a perfect Frodo before it was announced), some of it went a little wide of the mark for me. Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn is my biggest stumbling block; he comes across as visually immature (I know those of the race of Numenor age more slowly, but I’d pictured Aragorn as more mature and weathered) and not terribly commanding a presence. Many have praised Ian McKellen’s performance as Gandalf; while he’s a tremendous actor, I found his Gandalf a little soft-edged and not as brusque as he comes across in print. John Rhys-Davies, possibly the most legitimately dwarvish human alive, was pretty much wasted as Gimli (though he did get at least a couple of good lines, more than Orlando “Legolas” Bloom got), and he’s so hidden between his fake beard and the unnecessary appliances on his face that the benefit of having Rhys-Davies for the part is almost negated.

Fairly obligatory side note: You may be unlucky enough to hear a reviewer blather on about “homoerotic undertones,” usually focusing on the Frodo/Sam relationship. (I heard it first from Steve Oldfield, whom I like well enough, though his tastes in film are a little too studiously plebeian for me.) I only have two things to say to these reviewers: 1) They should see the 1978 version, in which Sam seems only a short step from leaping into Frodo’s lap; and 2) they should read the book (Oldfield admitted he hadn’t). Tolkien is very obviously harking back to long-standing traditions of platonic same-gender devotion being the highest form of bond, and the fact that such things have to be seen through the modern lens, wherein every display of affection must be interpreted sexually, is unfortunate. I’m also a product of modern Western civilization, and I too can see how the modern sexual interpretation lends a level of meaning that Tolkien didn’t mean in the slightest, but I think Oldfield’s comments that “I expected Frodo and Sam to join hands and go skipping off in the end” only show that he’s unqualified to professionally review this movie.

The film version is, of course, not as good as the book (which was expected from Day One); I would also say that the movie is not as good a movie as the book is a book. But when you’re dealing what will probably be one of the most enduring pieces of literature to come out of the 20th century, I don’t think that will surprise anyone. (It’s an odd note that this piece of 20th century literature is very non-20th century in both form and content, and that probably says an awful lot about the literature deemed representative of the century — and I’d better not say anything more, of my amassed professors will retroactively nullify my English Lit degree.)

And having recently re-read the trilogy at the (gasp) ripe old age of thirty, I was struck very heavily by an overarching theme which I would wager escapes all of its teen adherents (not to mention the pharmaceutical-addled members of its first wave of fans in the ’60s): the oppressive march of entropy. Middle-Earth is a world where the magic is fading away, though still present enough for the longsighted to see its decline; the elves are leaving, the mighty race of Numenor is admixtured with the blood of lesser men, the ruins and antiquities outnumber the living cities. (Oh, how the Roman relics influenced the British…) Perhaps Sauron specifically can be beaten back, but even so, the world will march on, with hobbits and normal men in the forefront, and elves and dwarves fading away. Naturally, none of these observations are new, but they are for me, currently, the most striking feature of the novels, and the feature which very few of the Legion of Tolkien Imitators bother to try to replicate (and at which fewer still — zero, to my knowledge — have been successful.) In the movie, alas, this doesn’t play clearly. Elrond does mention that his folk are leaving, but it’s only a passing comment; Galadriel’s test as presented here is one of the few scenes that must seem completely incomprehensible to those viewers who haven’t done their homework. I suppose it’s a necessary evil of the spectacle of film; we’re so busy gaping at the wonders of Middle-Earth, we don’t get to realize that what we see is only the lingering remains of a former, truly great age.

Despite my complaints (it’s always easier to pick out the individual nicks and scratches on a brand new candy-apple red Lambourghini than on a ‘78 Pinto “in generally good condition”), I will be seeing the next installment in the theater as soon as it comes out. You won’t catch me doing that for Star Wars: Episode 2.