Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring – The start of something epic

The word ‘epic’ probable gets used too much these days to describe films.  However, in this case it’s definitely right.  For those two people out there who don’t know, ‘The Lord of the Rings’ is (primarily, excluding various ‘spin-off’ books) a trilogy of long books set in a fiction world called ‘Middle Earth’ which is filled with everything from wizards to dragons (yes, think ‘Game of Thrones,’ but with less nudity.

It had long been considered that J. R. R. Tolkien’s books were ‘unfilmable’ due to no screen adaptation being able to bring his lavish world to life (properly).  There was an animated attempt (which wasn’t as bad as people made out), but due to budgetary reasons, it was left unfinished (a concept which left me particularly confused when I watched it as a child).  However, now the source material has finally been given the big screen treatment it deserved and ‘The Fellowship of the Ring’ is the start of the trilogy’s life in mainstream cinema.

Despite the long backstory (shown in a brief montage/history lesson at the beginning of the film) all you need to know is that the spirit of a ‘dark lord’ wants his magic ring back in order to become whole again and generally take over the land.  However, by luck the piece of jewellery in question is in the hands of a gentle race of little creatures known as ‘hobbits.’ They, together with an assortment of men, wizards, dwarfs and elves, vow to prevent the dark lord Sauron from getting his property back and set off on a quest to destroy it in the fires of the volcano where it was once forged.

I suppose you could call the cast an ‘ensemble.’ With a story that requires so many characters, quite a few familiar faces will pop up.  Primarily you have Sir Ian McKellen as the iconic wizard, Gandalf the Grey, but he’s backed up by everyone from Cate Blanchett and Christopher Lee to Sean Bean and Viggo Mortensen.  In fact it’s more a case of the more ‘famous’ Hollywood actors are secondary to the two hobbits who are at the centre of the tale, Frodo and Sam, plays by Elijah Wood and Sean Aston respectively.  They’re possibly less well-known that the affore-mentioned actors and yet rise to the challenge and prove that they’re more than capable of having a major cinematic franchise rest on their (miniature!) shoulders.

The cast is perfectly surrounded by some of the best sets, scenery and special effects ever to be committed to the big screen at the time (yes, you can - sort of - see a bit of 'green screen' work these days, but they still hold up!).  Some say that the whole trilogy is one giant advert for the New Zealand tourist board, as it makes use of all the country's different landscapes to great effect.

Of course seeing as 'Fellowship' is the first in a trilogy, there a certain amount of 'set up' contained where some story threads are mentioned but never expanded on - yet.  However, this never really stops anyone from understanding what's going on and I'm sure once you watch this installment you'll want to know where it all goes!

I know that the real 'Tolkien purists' will argue about which bits from the book have either been left out, or slightly changed, like making an Elf maiden an outright warrior in the film.  I've read the books and, due to their length, it would probably be impossible to commit every last page to screen (unless you make every film about six hours!) and what they've done is taken all the most important points and used them to great effect to make the story as accessible to as many people as possible.

I think it was writer/director Kevin Smith who said in ‘Clerks II’ that the ‘Lord of the Rings’ trilogy was just basically ‘people walking.’ Okay, so funny as that may be (and – technically – true) there’s so much more to the film that just that.  The best part about 'Fellowship' (and indeed the whole trilogy) is that it can be enjoyed by most people, not just fans of the book or the genre, but also appreciated by (nearly) everyone with an eye for good cinema due to its achievements in world-building and sheer scale.

10/10 The Monty Python Knights of Camelot are currently looking for this