The Fellowship of the Ring is the first volume of Tolkien's epic fantasy trilogy The Lord of the Rings. An adaptation of this scale must be an unimaginably difficult undertaking and I feel as though it was done very well (but not quite perfectly) in Peter Jackson's 2001 film.
The characters, world building, and core of the story are all done wonderfully. The casting felt on point, and settings described in detail in the novels really came to life on film. Additionally, the pacing is well done and I never got bored- which says a lot since the film was 2 hours and 58 minutes (3 hours and 28 minutes for the extended version).
While the novel version is a childhood favorite it took a long time for anything to happen....
Novels nowadays usually start medias res, we are thrown into the action. The slow lead up in the novel might be a nice change of pace for some but may lose others.
On the not so wonderful side, a lot of the lore was cut as well as some settings. Certain characters were also cut or changed- the most biting being Faramir (who doesn't show up until book/movie two). It didn't hurt the story, unless you knew the story. Make sense?
I like to think that a truly excellent movie adaption makes people who haven't yet read the book want to.
The Fellowship of the Ring may inspire that feeling, but with altered pacing, more violence, and the next books in the series not being told concurrently, modern readers may not fall into this world as easily.
Just misses perfection.
But it's hard to compete with what has been acknowledged as the foundation of fantasy novels.
What are your thoughts? Did you love the books? The movies? Both? Neither?
Please share in the comments below!
9 comments:
Good. Enjoying visiting blogs and picking some new things. A to Z challenge makes you write. Write and interact with a big blogger community.
Effectiveness, Efficiency and Excellence - Engineering Supervision
Hi visiting from the A to Z. Will love coming back and seeing what other fiction to films you look at. I love both versions of Lord of the Rings (though I think the book is far superior) but the same is often not true of books that I have loved. The worst ever has to be the film version of The Northern Lights by Philip Pullman.
I loved both of them, I remember that at the time The Fellowship of the Ring came out as a movie, many members of the fandom complained that the movie left Tom Bombadil out. Although I agreed at first, later I considered that he was more than a side quest and there wasn´t real damage in taking him out of the story than if they had taken out Galadriel´s forest. oh, yes, and in the movie Eowyn seems just to be mooning over Aragorn, I can´t remember her being so smitten in the book.
Also a big fan of the extended versions, once we did a marathon with the 3 movies. It was insane but cool.
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And I've never read it...
I love the Lord of the Rings movies and really don't like the ones for The Hobbit - that was a cash grab IMHO.
I remember reading the first of the books quite young and Boromir's death did not go over well, so I didn't read the others - it was the movies that finally got me to do finish reading.
Tasha
Tasha's Thinkings: YouTube - What They Don't Tell You (and free fiction)
I agree that the movies were good but not perfect (and the treatment of Faramir is one of my biggest complaints!) But as for the Hobbit adaptations... What the heck was that??? A travesty!
F is for Flight
Agreed! :(
Wow! Talk about endurance- that sounds like a great weekend!
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