[MegaTrain]

I'm a big fan of the books, and have read them many times, so here was my reaction to the movie after seeing it Last week:

First thing is: Good Movie! I enjoyed it very much, although I found myself being a little over-critical of changes from the book. Thinking more about it after the viewing, though, most of the changes were necessary when bringing it into a movie format without making it a 7-hour feature. A few other odd points are discussed below.

Parts I liked:

• The scenery. Great mountain and forest scenes, and I liked the river. They definitely helped to give the movie mood and flavor.
• Good depiction of the Nazgul. Both while black riders and when revealed as Frodo put on the ring.
• Overall adherence to the characters, the plotline, and most important elements. Some things were cut for time, but they kept all the important elements of the plot and the quest and even the ending of the first part (although they did include the orc battle which is really in the second book).

Items they changed that worked well for the film:

• Sequence. I liked the way they told things as they happened (Gandalf's imprisonment in Orthanc), instead of just hearing about it all later on. Although the book's method added to the suspense of not knowing where he was or why he was missing.
• Arwen being Frodo's elf rescuer instead of Glorfindel. For a movie audience, the fewer characters, the better. Glorfindel was the son of Elrond, but plays no other part in the tale. To introduce Arwen at this point makes sense, and even to introduce the relationship between Aragorn and Arwen, otherwise audiences are likely to be confused at the end of the 3rd movie when Aragorn weds Arwen. The Last time I read the series, I did the same thing. It was like "Where did that come from? I don't remember them having a previous relationship."
• Compression of time. The movie wasn't hung up on days and dates and lengths of time, at least not like the books were. They didn't give the impression that Gandalf had been away for 25 years between the leaving of Bilbo and Frodo, but I guess that time gap was not really that significant, except to show that Frodo had also not aged with the Ring.

Stuff they changed that I wasn't so sure about:

• The "Sword that was Broken". Well, first Strider shows up with a sword that looked just fine. Then in Rivendell they showed the broken sword but really made no reference to it's prophecy concerning the returning King, only to it's history as the weapon that cut the ring off Sauron's hand. They did not show any re-forging, and Aragorn certainly had a sword for the rest of the movie, but I couldn't tell whether it was his original "normal" sword, or the broken Narsil reforged as Anduril. If you're not going to follow through, why introduce the Sword that was broken? And if you introduce it, why don't you follow through with the rest of the prophecy? Perhaps they will revisit this in a later film.
• The escape from Moria: what was with that gap in the stairway? That was NOT in the book, but maybe it should have been, because it gives us such memorable lines as "Nobody throws a Dwarf!" and "Lean this way." (...so our 200 pound bodies can effect the balance of a 2000-ton rock stairway.) What a joke.
• The attack at Weathertop. A little long and dramatic, and what's with Frodo not stabbing the Nazgul King? I guess they couldn't say that any weapon that touched the Nazgul was destroyed if they were then going to have Strider attack them with his sword (which was supposed to be BROKEN. hmmm, maybe some of these are related...)
• Saruman. A visible enemy is better than an invisible one, so I do like how they played up his role (or at least the VISIBILITY of his role in this first book). Ultimately we learn that Saruman is in league with Sauron, but isn't his real purpose to have the One Ring for himself? I just looked it up, and on p341 says "...Saruman was mustering a great force on his own account, in rivalry of Sauron and not in his service yet." The movie plays it like he is just a pawn of Sauron, creating an army for him and sending troops to capture the Ring. Maybe they'll deal with that differently in the second movie.
• And what was with the Wizard Battle? The book simply says: "They took me and they set me alone on the pinnacle of Orthanc." I guess you gotta spice it up a bit for the movie, or maybe Gandalf was embarrassed at being whomped by Saruman and didn't tell the complete story at the Council of Elrond. (NOW we find out the truth...)
• Singing and stories. Obviously, you can't include it ALL, but at least you could put SOMETHING in. They only reference at ALL to singing or poems was in Lorien, as the elves were singing (behind the dialog) about the fall of Gandalf.

Other comments:

• Leaving out the Old Forest and Tom Bombadil and the Barrow-downs made sense, because you could remove it as an entire unit and leave the adventure as a whole mostly unchanged. They only change they had to make was Strider bringing the hobbits their swords. It works, but it removes the significance of the weapons and their effect upon the Nazgul, which wasn't a problem because Frodo didn't use his on Weathertop! (I wonder if Merry will use his on the battlefield in book 3).
• The Ring itself "wanting to go back to its master." I simply got a much stronger impression of this in the movie than reading the books. Maybe I just missed it while reading; I always assumed that when Frodo's hand "crept toward the ring" that it was the power of the Nazgul or the Unblinking Eye and not the Ring itself willing Frodo to wield it.
• The 4 hobbits leaving the shire. Didn't it seem like Merry and Pippin were "accidental companions?" In the book, they were aware of the Ring, the quest, the danger, and made a conscious choice to accompany Frodo and Sam. Not at all the same in the movie. It's like "Whoops, hello! Quiet, there's a Black Rider! Hey, goin' my way?"
• Battle scenes. These were OK. Very well filmed and FX'ed, but I didn't come away saying, "Man, did you see those battle scenes!" The Orc-chieftan in Moria (or rock-troll, if that's what it was), also, was very drawn out, with an over-dramatic "death" scene where he stabbed Frodo.

You should also check out www.movie-mistakes.com. They've got some pretty funny mistakes, including a CAR driving by in the background of one of the scenes, a bouncing rubber Frodo on the horse as Arwen charges across the river, and a "dead" orc lifting his head to watch Strider run by at the end of the movie.

Despite some of these criticisms, I did enjoy the movie very much, and play to see it again soon. I did get to the theater late and miss the first few minutes, though. Was it just a retelling of the story of the Ring? I arrived as they showed Gollum under the mountain and Bilbo finding the Ring. Did I miss much?

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[ 08 January 2002: Message edited by: MegaTrain ]