Review of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) by Matt D — 30 Nov 2018

The best example of faithful book-to-screen adaptation in cinema. If you watch the Extended Cut or read the book, as I did many times as a kid, you know how much story there is to condense into the relatively short run time.

Watching the theatrical cut again last weekend with my kids, I was blown away at the masterful way characters, scenes, vignettes, narration, flashbacks and all the tools of this sort of fantasy cinematic storytelling are used to give a brilliant, clear and faithful screen depiction of one of the most loved books in the world.

Example: "Let's take a shortcut!" "A shortcut to what?" [trips over, lands at the base of a tree and sees...] "Mushrooms" Twenty odd years later we take this film for granted but it was SO brilliantly done.

Thanks Fran, Pippa and Peter!!