Review of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) by Kenc — 24 Apr 2010

It's generally accepted that when adapting a book you invariably end up removing scenes. A filmmaker's responsibility to the source material is to capture the essence of it with some respect.

Jackson manages to only capture the surface layer of the story and by adding a good 100 minutes of additional scenes that are not in the book he lets the source down badly. Some argue that it is a "reimagining" and that it was impossible to film otherwise which is nonsense.

The added and erroneous scenes could easily have been replaced with some of the key ones that were removed. Tom Bombadil in "Fellowship" for example, and "The Scouring Of The Shire" which was critical to Return Of The King as you see how the members of the fellowship were so changed by their experiences.

Replacing such critical scenes with dross shows a complete lack of respect for the source. In the end Jackson's LOTR is all sound and fury signifying nothing more than the filmmakers ego. What an awful waste.