The Fellowship of the Ring - Meditation on a GREAT adaptation

(reviewing the Extended Edition - duh!)

The day when a kiwi director better known for B splatter flicks such as the beautifully ludicrous Braindead and an weirdly awe-inspiring artsy dark character drama like Heavenly Creatures; decided to adapt the life-spanning masterwork of a man that built a beloved legacy, so revered and idolized that impacted generations till this day through one of the most beautifully architected, poetically rendered, deeply steeped in rich understanding of folkloric mythos and the hallowed beauty of writing itself as an artistic expression of human mind, that brought to life perhaps the richest vast literary world ever created under the high fantasy staple, which is J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle Earth.

Oh yeah, I’m going there! I’m yet another one of those noob nerds that grown part of his cinephile upbringing by watching and getting lost in the hundreds of hours of The Lord of the Rings movies as my comfort escape away up to the Lonely Mountains. Getting lost in the mythological vastness of Tolkien’s world, getting in awe by the sheer spectacle of its vast multifaceted epic universe, the ferocious world-event battles, being swept by the good vs evil tales of common folk like the peaceful Hobbits holding the balance of the known world solely in their sheer capability of bravery and being truthful to the values of friendship, and how small acts of pity, virtue, tender, kindness, forgiveness; can change the world!

If The Lord of the Rings defined fantasy in literature, the movies became to define it in cinema. The same way Star Wars became the access to science-fiction for many becoming a pop-culture icon accessible to the masses, so too Jackson’s trilogy does for the fairy tale adventures across ancient medieval landscape and the powers that hold good and evil forever struggling; but somehow feels so much more than just that! It isn’t as mature or operatically idyllic like John Boorman’s Excalibur nor has the gritty edge like Conan, The Barbarian or even half of the visual-gasm from something like Legend.

But if compared to its fantasy contemporaries in the 2000s from Harry Potter or Pirates of the Caribbean, Jackson’s Rings evokes something that feels like a natural evolution to past cinematic pears in massive productions such as this. From the whimsical taste for lightheartedness and darkness from the silent era ranging from Fairbanks flicks or Lang’s Die Nibelungen, to the creative opulent splendor from 60s epics by the likes of Lean, DeMille or Wyler; his Lord of the Rings becomes a crown-worthy epic for the modern era that maybe only Ridley Scott managed to match again.

More than that, it packs this sense of spirituality embedded in its lore and universe. An earnestness to its simple themes of heroism found in the small acts of friendships, that echo in powerful range of expression and covers its entire massive ambitious scale without losing an ounce of the pure soul that drives it in the first place! You’ve heard to death how The Fellowship of the Ring is the perfect adventure movie, and is hard to state the opposite.

The way it presents its universe and throws us into Frodo’s quest feels like entering a completely different plain of existence just for a couple of hours. The sanctity present in the looming atmosphere and the divine sound of the voice from Blanchett’s Galadriel, seemed that they’ve found the cosmic recipe to remove our coordinative motions and let ourselves, minds and souls, get into the flow that Jackson creates through an endless prosaic succession of hard-hitting impactful scenes, sounds and motions.

All carries meaning, everything is steeped into its larger story, and yet we are constantly getting enthralled by the little moments. The intimate surroundings of a Hobbit’s hole in the ground; a fool dancing of a Tûk or a beloved grumpy dwarf complaining about the smell of Elfish hair cream, till he gets three to forever change his single minded world-view and we forever love him for it.

Every character fits their characters like gloves designed in heaven, and while Elijah Wood is definitely not as cunning or brave as book Frodo, the melancholy and his purity of soul is evenly matched to the characters  centerpiece soul and makes for a still untraditional leading-protagonist that’s lead not by the strength of his arm but by the will of his heart. Furthermore …what else can I add? The characters made the world of Tolkien come to life. Is what turned the events of the third age from a centuries-spanning multi-connected epic narrative of biblical proportions into the defining chapter of Middle Earth. The movies couldn’t fail them, and they don’t!

Viggo Mortensen’s struggling hero and cunning bravery makes his Aragorn every bit as inspiring as his book counterpart; while Cate Blanchett almost holy gaze and Christopher Lee unbridled corrupt cruelty, seem lift straight from the book; while the likes of Ian McKellen were made even more both fascinatingly endearing while more heartfeltly compelling. You both wanna hug Gandalf while listen to his thoughtful scolding through the entire three plus hours. The character's slight malice and paternalistic authority remain intact from Tolkien’s descriptions, but the warmth you grow for the character throughout the story is already firmly present in McKellen’s committed body-and-soul performance.

And while Sean Astin is definitely the real hero of the story, is the other Sean - the Bean; that becomes the unlikely light of hope, laid at the center of the narrative! If Boromir was a Judas cautionary symbol in Tolkien's novel, in the movie he's made part of the possible attainable change one can do towards good after falling to error of sinful temptation. That one can triumph over the easy accessible layers of vice and tyranny that oppress the soul and corrupts the individual. That one selfless act doesn’t just change the world, but can make our role in it roar loud, through the people that we make connections, the good that we can choose to act upon! ‘Changes’ like this that still feel SO in character and in lore that while is creating its own take of Tolkien’s Middle Earth, is steadily connecting itself with it!

The vastness of mythology geography races from Tolkien’s world that built an sprawling encyclopedic epic is translated to a character-centered tale of struggling with the ambivalent nature that divides good and evil in the world we inhabit and the role we play in it, but including the enormity that surrounds ours – and its characters; existence. The entire tightly elegant composed script formed by direct lines and quotes from the book and built around its structure near flawlessly. A lot is trimmed down, shortened, or Bombadil-cut out; but what resounds as the greatness of the movie is due to its original story being nearly intact on the screen, and the feelings each chapter awakened.

Ian Holm’s Bilbo being the initial protagonist of the narrative, tying with The Hobbit events, and progressively giving the main stage to Frodo; the divine intermissions with the elves both in Rivendell and in Lothlórien; the mystery and the menace present in every shadow inside Moria and its deep endless pits of darkness, while you’re accompanied by the most fearsome loyal fellowship of friends one could ask for so you're enthralled through every step they take till they see the sunlight again. Lord of the Rings soul is brought to life!

While its immersive vastness gets the epic filmmaking treatment by the traditional ways of practical effects, miniature photography, enhanced by digital effects beyond its known limits. It remains remarkable how Jackson went from indie filmmaker to pulling off a James Cameron home school of pushing technological boundaries in favor of story and world. Moving an entire nation and a army of workers to bring it to life with the aid of state of the art technology; and still remaining truthful to the experimentalist filmmaker he is.

The camera floats around the scenes with energetic and gravity defying movements almost with a life of its own, exploring every little corner of its universe, filling it with imaginative action scenes and one memorable set-piece after another. Jackson steadily jumps between tones alternating from the gross-out horror from the depths of Isengard hellish creations to the ethereal surroundings of Lothlórien. One could call it inconsistency given Jackson's own hypervibrant signature to overtake a step beyond what he's trying to express. And yes some of it can come off REALLY corny, but it creates the identity of its movies, that beams out the multivaried world of Tolkien to its own distinctive language that feels unmatchable or comparable to anything else made prior or since!

And especially after you’ve read the immersive descriptions from the books, you can clearly see the IMPRESSIVE location work made by Jackson and crew to find sets and locations through the gorgeous New Zeeland vistas that fit in Tolkien’s descriptions, brought to life under painterly stylization matched with its grounded tonality that brings Alan Lee and John Howe artwork creating life through the frames flawlessly. So the world of Tolkien remains intact, alive, exuberant and the special word, magical! Never mind the exciting moments present throughout the stead-fast adventure pacing that this takes you in, that range from the horrors of the Nazgul riders, to dramatic send offs that too range from epic stuff like YOU SHALL NOT PASS, to every small character interaction. But what tops it all off?!

This:

A singular moment like the crossing of the Argonath gets you swept away in Middle Earth and its events as a whole for just a couple of iconic seconds, and translate so much: the longitude that the little Hobbits – and their friends, have crossed; the long spanning-history of this world and the secrets that it hides; the beauty present through every corner of the natural landscape.

Is the sole moment that conveys something that Tolkien often cited about how one writer can achieve a good story: convey a ‘truth’! And this is the moment of the movie that sells the authentic truth of this world and story, it’s all there in the frame, its Tolkien’s themes and universe, encompassed by the cherry on top: Howard Shore’s music, a opera for the ages that you believe is part of the music of the Ainur and Iluvatar's creation!

I’m from the league that judges the trilogy as one-long movie entity split in three parts, much like Tolkien considered the story itself. But is undeniable the effort that Jackson, Walsh and Boyens made to fit a three-act structure to each film with their own solid particular endings, while keeping the consistent tying-in between the three movies. And outside Fellowship following that structure without any hiccups, the ending has this comforting hopeful glance towards the dark unknown, while carrying the melancholy beats of all that was lost. But with a Sam on our side, what do we need to fear when loyal, devotion and friendship remains with us!

The Fellowship single handedly, while the part of something even larger, already encapsulates what this trilogy is and why it means for so many people: It’s high escapism with a soulful touch. One that we take with ourselves throughout our lives!