Just saw Lord of The Rings last night

[Mahdi]

Well, as some of you remember, I'm in the process of reading the book (almost done now) and while it is getting better I'm stll not really impressed by it, so I didn't watch this movie as a huge fan of Tolkiens, so I hope to aviod the typical fan response to movies based on there favourite books:  Either really hating it no matter how good it is, or really loving it no matter how bad it is.

Peter Jackson is obviously a fan of the books, you can tellt hat from watching this film.  There is a lot of stuff, especially in the first half of the movie, that he left in that should have been cut, because he caught half the scene out.  Such as what happens after Bilbo's birthday party.  He kept the part of Gandalf going away, but cut out everything that happened after he went away and made him go away for a few days only.  Then the trek into the forest, the part with the ringwraths was kept, but everything else was cut.  So they'd encounter the ringwraths, they'd get away, and then the next scene the ring wraths are back.  The first half was filled with moments like that, where Jackson only cut out part of a particular scene or adventure and left the other part in leaving a really choppy beginning and middle.  

And the inclusion of the scenes with Gandalf and Saruman didn't really add anything to the film, except time.  He could have just followed the book in that matter and had Gandalf tell Frodo to leave in a few days and that he'd be back int he Shire before Frodo left, then have him ride off and never re-appear until Rivendell, then he could have explained what happened to him in the council.  It would have hieghtened the suspense, and shortened the film.  Instead we got a sad battle between him and saruman (when I heard it was a battle of wills, I thought that it was going to be the two of them standing a few paces away and staring at each other, with the strain of the battle being seen on there faces, and the walls of the building around them trembling, that sort of thing.  Instead they threw each other around).

 After they get to Rivendell (with a real unimportant moment with Arwen, I found the character completly unnecessary) the movie vastly improves, the choppiness seems to disapear for the most part, and the suspense increases.  

I have not reached the part of the book where anyone dies, but I had heard that some of the characters do die, so that lent a bit extra to the suspnse of the film.  Is this when someone dies?  Who is it going to be?  Gandalf's death scene didn't seem right to me, I'd have rather seen him using so much majic to defeat the shadow that it left him dead, but seeing as I haven't read that far yet, it could just be that Tolkien wrote his deatht he way seen in the movie.  I'll probably find out latter today.  Bormir's death scene was good, I enjoyed it,t he way he jsut kept on fighting until the end, same with Pippens and Merry's capture, and I actually thought they were going to kill off Sam in the lake.

I was disapointed with the fight scenes.  The director moved the camera around so quick that you couldn't see anything, except a sword here, and a guy fall over there.  The Ringwraths too.  They were set-up to be a huge menace throughout the film, and disapeared half-way through, although, again, that may be the way Tolkein wrote it.  

The special effects, well, they were ok, but they could have been better.  They reminded me of the effects in Tomb Raider.  There were some parts, especially where Legolas jumps onto and off of the troll that looked a lot more like a video game than anything else.

All in all, and ok film.  From about Rivendell on it was pretty good, the ending was great, but from the start to Rivendell it was fairly blah.  A movie I'd rent on video, but not go to the theatres to see.  If The Two Towers keeps up what we saw at the end of the Fellowship, than it may be a pretty good movie.

[Ligic_Tha_Master]

I liked thge movie pretty much.

Saw it on tuesday.

[Ligic_Tha_Master]

Gandalf didn't die, when dropping with Balrog.

[thomas]

he is no longer gray, I can tell you that. :-X oh I really liked it, I read the books but a year ago.

[alphabeta4000]

read the book plenty of times really like it movie okay a bit on the ugly side my little sister would have run out screaming, not bad and the balrog looked good anyway has anyone read the silmalerion or what ever it is called? as well as the other one like a appendix of middle earth (an entire book devoted to middle earths stuff) I have read them and know that before sauron was morgoth who was lord of sauron and the balrogs were fire spirits they were like  sauron because they were the maiar the servants of the ainur. I could go on forevevr cause i know quite a bit of middle earth but morgoth was the dark lord before sauron if you want more just ask