...the film boasts memorable appearances by actors who aren’t overwhelmed by the production or simply lost in the crowd.
The DVD also includes a Dolby Digital 2.0 surround English track (for those of you without digital 5.1 set-ups), and English subtitles and closed captions support the audio.
Extras:
With the movie occupying all of the available space on Disc 1, the bonus materials have been placed on Disc 2.
The most substantive extras are the 3 "making-of" featurettes. I believe that they appeared on TV before and during the film´s theatrical run. "Welcome to Middle-Earth" (18 minutes) begins with a brief account of the "LOTR" books before providing a few behind-the-scenes glimpses. "Quest for the Ring" (22 minutes) features longer finished sequences from the film in order to increase viewer interest, and there are some light-hearted on-the-set moments. "A Passage to Middle-Earth" (42 minutes) delves in-depth into the production design. My only complaint is that people who buy the DVD won´t need to be sold on it, so the unrelenting hype seems unnecessary after a while. Also, the footage gets rather repetitious...
Next up are the 15 featurettes originally created for www.lordoftherings.net. Each one runs for only a few minutes, and their titles basically explain their content. They are: "Finding Hobbiton", "Hobbiton Comes Alive", "Believing the World of Bree", "Ringwraiths: The Fallen Kings", "Rivendell: The Elves´ Refuge", "Languages of Middle-Earth", "Two Wizards", "Music of Middle-Earth", "Elijah Wood", "Viggo Mortensen", "Orlando Bloom", "Cate Blanchett", "Liv Tyler", "Ian McKellen", "Weathertop: The Windy Hill".
Enya received an Oscar nomination for her contributions to the film, and the DVD includes her "May It Be" music video for the song that plays during the film´s end credits.
The remaining extras are entirely promotional in nature, but they´re still worth watching. You can enjoy the film´s 2 teaser trailers, 1 final trailer, and 6 TV spots. There´s a preview of the Special Extended DVD Edition of "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" that arrives on November 12, 3 months after the release of the 2-disc set and 1 month before "LOTR 2" premieres in theatres. There´s a 10-minute preview of "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers", and there´s a preview of the Electronic Arts video game "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers".
--DVD-ROM--
Those of you with DVD-ROM access can use the weblinks encoded on the DVDs.
--Miscellaneous--
Since an Amaray slim double-keepcase houses the 2 discs, there´s a glossy fold-out that provides extras and chapter listings.
Entertainment Value:
Of the major contenders at the March 2002 Academy Awards ceremony, I liked "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" the most. The film is a rousing, thrilling, and moving entertainment with an august cast. Perhaps the filmmakers brought more robust energy rather than vision to the project, but their obvious affection for the material results in a memorable cinematic adventure. The 2-disc release of "LOTR 1" will please the majority of consumers, but I´m sure that the movie´s biggest fans can´t wait for the 4-disc version.
Miscellaneous Ramblings by John J. Puccio
I came to "The Lord of the Rings" late. I was only in about the fifth grade when Professor Tolkien first published his trilogy in the mid-1950s, and I wouldn´t probably have been up to reading so massive a tome even had I known about it. Which I didn´t, in any case. It wasn´t until some ten years later that I, along with countless others, mostly college students, discovered the work and took it to heart. I remember reading all three volumes by the pool one sun-drenched California summer. I loved the epic adventures then as I love them now, and it would be sheer fortuitous coincidence that I would later marry a woman who loved the books as much--nay, more--than I did.
Needless to say, I eagerly awaited a film version that almost never came to pass. I had heard rumors that people like Stanley Kubrick, even Orson Welles, were interested in the project, but it was always rejected on the grounds of the extreme difficulty of making it and the enormous expense involved. Those were the days before CGI (computer graphic imaging), and back then, to do the story justice would have required the combined budgets of a dozen super spectaculars.
It didn´t stop me from dreaming, though. Thirty-seven years ago, I imagined Vincent Price (don´t laugh--he was a fine dramatic actor) as Gandalf, and later, after seeing "Star Wars," I was keen on Alec Guinness; I saw Charlton Heston (Moses, Ben-Hur, El Cid) as the heroic Aragorn; and I fancied Christopher Lee as the villainous Saruman. Well, Price and Guinness died, and Heston grew too old for the part, but consider my surprise and delight when I found out that Lee was actually doing Saruman! I hadn´t really given the lead role of Frodo much thought because, in the sixties, there was no way to do the film without using either children or little people as hobbits. Today, special effects can be used to reduce normal-sized actors to fit any shape or form. Anyway, as it turns out, Ian McKellen is perfect as the wizard; Viggo Mortensen is more than adequate as Aragorn; and Elijah Wood, although a bit cuter than I envisioned an ordinary hobbit to be, is fine and noble as Frodo. With the aid of computers, a properly diverse New Zealand landscape, a huge budget, and three full films in which to tell the tale, I couldn´t have been happier with the prospect.
But would the film be the bust the animated version had been, that disappointing cartoon that Eddie alluded to previously? Thank heavens, no. Given that I had a few small doubts about some of the new casting, I nevertheless found the first installment of the series, "The Fellowship of the Ring," almost everything I had hoped it would be. After all, Tolkien, a medieval scholar and Cambridge don, had written a most eloquent and erudite piece of literature that had been imitated a hundred times over in the decades since its publication; the motion-picture rendering had better have been darned good in return.
After an absence of traditional fantasy movies for a long while, I welcomed two superior ones in 2001--"Harry Potter and the Sorcerer´s Stone" and "The Fellowship of the Ring." I was a bit disappointed that "Potter" didn´t quite take wing the way I had hoped it would, which gave me yet more pause to wonder about "The Fellowship," which followed it. But, thanks to director Peter Jackson´s imaginative touches, the sure hand of cinematographer Andrew Lesnie, the brilliance of the ensemble cast, the beauty of the New Zealand landscapes, and the wizardry of the computer graphics, the "Fellowship" production lived up to its hype and fulfilled my many-years´ wait.
This is not to say I wouldn´t have done things differently had I been the director, a pretentiously self-serving remark, I realize. I mean, who am I to differ with a director who´s just made a $300,000,000+ box-office bonanza? But just as Eddie said he had concerns about the film´s structure, so did I, although I simply found it a bit overlong at 178 minutes. Like Eddie, however, I wouldn´t want it cut any further, so maybe more than three films would have been the answer. But, of course, that would have upset the books´ legions of fans, who didn´t approve of the few, minor changes that were already made. Yes, I would liked to have seen the Barrow-wights included and Tom Bombadil, and I would liked to have seen more character development among the members of the Fellowship; and, yes, I did think the battle scenes took up an extraordinary amount of screen time. Yet, most of the first book is there, intact, and that is quite an accomplishment. I foresee, years from now, groups of Tolkien aficionados gathering at one another´s homes and watching all three movies in back-to-back marathons, the way Wagner music enthusiasts get together to listen to the complete "Ring of the Nibelungen" on their stereo systems.
I can only suggest that people enjoy this initial segment of the three-part "Lord of the Rings" as I did, for its "look" most of all: for its glorious sights and sounds and its magical atmosphere and characters. Rejoice in the cheerful good spirits of Hobbiton; drink in the beauties of Rivendell; savor the appearance of every orc and monster; and relish the spookiness of the Old Forest and the Mines of Moria. While it was my favorite film of 2001 and I would have assigned it an entertainment value of 9/10, I can perfectly understand my colleague´s rating of 8. Who´s to quibble? It´s a fine film.
Extras:
With the movie occupying all of the available space on Disc 1, the bonus materials have been placed on Disc 2.
The most substantive extras are the 3 "making-of" featurettes. I believe that they appeared on TV before and during the film´s theatrical run. "Welcome to Middle-Earth" (18 minutes) begins with a brief account of the "LOTR" books before providing a few behind-the-scenes glimpses. "Quest for the Ring" (22 minutes) features longer finished sequences from the film in order to increase viewer interest, and there are some light-hearted on-the-set moments. "A Passage to Middle-Earth" (42 minutes) delves in-depth into the production design. My only complaint is that people who buy the DVD won´t need to be sold on it, so the unrelenting hype seems unnecessary after a while. Also, the footage gets rather repetitious...
Next up are the 15 featurettes originally created for www.lordoftherings.net. Each one runs for only a few minutes, and their titles basically explain their content. They are: "Finding Hobbiton", "Hobbiton Comes Alive", "Believing the World of Bree", "Ringwraiths: The Fallen Kings", "Rivendell: The Elves´ Refuge", "Languages of Middle-Earth", "Two Wizards", "Music of Middle-Earth", "Elijah Wood", "Viggo Mortensen", "Orlando Bloom", "Cate Blanchett", "Liv Tyler", "Ian McKellen", "Weathertop: The Windy Hill".
Enya received an Oscar nomination for her contributions to the film, and the DVD includes her "May It Be" music video for the song that plays during the film´s end credits.
The remaining extras are entirely promotional in nature, but they´re still worth watching. You can enjoy the film´s 2 teaser trailers, 1 final trailer, and 6 TV spots. There´s a preview of the Special Extended DVD Edition of "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" that arrives on November 12, 3 months after the release of the 2-disc set and 1 month before "LOTR 2" premieres in theatres. There´s a 10-minute preview of "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers", and there´s a preview of the Electronic Arts video game "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers".
--DVD-ROM--
Those of you with DVD-ROM access can use the weblinks encoded on the DVDs.
--Miscellaneous--
Since an Amaray slim double-keepcase houses the 2 discs, there´s a glossy fold-out that provides extras and chapter listings.
Entertainment Value:
Of the major contenders at the March 2002 Academy Awards ceremony, I liked "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" the most. The film is a rousing, thrilling, and moving entertainment with an august cast. Perhaps the filmmakers brought more robust energy rather than vision to the project, but their obvious affection for the material results in a memorable cinematic adventure. The 2-disc release of "LOTR 1" will please the majority of consumers, but I´m sure that the movie´s biggest fans can´t wait for the 4-disc version.
Miscellaneous Ramblings by John J. Puccio
I came to "The Lord of the Rings" late. I was only in about the fifth grade when Professor Tolkien first published his trilogy in the mid-1950s, and I wouldn´t probably have been up to reading so massive a tome even had I known about it. Which I didn´t, in any case. It wasn´t until some ten years later that I, along with countless others, mostly college students, discovered the work and took it to heart. I remember reading all three volumes by the pool one sun-drenched California summer. I loved the epic adventures then as I love them now, and it would be sheer fortuitous coincidence that I would later marry a woman who loved the books as much--nay, more--than I did.
Needless to say, I eagerly awaited a film version that almost never came to pass. I had heard rumors that people like Stanley Kubrick, even Orson Welles, were interested in the project, but it was always rejected on the grounds of the extreme difficulty of making it and the enormous expense involved. Those were the days before CGI (computer graphic imaging), and back then, to do the story justice would have required the combined budgets of a dozen super spectaculars.
It didn´t stop me from dreaming, though. Thirty-seven years ago, I imagined Vincent Price (don´t laugh--he was a fine dramatic actor) as Gandalf, and later, after seeing "Star Wars," I was keen on Alec Guinness; I saw Charlton Heston (Moses, Ben-Hur, El Cid) as the heroic Aragorn; and I fancied Christopher Lee as the villainous Saruman. Well, Price and Guinness died, and Heston grew too old for the part, but consider my surprise and delight when I found out that Lee was actually doing Saruman! I hadn´t really given the lead role of Frodo much thought because, in the sixties, there was no way to do the film without using either children or little people as hobbits. Today, special effects can be used to reduce normal-sized actors to fit any shape or form. Anyway, as it turns out, Ian McKellen is perfect as the wizard; Viggo Mortensen is more than adequate as Aragorn; and Elijah Wood, although a bit cuter than I envisioned an ordinary hobbit to be, is fine and noble as Frodo. With the aid of computers, a properly diverse New Zealand landscape, a huge budget, and three full films in which to tell the tale, I couldn´t have been happier with the prospect.
But would the film be the bust the animated version had been, that disappointing cartoon that Eddie alluded to previously? Thank heavens, no. Given that I had a few small doubts about some of the new casting, I nevertheless found the first installment of the series, "The Fellowship of the Ring," almost everything I had hoped it would be. After all, Tolkien, a medieval scholar and Cambridge don, had written a most eloquent and erudite piece of literature that had been imitated a hundred times over in the decades since its publication; the motion-picture rendering had better have been darned good in return.
After an absence of traditional fantasy movies for a long while, I welcomed two superior ones in 2001--"Harry Potter and the Sorcerer´s Stone" and "The Fellowship of the Ring." I was a bit disappointed that "Potter" didn´t quite take wing the way I had hoped it would, which gave me yet more pause to wonder about "The Fellowship," which followed it. But, thanks to director Peter Jackson´s imaginative touches, the sure hand of cinematographer Andrew Lesnie, the brilliance of the ensemble cast, the beauty of the New Zealand landscapes, and the wizardry of the computer graphics, the "Fellowship" production lived up to its hype and fulfilled my many-years´ wait.
This is not to say I wouldn´t have done things differently had I been the director, a pretentiously self-serving remark, I realize. I mean, who am I to differ with a director who´s just made a $300,000,000+ box-office bonanza? But just as Eddie said he had concerns about the film´s structure, so did I, although I simply found it a bit overlong at 178 minutes. Like Eddie, however, I wouldn´t want it cut any further, so maybe more than three films would have been the answer. But, of course, that would have upset the books´ legions of fans, who didn´t approve of the few, minor changes that were already made. Yes, I would liked to have seen the Barrow-wights included and Tom Bombadil, and I would liked to have seen more character development among the members of the Fellowship; and, yes, I did think the battle scenes took up an extraordinary amount of screen time. Yet, most of the first book is there, intact, and that is quite an accomplishment. I foresee, years from now, groups of Tolkien aficionados gathering at one another´s homes and watching all three movies in back-to-back marathons, the way Wagner music enthusiasts get together to listen to the complete "Ring of the Nibelungen" on their stereo systems.
I can only suggest that people enjoy this initial segment of the three-part "Lord of the Rings" as I did, for its "look" most of all: for its glorious sights and sounds and its magical atmosphere and characters. Rejoice in the cheerful good spirits of Hobbiton; drink in the beauties of Rivendell; savor the appearance of every orc and monster; and relish the spookiness of the Old Forest and the Mines of Moria. While it was my favorite film of 2001 and I would have assigned it an entertainment value of 9/10, I can perfectly understand my colleague´s rating of 8. Who´s to quibble? It´s a fine film.
Average user rating (1-5):
[release]10084[/release]