Empire Magazine (2008) Greatest Movies List - #24: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

 

Looking back on the first movie in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings saga, my first thought is that people really need fantasy in their lives. The Fellowship of the Ring came out in 2001, a year when to say the least the news were pretty depressing. An escape to a fantasy land filled with wizards, hobbits, elves, and dwarves engaged in a fight of good versus of evil came at just the right time. You get a certain feeling when you sit in a theater, the lights dim, and you are swept away to the beauty of Middle Earth, via New Zealand. Given the length of Jackson’s movies, it is also a fairly long escape from reality.

Prior to sitting down in that theater in 2001, my knowledge of J.R.R Tolkien’s fantasy work was fair at best. I believe I had read the books at least once before and has seen the animated movie from the 1980s, but I was no Stephen Colbert. Since watching that first movie my appreciation for Tolkien’s world has grown as I own the extended cuts of every one of the movies (even The Hobbit). They’re not Christmas movies, but they are really good movies to dive into during a cold December weekend. The pandemic years were also an especially good time to once again escape from it all.

Peter Jackson was a bit of surprising choice to helm this multi-million-dollar franchise as it would require massive resources all over New Zealand and years of effort. Prior to this he was best know for extremely gory horror movies, and his biggest special effects movie had been The Frighteners with Michael J. Fox. Yet clearly the man knew what he was doing because he managed to please both fans of the books and millions of audience members who were new to this world.

The movie’s prologue does a great job of both introducing the world and setting up what is to come, thanks to the graceful narration of Cate Blanchet, an actress born to play an elf queen. Within ten minutes the audience gets the gist of the story: Sauron is a villain intend on enslaving the world, he has armies at his disposal, he has forged a magic ring that renders him all-powerful, and the armies of Middle Earth have gathered to stop him. They nearly succeed, except when it comes time to destroy the ring one man falters and the ring is lost, ensuring Sauron will rise again one day. Of all people in this world, the ring eventually finds its way to Bilbo (Ian Holm) a member of the peace-loving hobbit race.

Following his 111^th birthday (wow!) Bilbo decides to leave his land and to give his ring to his nephew Frodo (Elijah Wood). Yet Bilbo has a very hard time letting go of the ring, almost as though it has a hold on him. This raises the suspicion of his wizard friend Gandalf the Grey (Ian Mckellen) who after some research realizes Frodo now holds the most powerful item in the world. This kicks off the story’s epic quest in which the hero must travel across dangerous and distant lands in order to save the world by throwing the ring into a roaring volcano.

As the movie’s title indicates, Frodo does not travel alone. Joining him reluctantly at first is his best friend Samwise (Sean Astin), and mischievous trouble-makers Merry and Pippin (Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd, whose on-screen chemistry led to a real-life friendship). These are brave and good people, but they are not warriors by any means. Fortunately, along their journey the ranks of their fellowship grows with brave ranger Strider (Viggo Mortensen), proud dwarf Gimli (John Rhys-Davies), master archer elf Legolas (Orlando Bloom), and ambitious warrior Boromir (Sean Bean).

That is the story on paper, but anyone who has watched the behind-the-scenes features of the movies knows it took a gargantuan effort to bring this world to life. Actors were flown to various locations of New Zealand, carpenters build Hobbiton and other locations from the ground up, makeup artists had to bury John Rhys-Davies under layers of prosthetics every day, blacksmiths forged hundreds of swords, and a whole brigade of special effects wizards spent hours staring at screens as they created digital creatures.

Jackson was also wise to mix practical effects with the computer imagery in order to truly immerse the audience in Middle Earth. To create the tower of traitorous wizard Saruman (Christopher Lee) artists built big miniatures (nicknamed “bigatures”) of the building to integrate with digital backgrounds. One of my favourite shots in the entire franchise is of the camera sweeping from the top of the tower all the way down to expanding caverns below, set to the booming score of Howard Shore.

Since the movie’s release there have been many imitators and parodies, as well as memes of Sean Bean uttering his famous line “One does not simply walk into Mordor.” Given the amount of money it generated, and the awards the last movie won, we now also have a prequel show on Amazon and there are talks of even more movies coming to the big screen. No matter how good those movies might be, I think this all could eventually generate some Middle Earth fatigue. Nevertheless, on a cold December afternoon if I feel the need for escapism, I will probably get some popcorn and head off to Middle Earth once again.