Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) *Gillian Pick*

What is it about wizards, magic, and swords that attract nerds? Like a moth to a flame they attach themselves to anything magical or medievel, even going so far as to fight each other with foam swords.



This video doesn't seem so weird because it looks like a bunch of kids having fun in their backyard. That's somewhat normal until you find out that the person throwing "lightning bolts" is actually a 30 year old man. Now I'm not saying that only nerds like magical tales, and I'm not saying that it's overly strange that men play such games, I'm just observing that geeky people magnetize to fantasy stories a little more than others. The Lord of the Rings trilogy is the long awaited holy grail of fantasy movies, and it turned us all into nerds.

The Fellowship of the Ring is the first movie in the Lord of the Rings saga, and is an epic beginning to an epic journey. Before I begin this synopsis let me say that I will probably say something that is incorrect, but I don't really care. In a nutshell there is an evil dude (I guess he's a monster but I don't know) named Lord Sauron. He has made a ring that is pure evil, and the source of his power. It gets lost and is found by a hobbit (which is just a little person) named Bilbo. At the urging of a wizard named Gandalf, Frodo (Bilbo's nephew) sets out to destroy the ring. The catch is it must be destroyed where it was made. So with the help of a few hobbits, an elf, a couple of humans, a wizard, and a dwarf Frodo starts on his journey.



The major problem for the makers of this movie was what to leave out from the books. Someone is bound to be disappointed, and there's always a debate about whether the movie or the book was better. In my opinion, they did a great job picking what to leave out. For example, they completely cut out Tom Bombadil. That whole section of the book (which to me felt like 100 pages) has no real influence on the plot as a whole. All through high school I had to listen to nerds gripe about this omission. Who really cares? Let me get something off my chest: I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR LORD OF THE RINGS ANALYSIS!!! I don't care about Gandalf the Gray vs. Gandalf the White. I don't care about the origin of Orcs. All I care about is that I enjoy watching these movies.

While my favorite movie the trilogy is The Return of the King, I still love The Fellowship of the Ring. The visuals are amazing, the story is epic, the use of perspective to make the hobbits look small are mind blowing, and the sets and costumes are incredible. The movies are really long, but that's alright by me. As if they weren't long enough, they released extended versions of these movies that made them even longer. For those of you that think this is too long, here is a short version just for you:



The Bottom Line:
Rating: 4.7
Would I own it? I already do.
Would I recommend it? If I ever find anyone that hasn't seen it yet.