My favorite entertainments are generally simple and beautiful and inspiring, and have at least some elements of fantasy. Peter S. Beagle's "The Last Unicorn" has been and will always be my favorite book. And Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy will forever be my favorite movies, with the first of the three, "The Fellowship of the Ring," copping top honors.
Why? Because I loved the books, and I believed right up until about five minutes in to "Fellowship," that no moviemaker could do justice to Tolkien. I walked into the theater with low expectations and was blown away.
No, I didn't think the movies were perfect. But I came away from them wishing I'd had a hand in their making, wishing I could have been so much as a janitor on the set in New Zealand for those years in which Jackson and company labored to bring Tolkien's tale to the screen. There was evident so much care and so much love for the material ... the making of the Ring trilogy movies, for me, represents a kind of commitment that was unique in scale and quality and cannot be surpassed.
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Emily Holleman
Estellar Expectations
Desperate Salon
Currer Bell
fingerlakeswanderer
Julianne Chatelain
Salon.com
Comments
I could make a long list, from memory, of things I think they could have done better, parts I wished they'd put in, deviations from the book that I thought were stupid. But I think overall, I'm in awe of the accomplishment, the grandness of the execution.
OEsheep ... Make sure you watch the special features on the DVD ... the "making of" material is amazing.