The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) (1 Viewer)

[Ryan Peter]

Yeah, the 12:01 crowd was great here as well. A lot of getting up by some of the younger ones, but no talking no cells. I wouldn't expect the same out of the matinee or regular evening folks though. These were true fans and geeks tonight.

 

[Ryan Peter]

Was this movie dubbed into German and French (when it plays in Germany and France) or did they use subtitles?

 

[Walter Kittel]

Regarding the crowd, we had one guy stumble in just before the previews ( Austin Power's Goldmember rocked, BTW ) who made a bunch of noise and I thought to myself 'Oh great, just what we need' But to his credit, as soon as the film started rolling he quieted up. No disturbances, etc. at my showing. It was a nice experience.
On another topic, I'm a pretty big defender of Ebert on this forum, but his :star: :star: :star: rating of LOTR:FOTR makes me question his sanity. A lot of folks on this forum, including yours truly, believe that Ebert tends to give props to films that excel at world building. I don't know what frickin' version of FOTR he was watching, but the one I watched was magnificent in that role. ( Actually, I read his review and I think he needs to re-read the novels since his problems seem to stem from a perceived lack of emphasis on the Hobbits in the film. )
Anyway, enough for now. Gotta try to get some sleep.
- Walter.

 

[Ryan Peter]

Here's an article from the big guy about the movie:
http://www.suntimes.com/output/ebert...tr-lord19.html

 

[Scott Weinberg]

OK, I saw the midnight show tonight, ran home to bang out my review and now I'm here.
If any of you are at all familiar with my movie reviews, you might note that I generally don't GUSH over movies.
Having said that....
WOW!!!!! WOW! WooooW!!!
If I didn't know better, I'd think Peter Jackson made this movie for ME only! I gotta crash now, but I'll post my review in the appropriate thread tomorrow. If you'd like to take a look before that (as if I'm some big popular movie critic, ha), feel free to take a look here.
And in case I didn't mention it yet...just wow.

 

[Paul W]

At the end of the movie, the person sitting behind me said aloud:

"Boy they leave the shit hanging, don't they."

 

[Pete-D]

Just saw it tonight. I've read the books so I ate it up. The action sequences were a lot cooler than even I could've imagined. I saw it with about 8 other friends, most of whom didn't know much about the LOTR books beforehand. The general consensus from the audience to be honest seemed negative, because there were a lot of "joe six-pack" movie goers who I suppose thought the movie was too long.
I loved it, however . I think it'll go down as the ultimate "geek" movie, to make up for all those who complained about the Phantom Menace. I'm not sure however that the general public in large will embrace this film. I suspect it'll open big but suffer a large drop off.
It's not so much even the length but the "and then...and then....and then" structure that Tolkien used in his books, that I can understand being redundant to some people. I was very happy with it, I felt even the "comedic" elements and the "warm" sides of characters like Gandalf came through better than I had hoped for.

 

[Ryan Peter]

I forgot to mention: the biggest laugh was the DWARF TOSSING
line, that was great!

 

[Ryan Peter]

Did anyone think the big CGI cave troll was a lot better in this movie than Harry Potter?

 

[Ryan Peter]

Scott, your review is excellent. You've captured my thoughts exactly!

 

[Scott Weinberg]

Did anyone think the big CGI cave troll was a lot better in this movie than Harry Potter?

The troll in Harry Potter was pretty neat.
The troll in Lord of the Rings might be THE coolest CGI creation I've ever seen. The ENTIRE Mines of Moria* sequence is simply unbelievable.
*Forgive the spelling. I haven't read the books....YET!

 

[Pete-D]

The Moria scene was unbelievable, but I really loved the battle with the Uruk-Hai (sp?) at the end. Aragorn and Boromir were so bad ass and so was the "lead" Uruk-Hai baddie (been a year since I read FOTR so I wasn't able to keep track of all the names). Aragorn taking off the head of that bastard was just too cool. Legolas firing bows and taking down orcs one after another was another cool shot.

Jackson's "moving" camera style worked great for the shots of the cities/towers (unbelievable), but sometimes were a tad overdone. The first battle between Gandalf and Saruman inside the tower came across as bit too "MTV-ish" for my tastes though.

I think where some of the "average" movie-goers got lost with this film is after the Fellowship emerges from the Mines of Moria sans Gandalf. Most people were expecting it to end there, and then the Galadrial sequence afterwards may have seemed bizarre to some.

One thing that didn't quite click was the passing of time. Someone else mentioned this earlier and I agree, it didn't really seem like time was passing in the story. That was something Tolkien did *very* well in the books, particularily with Gandalf having been at Weathertop before the Aragorn and company got there. I think it may have helped the audience to digest things a little easier if there was a sense of a large amount of time passing. For someone unfamilar with the universe at all, the "stop! go! stop! go!" nature of the story probably became exhausting as all the events seemed to click right after each other.

 

[Andrew 'Ange Hamm' Hamm]

I'm going to the first showing in the Richmond area, at 11:15 this morning. That way I have time to see it again if I need to before picking up my wife from work.

 

[Michael Dueppen]

Was this movie dubbed into German and French (when it plays in Germany and France) or did they use subtitles?

I don't know if you ment me or someone else but here goes: Normally this movie plays in a dubbed version here in Germany as with almost every single other movie. But I went to a cinema that shows movies in their original language (as I always do). Unfortunately this movie is distributed by a company that puts German subtitles on them (costs less). I normally wait for the DVD then because the subs just take me out the movie. Of course I could not wait for the DVD with this movie. Surprisingly I didn't even mind the subs really. I didn't focus on them.

Since New Line's contract with this German company ends next month iirc I have high hopes that LOTR:2 won't have subtitles. Iirc it will be distributed by Warner Bros then.

One Ring To Rule Them All...

 

[Craig S]

FotR has received yet another stellar rating, an A+ from the Houston Chronicle's Eric Harrison. He is a pretty tough reviewer, and doesn't give out this grade lightly. BTW, he has NOT read the books.
The review itself is a little odd - Harrison tends to go off on tangents, and the bulk of his review is ruminations on the story's relevance to the world situation and then the inevitable comparisons with Star Wars and Harry Potter. He never talks about the acting or other things you would normally see in a review! Nevertheless, there is the following unqualified praise:

Jackson's film feels like an honest attempt to use the power of cinema to engage the imagination and senses in deep-ranging and seriously engaged myth. It's the real thing. It makes all the other derivative works look like what they are -- pale imitations.

It's good to see so many of you midnight warriors chiming in with positive reactions this morning. For me, only 3 hours to go before I'm in Middle Earth!!

 

[Bill McCamy]

Well, well. There were no midnight showings in this area AFAIK. I'd never have made it to one and then to work anyway. But, magically, my workload has cleared a little today. I'll stroll to the downtown cinema, check out the line, and if not too bad, just might pop in for a view before lunch.

 

[Mark Zimmer]

Picked up my tickets yesterday for the 1:30 and 5:15 showings today. Four and a half hours and counting....

 

[Pete D]

On a side note, I have a question about the movie. As a Lord of the Rings neophyte, what is the Balrog? Is that the huge creature swinging the club in the trailer? Thanks.

 

[Bill McCamy]

No, the guy with the club is a cave troll. The Balrog lives deep in the earth under Moria. Its appearance has been the subject of some debate (wings v. no wings). It's related to the "shall not pass" scene.

 

[Artur Meinild]

The more I think about this movie, the more I want to see it again! I have an urge to go see this movie tonight!
The master ring wants me to go...
Must see if I can get some returned tickets! Yesterday when I got out of the theater I didn't realize how good it really was, but it's definitely growing on me!
Gotta love this movie, is the Balrôg goddamn cool or what!!!