Thursday, January 03, 2002
Holidays - Day 15
I don't know what the official maximum temperature was in Brisbane, but the thermometer at home was registering 35 inside and 37 outside. Needless to say I spent most of the day in the pool.
In the evening we had a family dinner, then went up to the cinemas at Chermside for Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring. I'm definately going Gold Class for the next two; nothing beats a good movie combined with big seats and table service.
SPOILER WARNING
I was very very impressed. The locations were done really really well; The Mines of Moria, for example, were just how I pictured them whilst reading the books. However, with any book-film translation a few things were sacrificed. The sense of this being an epic journey seemed to be missing - the journey from The Shire to Rivendell went very very quickly. I'm disappointed Tom Bombadil was cut. My biggest disappointment was the glossed-over nature of the relationships in the Fellowship; the relationship between Gimli and Legolas for example. There was no good-natured ribbing about their respective headcounts as there was in the book; hopefully that will come out more in the next films.
That said, I think that the opening sequence that explains the history of the Ring and how it came to be in The Shire was really well done, and I'm glad it was the opening sequence because I think a lot of people who've yet to read the books may not've been able to follow as well. I'm also glad that the production team opted for the chronological sequence as opposed to the temporal back & forth character-telling-a-story method as used in the books. I think a lot of filmgoers would've been a bit cheesed off if they'd had to wait for the Council of Elrond to get the history of the Ring and an explanation for where Gandalf had been.
I'm definately going to see it again. I give it 5 stars.
(More here.)
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