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

A meek hobbit of The Shire and eight companions set out on a journey to Mount Doom to destroy the One Ring and the dark lord Sauron.

Director:

Peter Jackson

Writers:

J.R.R. Tolkien (novel), Fran Walsh (screenplay),

Stars:

Elijah Wood, Sean Bean, Orlando Bloom

Top 250 #12 | Won 4 Oscars. Another 80 wins & 89 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Alan Howard	...	The Ring (voice)
Elijah Wood	...	Frodo Baggins
Noel Appleby	...	Everard Proudfoot
Sean Astin	...	Samwise 'Sam' Gamgee
Sala Baker	...	Sauron
Sean Bean	...	Boromir
Cate Blanchett	...	Galadriel
Orlando Bloom	...	Legolas Greenleaf
Billy Boyd	...	Peregrin 'Pippin' Took
Marton Csokas	...	Celeborn
Megan Edwards	...	Mrs. Proudfoot
Michael Elsworth	...	Gondorian Archivist
Mark Ferguson	...	Gil-Galad
Ian Holm	...	Bilbo Baggins
Christopher Lee	...	Saruman

Storyline

An ancient Ring thought lost for centuries has been found, and through a strange twist in fate has been given to a small Hobbit named Frodo. When Gandalf discovers the Ring is in fact the One Ring of the Dark Lord Sauron, Frodo must make an epic quest to the Cracks of Doom in order to destroy it! However he does not go alone. He is joined by Gandalf, Legolas the elf, Gimli the Dwarf, Aragorn, Boromir and his three Hobbit friends Merry, Pippin and Samwise. Through mountains, snow, darkness, forests, rivers and plains, facing evil and danger at every corner the Fellowship of the Ring must go. Their quest to destroy the One Ring is the only hope for the end of the Dark Lords reign!

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Plot Keywords:

ring | hobbit | doom | middle earth | quest | 

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Taglines:

All we have to decide is what to do with the time that we are given

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Genres:

Action | Adventure | Fantasy

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for epic battle sequences and some scary images

Details

Official Sites:

Allocine (French) Aurum [es]

Country:

New Zealand USA

Language:

English Sindarin

Release Date:

19 December 2001 (USA)

Also Known As:

The Fellowship of the Ring

Filming Locations:

Arrowtown Recreational Reserve, Arrowtown, Otago, New Zealand

Box Office

Budget:

$93,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

$5,163,034 (Italy) (18 January 2002)

Gross:

$36,116,967 (Europe) (19 December 2003)

Company Credits

Production Co:

New Line Cinema, WingNut Films, The Saul Zaentz Company

Technical Specs

Runtime:

178 min 208 min (special extended edition) 228 min (including extended credits)

Sound Mix:

DTS-ES Dolby Digital EX SDDS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

John Howe designed Bag End to resemble a perfectly English home even though he's never actually been to England.

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Goofs

When Aragorn's pack bumps the camera, it's on his right shoulder, but in the next shot you see it's on the left.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Galadriel: The world is changed. I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air. Much that once was is lost, for none now live who remember it. It began with the forging of the Great Rings. Three were given to the Elves, immortal, wisest and fairest of all beings. Seven to the Dwarf lords, great miners and craftsmen of the mountain halls. And nine, nine rings were gifted to the race of men, who, above all else, desire power. But they were, all of them, deceived, for ...

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Crazy Credits

There are no opening credits after the title has been shown.

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Connections

Referenced in The O.C.: The Day After Tomorrow (2006)

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Soundtracks

"Flaming Red Hair"
Music Composed and Performed by David Donaldson, David Long, Steve Roche (as Stephen Roche), Janet Roddick with Peter Daly, Chris O'Connor, Ruairidh Morrison, and Grant Shearer
Courtesy of Mana Music

User Reviews

An amazing achievement

'The Lord of the Rings' is one of my favorite books, I have read it several times, and remember thinking the last time, about 3 years ago that if I made a film I'd want to make it of this, but wouldn't it be almost impossible. You can then imagine how strong my expectations were when I went to see the eagerly awaited first installment.

This film impressed me hugely, more than anything else because of how true it was to my imagination, both in the characters as well as in the effects and setting- a sentiment I have heard consistently from other fans of the books. Elijah Wood brought across the character of Frodo with the kind of haunted, frail courage that Tolkien captures so well in the books. Nor could I find any fault at all with Ian McKellan's Gandalf, Viggo Mortensen's Aragorn, and Sean Bean's Boromir, all of whom I thought were portrayed excellently. I could pick out instances where I did think, 'no, that's not right', however their seldomness in number would only serve to illustrate the excellence of the overall portrayal. One thing that did stand out for me was Cate Blanchett's performance as Galadriel, the part itself became so perfunctory in the film that to me her alternation between benevolent seer, and figure of potential terror seemed little more than a slightly confusing detour with no real connection into the plot other than as a vehicle for a glimpse into the future. But that was it.

I thought that the points where Jackson did deviate from the text were completely the correct ones to do so. Shortening the opening Shire scenes and cutting out the whole Tom Bombadil bit was great since frankly they bored me slightly in the book anyway. Also, expanding the role of Arwen was a sensible decision.

However this film is by no means above criticism. The dialogue was in my opinion terrible and purely there to drive on the plot. Normally this would ruin a film for me (as in "The Matrix"), making it almost intolerable to view, however fortunately here it proves little more than a minor irritation. Also, the film seemed overall to be excessively plot-driven and at times a mad dash from one action scene to another, the characters, for all their truth to the book did seem flat and sometimes little more than stereotypical fantasy characters. This is perhaps my major quarrel with the film- I would have liked these characters to have come alive as people in a way that was made impossible by the sparseness of the script and the rollercoaster nature of the plot. In general the whole film lacked the depth of context that I think distinguishes Tolkien from other fantasy writers. However to have achieved this would have required a very different movie, and you can't fault an action film for being an action film.

This movie is undoubtedly not for everyone. A lot of people just don't get fantasy- other than Lord of the Rings, I don't particularly either. However in my opinion Jackson really has made an incredible achievement- his and Tolkien's vision carried through suberbly by a breathtaking setting and stunning special effects, as well as by a cast clearly as enthralled as he was. He has taken on a huge task, and is dealing with it with breathtaking success.