For It's A Jolly Good Fellowship (And So Say All Of Us)

When it comes to the Lord Of The Rings films there is absolutely no argument as to their extraordinarily high quality. Each movie of the trilogy is working at such an amazing standard, on every single level possible including the cast, effects team, direction, set designers, composer, editors, costume designers, stunt team and the writers that to debate it would be pointless. Film making at this level for this epic type of story is unsurpassed. Period.

Then there's the debate about whether it's fair to pick out one of the three movies as the 'best' since it's all one big story anyway, and which were all filmed at the same time. That is a more valid debate to have. However, each film was designed to be shown on it's own, with it's own beginning, middle and an end, and all this a year apart from it's nearest installment, when they were released a decade ago. And so, yes, I think each film can be judged on it's own merits just in the way i can single out a sole episode of a serialised TV show like 24 or Galactica as being particularly special.

For me, the Rings movie which works best is the first, Lord Of The Rings: Fellowship Of The Ring, which is down to a three main reasons:-

1/ A sense of awe. Fellowship is a beautiful exercise in world building, not only from a script standpoint but from a visual perspective too. Starting with the complex prologue detailing the fall of Sauron and the journey of The One Ring into the hands of Bilbo Baggins, to the explanation of Hobbits, the ethereal nature of elves, several chilling sequences with the demonic Ring Wraiths, The grander of The Mines Of Moria, the unstoppable Uruk-hai, and so on and so on and so on. Fellowship is so stuffed full of memorable scenes, both big and small, intimate and epic, that I could go on for years. Except to say the first moment I saw the Balrog appear my brain melted, my eyes imploded and my body evacuated itself violently from all orifices. Now THAT is a movie moment to savour. The world on show in Fellowship seems much more immersed in mystery and magic and myth than either The Two Towers or Return of the King, which seemed more grounded (overall). The greater opportunities to escape the real world are more prevalent in the first movie.


2/ Best structured story. Even though it's the first part of a trilogy, Fellowship feels like it has a proper beginning (Hobbiton and the start of the quest), a middle (Rivendell to Moria to Mirkwood) and an end. Like Star Wars is to The Empire Strike Back, Fellowship has the benefit over The Two Towers of having the band of heroes together for much of the movie before scattering them to the corners of the (Middle) Earth. And it also stands the strongest, away from the rest of the trilogy as a movie in its own right. As with most mythic quests, it's a coming of age tale, in this case divided into three parts in which Frodo, our mythic hero must make a choice. Each time that choice is to whether to carry the ring to its destination. The first time, Gandalf asks him to take it to Rivendell and Frodo reluctantly agrees. The second time, again with some reluctance, he volunteers before the Concil of Elrond to carry the One Ring to Mount Doom. It's only when he's stood alone on the riverside at the film's climax he decides to carry the burden alone, now knowing the full cost of his actions and knowing himself at this stage to know it's the right thing to do, despite knowing the consequences. It's a powerful moment, as Frodo closes his hand around the ring signaling his decision, and one in which the movie has been slowly building towards for three hours, but it rounds the movie off perfectly.

3/ The three b's. Another factor that distinguishes Fellowship over the other movies is the casting of Bean, Blanchett and as Bilbo, Ian Holm. One cannot imagine anyone else stepping into their roles which are handled all multi-layer and complex. Bean especially is at a career best, both heroic yet tragically tempted by the power the ring offers.

An undeniable classic then. But if Two Towers or Return Of The King is more your cup of tea you'll get no argument from me as the entire trilogy is virtually unmatched in quality.