I took my wife to watch it ( we had been married 10 months) , I am a huge fan of Tolkein, my wife was not at all into the genre.
When it finished she was ’ wait what I need to see the rest, when can we see them?. …Not amused by the response, but after one kid, and one more on the way we finished them all up.
I think I bought about 4 different versions of the movies , DVD, extended DVD, blue ray theatrical, extended blue ray and have the digital copies they came with.
The kids all love them and I have lost count of the number of times we have all piled up on the sofa, and our dear departed Mac ( the dog) recognized the DVD cupboard being opened and would preemptively get his spot on the sofa.my daughter has a map of middle earth on her wall, but despite being a voracious reader, she never managed to finish the books.
My daughter and I also went though all the makings off additions several times as well, fully stunned at everything that had to come together to make the movies.
No its not a 100% faithful reconstruction of the books , but as a film telling of the story, I can’t really fault it and it looked just as I imagined it, although what I imagined was probably heavily influenced by John Howe and Alan Lee , so that isn’t surprising.
For my money , which they now have a lot of, it will stand the test of time for many more decades both from a technical visual effects and story telling point of view.
Well the only thing I might change is to not have Saruman die , end the theatrical version of ROTK on the line " my friends you bow to no one" zoom out roll credits . Then just make a whole new film for the joiney home, the shire and the ending. But that’s a minor change
I didn’t know about the FOTR blue ray and the green issue, I did think it looked a little odd and wondered if it was just the high res showing up some issues in the original recordings , good to know, and I guess the 4K is another version I can go and buy! Did they add anything else to that version?
I think Fellowship was a classic movie by the end of its first weekend in theaters. I’m trying to think of something as “classic” as this that became a classic so instantly.
I didn’t see Star Wars or Raiders of the Lost Ark in their original openings, but I have heard similar comparisons. I’m hard pressed to think of anything like it since then(except Two Towers and Return of the King).
I think Star Wars would definitely qualify. Prior to its initial release, it really wasn’t all that highly anticipated: it was an unknown franchise/story, from a director with only two movies under his belt (one of which few people had seen), and a mostly-unknown cast. But, it pretty much immediately became a sensation, and a cultural phenomenon.
Yeah, I mean more like “movies everyone will be nostalgic for in the future”.
I do agree that Matrix came to my mind immediately. Jurassic Park? Possibly.
I think Avengers Infinity War and Endgame will be very much looked back on fondly in the future. Kind of instant classics, especially the last 60 minutes of Endgame.
When I was a kid, I never read The Hobbit nor Lord of the Rings - too nerdy for my tastes, I thought. Only the kids who played Dungeons and Dragons read those books. Of course, younger me was an ignorant terd who did not read anything at all for pleasure.
In late 2001 I was on a business trip to a small town in Northern California with nothing else to do in the evening, so decided to take-in a movie - Fellowship of the Ring. Remember, I had no exposure to any works of Tolkien as a youngster (other than looking down on it). I was drawn in from the get-go and did not want it to end - I was bummed that I had to wait a whole year to see what happened next! And then again the next year.
Now I watch the LotR trilogy once or twice a year; usually once around the holidays on successive evenings over a long, rainy weekend. Even after watching them probably 10-15 times, I still find them hypnotic and engaging. I realized as well these films were going to be 20 years old this year. Some of the actors are gone now, and others have grown older, but every time I see someone from these movies in something else, I cannot help but think about the character they played in LotR. Masterpieces, one and all.
