Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1744 in DVD
• Released on: 2002-08-06
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Aspect ratio: 1.77:1
• Number of discs: 2
• Formats: Anamorphic, PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 171 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
A marvellously sympathetic yet spectacularly cinematic treatment of the first part of Tolkien’s trilogy, Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring is the film that finally showed how extraordinary digital effects could be used to support story and characters, not simply overwhelm them. Both long-time fantasy fans and newcomers alike were simultaneously amazed, astonished and left agog for parts two and three.

Jackson’s abiding love for the source material comes across in the wealth of incidental detail (the stone trolls from The Hobbit, Bilbo’s hand-drawn maps); and even when he deviates from the book he does so for sound dramatic reasons (the interminable Tom Bombadil interlude is deleted; Arwen not Glorfindel rescues Frodo at the ford). New Zealand stands in wonderfully for Middle-Earth and his cast are almost ideal, headed by Elijah Wood as a suitably naïve Frodo, though one with plenty of iron resolve, and Ian McKellen as an avuncular-yet-grimly determined Gandalf. The set-piece battle sequences have both an epic grandeur and a visceral, bloody immediacy: the Orcs, and Saruman’s Uruk-Hai in particular, are no mere cannon-fodder, but tough and terrifying adversaries. Tolkien’s legacy could hardly have been better served.

On the DVD: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring two-disc set presents the original theatrical release (approx 171 minutes) on the first disc with a vivid Dolby 5.1 soundtrack and a simply splendid anamorphic print that allows even the darkest recesses of Moria to be glimpsed. The second disc contains 15 short behind-the-scenes pieces originally seen on the official Web site plus three substantial featurettes. The Houghton Mifflin "Welcome to Middle-Earth" is a 16-minute first look at the transition from page to screen, most interesting for its treasurable interview with Tolkien’s original publisher Rayner Unwin. "Quest for the Ring" is a pretty standard 20-minute Fox TV special with lots of cast and crew interviews. Better is the Sci-Fi Channel’s "A Passage to Middle-Earth", a 40-minute special that goes into a lot more detail about many aspects of the production and how the creative team conceived the film’s look.

Most mouth-watering for fans who just can’t wait is a 10-minute Two Towers preview, in which Peter Jackson personally tantalises us with behind-the-scenes glimpses of Gollum and Helm’s Deep, plus a tasty three-minute teaser for the four-disc Fellowship special edition. Rounding out a good package are trailers, Enya’s "May It Be" video and a Two Towers video game preview.--Mark Walker

Synopsis
Set in Middle-Earth many many years ago, this is the story of a young Hobbit named Frodo, who has in his possession a ring... This ring is needed by the evil Lord Sauron to destroy civilisation and plunge the world into complete darkness. In order to prevent this, Frodo must find a way to the Mount of Doom and destroy the ring.

Synopsis
With THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING, director Peter Jackson has achieved a meticulous and captivating adaptation of the first book of J.R.R. Tolkien's classic fantasy trilogy. The setting is Middle-earth, a mythological land populated by elves, dwarves, humans, and the gentle, diminutive hobbits upon whom the story centers. One hobbit, Frodo Baggins (Elijah Wood), unexpectedly comes into possession of an ancient magical ring so powerful it invariably corrupts anyone who wears it. In order to prevent the ring's erstwhile owner, the dark lord Sauron, from reclaiming the ring and taking over Middle-earth, a motley band of comrades set out to destroy it in the fires of Mount Doom, where it was forged. Included in the group are Frodo and hobbits Sam (Sean Astin), Merry (Dominic Monoghan), and Pippin (Billy Boyd); the wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellen); human warriors Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen) and Boromir (Sean Bean); the dwarf Gimli (John Rhys-Davies); the elf Legolas (Orlando Bloom). Along the way, they wage battle with monsters, demons, and Sauron's evil minions, all brought to life by spectacular digital technology.
Jackson's grandiose production represents the first of three films that he wrote and directed, derived from Tolkien's beloved novels. Fourteen months in the making, at a cost of $270 million, all three installments were filmed at once in New Zealand where diverse landscapes lend themselves particularly well to the mystical realm of Middle-earth. The story continues with THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS and THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING.

Customer Reviews

A Masterpiece
If I could, I would give this movie 100 stars. There's nothing I can really say that hasn't already been said - so I'll sum up the trilogy in a few words.

Epic. Beautiful. Masterpiece.

A true diamond of modern cinema.

A feast of the senses...a strength and inspiration
"The world has 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."
So begins the majestic prologue to the movie, The Fellowship of the Ring.
As the earth and all that is beautiful and good is threatened by a malignant evil, as `One by one,
the free lands

of Middle-Earth fell
to the power of the ring." Like the book, the movie is spellbinding and compelling in the true sense of the word, as we get to view Tolkien's Middle Earth come to life on the screen.
It is actually quite remarkable how the mythic world of middle Earth has been made so lifelike, and how intriguing it is on the big screen.
The script is brilliantly written and the cast is excellent. We get to see all the wonders of Middle Earth before our eyes- The Shire, Rivendell, Moria, Lotholorien...
What makes the Lord of the Rings so inspiring is the hope of good always triumphing over evil, at a time when, at the beginning of the 21st century,
by the breakdown of a morality of right and wrong acts in favor of a therapeutic ethic which "feels the pain" of the perpetrators of violence. Taken in combination, these are powerful forces, to which the countervailing influences of reason, responsibility and restraint are as unequal now as they have been at any other time of populist ferment and generalized fear.

With the end of the Cold War, we have seen, instead of a triumph, of Judeo-Christian values and Western democracy, an anti-western revolutionary amoral and cruel philosophy taking over the world. This leads us to fear that
Judeo-Christian civilization will fall, "and all will come to darkness", but we
Must take inspiration from the words of Aragorn: "I do not know what strength is in my blood, but I swear to you, I will not let the White City fall. Nor our people fail!"

Thus we can take comfort that darkness will not triumph and as Gandalf so inspiringly puts it: "So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work in this world, Frodo, besides the will of evil. Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, in which case you were also meant to have it. And that is an encouraging thought..."

As long As we always stand by values of right and justice and freedom and never give up the idea that they will triumph.

overated
boring first installment that promises much and delivers little,it takes a long time to get going and the plot is so hard to follow you just stop caring.