[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

Tolkien's son Christopher, who is the "literary protector" of his father's works, said, "My own position is that 'The Lord of the Rings' is peculiarly unsuitable to transformation into visual dramatic form." That is probably true, and Jackson, instead of transforming it, has transmuted it, into a sword-and-sorcery epic in the modern style, containing many of the same characters and incident.

Ebert's puzzling review, which is favorable in content, but less than enthusiastic in tone, seems to complain that the movie is not a book, and that the movie has more scenes of action than the book. He also thinks that too much of the action is carried by the non-Hobbits, but this is the case in the first book of the trilogy also. This is puzzling in a professional critic, who obviously knows that a movie can't be judged as literature.

[RogueIsland]

Roger would have liked it better if Angelina Jolie were in it.

[Skywalk]

I'll respond by saying that Ebert is known for usually being the "people's critic" but there seems to be one film per year that people LOVE that he LITERALLY campaigns against. I point one to his one-man psyops war against Gladiator. I mean, fine, one does not have to like what others do, but he was obsessed.

I'll reckon that he has to do these sorts of things to retain his "street cred" with his community of critics.

[dep]

how unbearably disappointing! i thought that this was going to be a boxing movie, a biography of don king. but it's just about dwarves. weird.

dep

[Ditto]

That "Fellowship of the Ring" doesn't match my imaginary vision of Middle-earth is my problem, not yours. Perhaps it will look exactly as you think it should.

I have never seen a film, no matter how well made, that matched the 'vision' I had of a book. I have also never seen a film that was as 'good' as the book, which is one of the reasons I seldom go to see films.

The film and sountrack between my ears is much better than anything Hollywood has ever devised. ;~))

[spudsmaki]

The Ring Trilogy embodies the kind of innocence that belongs to an earlier, gentler time. Yeah, right, Ebert, most of JRRT's work was done during WWII. Time to lay off the bong.

Ebert, liberal hack that he is, has just discovered the book was written by a (gasp!) Christian, and not just an ordinary Christian, but a Catholic. And it's a wonderful allegory of good vs evil, can't have the kids reading that sort of stuff. Better they read Heather Has Two Mommies.

Hey Roger, I used to read reviews by Gene Siskel, I know his writings well. Roger, you're no Gene Siskel.

[Varda]

Thanks for this. It helps to temper my enthusiasm. If it's true that like Gladiator, the LOTR has a weak storyline as a excuse for action scenes, it will be a long three hours for me. I agree with this review that the book is less about action and more about the journey and struggle of the characters. The question is there enough character development to hold the attention of women viewers? I hope so. I haven't looked forward to a film this much in a long time.

[billbears]

Yet the taller characters seem to stand astride the little Hobbit world and steal the story away. Gandalf the good wizard (Ian McKellen) and Saruman the treacherous wizard (Christopher Lee) and Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen), who is the warrior known as Strider, are so well-seen and acted, so fearsome in battle, that we can't imagine the Hobbits getting anywhere without them.

Hey, Roger, you think that was probably the case in the book as well? Most of the characters in the novels had only heard of hobbitts in legend, meaning the hobbitts didn't get around a lot. They didn't like sailing or movement by water(as Frodo's parents were accidently killed) and they didn't fit on horses, having to ride with someone else. Their main form of travel was walking, so they stayed in the Shire!!

[aruanan]

That is not true of every scene or episode, but by the end "Fellowship" adds up to more of a sword and sorcery epic than a realization of the more naive and guileless vision of J. R. R. Tolkien.

Written by someone who apparently last read TLOTR many decades ago. I wonder what he'll say when The Return of the King comes out.

[PJ-Comix]

Roger Ebert---Screenwriter of such epic movies as "Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls," "Up!" and "Beyond The Valley of the Ultra-Vixens." I kid you not. Check the IMDB data base.

[Physicist]

First he says:

The trilogy is mostly about leaving places, going places, being places, and going on to other places, all amid fearful portents and speculations. There are a great many mountains, valleys, streams, villages, caves, residences, grottos, bowers, fields, high roads, low roads, and along them the Hobbits and their larger companions travel while paying great attention to mealtimes.

So OK, he thinks the movie was too short. Not enough attention to detail, no time to stop and smell the roses. Fair enough. But then he says:

But it does go on, and on, and on--more vistas, more forests, more sounds in the night, more fearsome creatures, more prophecies, more visions, more dire warnings, more close calls, until we realize this sort of thing can continue indefinitely.

So is the movie too short or too long? There's a lot of territory to cover in nine hours over three films, even without lingering over Hobbits' breakfasts. How should it have been paced? Should the story have been edited so that less happens?

[Huck]

Ebert is trying to play both sides of this one. He wants to be different. I mean, the world is GUSHING over this movie. Maybe he felt compelled to be contrarian, and this is the best he could do. He was obviously motivated. Heck, he hit the books for this one!

[BibChr]

After reading the review, I hoped it was "up" here at FR. I wish you'd put Ebert's name in the thread-title, so everyone'd know that was what this thread was about. I predict a double-posting.

That having been said, I'm not sure I've ever been more irritated by an Ebert review, though I've certainly disagreed before. And I haven't yet seen the movie. But this is hardly a movie review. This is more a review of how well Jackson did in bringing Ebert's vision of the LOTR to the screen.

I didn't think that was supposed to be the criterion of a good movie.

And besides, I disagree with Ebert's read of LOTR. Most emphatically in no way did "the Hobbits" devise a dangerous mission, and enlist Big People's help in pursuing it. Hobbits deplore Adventure. Nasty things, make you late for supper!

No, this was completely thrust upon the involved Hobbits, both by bigger beings and simply by the need of the hour and the unseen hand of Providence. The big people involved are not brought in by the Hobbits. They join for their own reasons. And in the end [SPOILER WARNING] it is two hobbits alone who resolve the matter.

Ebert seriously misread the books. I suspect he did the movie as well. And still he was compelled to three stars. Perhaps if some of the company had been depicted as homosexuals abused by Fundamentalist parents, whose persons and religion they reject, he'd have given it four.

Dan

[HarryDunne]

I've not known any of the reviewers so far, but I know Ebert. We only agree on occasion. I can't tell if his views are skewed because he is a sycophant, or if his taste is so different from mine that he makes no sense to me.

I'm holding out for Gary Cogill's review, but even that won't matter... 9 hours 14 minutes, baby!

[The Iron Duke]

Ebert's complaints about dropping the poetry, emphasizing action scenes and that the humans visually dominating the Hobbits boil down to the conclusion that this film is just too visual!

I would expect such inanity from some effete graduate student in literature, not a seasoned film critic who understands that many common literary devices are simply not transferable to film. (Ever try to film inner dialog?) That he then complains the movie is too long makes me think he is being contrary for the sake of pure pig headedness.

[mtngrl@vrwc]

...and finally turned to the books themselves, which I had not read since the 1970s

Well there you go then. The man wass not a true fan to begin with. I read the Hobbit and the Trilogy in the early 70s and since then have reread the entire thing every about five years. I have enjoyed it as much, or maybe more, each time I have read it. WONDERFUL MOVIE!

[SuziQ]

He also thinks that too much of the action is carried by the non-Hobbits, but this is the case in the first book of the trilogy also.

If this is his major complaint, all he has to do is wait for "The Two Towers".

[BibChr]

See? I told you so!

Dan

[william clark]

Ebert lost credibility with me when he praised the thoroughly contrived, unbelievable and just plain dumb Hitchcock ripoff "Body Double." (Lest anyone thing I have it in for DePalma, I like a lot of his work, and "Phantom of the Paradise" is one of my all-time favorites)

[constans]

I loved the LOTR movie. However, I also like Ebert's review because I think he brings a perspective that we don't hear enough of regarding the book vs. the movie. I have to say that, simply, Fellowship of the Ring is a boring book. It's not very plot or character driven, and it doesn't have the same "life" that the travels of Marco Polo or the Histories of Herodotus have (at least as FoTR is written). Ebert is right in saying that the movie doesn't capture the essence of the book. Anyone who enjoys Tolkein's focus on a very disconnected, hyperdescriptive narrative (this happened, and then that happened, and then they went to this other place where the fauna looked precisely in this way, and so on) is going to have issues with the movie because a 2 or 3 hour movie is precisely focused on presenting a cohesive narrative arc.

So Ebert is right. He hits the nail on the head as far as the differences between the book and the movie and why the movie might feel dissatisfying. But the movie succeeded in bring Middle Earth to life and giving the whole story a very tangible structure. Each scene of the movie has purpose in the way that the book doesn't. But if you liked the purposeless wanderings of the book and endless descriptions, you're inevitably going to detect that something is "missing" somewhere, because it is (though, from my perspective, what is "missing" from the movie is all those things I didn't like from the book).

[beckett]

Whenever Roger Ebert (real name: Reinhold Timme, which he changed because it sounded too German) flaunts his deep knowledge of everything under the sun (a standard practice for him), I always find it useful to remember that he went to Hollywood to be a hack screenwriter and he failed. His lone "epic" was a soft-porn flick called Sweet L'il Alice. He became a movie critic because he wasn't talented enough to make movies himself.

Ebert's lucky day was when he fell in with Gene Siskel, a true mensch. Now that Siskel is gone, I can think of no reason to pay Ebert the slightest attention.