A monument to the dedication of the film-maker

I have to admit, when I first heard tale of Peter Jackson being green-lighted for the Lord of the Rings (LOTR) project, I was quite shocked. How often do you hear of a director with little to prove himself but a few modestly successful independent foreign films and one commercially mediocre American film (The Frighteners) getting a studio to approve a $270 million budget in order to shoot not one, not two, but three films consecutively, with a three year dev cycle, endless post-production, and the establishment of an entire film studio and special-effects workshop being established in a foreign country nearly 5,000 miles away. This project went beyond potential career suicide; a failure could have meant the careers of dozens of people, and the potential death of New Line Cinema. As studios tend to not take chances, all I could think is that Peter Jackson must have made one hell of a pitch.

If you are unfamiliar with Peter Jackson, he is a New Zealander primarily known (at least, prior to the LOTR films) for making remarkably graphic and low-budget horror-comedies. While some glimmers of brilliance could be seen in his wonderful film Heavenly Creatures, creating a massive budget, cast of thousands, trilogy of films would seem extremely challenging to even the most veteran of directors. Could he actually make the kind of film the myriad fans of J.R.R. Tolkien's legendary series of books?

In a word, yes. In fact, I could potentially argue that a major film director could not have done what he did. But that's an issue for later; on to the film.

Essentially, the LOTR series is the archetype for the epic fantasy. A single, "chosen" hero is forced to accomplish a nigh-on-impossible task, mentored by an elderly, wizened old man. Travelling with a party of various folks, the loyalties and disloyalties of their mates will influence and alter the movement of the plot, which must inevitably lead to a final confrontation.

Elaborating on that point, the tale is of one Frodo Baggins (Elijah Wood), a hobbit, and the nephew of Bilbo Baggins (Ian Holm), a noted hobbit eccentric who is in care of a mysterious ring. The Baggins are a hobbit family of some repute, modestly successful and regarded as a stable, healthy family (though Bilbo's fondness for adventuring has caused something of a stir among the provencial types within Hobbit-dom).

The initial circumstances of the film are revolving around Frodo's "eleventy-first" birthday (apparently, turning 111 is quite significant to hobbits). As Bilbo is quite wealthy, he is planning a bang-out party for his special day, including his old friend, the legendary wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellan) providing one of his Shire-famous fireworks displays.

During the party, Bilbo makes a stunning disappearance, contributed to by his mysterious ring which, in addition to other powers, can render the wearer invisible. We learn (in a conversation with Gandalf) that Bilbo has been corrupted by the ring, and he must leave both it, and his home in Bag End, behind. After initial hesitation, he does so, leaving the ring for Frodo.

Enter our hero, Frodo. Gandalf reveals to him that the ring is an ancient and powerful ring, once in the possession of a great and evil being. It will gradually corrupt any who possess it, but it does so much more slowly for hobbits, since they tend to be less materialistic than humans and dwarves, and even the ancient and mysterious elves. The only way to destroy the ring and guarantee that the great evil will not return is to throw the ring into the cracks of Mt. Doom.

Since this is a fantasy story, it can't be that simple. The Nazgul, the Dark Knights of the Big Bad, Sauron, are in hot pursuit of this great ring, the One Ring. Adding to that, they can detect any use of the ring, making its powers of invisibility very potentially dangerous.

Through some various situations, some friends of Frodo, Sam, Pippin and Merry, join Frodo in his journey to Rivendell, where they will meet the great Elf leader, Elrond (Hugo Weaving, aka "Agent Smith" from the Matrix movies). In the process of the foursome getting there, they encounter the Nazgul, some gentlemen of questionable repute, and a mysterious man known only as "Strider" (Viggo Mortensen).

When they arrive, somewhat less than intact, they determine that the ring must be detroyed, and a party is selected, including an elf archer, Legolas (Orlando Bloom); a dwarf, the proud Gimli (John Rhys-Davies); and Boromir (Sean Bean), a man with a certain degree of anger toward Strider. This "fellowship" heads off toward Lothlorien, to meet with Galadriel, an Elven seer.

This journey forces them to take a detour into the Dwarven underground city of Moria, where things seem to be somewhat...tenuous.

Anyway, the results of their travails into the realm of Moria do not leave the party unscathed (and provide the audience with a very impressive fight scene), and when they enter Lorien, many revelations are made about their journey.

By the end of the film, Frodo is forced to make a difficult choice, and the loyalty of his friends is truly shown.

While the number of cast members are so legion, describing individual performances would be impossible to detail, the work of Elijah Wood, Ian McKellan, and Sean Astin (as Sam Gamgee) are all spot on, and pretty much reach the level I had hoped from reading the books.

I've always been a fan of Peter Jackson, and his skills are truly brought to fruition with the added budget. Impressively mixing special effects sequences with the live-action performers, and making brilliant use of the natural environs, almost all of the shots are so good, I can't think of improving them (based on my nit-picky nature, that's a bold statement).

Nicely integrated into the film is Howard Shore's suitably dramatic score. Unlike some composer's desire to make their music dictate the film, he chooses to accentuate the film with his compositions. Just subtle enough to be unintrusive, this is a very nice score.

Enough about the film, what about the extras?

Beyond the obvious (almost 30 added minutes of film, which are perfectly good, and are just as much a part of my comment on the film as the other three hours), there is a vast sea of other content contained within this set.

First off, there are four different commentaries included to discuss the film as you watch it. Containing a wide mix of people, from the writers (Jackson, wife and co-producer Fran Walsh, and Phillippa Boyens) to various cast and crew members, those willing to spend 14 hours of your life watching the film with all four commentaries will likely find a lot of interesting material contained within (if you are only wanting to choose one, the commentary by Jackson, Walson and Boyens is the most interesting).

Next, we have the two-disc collection of virtually everything involved with making this film. Containing no less than 17 documentaries and thousands of art and photographic images related to the film, these two discs chronicle nearly every aspect of the film-making process.

To be more specific, this goes beyond describing the film-making process. Starting with Tolkien, and his inspirations for writing the LOTR books, then moving on to the choice of locations for the different sets, the making of the sets (some of which involved over a year of prep time before shooting began), the costuming, special effects, efforts to maintain veracity to Tolkien's original work, the casting, photography, post-production, editing, adding the sound, and even releasing the final version of the film, Jackson chronicles just about every start-to-finish moment involved in making this film.

For the many people unable to experience and properly understand what goes into making a film, these documentaries are invaluable, particularly if you are interested in film-making, not only as a concept, but as a process.

Additionally, the galleries of art and photography are quite enjoyable. Well, at least if you enjoy that sort of thing.

The contents of these discs is quite nicely detailed in a flow-chart contained within the liner notes. While those interested will appreciate every bit of detail, most others will potentially find this less than exciting when compared to the film itself.

Additionally, the set includes a National Geographic documentary which further details the natural elements of the scenery of the film, and even goes a bit into Tolkien's surroundings. While slightly less interesting than the rest of the set, it is still good viewing.

Admittedly, the set is rather high priced. However, you do get a lot for the money. While this may be more than the average film-goer may desire, for the truly hardcore fan of film-making in general, or LOTR in specific, this is pretty much the best purchase you can make. More information about the process of making a movie than one could possibly need is given, and Peter Jackson's borderline-obsessive interest in making the best film possible is clearly demonstrated.