In December 2001 the film world was enthralled by the first
part of New Zealand Director Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. Not since Cecil B. DeMille’s Biblical
epics of the 1950s had filmmaking been seen on such a scale as Jackson’s Fantasy adaptation. Going on to
make close to $900 million worldwide and the recipient of four Oscars and five
BAFTAS including Best Film, The
Fellowship of the Ring helped to shape the way films began to be produced
in the early part of cinema’s second century. Shot entirely in the Director’s
home nation over several years the Lord
of the Rings trilogy soon became one of the most successful and critically
acclaimed film trilogies of all time and eleven years ago I thought it was one
of the best things I’d ever seen.
Featuring a large ensemble cast the plot of the first film
focuses on the grouping of nine individuals who team up to destroy a powerful
ring that threatens to destroy peace in Middle Earth. Hobbits Frodo, Samwise,
Merry and Pippen join Wizard Gandalf, Dwarf Gimli, Elf Legolas and men Aragorn
and Boromir as they set out from the Elven city of Rivendell on a quest to
Mordor to ‘cast the ring into the fiery chasm from whence it came.’ Along the
way their progress is halted by suspicion, in fighting, and Orcs, a vicious Elf
like creature, bred for war.
