Rating: 
Summary: The Heart of Middle Earth
Review: While this is not true to every word of the book, Peter Jackson's vision of Middle Earth seems to have the heart and soul of the story without being a fifty part miniseries. There simply is no way to do the books in movie format without cutting some things. That being said, what is here is almost all fantastic. The movie never got its fair shake from the over weight and overpaid critics, however, to those who grew up on the books, this is like coming home and being on a holiday. My only real complaint would have to be that it was too short. But then we have the extended version coming out in November, and with a little luck, Jackson will catch Lucas' mania and give us the ten hour version in a couple of years. ;-)
Rating:
Summary: Great Movie
Review: While this isn't something that hasn't already been said, Peter Jackson truly got almost everything right in the movie. In a few parts, he even made a few improvements from the book.That being said, the extended version is a much better form of the movie. More scenes add many details that had to be left out of the theatrical version for time. We are lucky that the studio allowed PJ to include all the extra scenes for this new release.
Rating: 
Summary: Sheer Passion
Review: While watching the second disk, I could not help but feel goosebumps all over my body and I almost cried--and I felt like that because as the cast and crew behind the movie tells you of their journey while doing the film, one cannot avoid feeling amazed by the passion these people have for this movie--and all their love and effort behind the scenes are translated in the film with beauty and elegance. This movie/dvd shows you what the true essence of film making is all about--and that is doing the movie for the sheer passion for it. However, you cannot help but feel like the dvd is not complete because as you see the sneak preview for the extended version release in November, you feel like the dvd you have now is not enough to satisfy you.
Rating:
Summary: Worth the money
Review: While working in a bookstore, I noticed that people ran to buy this extended version of "Fellowship", despite the fact that they'd already purchased the original DVD release. I simply wrote it off as fanaticism...until I bought it myself. Not only do you get tons of extras (commentary by almost half the cast and crew, including Peter Jackson)you get an extra 30 minutes originally cut from the theatrical release and original DVD (I'd expound, but I don't want to spoil it for you). You also get Enya's music video for "May It Be", the theatrical trailer for "Two Towers", a sample of the TT video game, and much, much more. If you've loved these movies as much as the rest of us, do yourself a favor and buy these special editions of LOTR. They're so chock full of "extras" goodness, it's worth the extra 10 bucks.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.
Review: Who cares about the original story (excellent) and how well the movie follows it (very well, in fact). Who cares about the acting (great) and the makeup (wonderful) and the soundtrack (lots of fun). Anyone and everyone should see this movie... why? It's just beautiful. It is three hours long, but I did not notice it when I sat in the movie theatre last night. I followed the story okay, which is very close to the book (I just read the book a few weeks ago). The actors were great... the hobbits were adorable, the elves perfect, the wizard admirable, the orcs scary, the dwarf strong and silly and the villians evil. But what I couldn't dismiss was how beautiful the movie was. The world in Tolkien's book was beautifully translated to the big screen. I kept asking myself, "how did they get this world to look so beautiful?" The special effects were fantastic, and all the lands were amazing. Rivendell and Lothlorian looked like paradise, the Shire seemed like the perfect vacation home, and Mordor was freaky. It was all done so well that not only did I gain a new appreciation for the books, but I am eagerly awaiting The Two Towers.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing!!!!!!!!!!!
Review: Whoa. That's what I said after I went to see this movie. I've only seen this movie once, but I'm planning to buy it when it's realesed on video, because I love it. I don't even like action movies, so I can't believe I liked this. Why did I like it? Well, the cast is made up of superb actors and actresses, and the production designers made the book come to life. The storyline is excellent. I highly recommend this movie to everyone.
Rating:
Summary: The best fantasy film ever...
Review: Why didn't this movie win the Oscar for Best Motion Picture? For an adaptation of a book, this film is perfect. Every little detail was covered and covered extremely well. It once seemed that the size and scale of the books would make it impossible to be adapted into a movie, but Peter Jackson hit every mark right on the nail. In every essence of this, he stayed true to Tolkien's epic visions of fantasy grandeur. The cast was portrayed perfectly. There could have been no better an Aragorn than Viggo Mortensen, none as passionate to play Frodo than Elijah Wood. I loved Sean Bean's performance, he gave his all to the spirit of Boromir, and in the end when he was tempted by the Ring, he was perfect-you could vividly see the turmoil in his eyes, and that is something not often found in an actor. The elves were made up perfectly-even Galadriel, whose portrayal by Cate Blanchet I was not very fond of. I enjoyed the hobbits' role as the comedic effect-they did it well. And Gandalf. Not enough can be said about Gandalf. Ian McKellen's role as the wonderful wizard was better than perfect-Gandalf is one of those roles where you can either do it well, or make a complete fool of yourself. McKellen was definitely the former. The special features on this DVD were something worth mentioning, too. I loved all the little featurettes and 'making-of' programs, which went into great depth of the movie. I was surprised to see the several-minute long featurette about The Two Towers, that gave me a better understanding of it-can't wait to see that one in theatres. I saw this movie four times in theatres and was thrilled to finally be able to watch it in my own home and I can not wait to get the four-disc collector's edition, it is sure to be as good as this one.
Rating: 
Summary: DARK! DARK! DARK!
Review: Why do directors insist upon filming using artificial light! This movie is very dark (I mean it is very hard to actually see some of the scenery and costumes, etc...) They also turned it into a "dark story". I don't consider this suitable for children. There are classics like Willow and Princess Bride. For those movies, if you look at how they were filmed, many scenes were filmed in very bright light. I read LTR in seventh grade many years ago, and I never considered it a "dark and gloomy" story. Where's the tongue-in-cheek dialogue that makes all the great movies great? (Star Wars, Princess Bride, Willow, Indiana Jones etc....) They concentrated too much on "wowing" us with stupid special effects, that they completely forgot about engaging dialogue and bringing us in with emotions. Too scary for the preteen set. Take the PG-13 seriously on this one. Lighten up directors, what are you trying to hide? Also, work on your dialogue....try and make it more memorable. I can't remember one line from this idiotic movie. Usually a good sign for me whether or not a movie was good. Think about it. For you critics out there that disagree with me. Special effects are all good and dandy, close your eyes and "listen" to this movie, it is really pretty bad without the "special effects".
Rating:
Summary: Overly long and unbelievably boring!
Review: Why does everyone like this stupid movie so much? Why can't everyone just be called people instead of "hobbits" or whatever they're called? The story is extremely hard to follow, there's hardly any action and the whole movie just stinks. I know you probably don't believe me, considering all the other 5-star reviews, but if you hate movies that you could've easily taken two hours out of because they had nothing to do with the story, don't see this!
Rating:
Summary: Why has society been brainwashed??
Review: Why in the world this film is SOOOOO revered is well beyond my capacity. Too Long. Too much bad CG. Too much running from annoying non-plot driving "threats". Villians that ain't scary and a slow motion death scene the like of which havent been seen since B rated schlock. You people can have have your sad devotion to a trilogy of films that have more flaws than 10 Star Wars prequels. It is a sad day for cinema...I am only staying anonymous to avoid a hundred thousand virgins emailing hate towards me.
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