Lord Of The Rings, The: The Fellowship Of The Ring (UK)

SIMPLY BRILLIANT

This DVD is a two disc set and it is amazing. The First disc has the movie on it and The movie is fantastic. The Second disc has a whole lot of special features on it and it is great as well. Every Lord Of The Rings Fan should buy this DVD because is is great.

"The Fellowship of the Ring" is the first part of a trilogy by "Bad Taste" director Peter Jackson (the Two Towers is due for release this Christmas). Running at 171 minutes, it is truly a movie of epic proportions. Every scene is a joy to watch and along with a great all-star cast and impressive CGI effects is groundbreaking stuff. The cinematography is a marvel to the eye and really shows off the scope of the untarnished landscapes. LOTR: FOTR is excellent viewing for all, even those who haven`t read the J.R.R. Tolkien classics.

The anamorphic 2.35:1 transfer is stunning and is exactly the kind of demo material to show off DVD`s capabilities. No grain, no blocking, no print damage, no nothing. Immaculate. Perfect. Crystal clear.
The sound is DD5.1EX and DD2.0. Both tracks are powewrful and aggressive (when required to be) and subtle and clear where appropriate. The sound is very dynamic and the highs and lows of the soundtrack are really exhibited to the max.

This is a 2-disc set. The extras provided include a couple of making-ofs (between 20 & 40 mins), trailers/ TV spots, .com interviews, and previews of Two Towers & the EA video game.
Whilst the extra features are good viewing, you can`t help but think the best is yet to come with November`s 4-disc release. Still worth your time though as its all there is for now.

LOTR is recommended without question. Even though the 4-disc release in 3 months time will be a lot better, fans and movie enthusiasts should buy this all the same. I picked up a copy for £15.50, which is so great value when compared with the £24.99 RRP tag.

An excellent film and VD package.. well worth the money, A Must for Adventure Type films!

To please or not to please that is the question. It`s the question that Director Peter Jackson had to ask when converting the most popular book of all time into it`s movie form. When faced with the choice of pleasing a select fan base, or pleasing the average cinema goer, too many directors attempt to do both, and they always fail. Thankfully Peter Jackson decided to make a film for the books fans, and as one of those fans it relieves me to tell you that he has succeeded. With the exception of a few small elements-like the strange character of Tom Bambadil-he has created an extremely faithful recreation of the book. His reward? Well he managed to please everyone as regular cinema goers flocked to see his film and he made himself a lot of money.

Now since most of us have already seen the film or read the reviews there`s no reason for me to repeat everything we already know. You already know how great the action scenes are, and how solid the effects look so there`s not much point talking about them. The one thing I would like to say is about the casting. Everyone says how great it is, and I fully agree, each actor is perfect in their given roles. The problem is that everyone keeps giving particular credit to Ian McKellen, and while he is certainly even better than most of the actors in this film, I feel that the best actor in the film is Sean Bean. He draws from previous performances when he`s played both hero and villain, in order to perfectly coney a good character who is being tempted by evil. The result is that his character makes you feel uneasy when he`s on screen and he ends up reminding me of why Boromir was my favorite character in the first place.

OK then let`s finalize this by revealing the problems, or should I say problem. The only gripe I have is that even spreading the story over 3 films you still can`t get the full scope of the book and end up not really caring about the smaller characters, but seeing as how they are small, it`s a pretty minor gripe and does not effect the final score at all.

Extra`s
This is the area that lets the disk down. It may be a brilliant film but the extra`s are substandard. Initially it seems good, but then you realize that most of the features use the exact same interview. Some of the casts quotes were in everyone of the features, and they show the same scenes. It 5 documentaries doesn`t seem like much at the best of times but when they`re the basically the same thing it`s so much worse. Things improve on the second page though as we get a few good extra`s. The best being a look into the special edition that is released in November. This actually looks promising with a lot of great moments from the book making it into the film. Other then that and a preview of the games though there`s nothing special.
overall
It`s a classic film but the disk is low on extra`s. If you can afford both then I recommend that`s what you do so that you can remain safe that you will still be able to watch the directors preferred theatrical cut, but if you don`t want both then wait till November and find out what the extended version is like.

Having recently finished reading the book, I was disappointed that the movie skipped large parts of the story. Having said that, the parts that are included are true to the book. Its a very enjoyable movie.

When comparing this to the first Harry Potter film, it does see that the Harry Potter film had more of the detail from the book.

It`s not a great film, no, but at least it`s enjoyable in parts. The DVD mastering I would say sets a new standard in mastering a 3 hour film on one disc...

I`ll make this short.

OH MY GOD!!!!! this film content, and the video and audio used were mind blowing, could have done with more features.

bellamy

Well what can I say all time classic all over. A start to a film epic (possibly bigger than star wars?) This DVD in question has to be one of the best in my collection unless you want to buy the extended version which I haven`t got yet.
The special features are interesting including a sneak peek at the Two Towers sequel.

so boaring 3 hours and nothing happens im not bothering with lord of the rings2

A superb DVD of a superb film. I remember watching this in the cinema, when I knew absolutely nothing about the books, and came away thinking `WOW`, with a wonderful feeling that I`d just seen probably the greatest film so far.

Content: This film is a landmark in cinema. From breathtaking cinematography to unbelievable CG and impeccable acting, this is a masterpiece.

Video: How they managed to cram all 3 hours onto one disc is beyond me, but that quality of the video is still fantastic, with no artifacts, little grain and fantastic colours.

Audio: Again brilliant, and really gave my subwoofer a workout.

Only someone who hates fantasy could not like this movie - brilliant.

Intro- Based on the book of the same name by J.R.R. Tolkien. The LOTR is arguably some of the best novels ever writen. It took him around 18 odd years to complete only to publish the novel on 3 volumes in the 50`s. He introduced us to the world of Middle Earth and Hobbits.

When I first heard about it, I had no interest in the genre.(In 2001, I never was interested in watching movies and I was always looking for the latest PS2 games!) It only took me 2 years to find out what`s with all the hype about the movie. I rented Fellowship of the Ring and on first time viewing it, I was blown away. I guess the only letdown is not because it`s "boaring"(it`s not "boaring" infact it was hugely entertaining.), but the extensive use of CGI which some people like Quentin Tarantino(and me for that matter) will criticise for. Then again, it`s going to be a big challenge to find millions of extras to play the orcs. The film adaption of a great book is not recommended for purists since it gives a some-what rushed feel, although the theatrical release is 3 hrs long.

LOTR:FOTR is ranked THE best movie ever in Empire`s Top 100 greatest movies of all time 2004. In my opinion, it`s a landmark in cinema history. New film makers, watch this and prepared to be swept away (literally).

Oddly enough, the trilogy is directed by Peter Jackson (born in 31st Oct= Halloween. Coincidence?) who made low budget horror movies including Bad Taste (the film with the infamous exploding sheep scene) and the very disgusting Braindead(or Deadalive). It`s an odd choice for New Line Cinema to pick someone who made gorefests films but in the end, he achieved exceptional film making.


Video- It is presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen. LOTR is an epic and that fits the film perfectly from the Battle Sequence in the sequence in the beginning to the fight at the end. The print itself is in pristine condition, very little to fault it. The reds are always red and the blacks are always black. I really need to use a magnifying glass to inspect for flecks and grain but you should be looking at the film not the picture.

Sound- There are two choices of sound on this DVD, DD 5.1 EX or DD 2.0. The DD 5.1 mix is a very lively one. Speakers are used throughout from Howard Shore`s score to the swords clashing one another. I`m sure the DTS on the EE will give the extra oomph in sound.


Extras- Oh dear, this is were extras vs video and sound seperate widely. The extras are not really extras, they are actually promotional EPK like material but it lasts far longer than the odd 10 minute EPK. There are 3 documentaries: Welcome To Middle-Earth, The Quest For The Ring and A Passage To Middle Earth. All are promotional crap and some-what pretentious, need to say more. It appears to use the same interviews over and over again and feels very pretentious.

Next, you have several featurettes again giving very little value to the so called special features.

The list:
[list]

[*] Finding Hobbiton featurette
[*] Hobbiton Comes Alive featurette
[*] Believing The World Of Bree featurette
[*] Ringwraths: The Fallen Kings featurette
[*] Rivendel: The Elven Refuge featurette
[*] Languages Of Middle-Earth featurette
[*] Two Wizards featurette
[*] Music Of Middle-Earth featurette
[*] Elijah Wood featurette
[*] Viggo Mortensen featurette
[*] Orlando Bloom featurette
[*] Cate Blanchett featurette
[*] Liv Tyler featurette
[*] Ian McKellan featurette
[*] Weathertop: The Windy Mill featurette
[/list]

Moving on further to these so called extras, is a 10 minute behind the scene of LOTR:TT, once again offering very very little if not no extras to the overall package. The music vid, 3 trailers and 6 tv spots go to the bin, IMO. It`s extras like those that get shoved into a dark attic never to be seen again.

It gets worse and worse every time, Preview of Electronic Arts` video game "The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers" and an inside look at the special extended DVD edition of "The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring". The former shows a sneak peak of what the game is like and the latter also gives a sneak preview of the superior EE. Now, it seems that certain distributors which I will not name because of libel laws, they seem to think that promotional material are special features; they are not. I`m going to say this: Who cares about some promotional materials!!. Then again it`s the only way distributors get $$$.

To put it simple, I would give it 1/10 not because of the quantity of the extras but because of the quality. My controversial mark for features a 1 is simple: Promotional material. I could`ve gave it nothing or even -10/10 should this site allow minus scores.

Overall- An excellent movie and worthy of watching the following volumes of LOTR. Just avoid this release and get the superior EE. You get 4(!!!) audio commentaries, DTS sound and a helluva lot of original documentaries. ALL DVDs should have this kind of extras. Alien Quadrilogy, BEWARE!. ;) (The Alien Quadrilogy is my fav DVD boxset so far)

To summarise this in 2 words: A masterpiece.