I saw LOTR a month or two ago on a burned CD and looooooved it. (the books are among my Top5 books ever)
First off, i loved the way they transformed all the locations so well, and the movie is much easier to follow than the book(s). The acting is good (Ian McKellen is an incredible Gandalf and blows everyone else away, and is great alongside Cristopher Lee as Saruman - those two are the best performances).
Next, all the creatures and effects were done extremely well. (i was seriously amazed at the way they did Bilbo's visions when he's wearing the ring...WOW!!!) Black riders are the most memorable "villain" characters. Oh and i thought Legolas was cute.
Funny though, in the book, Aragorn is my favorite character from the Fellowship (besides Bilbo), in the movie, it was Legolas.
I dunno...if you like the fantasy genre, and if you know (and enjoy) the books, you should see it.
While we're at this topic, has anyone else seen that cartoon they did in about 1978? That was my first contact with LOTR, and i enjoyed the cartoon too.
The only things surprised me a bit on the downside were:
- the way they did Sauron as this huge metal warrior - the way i understood the book, Sauron is a magician just like Saruman or Gandalf.
- the way they did that Balrog monster ; thought he was gonna be more like an animal with flames around him (like he was done in that cartoon)
- i thought the "boom"s in Moria before the Orcs attacked should have been longer to intense the tenstion. In the movie it was like "boom boom boom" while in the book (the way i see it) it's more like
"boom"
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"booom"
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.
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"booom" (BTW, that is probably the scariest part of the first book for me- those drums)
Off topic: where's z edge? I'd expect him around when bananas are mentioned LOL