[VanimaEdhel]

The way I always explain it is that, as movies, The Lord of the Rings by Peter Jackson was done brilliantly. The films had all the elements of great cinema: engaging characters, good plot, intriguing setting, mystery, all of those components that reviewers always discuss in movie reviews. Jackson utilized effects that were never seen before - created his own graphics, programs and effects, and doing things with WETA that have never been done with any other special effects company. The acting in the movies was superb - while I am not myself a fan of Orlando Bloom, the talents of the others made up for his gap, in my opinion.

The lengths that costumers, extras, and makeup people went to in order to create a realistic background was just amazing. The extras endured worse conditions than the actors, the Orcs having hours spent in the makeup chair, not being able to use the bathroom three hours into the makeup application process. It was really a labor of love - Peter Jackson was almost always present, and when he couldn't be, he was watching from a television monitor at another location.

I feel that he captured the spirit of Middle Earth beautifully. While some characters contrasted with my views, the background - the cities, mountains, towers - of the movies were breathtaking. It was almost as though the image of Middle Earth that I had in my mind was translated onto the screen in front of me.

If you are looking at the works as literal interpretations of the books, then of course he didn't really do a good job. The problem is that it comes down to the fact that he had to promise a profit to New Line Cinema. Making ten-hour movies encompassing every nuance of the books wouldn't have been feasible. They didn't have enough money to pull that off. If you look at the other movies New Line does, they're typically more low-budget, low-quality movies. Lord of the Rings is what made New Line Cinemas a household name. While, as fans of the movie, we would love to see the Barrow Downs and Tom Bombadil, the Scouring of the Shire with the introduction of Saruman as Sharku, and the full range of the books, it just wasn't really possible.

And actually, it's interesting that Peter Jackson would put the death of Saruman in the Extended Version DVDs - those DVDs were typically made more to be focused at fans like us: those of us that wanted more to be in there, but just couldn't get it in due to the fact that the average theater-going person doesn't want to sit for four and a half hours watching a hobbit try to get to Mount Doom. Killing Saruman in such a half-hearted, weak manner is almost like just giving up on the story in general. I also didn't like that nothing had changed in the Shire when they returned - the whole point of the Scouring and such subsequent sections was to prove that the evil of the ring spread even into the Shire and Hobbiton. By having the Hobbits return and have everything be the same, the "unknowing" would wonder, "Gee, maybe they were wrong: maybe the Shire would always remain the same idyllic paradise it was when they left. Did they really need to go through all that?"