MOVIE REVIEW: Lord of The Rings — Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

[CW: September 11 terrorist attacks, War on Terror]

The year 2001 was historic, to say the least: we were officially in the 21st Century (aka the zeerust idea of “the future”), we had interconnected access to the sum of human knowledge via the World Wide Web, and cinema had been changed forever with 1999's *The Matrix. We did not think it could get any better. Then a relative newcomer to Hollywood — a New Zealander named Peter Jackson — promised us an amazing Christmas present with a summer trailer for his movie. That trailer was for the movie Lord of the Rings: the Fellowship of the Ring*, the first in a trilogy of movies made from the books by fantasy author J.R.R Tolkien.

We all saw the trailer…but nobody was ready for the story that would unfold.

<<SPOILERS beyond this point; you’ve been warned.>>

In a world of magic and beauty called Middle-earth, 19 of the world’s rulers received magical rings that gave them greater power over their subjects: three to the Elves, five to the Dwarves, and 9 to the rulers of Men. Unknown to all of them, a master ring — the One Ring — was created to rule them all by the dark lord Sauron, lieutenant to Morgoth the Dark Enemy of the World. When the affected people’s found out, they fought back against Sauron’s army of orcs and goblins and defeated the dark lord. They had a chance to destroy him for good by the hand of Men, but the greed of their king Isildur (Harry Sinclair, Topless Women Talk About Their Lives [1997], Blood Clots [2018])— amplified simply by holding the One Ring — made him keep it. He was killed soon after, but the ring was lost…found by another, and then after by a Hobbit named Bilbo Baggins (Sir Ian Holm, Alien [1979], From Hell [2001]). He held on to it until his 111th birthday — an unusually long life for a Hobbit — when his old adventuring stoner buddy Gandalf the Gray Wizard (Sir Ian McKellen, Richard III [1995], The Keep [1983]) came into Bilbo’s hometown of The Shire. They had last adventured on the quest to free the Lonely Mountain from the ancient dragon Smaug — the same adventure where Bilbo found his special ring.

THE ONE RING: Worn on Sauron’s right hand, the inscription around its edge is written in the Black Speech of Mordor and reads: “One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them, One ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.”

Soon the story moves from Bilbo to his nephew Frodo Baggins (Elijah Wood, The Faculty [1998], “Wilfred” [TV-FX]), whose curiosity about his uncle Bilbo’s old ring leads Gandalf to suspect about its true nature. The wizard sends Frodo and his gardener Samwise Gamgee (Sean Astin, Encino Man [1992], 50 First Dates [2004]) to carry the ring to Rivendell — home of the Elves. Along the way, they meet with hobbits Peregrine “Pippin” Took (Billy Boyd, Seed of Chucky [2004], “Outlander” [TV-Starz]) and Meriadoc “Merry” Brandybuck (Dominic Monaghan, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker [2019], X-Men Origins: Wolverine [2014]), the ranger called “Strider” (Viggo Mortensen, A History of Violence [2005], Crimes of the Future [2023]) and his Elven girlfriend Arwen (Liv Tyler, Empire Records [1995], Mademoiselle C [2013]), and her father Lord Elrond of Rivendell (Hugo Weaving, *The Matrix Reloaded [2003], Happy Feet Two [2011]*) as he hosts a summit for Middle-earth representatives who wish to dispose of the ring:

• Legolas (Orlando Bloom, Kingdom of Heaven [2005], Gran Turismo [2023]), Elven prince of Mirkwood
• Gimli(John Rhys-Davies, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny [2023], “Sliders” [TV-FOX]), Dwarf representative of the Longbeards
• Boromir (Sean Bean, Equilibrium [2002], “Game of Thrones” [TV-HBO]), steward-prince of Gondor
• “Strider”, whose true name is Aragorn, descendent of Isildur and the true heir to the royal line of Gondor
• and Gandalf, who recently escaped an encounter with the turncoat wizard Saruman the White (Sir Christopher Lee, The Mummy [1959], Star Wars: Attack of the Clones [2002])

THE FELLOWSHIP: (back row, l-r) Legolas (Orlando Bloom), Boromir (Sean Bean), Gimli (John-Rhys-Davies), Gandalf the Gray (Sir Ian McKellen), Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen); (front row, l-r) Pippin (Billy Boyd), Merry (Dominic Monaghan), Frodo (Elijah Wood), and Sam (Sean Astin) with Bill the pony.

Of all the people who should have carried the ring — the strong, quick, and tough — it was little Frodo that volunteered to carry old Bilbo's ring to Mordor and destroy it in the fire of the foreboding volcano Mount Doom. With a fellowship of nine (which included the aforementioned along with Sam, Merry, and Pippin), the journey east to Mordor began and was filled by threats and traps. Even as they received help from the she-elf sorceress Galadriel (Cate Blanchette, Elizabeth [1998], Borderlands [2024]), despair and death hounded their steps: Gandalf fell at the hands of the Balrog in Moria, while Boromir fell defending Merry and Pippin from kidnapping orcs. Frodo was shocked at the negativity his mission was drawing, so he did the one things heroes in fantastic stories never do: HE QUIT. It was Sam that pulled him away from that empty road and kept him going on his quest to save Middle-earth…because Frodo would not have gone far without his Sam.

A LONG WAY TO GO: Looking east to Mordor, Sam and Frodo realized they had a long way to go to reach Mount Doom…and the world had a long way to go to heal.

In the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, America and most of the Western world was shaken. Americans experienced on their home soil for the first time in 60 years what many other nations experience regularly: enemies breached their territory’s borders to attack them. People who hated each other in America needed love and support, and surprisingly asked those they hated and oppressed for it. While not everyone gave, others did in a display of the enduring human spirit: we were humans before anything else (black or white, Jews or Christians, Republicans or Democrats, straight or gay, rich or poor) and we need to help each other. Of all the things to embody the unity against the hatred that would bring about a coordinated terrorist attack, the Fellowship of the Ring (released mere months after 9/11) was the one thing that brought people together. Everybody could see or find something in the protagonists and heroes, striving against such reckless hate: sweet suffering Frodo, optimistic Sam, the action-oriented trio of Legolas and Aragorn and Gimli, the wise words and foresightedness of Gandalf and others. In the orc and goblin enemies of Middle-earth, we imagined al-Qaeda and other terrorists: short-sighted barbaric killers who believed an inhumane dogma and spoke a guttural garbled tongue. Some of us saw the 6-foot-5 terrorist leader Osama bin Laden in the tall form of Sauron. The “us-versus-them” doctrine served the clerical profession well, as there were more Lord of the Rings-themed sermons in the 2001/2002 winter season to capitalize what was rumored to be a religious conflict.

We celebrated the uniformed services for doing their jobs to a cult-like degree, inspiring countless memorabilia and apparel. Our government sent a traumatized people off to fight like Aragorn and Legolas, riding in on horseback and helicopters to fight in the wilderness of Afghanistan — the “Graveyard of Armies”— against al-Qaeda and the Taliban. If the soldiers thought they would come back heroes after slaying imagined orcish enemies, they were only partly right: countless movies have been made about how they felt bad about committing war crimes which made them depressed and violent and suicidal, and the government under a failed president used the War on Terror as a pretense to bring back concentration camps (which hadn’t been fashionable since 1945) and start a new war in Iraq to find “weapons of mass destruction” (WMD). Blaming the actions of a few fanatics on an entire cultural group or religious belief and capitalizing on it for larger attendances and tithes doesn’t work when you realize that same community our nation’s propaganda lumps in with the terrorists ALSO doesn’t like the few fanatics that embarrassed them and put all their lives in danger. This is also evident as many of these terrorists often attack and harm members of their own communities first. We see that now with the rise of the far right and its in-fighting, with the main difference is that most terrorists don’t have veto power at the United Nations.

Hollywood had a different take to this growing reality, and made a lot of money on the ethno-religious tribal war fantasy — emphasis on fantasy — during the ensuing 20 years of the Wars on Terror like 300 [2006], The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe [2011], and countless superhero films. This movie stood out among them all for its universal appeal, award-winning visuals, and memorable musical score by Howard Shore. The movie’s overall reception created a wild time when jocks, nerds, preppies, and stoners could team up like Scooby-doo to understand their place in this frightening new world thanks to a fantasy movie about a sequel to a children’s bedtime story.

GIRL POWER: Most female characters in the Lord of the Rings are footnotes, but the Ringwraiths (left) were held back by Arwen (Liv Tyler, right) and her invoking elven magic on the river flow to drown them.

It goes without saying the fans of the book had their issues with the film adaptation (mostly fixed with the much-appreciated extended Director’s Cut versions on home video), but my concern rests not with the people that became fans after the theatrical releases. My concern is with the people who professed to be experts on the world of Middle-earth after only watching the theatrical release. Why did they feel the need to misrepresent their limited expertise after just one film in a planned trilogy? Simply put: knowledge can translate into power over the ignorant. These instant experts saw what people had put onto Tolkien’s story in this time of emotional uncertainty, and they chose to capitalize on it to gain power. This heedless rush for power over the minds of the emotionally needy and ignorant resulted in a slew of proto-fascists that completely missed the point of Tolkien’s stories, imagining themselves as “defenders of freedom” and civilization as they spread…terror.

Truly, the spirit of Morgoth endures…in whatever form it takes.

CHOICE CUTS:

• I wrote a review for this film back in 2002, and I wouldn’t publish it now. That said, I’ll be injecting some of its points into these CHOICE CUTS.
• This movie singlehandedly brought the tin whistle, an instrument of Irish and Scottish origin, to prominence as the main instrument used for the pastoral and wistful themes of the Shirelings (aka hobbits). If you ever craved nostalgia for a world you never experienced, the sounds of this instrument would make it happen.
• …and no Tom Bombadil.
• Gandalf’s dalliance with the Shirefolk draws a parallel to Edith Hamilton’s comment in her 1942 book Mythology about Zeus partying with his chosen people, the Ethiopians. That might be a spicy tangent to explore in English class or seminary studies.
• PRICELESS QUOTE: “It comes in PINTS? I’m getting one” — Pippin, when Merry brings his drink back from the bar at the Prancing Pony as they wait for Gandalf.
• Most audiences gasp in awe at learning that Elrond is over 3000 years old, and it’s a sure sign they are in for the long haul.
• The movie shows us a hint of what would Gollum — the previous owner of the One Ring after Isildur — would look like, his eyes glinting in the dark. If they thought that was scary, the next film would be an absolute treat.
• Shots of the Ringwraiths — the corrupted spirits of the nine kings of Men, now serving the dark will of Sauron — remind me a lot of the Death Dealer painting by Frank Frazetta.
• We need to talk about the wizard duel. The idea conjures thrown fireballs and lightning bolts, but then Saruman and Gandalf battle within the walls of Orthanc in the center of Isengard. It never fails to make people wince and cringe from the blows delivered as the wizards launch projectiles of invisible force against their (seemingly) frail bodies.
• PRICELESS QUOTE: “We’ve had ‘breakfast’, yes. But what about ‘second breakfast’?” —Pippin, speaking with his stomach.
• A great deal of imagery and scenery for this film was taken from another fantasy epic shot in New Zealand: Willow [1986].
• There were a LOT of homoerotic memes floating around Frodo and Sam, as people had not seen men care for each other in this way in decades. It was great fun at the time for some, until it became clear the jokes were pushing the love that male friends have for each other into a sexual dimension. This culture-wide suspicion of homosexuality would drive men apart on a deeper level to bond with online influencers and salesmen, ultimately leading to the male loneliness epidemic of the early 21st century.

DURIN’S BANE: This particular Balrog fled the War of Wrath in the First Age, only to be awakened by the mining of the Moria dwarves. His showdown with Gandalf on the Bridge of Khazad-dûm helped the Fellowship to escape the orc and goblin ambush.

• PRICELESS QUOTE: When Gandalf faces off against the Balrog on the Bridge of Khazad-dûm, he bars the way to allow the rest of the Fellowship to escape. While the line in the book is “You cannot pass”, Ian McKellen puts everything in his line delivery when he shouts at the top of his lungs “YOUUUUUUU SHALL NOT PASS!” This line got memed hard for years, and with good reason.
• I wonder if the late author Tolkien, a surviving British soldier of World War I, would have been open to dialogue with the organizations responsible for the 9/11 attacks to minimize the deaths brought about by terror attacks and the responding War on Terror.
• PRICELESS QUOTE: “Great. Where are we going?” — an inattentive Pippin, after the entire scene establishing the Fellowship before its trip into Mordor.