The Lord of the Rings (2001-2003)

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Rating: 6!
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I will review these movies as one piece and I'll try to keep it short.

Everything about these movies are spectacular. The cast, crew, plot, music, props, locations, and computer graphics are awesome. I'll start with the cast.

Everyone in this movie was casted perfectly. I've read the books plenty of times and to me, they are all portrayed very well. I can't really say if I have any distinct favorites, but Viggo Mortenson, Ian McKellan, Andy Serkis, and Sean Bean are up there. The cast put everything they had into these characters and bring the people of Middle Earth alive in every way imaginable.

The crew did a fantastic job as well. Peter Jackson is an amazing director and put his career into making this film. The writers and producers, as well as all of the way down to the camera crew and the caterers made put everything into these films to bring Tolkien to life.

The plot was changed a little bit from the book to make this a little bit more pleasurable to watch. The book is wonderful to read but if all of it were to be made into a movie, it would become much to slow. Some characters were given more and some less. The plot itself was rearranged to make sense as a screen play. Some people believe this to take away from Tolkien's work but I think that movies are just a re-imagining of a story and sometimes it is necessary to make things a little more watchable. If one wants the story exactly how it is, read it.

The music is the most amazing thing I have ever listened to. Howard Shore created The Lord of the Rings in pure musical form. It is exciting, ferocious, beautiful, and emotional. None of it is out of place and  provides things that even the books cannot.

The props, landscapes, and CGI are just wonderful. The props were created with the mentality that they were being re-created from the stories of old. The landscapes were treated like they actually got to film where the events in the movie take place. Plus New Zealand is a beautiful sight to see. This trilogy was filmed as if they were making a biography of events that happened long ago. The CGI is incredibly good for being around ten years old. It is sad to say that but it is impressive that with how quickly computer graphics advance, the ones in this movie are still convincing.

I highly recommend watching the Blu-ray extended version. I'm not the biggest fan of Blu-ray but it hasn't been released on anything else. The versions on iTunes are not HD so I would avoid those. The extended edition is a hundred dollars but it is worth every bit. The trilogy is 12 hours of Lord of the Rings and 26 hours of special features. 12 discs of extra material! And I have only made it through one still.

If you haven't seen these movies, please do so. If you don't like it then at least you get to say that you have. If you like it, then you will love it. The themes that are weaved into it are phenomenal and never age. They aren't associated to any specific event in our history and can be applied to anyone.

The Lord of the Rings is the most complete form of storytelling that I have ever seen and I hope that you believe so as well.

Also The Hobbit is coming out in theaters this December and it looks amazing!!