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| Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Ian McKellan,
Viggo Mortensen, Sean Bean, Cate Blanchett, Orlando Bloom, John Rhys-Davies,
Ian Holm, Liv Tyler, Christopher Lee, Billy Boyd, Dominic Monaghan |
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Anamorphic
widescreen |
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Dolby Digital
5.1 |
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DTS |
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Trailer(s) |
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Featurette(s) |
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Documentary |
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Audio commentary
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Deleted scenes
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Concept art
/ storyboards |
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Multi-angle
feature |
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Frodo
(Elijah Wood): I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none
of this had happened.
Gandalf (Ian McKellen): So do all who live to see such times.
But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to
do with the time that is given to us.
In
the fantastical land of Middle-Earth, a young Hobbit comes to bear a
ring of evil power to the only place where it can be destroyed.
 Rarely
has any film production been anticipated with a more feverish sense
of expectation than Peter Jackson's three-part film adaptation of Tolkien's
fantasy masterpiece The Lord of the Rings. Three years of hotly
debated casting issues, story changes, leaked reports from the New Zealand
location shoot and the famous 20-minute sneak preview at the Cannes
film festival preceded the first instalments's huge international opening
date. With expectations running as high as they were by that point,
the first film's biggest accomplishment proved to be its failure to
disappoint. Hardcore fans and Tolkien novices alike were swept along
on the current of near-unanimous praise, while film critics piled on
Hosannas in numbers quite rare for large-budget Hollywood blockbusters.
Although its genre limitations kept it from sweeping the boards at this
year's Oscars, it still walked away with quite a few statuettes and
many other awards, with its critical and commercial success quickly
solidifying its status as an unqualified hit. As the publicity campaign
for The Two Towers slowly gears up for its upcoming December
release, The Fellowship of the Rings now makes its shrewdly conceived
DVD début. Main distributor New Line is clearly determined to
milk the films' success for all it's worth, first releasing the theatrical
cut in a two-disc edition, to be followed in November by a director's
cut with new extras and 30-odd minutes of extra footage reinstated.
So how well does the epic hold up on the smaller screen?
 Watching
The Fellowship of the Ring for the first time on DVD, quite a
bit of the film's immense scale and its gloriously detailed production
design is unavoidably lost. Movies like this are truly made for the
biggest possible screens, and the overwhelming sense of wonder at gazing
into a massive, complete world presented in enormous detail and breathtaking
scope is clearly diminished in the home theater. Fortunately, the film's
success does not hinge on the sheer scale of its visual spectacle: even
in the most hugely conceived sequences, Jackson maintains a sure-handed
focus on his main characters, always alternating sweeping wide shots
with tight close-ups. And because the true-to-form cast continues to
convince upon multiple viewings, one is drawn into the narrative very
quickly.
The few shortcomings that were already evident in theaters however are
made even more obvious when watching the film more leisurely at home:
the film moves forward at a breakneck pace that includes quite a few
bumps and awkward transitions, as if we're watching a truncated version
even at its 178-minute running time. Oddly enough, there are also a
few scenes that seem unnecessarily stretched out, like the Aragorn-Arwen
dialogues and the cave troll attack in the mines of Moria. Still, these
are fairly minor quibbles in a spectacular piece of filmmaking that
dramatizes Tolkien's incident-packed journey superbly and confidently,
while offering a visualization of the world's most popular literary
work that can hardly fail to astonish anyone who has enjoyed the book.
And with the upcoming longer cut looking likely to improve the somewhat
frantic pace of its storyline, we have more than just the two next sequels
to look forward to. |
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Identical
two-disc Special Editions will be released for Region 1 and Region 2
on August 6, 2002. The release carries the theatrical cut of the film
on the first disc and numerous featurettes, trailers and other extras
on disc 2. A four-disc set with a longer cut of the film spread across
the first two discs and other extras on discs three and four will street
internationally in November.
The
anamorphic widescreen image is framed at an aspect ratio of approx.
2.35:1. High-profile releases of some fairly recent blockbusters like
Star Wars: The Phantom Menace and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's
Stone disappointed many with DVD fans with their less-than-reference
level transfers, so I was anxious to see how the Fellowship of the
Rings transfer had been handled. But I'm relieved to say it delivers
in the best possible way, offering a boldly colored picture that is
crystal clear and solid as a rock. The theatrical prints of the film
I've seen (projected on immense screens) were all disappointingly grainy,
but there is absolutely no trace of grain on the DVD transfer presented
here. Edge enhancement (which came close to ruining the Phantom Menace
DVD for many) is thankfully kept to an absolute minimum, resulting
in a beautifully detailed, film-like image that is sure to please.
The Dolby
Digital 5.1 EX sound mix is perhaps even better, delivering a hugely
powerful enveloping soundstage that puts the rear channels to frequent,
creative use and makes the subwoofer work overtime. Howard Shore's powerful
score is very strongly presented, and the award-winning sound design
is nothing short of reference level in this superb 5.1 mix.
While
the list of extras had been published well in advance of the release
date, the actual contents of the second disc in this first two-disc
release remained a jealously kept secret, held under strict international
embargo by New Line. Early press screenings of the DVD contained only
disc 1, and not until the actual release date were screeners of the
extras given out to the international press. Now that the release date
is finally here, preceded by our advance preview of disc 1 published
a few weeks ago, it's hard to imagine what had been considered so extraordinary
that it had to be held back so strictly. For rather than the actual
insight into the huge production process that all the fans are impatiently
waiting for, this release contains little more than a collection of
promotional materials most fans will already be familiar with.
 The
two items that are actually new (and which will probably give reluctant
fans some extra impetus to buy this 'regular' release) are of course
the exclusive previews: one for upcoming sequel The Two Towers
and another one for the four-disc DVD set scheduled for a November release.
The Two Towers preview runs just over ten minutes in length,
and is hosted by the ever-affable Peter Jackson, first seen driving
his car and chatting breezily towards the camera. We get a brief outline
of the events in the second film, followed by a quick introduction to
the new characters, with a short interview with Miranda Otto (who plays
Éowyn in the film). We then move on to some footage of the motion
capture sessions for Gollum, of whom we don't get to see any finished
new footage. The search for the Edoras location is outlined and shown,
along with footage of the set's construction, followed by the Helm's
Deep set. Finally, we get an impressive closer look at the software
used for creating the armies of Orcs we'll be seeing in the next film.
All of this is intercut with quick glimpses of footage from The Two
Towers, but fairly little that isn't already familiar from the first
teaser trailer. The four-disc DVD set preview runs just over three minutes,
and looks like it will not disappoint. We get a quick overview of the
new footage added here and there, followed by a very fast montage of
what some of the extras will look like, including the expected detailed
insider looks at special effects development. Both previews are presented
in anamorphic widescreen with Dolby Digital 5.1 audio.
 The
other extras on board are more like an archive of the various promotional
materials produced to wet viewers' appetites for the film and introduce
those unfamiliar with the books to the world of Tolkien. The worst of
the three featurettes found here is the FOX TV special 'Quest
for the Ring', with that terrible voice-over exaggerating every single
thing one sees or hears. There's some behind-the-scenes footage as well
as some sound bites from the cast and crew, but this 21-minute item
is a bit of an ordeal, put together using the standard EPK manual. The
12-minute Houghton Mifflin In-Store Special 'Welcome to Middle Earth'
is quite a bit better, though slightly amateurishly presented. It features
a solid interview with Rayner Unwin, the son of Tolkien's regular publisher
and the man who actually got his books published. He digs up some great
old material and has enough to say about the author, giving some welcome
body to what is otherwise a sales item for the spin-off books published
by Houghton Mifflin. The 41-minute Sci-Fi Channel Special 'A Passage
to Middle-Earth' does hold quite a bit of footage previously seen in
the other two featurettes, but offers the most complete kind of overview
of the film's production of the three longer items presented here. There
aren't any big surprises here, but the narration isn't as grating as
in the FOX special, and the introduction (yet again!) to the world of
Tolkien isn't badly done. After watching all three, you will have heard
about the wonders of New Zealand more than twice, and you will certainly
have become tired of hearing about what kind of race Hobbits are and
how the Hobbiton location had been found. You'll even have grown tired
of the endlessly repreated bits of footage from The Fellowship of
the Ring. The DVD would have been far better served by one single
longer documentary that provides a comprehensive overview rather than
these three fluffy featurettes, but we'll assume that this is what we
might expect on the November DVD release.
The 14 short web featurettes first seen on the movie's website
are better simply by focusing on very specific aspects of the production,
but at running times from one-and-a-half to four minutes, there isn't
much room to delve deeply into any of the items here. The real fans
will also have seen them many times over, as they've all been available
on the site for some time now. The other extras are no more than the
usual collection of remaining promotional items. Two teaser trailers
and one theatrical trailer are here (the first internet preview
and the last trailer seem to be missing), all presented in handsome
anamorphic widescreen and impressive Dolby Digital 5.1 EX. Six TV
spots are also here (in fullscreen and 2.0 stereo), and Enya's
music video for her track 'May it be', containing the expected
amount of footage from the film and presented in non-anamorphic widescreen
and Dolby ProLogic surround sound. Finally, there's a preview of the
Two Towers EA video game, which runs about three minutes and
consists mostly of footage from the film, ending with some clips from
the PlayStation/GameBoy Advance video game which is due for release
in November. There are some DVD-ROM options, but they consist
of little more than a link to the official website, a 'Play Extras'
option that simply activates the extras on the DVD, and the promise
of unspecified special-access material for DVD owners.
All in all, real fans of the movie will do better to wait for the four-disc
November version, for I can't imagine anyone getting much out of the
limited extras here once the larger set and the extended cut of the
film have arrived. Both the previews and the promotional materials have
a highly limited shelf life, making this the version for the more casual
DVD audience. The inclusion of the 'exclusive previews' comes across
as a bit of a cheap trick to get more fans to put aside their better
judgment and pony up the cash first for this DVD and later for the real
thing. But then, more than a few fans will be so rabidly impatient to
simply watch the movie again and again in their own home that many of
them probably would have bought this release even if it was a strictly
bare-bones affair. The fairly insubstantial extras included here can
therefore be viewed as a very thin icing on a reference-level presentation
of a great film that will be snapped up by millions of fans without
giving it a second thought. For who can imagine having to wait another
three whole months before owning your very own Fellowship
of the Ring DVD?... The
animated menus have a stylish design, with the 'Lord of the Rings' film
logo giving way to a brief montage of shots revealing the ring's history,
ending with the ring settling at the bottom of the river. Selecting the
'Play Movie' option makes a hand appear that picks up the ring as a nice
transition to the film's beginning.
Dan
Hassler-Forest
Reviewed: July
21, 2002; updated: August 6, 2002
Click
here for IMDB info on The
Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings.
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