Fellowship was even better than
Fellowship was even better than I expected, and I was expecting a lot.
Sure, I have my gripes, but they seem like nitpicking in retrospect. Here are a
few notes:
- Everybody calls Sauron by name. In the book, few people are unwilling to
say "Sauron" for fear of attracting his attention. Why would you change
that? - If directors are going to do arrows-in-flight shots, they should really look
at some videos of
arrows in flight first. It looks much cooler than anything I've seen in a
movie. - Why do fantasy movie archers always have to hold their bows sideways? It's
just silly. - Showing Sauron in full armor wasn't so bad and it seems like a nice
compromise with just having Gandalf or Elrond tell the Isildur story with no
visual. - The fight scenes were great but it's too bad they succumbed to the trend
towards jumpy, close-up camera work so it's hard to tell what's going on. I
guess maybe that's necessary when you're working CG into fight scenes. - I like how they beefed up Arwen as a character, she is practically
non-existent in the book. - I enjoyed everything from the Balrog on even more because it seemed more
faithful to the book. I think that bodes well for the rest of the series.