Lord of the Rings: Film Review

Movie: Lord of the Rings

Directed by: Peter Jackson

Based on JRR Tolkien's novels

Genre: Fantasy-Action-Romance-Historical

Movie Summary:

An ancient Ring thought lost for centuries has been found, and through a strange twist in fate has been given to a small Hobbit named Frodo. When Gandalf discovers the Ring is in fact the One Ring of the Dark Lord Sauron, Frodo must make an epic quest to the Cracks of Doom in order to destroy it! However he does not go alone. He is joined by Gandalf, Legolas the elf, Gimli the Dwarf, Aragorn, Boromir and his three Hobbit friends Merry, Pippin and Samwise. Through mountains, snow, darkness, forests, rivers and plains, facing evil and danger at every corner the Fellowship of the Ring must go. Their quest to destroy the One Ring is the only hope for the end of the Dark Lords reign!

Welcome to Middle Earth:

LOTR is one of the greatest classic movie I've ever seen in my life; both Master Tolkien and Director Peter Jackson did an amazing job and I admired them for that. They're great people to look up to. 

Middle Earth is what the LOTR's world was called; Like Earth, they have their own universe, creatures, traditions, cultures and problems to deal with. There are many magical creatures such as Hobbits, Elves, Dwarves, Trolls, Orcs and more. But of course, there's also the race of Men; Humans are the main ingredients of most stories and moves and in LOTR it was mentioned that humans are the most complex and 'not lame' characters. If someone's thinking that human race is typical and boring well that's definitely not true.

History of Middle Earth:

Middle-earth, or Endor is the name used for the habitable parts of Arda after the final ruin of Beleriand, and is east across the Belegaer from Aman. It is north of the Hither Lands shown in the Ambarkanta and west of the East Sea; and throughout the First and Second Ages it went through many colossal geographical changes, caused by Iluvatar.

Tolkien, in one of his letters, estimated the end of the Third Age to about 6,000 years before his own time. The action of the books is largely confined to the north-west of the Endor continent, implicitly corresponding to modern-day Europe. The history of Middle-earth is divided into several Ages: The Hobbit and the main text of The Lord of the Rings deal exclusively with events towards the end of the Third Age and conclude at the dawn of the Fourth Age, while The Silmarillion deals mainly with the First Age. The world (Arda) was originally flat but was made round near the end of the Second Age by Eru Ilúvatar, the Creator.

"Middle-earth" is a literal translation of the Old English term Middangeard, referring to this world, and the habitable lands of men. Tolkien translated "Middle-earth" as Endor (or sometimes Endóre) and Ennor in the Elvish languages Quenya and Sindarin, respectively. The north of Endor became the Eurasian land-mass after the primitive Earth was transformed into the round world of today.

The Elves of Middle Earth

The Elves of Middle Earth are the first born children of their worshipped deity, Eru Illuvatar. They are known for being tall, having long silver, blonde or black hair and of course their pointed ears. They are indeed beautiful creatures that is very hard to resist. Elves does not age, and they are agile too. They are expert in archery and can heal themselves too. They are somewhat immortal since they don't get old but they can die in the battle field once beaten hard. Another reason for them to die is if they "Fade away".

For most elves, having a romantic relationship with mortals are tabboo or forbidden, because once they tie themselves with a mortal that will also mean their death. Mortals will remain as mortals, they'll get old and die while Elves will remained young and beautiful. Once their soulmate died, they will fade away. When the time of Elves has come to an end, they all sail back to their homeland, Valinor or the Undying Lands.

Additional Infos:

Elves, like Men, are both Children of Ilúvatar (God, The One) and thus are very similar to Men. Unlike Men, however, they are immortal, in that their bodies do not age once they have reached maturity, so that they do not seem to become elderly or die of old age, and they are not afflicted by disease. They can be killed by physical injury however, or they may come to death from wasting away if after long eons of life they lose the will to live. The Elves came into existence before Men, and when they die they pass to the Halls of Mandos in Valinor, where they await the end of Time.

Elves are (generally) unusually handsome of face and body, and they have far better vision and hearing than Men. They also have skills and abilities, and perception of things around them, far greater than that of Men, although whether this is an innate quality or is the result of long experience after having lived so long, is not known. They are also light of foot, can travel long distances without leaving tracks, and often can walk lightly across snow where the boots of Men would go through.

My Insights:

I like LOTR's Elves, they're totally cool and awesome. While watching and reading about them, I could honestly relate them to Angels and the beings from Heaven. I don't know if Master Tolkien did based them from the holy beings but its like that. They are beautiful, does not get old and much better than humans. And just like how Angel-Human relationship is forbidden, Elf-Human relationship is not allowed as well. Elves are the known highest and lived the longest for many many centuries since they're Eru's first borns. And speaking of Eru, this deity is like the representation of Almighty Creator in Middle Earth.

I personally love Lord of the Rings not only because of it's high quality and huge production sets, special effects and costumes but also because it mirrors a lot of things and there's a message in it. It is like the fantasy representation of this world and the problem it's facing. Elves looking down at Men, Elves having an unend conflict with the Dwarves, these represents the races fighting and discriminating each other.

LOTR taught me to become strong at all times and that I should not give up no matter how hard the problem is, there is always a way to survive. Darkness will not stay forever, light will shed at the right time and the Highest won't leave us alone. A lot of things happened in the movie and there's a lot of things to understand; life will always go on no matter what, every ending has a beginning. And when it comes to LOVE, it taught me that nothing matters when it comes to this feeling; no status, race or anything will stop you from loving the person you really love. If the two are meant for each other, nothing would stop them. Not even Death will win. It is true that Love conquers all. 

LOTR is such a unique and complicated 2 hours movie that you need to do a lot of absorption in order to understand everything but I gotta say it's worth it. I am also proud of the casts because they did a pretty good job on portraying their assigned characters. They all got it right.  It is worth using a huge amount of money in this film since it's really beautiful and many liked it too. Though there are many who said that there's a huge difference between Tolkien's and Jackson's I don't really have a problem with it because for me, I found both of their works good and besides, the movie is only BASED, it's not really the whole book so I guess Director PJ can add or less if he wants.

Here's a video about LOTR:

Resources:

www.youtube.com

http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings_(film_series)

www.fanpop.com (for the pictures)

Au Revoir!

~Yumi Lemuel/Mare/Care Bear/M'Lady/"Ojousama" daw/Akira/Abby

(Mary Louise O. Sarion)