📗Why Peter Jackson's "The Fellowship of the Ring" is My Favorite of His LOTR Trilogy

How the changes from book to film help elevate the first of the trilogy above the others

Credit: New Line Cinema

Which movie from The Lord of the Rings trilogy is your favorite? Like a parent being asked to pick a favorite child, it’s an almost impossible question to answer. (Unless you’re asking Denethor.) For instance, what criteria do you use to evaluate the movies? Ranking them by which has the most action? The most meaningful scenes? The most inspirational?

As movies based on source material, another way to evaluate Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings is by their faithfulness as adaptations of the source material.

Though the very nature of adaptations from one medium to another means changes are inevitable, not all changes are equally necessary and/or successful. Some changes make more sense in the new medium, while others just don’t work for one reason or another.

Though I love them all, my favorite of the trilogy is The Fellowship of the Ring. This is in no small part due to the disagreements I have with several major changes The Two Towers and The Return of the King made in adapting the source material.

Changes from the source material are not bad in and of themselves. I just happen to like or at least not mind many of the changes made in The Fellowship of the Ring while disliking several major ones in the other two films.

Now its faithfulness as an adaptation is hardly the only reason that I love Peter Jackson’s Fellowship most out of the trilogy. Both in the book and the movie, Fellowship is the quintessential beginning of the journey where we meet many of the main characters for the first time and are introduced to the wider world of the story. 

Gandalf’s confrontation with the Balrog and his sacrifice as well as the dramatic conclusion to this portion of the journey on and around Amon Hen are epic encounters and the quiet reflective moments found throughout add to the heart and emotion of the story. I love this opening part of the story for these reasons and many more, but the way that the film version adapted the story from the books helps to elevate it in my mind above the other two Peter Jackson films.

Which specific changes that Jackson’s films made to Tolkien’s story do I like and which ones do I not care for? Let’s dive in.

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