I’m at that age when big anniversaries happen more and more frequently. The age at which you start to sigh a little when you’re getting up off the couch (and should get up more frequently, movement is key, as my trainer always seeks to remind me).
Still, it’s strange to consider that The Fellowship of the Ring, the first film in Peter Jackson’s immortal adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, came out twenty-five years ago. A quarter of a century has passed.
That’s an entire life.
Today, you can go see the films on the big screen again, and they, wonderfully, will be the extended editions.
I did just that on a recent snowy night, dragging my son along to see The Fellowship of the Ring. My son is a teenager who’s never seen the films, nor read the books, and doesn’t understand my references to them, including when I tell him that “not all tears are an evil.” This had to change. Our dog’s name is Legolas, for God’s sake (no plans yet to get a second dog named Gimli, but time will tell).
My son was shocked to discover that as a teenager, I saw Fellowship seven times in the theaters. Yes, mom is a giant nerd.
Of course, this wasn’t the extended cut, but to be honest, the extended cuts of these movies are where the soul lies. It’s stuff like seeing Aragorn sing a song about an elf who gives up her immortality to be with a man she loves – the supple and delicate meat on an intricate story’s bone. It’s worth the time you will get to spend in the theater, and theaters have gotten more comfortable in this day and age (here I get to shake my fist and talk about how “back in my day” you couldn’t just get popcorn ordered in advance).
One of Tolkien’s great strengths was to create a world with profound depth. An old world, full of echoes. His creation of different languages for Middle Earth is intellectually impressive and linguistically beautiful, but his ability as a story teller is greatest when it evokes ancient memories, the changing of the ages, the great lament over the passing of time and the changing of the guard, and the monsters that refuse to stay fully buried. The extended editions of Peter Jackson’s movies capture that same sense of history unfurling onto itself.
Among my friends, most are fans of the Two Towers, and rightfully so. The battle of Helm’s Deep is a cinematic masterpiece. The Return of the King also has its many admirers.
But it’s Fellowship that I return to time and time again, maybe because I like beginnings, maybe because of the score, or maybe because I simply hadn’t read the books when my friends got a big group of us together on opening night and so I watched the magic unfold with no frame of reference for what I was seeing. I just knew that I was falling in love.
Among the people I saw Fellowship with subsequent times was my mother. She had no time or patience for elves and orcs, but I dragged her anyway. She was transfixed once she wound up in that theater seat, as transfixed as my son is in the year 2026. There is a great pleasure in introducing something precious to someone you love for the first time, and having them get it (I can also take credit for my mom’s enduring crush on Viggo Mortensen).
The world has changed since 25 years ago, and also it hasn’t changed at all. The world keeps on being the world. And we, the people of the world, survive by telling stories to each other. The power of Tolkien, and the power of Peter Jackson, comes from knowing this about our species.
There is one thing that’s truly changed, however: today’s culture discourages us from leaving our houses. You can get food delivered. You can get movies via streaming. You can order essentials and have an AI assistant that reminds you when you should order them. You can hole up on a cold night.
All of that can be convenient, and nice, and comfortable, and it can also be isolating.
Seeing a great work on a big screen in a theater of like-minded people is, by contrast, much more moving. So if you have a few evenings to spare, go see Peter Jackson’s films on the big screen again.
Let yourself be moved. Let yourself be inconvenienced, even. Even inconvenience can be wonderful in the right context.
Let yourself live among other people that long for stories and their promise of eventual absolution. The shadow does not yet hold sway.