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Cast

Before filming began on October 11, 1999, the principal actors trained for six weeks in sword fighting (with Bob Anderson), riding and boating. Jackson hoped such activities would allow the cast to bond so chemistry would be evident on screen as well as getting them used to life in Wellington. They were also trained to pronounce Tolkien's verses properly. After the shoot, the nine cast members playing the Fellowship got a tattoo, the Elvish symbol for the number nine.

• Elijah Wood as Frodo Baggins: A hobbit who inherits the One Ring from his uncle, Bilbo Baggins. He is mostly accompanied by his best friend and fellow hobbit, Samwise Gamgee. Elijah Wood was the first actor to be cast on July 7 1999. Wood was a fan of the book, and he sent in an audition dressed as Frodo, reading lines from the novel. Wood was selected from one-hundred-and-fifty actors who auditioned.
• Sean Astin as Samwise "Sam" Gamgee: A Hobbit gardener and friend of Frodo. When caught eavesdropping, Sam is made to become Frodo's companion and from then on becomes very loyal. Astin, then a father of one, bonded with the eighteen-year old Wood in a protective manner similiar to Sam and Frodo.
• Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn: Dubbed Strider, he is a Dúnadain Ranger and the heir to the throne of Gondor. He travels with the Fellowship on their journey to Mordor. He is unsure of whether to become King following the failure of his ancestor, Isildur, to destroy the Ring. Vin Diesel, a fan of the book, auditioned for Aragorn, before Stuart Townsend was cast in the role, before being sacked during filming when Jackson realised he was too young. Russell Crowe was considered as a replacement, but he turned it down after a similiar role in Gladiator. Producer Mark Odesky saw Mortensen in a play and it was Mortensen's son, a fan of the book, who convinced him to take the role. Mortensen read the book on the plane, received a crash course lesson in fencing from Bob Anderson and began filming the scenes on Weathertop. Mortensen became a hit with the crew, method acting by patching up his costume and carrying his "hero" sword around with him offscreen.
• Ian McKellen as Gandalf the Grey: A wizard and mentor to Frodo Baggins, who helps him decide what to do with the Ring. He becomes the leader of the Fellowship after it is decided to take the Ring to Mount Doom and destroy it. Sean Connery was approached for the role, but didn't understand the plot. Before being cast, McKellen had to sort his schedule with 20th Century Fox as there was a two-month overlap with X-Men. He enjoyed playing Gandalf the Grey more than his transformed state in the next two films, and based his accent on Tolkien. Unlike his on-screen character, McKellen did not spend much time with the actors playing the Hobbits, instead working with their scale doubles.
• Dominic Monaghan as Meriadoc "Merry" Brandybuck: A Hobbit and a friend of Frodo. He helps him find a ferry to escape the Nazgûl, travels with the Fellowship on their journey to Mordor, along with his best friend Pippin. Monaghan was cast as Merry after auditioning for Frodo.
• Billy Boyd as Peregrin "Pippin" Took: A Hobbit who travels with the Fellowship on their journey to Mordor, along with his best friend Merry. He is loyal but a prankster, often being a nuisance for Gandalf.
• Sean Bean as Boromir: A prince of the Stewards of Gondor, he journeys with the Fellowship towards Mordor, although he is tempted by the power of the Ring. He feels Gondor needs no King, but becomes a friend of Aragorn. Bruce Willis, a fan of the book, expressed interest in the role, while Liam Neeson was sent the script, but passed.
• Orlando Bloom as Legolas: Prince of the Elves' Woodland Realm and a skilled archer who accompanies the Fellowship on their journey to Mordor. Bloom initially auditioned for Faramir, who appears in the second film, a role which went to David Wenham.
• John Rhys-Davies as Gimli: A Dwarf who accompanies the Fellowship to Mordor after they set out from Rivendell. He is xenophobic towards Elves. Billy Connolly was considered for the part of Gimli. Rhys-Davies wore heavy prosthetics to play Gimli, which limited his vision, and eventually he developed eczema around his eyes.
• Christopher Lee as Saruman the White: The fallen head of the Istari Order, who succumbed to Sauron's will via his use of the palantír. After capturing Gandalf, he creates an army of Uruk-hai to find and capture the Ring from the Fellowship. Lee is a major fan of the book, and reads it once a year. He has also met J.R.R. Tolkien. He originally auditioned for Gandalf, but was too old.
• Sala Baker portrays Sauron: The main antagonist and title character of the story, who created the One Ring to conquer Middle-earth. He lost the Ring to Isildur, and now seeks it in order to initiate his reign over Middle-earth. He cannot yet take physical form, and is spiritually incarnate as an Eye.
• Hugo Weaving as Elrond: The Elven master of Rivendell, who leads the Council of Elrond which ultimately decides to destroy the One Ring. He lost faith in the strength of Men after witnessing Isildur's failure 3000 years before. David Bowie expressed interest in the role, but Jackson stated, "To have a famous, beloved character and a famous star colliding is slightly uncomfortable."
• Cate Blanchett as Galadriel: Galadriel is the co-ruler of Lothlórien and a mighty Elf, along with her husband Lord Celeborn. She shows Frodo a possible outcome of events in her mirror and gives him the Light of Eärendil.
• Liv Tyler as Arwen: An elf, Arwen escorts Frodo to Rivendell after he is stabbed by the Witch-king. She is the daughter of Elrond and lover of Aragorn, and she gives him the Evenstar necklace. The filmmakers approached Tyler after seeing her performance in Plunkett & Macleane, and New Line Cinema leaped at the opportunity of having one Hollywood star in the film. Tyler came to shoot on short occasions, and bonded most with Bloom.
• Ian Holm as Bilbo Baggins: Frodo's uncle who gives him the Ring after he decides to retire to Rivendell. At Rivendell, he gives Frodo a mithril mail-shirt and his own sword, Sting, which can detect the presence of nearby orcs. Holm previously played Frodo in a 1981 radio version of The Lord of the Rings, and was cast as Bilbo after Jackson remembered his performance.
• Lawrence Makoare as Lurtz: The commander of Saruman's orc forces, and leads the hunt for the Fellowship as they head to Mordor.

Production

Writing

See also: The Lord of the Rings film trilogy § Development

Previously, Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh were planning a two-part film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings with Miramax, who dropped out when they wished to condense the two films into one. On July 24, 1998, the filmmakers presented a video to New Line Cinema to produce the project, now on the verge of cancellation. After watching the video of concept art, miniatures and animatics, executive Robert Shaye said, "Tolkien wrote three [volumes] - right? Then, if you're going to it justice, it should be three movies - right?" Jackson, Walsh and Phillipa Boyens had to re-write their scripts into three films.

The Fellowship of the Ring was decided as being primarily focused on Frodo's perspective. Seventeen years between Bilbo's birthday party and Gandalf's discovery of the Ring in the book was compressed to a few months in the film. Tom Bombadil was considered too extraneous, and his omission allowed more time to show Gandalf's meeting with Saruman, which takes place in flashback in the book. Lothlorien was added back into the script after the move to three films freed up more time. The death of Boromir in the first chapter of The Two Towers was re-worked into a climactic action sequence. Aragorn was also given a character arc of being unsure of his destiny, and Arwen, a minor character in the book, was also given a larger part. She substitutes for Glorfindel, bringing Frodo to Rivendell.

Peter Jackson and Christian Rivers worked together on storyboards, which were turned into story reels with voiceovers, sound effects and temp music. These were used to give actors and producers an understanding of the film. In addition, camera moves were planned on miniature sets, and computer pre-viz was used after the crew visited Industrial Light & Magic.

Design

Main article: Production design of The Lord of the Rings film trilogy

Tolkien illustrators John Howe and Alan Lee were hired in November 1997 as the main designers on the film because their work had inspired much of the screenwriting. Ted Nasmith approached the crew a year later, but decided against joining Howe and Lee because of a "personal crisis unrelated to my art, and [...] it would also force me to abandon my freelance obligations and be away indefinitely".

Initial designs on the trilogy were highly influenced by Dungeons & Dragons. Jackson rejected this high fantasy aesthetic, instead aiming for a historical feel. In designing the Elves, Alan Lee went for an art noveau influence, and also drew upon Japanese temples and the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright for Rivendell. Many geometric shapes were involved for the Dwarves.

Weta Workshop was behind the make-up, armour, weapons, creature designs and miniatures. Over the course of the trilogy, they created ten thousand Orc masks, eighteen hundred Orc bodies, eighteen hundred Hobbit feet (for the lead actors) and ten thousand arrows.

Ngila Dickson also lead fifty seamstresses in the creation of nineteen hundred costumes. They had to create forty versions of each costume, with ten each used by a lead actor, and his or her scale double, body double and stunt double. Dickson created distinctive colour tones for the Elves, with the Rivendell Elves draped in dark colours, while the Lothlorien Elves are very light. The Hobbits have a quirky mixture of long sleeves and short trousers. Gandalf's costume is inspired by a John Howe cover for the book. It was designed to be very dirty, as if he never changed during his centuries of travel, and of particular challenge was the tall pointed hat.

Filming

The scale of The Lord of the Rings meant as many as five units were shooting at the same time. John Mahaffie and Geoff Murphy were the main second-unit directors, whom Jackson observed through satellite link. Producers and writers also shot some scenes.

Filming on The Lord of the Rings film trilogy began on October 11 1999 at Mount Victoria, Wellington, with the scene where the Hobbits hide under a tree from a Ringwraith. Late 1999 was heavily focused on the climactic battle at Amon Hen. By January 17 2000, scenes in the Shire were being shot. February involved Isengard exteriors with Christopher Lee.

Pick-ups conducted during mid-2001 included the re-shooting of the scene where Sam joins Frodo on a boat, after he leaves the Fellowship. Originally as shot, Frodo and Sam escape on a boat as the Uruk-hai attack. A new opening scene was shot in which Bilbo writes his book regarding life in the Shire, which was included on the DVD. They also reshot Arwen's introduction: The original dress was of wool woven with metal, with a terrific drape to it, an unusual find, as were many of the elven clothes. The Cape she wears was crocheted and hooded, and also of wool and metal crocheted together into a fabric. This gave the 'halo' effect. However, when they filmed her sitting beside Frodo it all got too heavy and clumpy, so they scrapped that part and made the 'Angel dress' we are familiarly with instead, with a crossover, not unintentionally, but because they liked the 'Halo Cloak' for the dismount, The new dress was more "heavily beaded with gems and jewels", and they didn't use the cloak for that part of the scene."

Editing

After each day of shooting, Jackson and the producers viewed a few hours of rushes: most of them were asleep when the screenings ended. John Gilbert edited The Fellowship of the Ring, creating an assembly cut of rough scenes from the many takes while on location. Gilbert was supervised by Jackson, though he edited the death of Boromir by himself. The first cut was four and a half hours, which Jackson found a mess. The aim during editing was to focus the story once more on Frodo.

One contentious issue was the idea of a prologue. Originally, the film was to begin with Bilbo writing about daily life in the Shire, and Gandalf would explain the film's backstory to Frodo when he realises Bilbo's ring is the One Ring. New Line Cinema disliked this approach after viewing the film. As a last minute addition, Jackson had to recut the film's beginning while scoring was taking place, and deleted Bilbo's narration. This was restored on the DVD.

Special effects

[[:Image:Fellowship.JPG|thumb|right|350px|To make Hobbits and Dwarves look small against Men, Elves or Wizards, actors were shot against a bluescreen and later incorporated into a shot]] Visual effects supervisor Mark Stetson left during 2000, and was replaced by Jim Rygiel.

There are five hundred and forty effects shots in The Fellowship of the Ring. Weta Digital created maquettes of characters such as the cave troll and the Balrog, which were scanned into the computer.

Forced perspective

Music

Main article: Music of The Lord of the Rings film trilogy

Howard Shore's music for The Silence of the Lambs, Crash and Naked Lunch were used for animatics. Jackson felt his scores lent a mysterious mood to the film, whereas a score like Braveheart was too cliched and obvious. Shore was attached as composer in July 2000. Shore visited the set, and viewed an assembly cut of the film.

Shore spent four months researching rings in mythology, as "[he] had to know what led up to Tolkien writing Lord of the Rings", before composing the Moria theme in February 2001, as that sequence was to be screened during the Cannes Film Festival. A male Polynessian choir were recorded in early 2001 in New Zealand for the sequence. The 60-piece choir is all male, as Peter Jackson wanted to reflect the masculinity of the Dwarves. In late 2001, the rest of the score was recorded by the London Philharmonic Orchestra at Abbey Road Studios. Shore worked with the writers to create numerous themes based on Tolkien's poems and verses. The Ringwraith theme is sung in Adunaic, the speech of the Numenoreans. The most important theme was that of the Fellowship, to represent the growth of the group during the film. To sound exotic, Lothlorien's theme uses Indian instruments.

A male and female choir sings in Quenya, Sindarin and the Black Speech, while a 30-piece boy's choir sings Frodo and Sam's theme. This eventually involves into the song, "In Dreams", which is lead by Edward Roth. There are ten soloists in the score. Miriam Stockley sings the beginning of "Lothlorien", and Elizabeth Fraser sings "Gandalf's Lament". Enya sings "Aniron" in Sindarin and "May It Be" has a chorus in Quenya.

Sound

To create the sounds in Moria, the sound team recorded playings of sound effects underground, to recreate a sense of echo.

Release

The world premiere of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring was held in Leicester Square, London on December 10 2001.

Marketing

Toy Biz was granted rights to The Lord of the Rings toy line on June 12, 2000. [1]

Reception

Awards

For its depiction in this film, the Balrog ranks as one of Entertainment Weekly's favourite giant monsters. In 2008, the AFI's 10 Top 10 ranked it as the second greatest fantasy film, behind The Wizard of Oz.