What they got right

Peter Jackson and his team--that phrase should be understood throughout what follows, but from the documentaries that accompanied the various DVD editions of The Lord of the Rings, it's clear that the ultimate decision-making power for most areas of production rested with Jackson. Plans were not developed, concepts not pursued, models not made into reality, unless they were "approved by Peter."

(And I write from the point of view of a thorough-going, unadulterated fan of the novels. I read the works when they were initially--and unethically--published as paperbacks by Ace in America, and have read most of everything else by Tolkien published since then, multiple times, including the twelve volumes of The History of Middle Earth, although I have yet to get to the two volumes of drafts of The Hobbit. Once someone told me that she never got into Tolkien. I replied that I never got out of him.)

• Production design and realization. The key to the success of the movies. If they had got the look of Middle Earth at the end of the Third Age wrong, it would have ruined everything else. The wisest decision they made was to base the designs on the visions of the two best artists working on Tolkien today, Alan Lee and John Howe. And then they brought them to New Zealand, so their designs could be organically placed within the various New Zealand landscapes selected. From Hobbiton to the beacons of Gondor to the Grey Havens, from Frodo's clothes to Eomer's armor to the Orcs' weaponry--everything looks right. And down to the smallest detail--as Miranda Otto said when she picked up the cup that she was supposed to offer to Aragorn in Edoras, "It's heavy!" No need to act like it is.
• Casting. After numerous reviewings, I can't think of a single casting decision or performance I have a problem with. (I do have a problem with some of the lines they have to say--more on that later.) Some work so well--Ian McKellan as Gandalf, Orlando Bloom as Legolas, and Elijah Wood as Frodo--that I can't envision anyone else in the parts. I'm especially glad that McKellan's career achievements were finally recognized. I remember when the execrable Alec Baldwin Shadow came out in 1994 thinking, "Here's one of the greatest actors in the world appearing this piece of sh*t." Now if he appears in a piece of sh*t, it's because he wants to, not because he has to.
• Music. These movies needed a big, late Romantic score, with a variety of echoes of other kinds of music, and plenty of motifs and "tunes," all of which Howard Shore provided. Not only have I bought the soundtrack albums when they came out, I've been picking up the complete recordings, which contain all the musical cues in the works, and run around three hours each. From Dwarvish chants to the forlorn gallantry of Gondor, Shore gets close enough to the essence of what he is portraying (the two personalities of Gollum, for example) to be very effective.
• Direction. This might seem a given, but in all the arguments raging over the film, I think Jackson's skill as a director got lost. I realized this the last time I watched his remake of King Kong. Since I wasn't so heavily invested in it, I was able to watch more objectively the way he put a scene together, such as the offering of Naomi Watts to Kong: the camera angles, camera movements, editing, perspective, combination of music and action, the overall vision. When I watched the end of The Fellowship of the Ring recently, I freshly noticed all the touches: the slow motion as Aragorn approaches the Uruk-hai; the cut to regular speed with the first sword slash; the camera on a trolley as the Uruks run to Boromir; the use of silence as Lurtz shoots Boromir; the performances he gets out of Mortensen and Sean Bean. Jackson has learned the lessons of the masters well.

One more to go: the changes.