Even after 15 years of its release, The Lord of the Rings trilogy still holds up as one of the greatest movie trilogies ever created. Despite being one continuous story, each film manages to hold its own unique narrative. To this date, no other fantasy film or series has been able to replicate the success achieved by The Lord of the Rings trilogy. So what really makes this series of films so special? The answer, for me, lies in its opening sequence. Here it is again, in case you need to refresh yourself: To this date, this scene remains my favourite opening scene of any movie by far. What makes it such a compelling introduction to the entire trilogy is that it successfully summarizes a long period of history and provides sufficient background knowledge for the audience in an attention grabbing way. In most cases, a story which requires a thorough knowledge of its world and its history like LOTR would involve a long time to set up. However, this opening scene accomplishes all of that in the span of 4 minutes. There are various other extremely compelling aspects of this brief introduction. It begins with a slow and sombre music, which straightaway sets the tone to the entire narrative. This, accompanied by the beautiful narration really acts as an excellent hook. The opening image slowly fades in and reveals the title card as the first actual 'image' or visual in the movie. Although this reveal may initially seem a little anticlimactic (as most of us were probably expecting something quite different), the slow reveal of the bright golden lettering of the title just serves to emphasize the fantasy nature of the story.
Another notable thing about this scene is how effectively and efficiently it sets up the conflict that will be the focus of the next 12 or so hours of film, as well as the catalyst (in this case, the One Ring) of the events about to unfold are excellently set up. Overall, I believe that this scene covers every single beat of what an opening scene should aim to cover. It successfully grasps the audience and provides them with useful background knowledge and sets up the fantasy world without dragging on for an extensive amount of time, while simultaneously setting up the conflict and the trials about to come. Of course, this single scene does not make the entire trilogy one of the great movie series to ever put to screen, however, it certainly sets a landmark as to how a completely new fantasy world should be introduced!
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June 2018
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