When I saw the fellowship for the first time back in December of 2001 I was surprised by how good it was, I had never read the books before so I just went to the cinema as I would, not expecting much and it turned out to be great, though, as I saw it really late at night it was hard to concentrate on the story. The movie was sold out when we got to the cinema so we had to wait and go to the 8:30 showing, it was then delayed by a further 45 minutes because of people who had pre-ordered their tickets hadn't showed up yet. We then had a further 25 minutes of adverts and trailers before the film started. We came out in the early hours of the morning and were shattered. So that was why I couldn't wait for the DVD release because I wanted to see it properly. I decided to wait for this 4 disc edition because it had over 30 minutes extra footage.

The movie itself is based on the book by JRR Tolkein which has been adapted by Fran Walsh, Phillipa Boyens and Peter Jackson and then of course directed and produced by Peter Jackson. Before this film Peter Jackson directed the movie 'The Frightener's' starring Michael J Fox and a few other low budget films in which he gained critical acclaim for.

The story starts in Bilbo's home village of 'Hobbiton' on his 111th Birthday where he is told by Gandalf to give the ring to Frodo so that he can journey to destroy the ring. Joining Frodo on his journey are Gandalf (Sir Ian McKellen from X Men) and 3 hobbits named Merry (Dominic Monaghan, who will be in a new TV show from the creator of Alias), Pippin (Billy Boyd from Master and Commader) and the Gardener Samwise Gamgee (played by Sean Astin from the Goonies). They are later joined by a two men a dwarf and an elf ro form a fellowship of 9.

The special effects in the movie were breath-taking and the music was wonderfully composed by Howard Shore. For the extended version new visual effects were completed and a new score was provided for the extra scenes that Peter Jackson had inserted into the film. With everything in order the outcome was amazing and although these extra scenes weren't in the film first off it still looked seemless like that was how it was made first of all if you know what I mean.

The acting I thoght by most was very good and very believable. I think the higest prize would have to go to the Elijah, Sean, Dominic, Ian and Billy as they were in most of the film and made it really fun to watch and kept me into the film. I thought that their on screen chemistry was particulary very good because of their off screen relationship that they had developed. This also shined through when other characters join them on the way to destroy the ring.

On to the DVD then. The DVD itself is excellent, there are no grainy bits at all as what you get with some DVD's and the sound is just superb, though, I haven't been able to test the Dolby Digital Surround EX as I only have a Dolby Pro Logic receiver, ah well it sounded great on that. I think the fact that the film was split over two discs was definitely a good idea as it did help the presentation immensely. Just imagine if the whole movie plus the four audio commentaries were all crammed on to one disc, the quality would be okay but not perfect and that's why I think New Line have gone with two discs for the movie.

There are so many highlights in the extras as nothing is boring unlike some other DVD's that have featurette fluff where they cut to a trailer, then to an interview and then its finished. All of these extras are interesting and layed out accordingly in an easy to navigate menu. One highlight is 'The Fellowship' where we see how the actors got on when they first met each other and how they bonded with their midget doubles. My other highlight has to be the cast Audio commentary where they discuss their experiences of making the movie and what happened in some of the scenes. The first part of the movie mainly consists of Elijah Wood, Dominic Monaghan, Billy Boyd, Sean Astin, Ian McKellen and Christopher Lee who pops up to quote a few things from the book. As we move on to disc two more cast members come in such as John Rhys-Davies (Who apparently capsized one of the boats), Sean Bean, Liv Tyler and Orlando Bloom.