Customer Reviews:
 Photos of the Fellowship August 30, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
The hype for the "Lord of the Rings" movie trilogy has understandably died down, especially now that hype for "The Hobbit" is revving up.
But the images from the classic movie trilogy are as vibrant and striking as when they were first released, and some pretty good ones are compiled in "The Lord of the Rings 2009 Calendar." While a few picture collections are a little too similar from one photo to the next, most of them are nice, disparate little selections for each major person in the trilogy.
The backdrop of each calendar page is a sort of faded parchment colour, with intertwined Celtic-esque braids and knots, as well as some curlicues and symbols -- like leaves and suns -- on the edges. And the backdrop of the photo galleries is much brighter -- a sort of burnt orange colour, with whitish-yellow One Ring text running behind the photographs.
Each page has a selection of photographs for each important character -- heroes and villains alike, Fellowship and assorted supporting characters. Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, Gandalf and the four hobbits all get pages, although Merry and Pippin have to share one. And there are the supporting (but still extremely important) characters such as Theoden, Gollum, Eowyn, Arwen and Saruman.
And there are three pictures of each character per page, with raggedly cut edges as if someone just tore them out and glued them in. Not entirely straight either, I might add. But they're all of (unsurprisingly) good quality, and do an excellent job of highlighting the different facets of the characters. Well, not all of them -- Gimli and Legolas get some cool but not very different poses. And Eowyn is shown in three nice dresses, but never in her disguise as a male Rohirrhim. Come on, it's an important part of Eowyn's role, and she spends plenty of time dressed as a man!
But most of them are quite good in their selection -- Gandalf is shown as the rumbled grey wizard, the polished, pensive white wizard, and finally in an epic battle. Theoden is shown as a crazy old coot, a stately king, and an armored warrior. Gollum is shown happy, snarling, and in his pre-Ring state as a rather creepy, pasty hobbit. And Saruman stares coldly into the night, phones Sauron, and finally snarls down over a palantir.
Better ones include Aragorn is portrayed as a stubbly, grimy Ranger, then rathed relaxed in Rivendell, and finally armored as a king in the final battle for Middle Earth. And Merry and Pippin get all their character growth shown -- first as rather charred troublemakers, then as a pair of dippy companions to Frodo, and finally as armored warriors on a battlefield.
Frodo gets the best and most disparate photos in this entire collection, though. The first one shows him gazing up soulfully in Rivendell, with one hand on the Ring. The second one has him huddled on Mordor's rocks, looking understandably worried. And the last one is in the orange-hued Mount Doom, looking demonic and kind of out-of-it. It really shows all of Frodo in the trilogy.
"The Lord of the Rings 2009 Calendar" brings some of the striking images from the movie trilogy together, and gives me an actual reason to use a calendar. Now when does the "Hobbit" calendar come out?
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