Well, I finally got around to seeing "Lord of the Rings" on the weekend. Impressive piece of work. I thought I might struggle to stay with the gist of the film with my complete ignorance of the story and characters, but the movie 'worked' on its own terms, without requiring background knowledge of the book.

I felt the casting was the film's strongest asset. Everyone was well cast and uniformly excellent. The addition of major Hollywood 'macho' action stars looking to outshine the movie would've been disastrous, but everyone stayed loyal to the story's overall concept.

I can't see it launching a cinematic dynasty in the way the original "Star Wars" did, but that was an original idea and realized at a time when high tech special effects was just stepping out of their long infancy (with the influence of the digital age etc.)

Kudos to everyone involved.