Happy 20th Anniversary to the Lord of the Rings Film Franchise!

On December 19, 2001, The Fellowship of the Rings premiered and in the two years following, The Two Towers and The Return of the King films were released, completing one of the most beloved film franchises in history, an adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, by Peter Jackson. We’re old enough to have grown up on the awesome and classic Ralph Bakshi and animated LotR and Hobbit films from the late 70s but nothing quite compares to Jackson’s cinematic achievement.

There was a lot of excitement in the build-up to the release of The Fellowship of the Rings. The opening sequence with Galadrial narrating the historical context of The One Ring in Middle-earth pulled us in, and as soon as the Shire (and the fantastic music by Howard Shore) appeared it was obvious Peter Jackson had done right for those of us that love Tolkien’s Middle-earth. Obviously, there are quite a few differences between the books and the films, but at least for us, the films got the feeling of Middle-earth just right, and from the days of listening to the BBC radio play and reading the books when we were young, to the film adaptations now, the desire to recreate and live in Middle-earth has never subsided and is a very large part of why we created Heroes and Mortals Radio.

As everyone knows, the films went on to great critical and audience acclaim and as many of you already do, yearly (and more frequent) viewings of the “extended editions” are a tradition. As innovative as Peter Jackson’s films were, many others have ventured into Middle-earth themed films and added their own creativity, but none had the cultural impact of Jackson’s films.