National Film Vault

FILM NOTES

New Line Cinema released Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring in December 2001, launching one of the most ambitious fantasy adaptations in Hollywood history. The promotional trailer arrived months earlier, building anticipation for a trilogy that would reshape blockbuster filmmaking and earn widespread critical recognition, including eleven Academy Awards across the series.

This cell, titled Merry and Pippin by the operator, captures three consecutive frames from a single sustained shot of Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee traversing a rocky mountain pass, snow-capped peaks rising behind them. The strip preserves the full width of that moment across left, middle, and right frames, offering a quiet, panoramic glimpse of the journey at the heart of Tolkien's story.