[Mister Underhill]

I have to agree that overall, the Prologue sequence does do a good job of establishing Middle-earth, the Ring, and the history of the Ring. I notice that fire is quickly established as a visual theme linked with Sauron and the Ring, foreshadowing the fiery climax of the trilogy.

It's hard to fault Jackson & Co. much here in terms of sheer transmission of information. There's a lot of exposition compressed into these few minutes; it's clear, easily understandable even to the uninitiated, and not boring. Still, there are seeds here of future discontent:

An overall very stylized presentation. I didn't much care for the shots of the various races and their rings. In the very moments that we're establishing Middle-earth, its credibility, and its rules, those shots signal, "It's just a story." On the other hand, I can appreciate the need for brevity.

The "mass-produced" Elven arms and armor, and their coordinated drill-team chop (as noted by alatar) also detract from the film's "realism", though I hasten to add that overall I think the design of the films -- props, costumes, sets, VFX, etc -- are one of their strongest and most successful aspects, as Lal mentioned.

I wonder if the narrative could have gotten away without this prologue, or at least with shifting some of the history to the Council scene.

Galadriel is something of an odd choice for our narrator, at least from the point of view of the books. She represents more or less pure Elvishness in Middle-earth, and in many ways is outside of and disconnected from its human concerns.

Bilbo is not an unikely candidate, but the film plays him as especially eccentric and comical -- I suppose he isn't right for the high historical tone of the prologue.

Frodo, as author of the Red Book, at first glance seems an attractive possibility -- but to have him here as the one who explains the Ring and Middle-earth, then a few scenes later have him be the one who is explained to -- well, it just doesn't work.

Sam is a very strong candidate. His earthiness often puts him into the position of being able to comment on events as if it were all a story that he was watching and only sort of coincidentally also involved in. Of course, there's the same tension you have with Frodo -- at the start of the films, Sam knows nothing, has never even been outside of the Shire. But I wonder what a prologue delivered by a much older and wiser Sam -- maybe we don't even recoginize his voice at first -- would be like.

I wonder that they didn't use Elrond as the narrator, since he has the advantage of having been a participant in the Ring's history and is also a pivotal character in the films' tension between Men and Elves. But perhaps having him narrate and also appear in the early scenes is too much Elrond -- it establishes him as a central character when he's really only a supporting player.

Of course there was also the option of an anonymous narrator, some unknown person relating a tale of events long past.

In the event, I agree that Blanchett did a good job in a less than ideal situation, and I really like Treebeard's lines opening the trilogy. As a rule, the filmmakers never misstep by using direct Tolkien quotations -- the contrast between Tolkien-crafted lines and those crafted by the filmmakers often highlights how much Tolkien's prose style contributes to the feeling -- the magic, if you will -- of Middle-earth.

Other things I love:

The sound design is great. Shore's score works well in establishing a mystical, mythical atmosphere, and the effects go a long way towards establishing an involving and credible Middle-earth: the hissing, almost electrical crackling sound when Isildur raises Sauron's severed finger with the Ring still on it, and the low, moaning, vvvwwoooommmm of Sauron's shock-wave are two notable examples.

The shots of the Misty Mountains are great. Jackson's use of real landscapes in the movie starts here, and strongly contributes to evoking Middle-earth.

I love the shot of Sauron's smoking helm.

One miscue that always throws me a bit: the shot of Isildur right before he puts on the Ring and disappears during the ambush. The visual effects of the films are almost without exception of an extremely high quality, but something about this shot, the lighting being off, something, makes you feel you're seeing an actor in front of a green-screen who was matted in.

Overall, I agree that the Prologue is effective and well done, but it's interesting how it contains, in microcosm, the foreshadowings of many of the things I dislike about the films.