The Master of the Rings: The Unauthorized Story Behind J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings

With Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, the film adaptation of the initial volume in J.R.R. Tolkien's beloved fantasy trilogy, heading towards the $300 million mark at press time, interest in Middle-Earth is at an all-time high. No doubt that's the reason why Lions Gate Films was more than happy to release this feeble Tolkien-related miscellany that, above all, is not the story behind J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, "unauthorized" or not. Rather, we're given a walking tour of Tolkien's domiciles by Graham Rogers (author of Tolkien at Oxford), listen to gushing encomiums from members of the Tolkien Society, spend an inordinate amount of time watching folks dressed as elves, dwarves, and orcs engaged in Dagohir--an "l.a.r.p." (live action role playing game) in which contestants whack one another with fake swords and shoot fake arrows--and listen to singer Bob Catley performing music from his album Middle Earth in a noisy pub. In this otherwise lackluster assemblage of unrelated segments, two interviews stand out: artist Roger Garland's brief commentary on the illustrations he's done for various editions of Tolkien's books, and Tolkien biographer Humphrey Carter's discussion of "The Inklings," a social writer's club that included both Tolkien and C.S. Lewis (The Chronicles of Narnia). Better productions are no doubt in the offing; better to wait for those. Not a necessary purchase. Aud: H, C, P. (R. Pitman)