Product Details

• Actors: J.R.R. Tolkien
• Directors: Sean Buckley
• Writers: David Menzies
• Producers: Sean Buckley, Alanna Schacht, Guy Porter
• Format: Color, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Trinity Home Ent
• DVD Release Date: October 30, 2001
• Run Time: 63 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 2.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00005RG6D
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #129,348 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "J.R.R. Tolkien - The Origin of the Rings" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

ORIGIN OF THE RINGS - DVD Movie

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars I got what I expected, but not what I'd hoped for..., December 12, 2001

By 

Christina J. Wiley "ChrissyOne" (Port Orchard, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: J.R.R. Tolkien - The Origin of the Rings (DVD)

The Amazon review is, unfortunately, very accurate on this title. I was very intersted in the first half of the DVD, even though it felt like an ad for Coren's book, but I was truly disgusted with the "making of" nonsense that followed. We are guided through the process of design and creation of Tolkien-esque characters for the production of....THIS VIDEO. That's all it was. It would have been nice if they had even portrayed the FAKE characters correctly, but thier lawyers were too wise for that. The only reference to the real movie was by a comic-store-guy expecting a jump in bussiness. About 40% of the info is watchable, don't bother with the rest.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Don't waste your money, April 27, 2004

By 

E. Palladino "epalladino" (Bronx, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: J.R.R. Tolkien - The Origin of the Rings [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This video spends more time showing people designing costumes for an unidentified production of LOTR than time on Tolkien himself. The most ludicrous thing is the portion discussing the paintings of the Brothers Hildebrandt while showing totally unrelated artwork. The people who put this video together should have, at least, identified the artwork while acknowledging that they had no permission to show the actual Hildebrandt paintings. Instead it gives a false impression that the artwork being shown was by the Hildebrandts. Also the dramatic recreations featuring a man who looked nothing like Tolkien were not labeled as recreations and may be misconstrued by people with less knowledge of Tolkien. Almost a total waste.

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars What a piece of garbage., February 26, 2004

By 

Marco (Sydney, NSW Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: J.R.R. Tolkien - The Origin of the Rings (DVD)

This waste of time pretending to be a documentary is one of the worst things I've ever sat through. It looks like it was made over a weekend by a bunch of teenaged sci-fi dweebs who borrowed their dad's video camera. It was obviously churned out to cash in on the Peter Jackson movie.

The back cover is totally misleading. "This exciting documentary features ... interviews with members of Tolkien's family and a host of other experts!" WRONG!!! I didn't see any members of Tolkien's family being interviewed, and the "host of other experts" consists of the following - a nobody who wrote a Tolkien biography I've never heard of, a very boring University professor, a stereotypical comic-collector-nerdy-boy, and some wannabe fantasy artist who nobody has heard of. Oh, and a writer who writes bad fantasy-for-kids, who claims that Tolkien influenced her in the way she develops characters and plot. Duh ... don't you mean influenced you in every aspect of everything you have ever written?

The way these 'experts' gush over their claim that if it weren't for the book's acceptance in the USA Tolkien wouldn't be popular at all, and would have disappeared into obscurity is quite sickening. Don't these 'experts' know how popular Lord Of The Rings was in the late 1950's & early 1960's all over the English-speaking world, long before it ever went on sale in the US?

The 'experts' describe how the Brother's Hildebrandt made Tolkien popular, all the while paintings that are not by Greg and Tim Hildebrandt are shown behind the voice-over. I assume our intrepid teenage dweebs making rubbish couldn't afford to pay Greg and Tim anything to show their paintings. So we get gushings about Hildebrandt art while watching generic fantasy art by who-knows-who!

The worst part is the last 20 mins or so, in which we watch a pack of self-indulgent kids let loose in a special effects facility making really idiotic, amateur, Tolkien-esque video shots - not even a video, just a few shots of them walking around, firing arrows etc. This was so annoying and horrible that I eventually skipped through it.

If you really want to know about Tolkien and how he wrote his books, read Humphrey Carpenter's brilliant biography. Give this piece of rubbish a very wide berth.

The final sentence on the back cover blurb ... "This is unlike anything you've seen on Earth!" How true that is, and its the like of which I never want to see again.