Product Details

• Actors: Phil Crowley, John Howe, Peter McHugh, Oliver Muirhead, Alan Lee
• Directors: Lisa Kors
• Writers: Kathleen Phelan, J.R.R. Tolkien
• Producers: Bill Hofstadter, Dan Arden, John Greco, Julie Uribe, Kathleen Phelan
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
• Language: English
• Rated: Unrated
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Nat'l Geographic Vid
• VHS Release Date: February 19, 2002
• Run Time: 60 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (61 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00005UERJ
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #353,477 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Anglo-Saxon Buffs, This is the DVD for you!, June 4, 2003

By 

Peter Swift (Cogan Station, PA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: National Geographic Beyond the Movie - The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring [VHS] (VHS Tape)

If you're a fan of Tolkien's works, I mean a fan of the works beyond the movie and beyond the Lord of the Rings trilogy, then you might be interested in watching this DVD. If you're looking for a behind-the-scenes dvd about the blockbuster movies by Peter Jackson, then you might want to turn off this DVD after the first ten minutes and pick up a Fellowship of the Rings boxed set.

This documentary fulfills its claim of going beyond the movie. It certainly does! This dvd goes beyond even the works of Tolkien and centers around the author's life and influences. If you're interested in languages and history, you might find sections of the DVD fascinating as National Geographics takes us to places like Finland and spends what seemed to me to be ages talking to people about language and myths.

I'm not really a linguist, nor am I a historian interested in Norse mythology, but I am quite intersted in Tolkien and the things that influenced his works. For these reasons, I found this DVD to be filled with a wealth of information that goes beyond the shallow tv-style approach to movie backgrounds. This DVD explores several possible influences on the Lord of the Rings trilogy ranging from foxholes in World War II to epic poems such as Beowulf. It was very interesting to see how historians and archeologists can shed light on modern fantasy novels and can influence our interpretations of the events within them.

I do have a few detractions for this DVD. It is true that when I purchased it, I expected more of a behind-the-scenes look at the films by Peter Jackson, and I think the cover and description is somewhat misleading in this way. I was surprised, and not unpleasantly, by the content, but some of the sections discussing language seemed to drag on for a while and leave the audience behind.

If you're a Tolkien addict, check out this DVD. If you're a Peter Jackson addict...buy the boxed set of FoTR.

42 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great behind the scenes look at FOTR, February 15, 2002

By 

John "Graphic Designer" (Chicago) - See all my reviews

This review is from: National Geographic Beyond the Movie - The Lord of the Rings - The Fellowship of the Ring (DVD)

I popped this DVD in last night and was surprised. I guess I shouldn't be, with National Geographic producing this. The DVD does a great job of exploring the events that influenced JRR Tolkien, including Industrialization and World War I .

I was also surprised with the footage and interviews. These are not interviews of some random Tolkien "experts", but with his best friend, war buddy, and also the man Peter Jackson himself. The rest of cast speaks also, some in full costume on the set. There is tons of footage from the movie. This adds a lot to the DVD.

There is also an in-depth study of the origins of the Elfish Language. Very nice. My favorite part of the DVD was seeing how the filmmakers modeled Hobbiton after the childhood village of Tolkien. The bridge is exactly the same! Cool stuff. The houses look just like the village of Bree.

Overall, this DVD is a worthy effort. It gives an in-depth look at the origin of the novels and also the movie.

36 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Lopsided Examination of the Roots of Rings, March 20, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: National Geographic Beyond the Movie - The Lord of the Rings - The Fellowship of the Ring (DVD)

It was interesting to see which influences National Geographic deemed worthy of exploring, and which they ignored. All falling along predictable political lines, of course.

The horrors of war? Environmentalism? Anti-industry? These messages are all delved into, and rightfully so...Tolkien did see the violence of war first-hand, after all, and he did see the rude intrusion of industry and "progress" on the land that he loved (see the "Scouring of the Shire"). But isn't part of the message that some things ARE worth fighting for?

And what about Catholicism, Christian ethics and self-sacrifice? Or his emphasis on family and friendship? All were fundamental to Tolkien, but are nowhere to be found in this documentary. Wasn't his close friendship with C.S. Lewis, the man who encouraged him to continue writing more than anyone else, even worth mentioning?!? Instead there's a strange tangent about a guy walking across Africa...whom Tolkien never met.

If you can hardly wait for the next installments of the Rings Trilogy, then there is some stuff here you'll enjoy--snippets of interviews with Peter Jackson, comparisons of Hobbiton and Tolkien's own hometown, as well as some interesting (if frustratingly truncated) anthropological information concerning Beowulf and the middle ages generally. But this is a very lopsided presentation, and if you know anything about Tolkien, you will be annoyed.