Customer Reviews

National Geographic Beyond the Movie - The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring [VHS]

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2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(20)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

I purchased it with high hopes that it would really give some good insight about how Tolkien came up with the LOTR. Unfortunately, the insights were rather weak. It was really well researched, but there were no interviews with Tolkien of any kind. One would have thought that some insight from Christopher, his son and editor of the Silmarillion, would have been included in this, but it wasn't.

There was never any mention that the story of Bilbo Baggins was a story he told to his kids, and because they liked it so much, he began to write it down.

I found out more about Tolkien by reading the CD sleeves of the radio dramatization of LOTR (ISBN 0553456539) than I did with this DVD, I feel completely jipped.

If you want to see it, I recommend renting it. It's not worth adding to your collection.

All of these reviews seem to be deeply offended that master Tolkien was made out to be an environmentally minded individual. National Geographic explores his outside influences that shaped his storytelling and yes, his love for the enviorenment and witnessing evils of mass deforestation during the early twentieth century crept into his epic 'Lord of the Rings'. The entire Ents plotline and Saruman destroying the foerst under the wheels and iron of the Orcs was a huge part of the philosophical side of the story. IT can also be found in the haven of the Shire and the horror the hobbits find at the end when Bilbo's party tree is leveled by the occupying Orcs. The Elves themselves grow so disenchanted with the ensuing progress enroaching on their woodland homes that they depart from the Grey Havens never to return. I mean really, you would have to be completely ignorant to ignore the fact that Tolkien was an environmentatlist at heart, and that doesn't make him or anyone else with that belief a "freak" or a "loopy tree-hugger".
I'm sure that Tolkien would've been heartbroken at the excessive crimes against nature inflicted by corporate powers and other "descedants of Orcs".
This is a pretty interesting piece that takes you to the root of Tolkien's influences in the early twentieth century from the industrialization of the world and horrors of two World Wars. It's for those who try to see "the big picture" and not for those who only wish to see special effects, and sword fights. Don't get me wrong those are fun too, but to wallow in ignorance is something Mr. Tolkien was never one to partake in.

National Geographic, Beyond the Movie Series has done a commendable job analyizing and comparing JRR Tolkien classic fantasy world of "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy using Peter Jacksons passion & Tolkien detailed epic book to film Part I: The Fellowship of the Ring to our worlds past geography.

This documentation brings up some interesting questions regarding Tolkiens fantasy world and his real life experiences. JRR Tolkien was a WWI veteran, Oxford Scholar, Professor of Languages and English Legends. He discovered that England was robbed of their early legends & history through 5th & 6th century invasions. Tolkien decided to re-create an entire world including an Elven Language (both written & spoken) which revolved around England & its mystical past using ancient castles & landmarks as references.

National Geographic explains Tolkiens amazing world of Middle Earth vs our world, the struggle between good & evil, the familiarity of the places, heroes & villains, and the parallel challenges in our world! Using Peter Jacksons film clips adds to this fascinating epic story tremendously. Pure entertainment & very informative. A great addition to the "Lord of the Rings" DVD library.

This DVD is a Full Screen presentation, approximately 60 minutes with no extras except National Geographic ads. The DVD transfer picture quality & sound are excellent!! Enjoy.

. . .which would have, in all probability, greatly angered the Professor.

JRR Tolkien, author of the beloved bestsellers "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings" was also a professional academic -- one who hated allegory; attempts to deconstruct works of literature based on conceptions about the author; biography in general, etc. Recognizing, as he did, that biography was inevitable, his estate kept careful control over who would provide biographical material, what would be released, and how much applicability should be made between himself and his fictional works.

While I greatly respect "National Geographic" this is an attempt at deconstructionalist analysis which would not have been appreciated by the author were he yet alive. In his "Letters" he stated quite clearly that while there was certainly "applicability" between his writing and events in the 20th century, "The Lord of the Rings" was NOT meant to tell the same story. While the care of the environment was important to Tolkien, he was not an environmentalist as that word is now commonly used. Tolkien was a conservative, Roman Catholic, monarchist -- and any attempt to portray him as an environmentalist, an anti-war activist, etc. is just not academically honest or accurate. (Yes, Tolkien would have horrified at the politics of many of his fans in the 1960's and beyond!)

Read the books, enjoy the movie, but pass this film up. If you are interested in serious Tolkien scholarship (rather than faddishness and fandom) allow me to recommend "A Tolkien Compass" and "England and Always" by Jared Lobdell as a good starting place.

If they'd clung to the subject material, this could have been a GREAT documentary. As it is, it is flawed and mediocre, with some bright bits. Unfortunately, heavy-handed messages sometimes take over the narrative, rather than allowing us to hear about Tolkien and LOTR.

The first half is pretty good. We hear a basic outline of the premise, stuff about the hobbits and Middle-Earth and the making of the movie -- including clips from Jackson, Elijah Wood, Orlando Bloom, Billy Boyd, Ian McKellen, Liv Tyler, and Sean Astin. We also hear about some of the things that shaped Tolkien's experiences for LOTR, such as his fighting in WWI and the destruction of little rural communities when he was a child. Also some production stuff, such as the descriptions of creating Hobbiton and Orlando Bloom waxing eloquent about his long-knives.

But then the documentary starts to unravel. We hear about the Kalevala - but hardly anything about how it affected Elvish. Lots of preachiness about the vanishing languages of the world, followed by a giant tract about modern enviromentalism, which gives the feel of a modern P.C. spin.

Very little about the heroes in the story is mentioned - they talk vaguely about Frodo, but literally nothing about Sam! How far would Frodo have gotten without Sam? Two miles? Three? Tolkien's religion was another great shaping force on LOTR, yet it doesn't get a word. Why not cut the tree-hugger monologue and include something about the moral structure of Middle-Earth, or the theological hierarchy? It's only one of the ways in which this documentary approaches Tolkien's work ALL WRONG.

However... if you are in withdrawal for PJ's live-action film, and can't wait for the DVD release next summer, then you might want this. It includes some great footage from the film (and one or two snippets of Two Towers): We see Legolas receiving his Lothlorien bow, the "fiery letters" scene, just about everything in the birthday party, the adorable "ask Rosie for a dance!" Frodo-Sam interaction, and Gandalf's first scene.

Overall, watch this if you don't mind a deadly-dull second half after a delightful first half, and some irrelevent stuff after hearing about the movie production.

I did enjoy parts of this DVD, but not all of it.

I was expecting much more from National Geographic. The first part is quite interesting and informative, but it truly deals little with the actual movie, other than with limited actor interviews. It is more the story of JRR Tolkien's original work. Maybe that's what they mean by beyond the movie, but if that was the case I would have preferred that the movie not be mentioned in the title.

Historically the information on the time period and how it may have affected the Lord of the Rings series was useful. The parts dealing with the verbal traditions of Finland were enjoyable.

What really hurt this DVD was the stretch from the adventures in Middle Earth to the trek across Africa by J. Michael Faye, which really struck me as self promotion. I understand The National Geographic Society had an important part in the "Megatransect" and featured it many times in various media. But they failed convince me that there was a strong connection between that and LOTR.

Overall, I did not feel that this DVD offered appropriate value in return for my money. It fell short of the high quality I had come to expect from National Geographic and would have been better served as an extra on a future LOTR DVD without the footage of the Mr. Faye's journey.

This National Geographic Beyond the Movie is a great companion piece to the movie. Though the video has a strong ecological and environmental message (it's a National Geographical piece after all), the video does much more than examine the conservationism of Tolkien. In fact, the main purpose of the video is not environmentalism, but an examination of how the fantasy world of Middle Earth that Tolkien created was rooted in the realities of our own world.

Tolkien strongly stated several times throughout his life that THE LORD OF THE RINGS was not a modernist fable or allegory about the World Wars or Industrialism vs. Agriculture or anything like that. THE LORD OF THE RINGS is simply a story; one of the greatest and most detailed fictional stories of all time perhaps, but a story nonetheless. However, THE LORD OF THE RINGS was influenced by all that had affected Tolkien in his life. This special illustrates how some of those events inspired THE LORD OF THE RINGS: how the rural agricultural area where Tolkien was raised helped inspire the Shire; how WWI influenced Tolkien's view and description of the War of the Ring; how the endangered Finnish language helped Tolkien create the Elvish language.

The tape includes interviews with lots of people including one of Tolkien's remaining living friends, Tolkien scholars, linguistic experts, anthropologists, environmentalists, actors on the set of THE LORD OF THE RINGS, and even Peter Jackson himself. There is quite a bit of archival footage (for a 60 minute tape) and there are also a few snippets from scenes of the two remaining THE LORD OF THE RINGS movies to be released.

The documentary went into a great detail discussing how various elements and events affected Tolkien's grand epic. However, there was one very important part of Tolkien's life that affected THE LORD OF THE RINGS, that the video did not even mention. The tape does not mention anything at all about Tolkien's devout Christian faith. Though Tolkien firmly stated that THE LORD OF THE RINGS was not a Christian allegory (like many of the writings of his good friend C.S. Lewis), he never denied that his faith played a role in what he wrote and how he wrote it. Tolkien's faith was the most important part of his life and to not even acknowledge the importance it played is shameful.

Overall an enjoyable special great for any THE LORD OF THE RINGS fan, Tolkien fan, and anyone interested in learning more about J.R.R. Tolkien.