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Peter Jackson in Perspective: The Power Behind Cinema's The Lord of the Rings. A Look at Hollywood's Take on Tolkien's Epic Tale.

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The great thing about The Lord of the Rings is what J. R. R. Tolkien called "applicability," or the ability of his myths to speak to everyone who reads them where he or she is. Too often those of us who love his work, and those who write up big explorations of his themes and symbology act as though we have found THE key to understanding Tolkien. That's trying to cram his myth into allegory, which he would have hated passionately. Tolkien's genius is that his myth sustains many of these explanations simultaneously because it is myth and encompasses much more reality than mere fact or truth could. (See On Fairy Stories for an explanation of this.)

Greg Wright has the ability to explore Tolkien's themes and yet not set his explanations in stone. Then he highlights these themes as they did or did not show up in the film. My enjoyment of Tolkien and insights into his work, and the ways in which it was interpreted in the movies directed by Peter Jackson was expanded in Greg's collection of ongoing musings. Greg also has a great gift for keeping it short, sweet, and clearly logical-which means there is more to continue thinking about after he's got you started. He also has a good feel for how literature, image and culture intersect to bring about our engagement with this story in both book and film. If you want an exploration of Tolkien that comes in small bites and opens up new vistas in Middle-earth for you and sends you off on new mental quests, this book is a winner.

Perhaps the biggest controversy among J.R.R. Tolkien's fans is: Are Peter Jackson's films masterpieces, or travesties? Greg Wright tackles this question in his second book on Tolkien and Middle-Earth, "Peter Jackson In Perspective: The Power Behind Cinema's 'The Lord of the Rings.'" And Wright handles it with remarkable objectivity and grace.

Wright starts with an examination of novels vs. movies -- after all, the flow and content of each is completely different -- and the disastrous past attempts to film "Lord of the Rings." He even tells the story of his first viewing of Ralph Bakshi's infamous rotoscoped cartoon.

He then takes a hard look at what Jackson cut out, what characters are MIA (Tom Bombadil, for good or ill), whether it helps or hurts the story, the presence of love and romance, the way that Jackson filmed the three stories, and compares Jackson's efforts to the Rankin-Bass cartoons. I give you three guesses which Wright declares to be better, and the first two don't count.

And as in his first book "Tolkien in Perspective: Sifting the Gold From the Glitter," Wright gives his analysis a faith bent. For example, when talking about Gandalf's fall into Khazad-dum, he reflects that many have noticed the crucifix-lookalike pose that Gandalf falls in.

Wright doesn't overburden his narrative with rambling or ponderous opinions. Instead he writes like an intelligent pal who's telling you his thoughts on the movies he's seen recently. However, he never loses sight of the important themes in either the movies or books.

What's more, he's able to keep a balanced, calm look at the novels and movies. Although some points can be debated (one can argue that there is some religious presence in the films), his attitude has an objectivity that many fans and authors cannot fully achieve.

""Peter Jackson In Perspective: The Power Behind Cinema's 'The Lord of the Rings'" is a solid read for anyone wanting a balanced look at the movies vs. the books.

I bought and read this book and was quite taken aback that although the author did bring out some very interesting insights and reviews about Peter Jackson and the adaptation of Tolkien's works, too many references to Christ and religious revelations supposedly "hidden" in LOTR made it sound more like an Evangelist sermon. I didn't need an editorial how Gandalf's fall at Khazad-dum and later return represented Jesus rising from the grave or Aragorn ushering in the Messianic era, or Sauron representing the anti-Christ.
Perhaps the book should have been titled "Peter Jackson in Christian Religious Perspective."

Unfortunately, despite the title, there is no "behind" the movies at all. No background as to the making of or powerbrokering of the movies. Furthermore the book is infused with a whole lot of religious mumbo-jumbo - one lot of fairytales trying to compare itself to another lot of fairytales.