Customer Reviews

Trivial Pursuit: The Lord of the Rings Movie Trilogy Collector's Edition

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I was actually surprised to discover the "The Lord of the Rings Trivial Pursuit Game" was actually about Peter Jackson's movie version and not the original novels of J.R.R. Tolkien. I suppose that makes the market for this game a big wider, but I rather liked the idea that students of the Elvish tongue would finally have a game that played to their strong suits. Now we have something that will appeal to those who have memorized all three films (the long versions mind you) and repeatedly gone over all of the supplemental materials on the DVDs.

The 300 cards with the 1,800 questions are now divided into the categories of: Good, Evil, Things, Places & History, Warfare, and Making Movies. They are all taken directly from the three films, although you are going to have to wait until the end of the year when "The Return of the King" comes out on DVD and you can listen to the commentary track(s) to have a fighting chance on some of these questions. However, if you are a true Lord of the Rings fan then there are expanded rules to raise your game playing to the next level, and I appreciate the effort to provide some sort of appropriate twist so that there is more to this version than the game board and the box of questions.

Speaking of the game board, it includes a map of Middle-Earth and along with a replica of the One Ring there are pewter pawns of Frodo, Gandalf, Aragorn and Galadriel, as well as a Ringwraith token that has special powers. The big question is whether you have 2-4 friends who are as devoted to the films as you are so that you can actually play the game on a regular basis and not just sit around memorizing all the questions and answers (which sounds like something Saruman would do).

This game really makes you think back and think hard about what happened in the Lord of the Rings movies. Part three has not come out in theaters yet, so if we came across a question for part three we passed over it and selected a new card. The different question topics were unique(evil characters, good characters, items in the movie, fight scenes, place and history and making movies). The only topic that we had a lot of trouble with was making movies. They would ask totally out there questions, although interesting they were quite difficult. If you watch the documentaries on how the movie was made and who said what when they decided to take their role, then you will do fine!
The player pieces are made out of pewter, which is really neat. The board looks pretty classy, although there are not that many questions(just one small box). Hopefully they will issue additional questions at a later date!!???
You can also play with a couple of play enhancements. There is a ring that you can win possession of when you get a piece of your pie and that ring allows you certain benefits. You can also play with the Ringwraith, which is sent around the board and if it lands on your square, you lose a piece of your pie. It just adds a little uniqueness to the game.
All in all it was a pretty good game. My husband who never forgets lines or scenes from movies absolutely loved this game. I still enjoyed it but I was not able to answer some of the more indepth questions.
We bought his game at the same time as the 20th Anniversary edition, this one blew that game right out of the water. If you are a Lord of the Rings fan, this game is definately for you!

A very nice game, not without its faults (especially if you're a hard-core fan). It only takes a few minutes to learn the categories, obviously, but some of the questions seem to be out of place. There is quite a separation in question difficulty between the "Making Movies" category (which covers the technical aspects of the trilogy) and the other five groups. While this may motivate you to watch the commentaries in FotR and (in a few weeks) TTT more closely, in actual game play this may bias your move decisions somewhat. And as another reviewer remarked, this game really needs a second box of question cards, so hopefully there will be one released soon.

Having said all that, this is really an enjoyable way to revel in the movie trilogy. It's very challenging to the casual fan, while between two fanatics, the one who "runs the table" will win the day. The expert rules regarding The One Ring and the Nazgul add some neat chrome, but I think the best way to challenge real experts here is to add the usual house rules, like having to answer two questions correctly for "a piece of pie" and to win the game.

Overall, this is quite a fun way to pass the time, especially if you're planning to stand/sit in line for seats at Trilogy Tuesday. Enjoy!

The rich lore of Lord of the Rings trilogy would seem the ideal material for fun and challenging trivia game. Sadly this is not it. Despite the potential of the material, this game ends up being both boring as a game, and empty as a Lord of the Rings experience. Fans of trivia games, even those who settle for the Trivial Pursuit family of games, will feel cheated by the shallowness and unevenness of the questions (despite their narrow focus) while those looking for a good Lord of the Rings game will be left empty handed.

As a trivia game, this edition adds nothing, and players are better off with whichever of the other Trivial Pursuit game suits there interest and the level of challenge they are seeking. The questions in all but one of the categories in this edition are basically impossible go get wrong (unless you slept through the films), so there's little opportunity for the kind of general knowledge play that makes the typical Trivial Pursuit game fun. In only one category (about the making of the film) is there any challenge, and there the questions are often far too difficult (unless you've followed the lore of the making of the films in detail). This unevenness of the categories not only spoils the fun of making smart guesses or connecting arbitrary bits of world knowledge and factoids (the core of a decent trivia game), it exacerbates the well-known "end game" problem with Trivial Pursuit: the (endless) last phase of the game has everyone bouncing back and forth around the center space (in most games everyone will get that far at about the same time because most questions are so easy), fielding movie-making questions (what else would your opponents pick?!) until someone either makes a lucky guess or gets an easy question.

The real disappointment with this game though, is that as a Lord of the Rings game it is a disaster. This is particularly frustrating because Lord of the Rings has, unlike the Harry Potter series, inspired some truly excellent games, most notably the rich and subtle cooperative game by Reiner Knizia (one of the best games available on any topic; ASIN: B00005O0F4) and the much simpler but still quite deep 2-player Stratego-like 'Confrontation' game (also by Reiner Knizia; ASIN: B00006JBPP), both of which, in addition to being excellent games in their own right, are also superbly 'themed': the Lord of the Rings feel and atmosphere comes through during play and one really feels involved in an adventure in Middle Earth. (The 'children's game', again by Knizia, is also worth a look for kids under 8.)

Two other points are worth mentioning: (1) for those who have not yet seen the Return of the King, this game contains spoilers, which you might want to avoid; (2) the Middle Earth lore questions are all about the films, not the books.

Finally, it is important to note that there is another Lord of the Rings trivia game available that not only covers the books rather than the films, but is also much more interesting as a game and does a better (though still limited) job of introducing the feel of a Lord of the Rings adventure. This game (the "Lord of the Rings Trivia Game") is not available from Amazon, but is available online from several sources (try Funagain Games).

While it's fun to test your knowledge of the movies once, it gets old quick. There's no real Tolkien knowledge required to answer the questions. What is really stupid about the set of questions is that a person who only knows who Gollum is could get an "enemy" question right just about every time. The first time I played this game with 3 other people, "Gollum" must have been the correct answer at least 30-40 times. The only place a person would really get stuck is if they didn't pay close attention while watching all of the special features on the extended DVD set and gets thrown an actor's or design team member's name question.

This game is definitely geared towards the movie and the average watchers who may have not read the books. It is not for the true Tolkien fan. The "correct answers" to questions are derived from changes made to the story by the filmmakers which makes it possible that someone very knowledgeable on the books could get a question wrong if not thinking in terms of the flow of the movie! Obscure and interesting book knowledge that would make this game a keeper is overlooked.

The flow of the gameplay is made interesting by the presence of "the one ring" and the black rider but this does not make up for the lack of real trivia questions.

My recommendation is that you borrow this game from someone who has already stored it somewhere to collect dust and play it before commiting your hard-earned dollars.

The only real problem with the endless editions of "Monopoly" out there is that all of them, essentially, play the same way. You can slap "Star Wars," "Peanuts" or the Chicago Cubs all over the board, but the game never changes. That isn't so with "Trivial Pursuit," my all-time favorite board game. Each new edition brings with it different questions, and with those questions, different players may have the advantage based on their own store of knowledge. Being a fanatic about "The Lord of the Rings" (having read the book three times and watched all of the films considerably more than that), I jumped right into this game.

The questions are mostly pretty good, the sort of thing that even someone not totally mesmerized by the films should be able to guess well enough to hold their own in the game. A few questions, however, nit-pick on the verge of insanity -- (For instance, "How many candles are on the candelabra where Gandalf bangs his head at Bag End?" My actual answer to this question: "You've GOT to be kidding me.") Not even the most devoted LOTR geek should know that sort of thing.

The Ringwraith token and the One Ring make a very interesting added twist on the gameplay. Whenever someone answers a wedge question correctly, he or she becomes the "ring bearer," and the Ringwraith advances towards them. If the Wraith lands on a spot with a player, it will take one of their wedges or, if he has none, eliminate them from the game. It's a change in gameplay that forces players to begin using a bit of strategy -- what if the one wedge you need to win the game happens to be between the Wraith and the ringbearer? Is it worth the risk to go there?

The tokens, as with many of the other Trivial Pursuit collector's editions, are made of pewter, which look very nice, but are very soft -- you've got to be careful not to bend them.

Overall, this game is a lot of fun.

I absolutely adore the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy. I have watched everything you could possibly watch on the special extended editions, so when I found out that this game existed, I had to get it!

I have played this game with just my housemate and there are times when one person could answer 10 questions in a row before you get another turn! It can get a little bit boring or frustrating but that's the price you pay for being a fan who knows too much! The questions that we usually get caught on are the ones in the "Making Movies" category. Despite having watched the extended versions ad nauseum, we sometimes get stumped on the names of people who worked on the more obscure technical aspects of the film.

I've also played this game with my housemate and another friend right before we decided to switch to playing Trivial Pursuit's 20th anniversary edition for a spell and boy did we hear the crickets. It was such an intellectual letdown after our triumphs at Lord of the Rings movie trivia. :)

I like the fact that you have the optional rule of, when anyone answers a question incorrectly, a Ringwraith going after the player who bears the ring. Another cool thing we've noticed is that there are some questions that are possibly in reference to the Return of the King extended edition.

Overall this is a trivia game for those who have an ardent love of the movies. The only drawback that I am experiencing,so far, is that we have played so often that we're having repeats of the questions. Perhaps, extra cards will be published in the future?

This game may be fun for the casual fan or family who viewed the films. For a devoted fan of the movies, the only challenging category is the one directly concerned with the technical aspects of making the films. Otherwise, it's strictly junior league. I hope the company will consider a real "Tolkien" edition, from Silmarillion to Lord of the Rings, to give the real fans a challenge. While I realize the game may serve to bring friends together, fans of the movies will quickly find their boredom meter pegged; the game does not have lasting potential for repeated playing.

I was very excited about this game and bought it for my birthday. I was disappointed to find only one box of questions and only movie trivia. I am a Tolkien fan, though not as much of a purist as I could be, and wanted to have fun. I have played it twice now and have finished the games in less than 30 minutes, having played with people who know the movies as well or better than I do. The only category that gives us pause is the Film and Production category.

Overall, a good product but there should be more questions and it should have been combined with questions from the book.

It was a fun-enough way to spend an evening, but since the questions were only movie-verse, anyone who has been a fan for more than the past 2 years would be disappointed. $35 was way too much to pay for something that does not bear playing repeatedly, and fans who cared about Tolkein before Orlando Bloom became Legolas (or in the case of many of us, was even born) will feel really cheated.