Virgin Film Guide to The Lord of the Rings

It's been said that there are two types of people in the world - those who have read The Lord of the Rings and those who are going to. Well, perhaps that's no longer the case, what with our modern age having finally made it possible for the epic trilogy to be successfully translated to the screen. The Lord of the Rings has gone from being an almost cult-like institution for fantasy purists to a Star Wars-sized franchise... even to the point of there being various Star Wars Vs. Lord of the Rings arguments between their respective followings.

(The Lord of the Rings wins, obviously).

This guide is from the excellent Virgin Film series. It examines every film adaptation and radio adaptation of LOTR, as well as the actual books themselves, does some fancy comparison work and even talks about the various film attempts that never made it.

It examines each adaptation chronologically and in detail, drawing comparisons between mediums and reviewing performances. For someone like me, who saw the Bakshi animation about twenty years ago and has never heard any of the radio adaptations, it was great just to read about these and hear about what certain elements were left in and what was taken out (and the reasons why) and how successful they were at conveying the events and feel of the books.

There are all sorts of little facts and figures to be gleamed from the in-depth accounts of how each film or radio play was made. For instance, it was interesting to note that Ian Holm (Bilbo from the films) had previously played Frodo in the BBC's radio adaptation back in 1981. This book also breaks down what Peter Jackson and co. did and did not use for their films - EG. The controversial removal of Tom Bombadil from the story. This kind of blow-by-blow look at the films in the context of them being an adaptation of an already successful text is handy to have layed out for you.

As you might have guessed by now, I'm a massive nerd when it comes to this sort of thing so this book was right up my alley. It's very easy to read and it doesn't go too far with the analysis or anything like that, it's very well researched and definitely worth having if you're a LOTR fan.