Rating: 
Summary: Shafted Again
Review: Lord of the Ring's buff, and was looking for more scenes. Title of this video is very mis-leading. Thought maybe there would be a little animation, but forget it. Over one hour of very boring stuff, people talking mostly about nothing. Hope I can get some of my money back.
Rating: 
Summary: Moderately amusing but only slightly informative
Review: This film seems to have gotten higher ratings from most reviewers than the similarly named "J.R.R. Tolkien: Master of the Rings," but yet I actually found it to be more enjoyable to watch than the other one myself. Maybe it's because I didn't spend my own hard-earned cash on this one (I borrowed a library copy), or maybe it's because my expectations were much lower in this case. Whatever the reason, that was my reaction.Neither of these films does a stellar job of presenting the world of Middle-Earth, in my opinion, but somehow this one seemed to have more real emotion and enthusiasm behind it. The long sequence on fans renacting battles might be annoying to some, but I found it to be rather entertaining. I didn't learn anything about Middle-Earth from it, but it entertained me. I also enjoyed the scenes of Oxford and the views of houses where Tolkien lived. Those bits were quite interesting and even informative. Definitely my favorite parts. My LEAST favorite parts, on the other hand, were the unnecessarily lengthy sequences on artists and musicians inspired by Tolkien's works. That sort of thing is worthy of noting in a film like this, but I don't find it to be interesting enough to warrant lavishing the amount of time on it that it was given here. If that portion had been about a third as long as it was, I might have given the film 3 stars instead of two. My overall comment: this DVD is not a COMPLETE waste of time, and you might be entertained and/or amused by some parts of it. But it does not really do justice to its subject. It only scratches the surface and it spends too much time on peripheral matters. I am still waiting for someone to produce a really high quality documentary on JRRT and Middle-Earth.
Rating:
Summary: Moderately amusing but only slightly informative
Review: This film seems to have gotten higher ratings from most reviewers than the similarly named "J.R.R. Tolkien: Master of the Rings," but yet I actually found it to be more enjoyable to watch than the other one myself. Maybe it's because I didn't spend my own hard-earned cash on this one (I borrowed a library copy), or maybe it's because my expectations were much lower in this case. Whatever the reason, that was my reaction. Neither of these films does a stellar job of presenting the world of Middle-Earth, in my opinion, but somehow this one seemed to have more real emotion and enthusiasm behind it. The long sequence on fans renacting battles might be annoying to some, but I found it to be rather entertaining. I didn't learn anything about Middle-Earth from it, but it entertained me. I also enjoyed the scenes of Oxford and the views of houses where Tolkien lived. Those bits were quite interesting and even informative. Definitely my favorite parts. My LEAST favorite parts, on the other hand, were the unnecessarily lengthy sequences on artists and musicians inspired by Tolkien's works. That sort of thing is worthy of noting in a film like this, but I don't find it to be interesting enough to warrant lavishing the amount of time on it that it was given here. If that portion had been about a third as long as it was, I might have given the film 3 stars instead of two. My overall comment: this DVD is not a COMPLETE waste of time, and you might be entertained and/or amused by some parts of it. But it does not really do justice to its subject. It only scratches the surface and it spends too much time on peripheral matters. I am still waiting for someone to produce a really high quality documentary on JRRT and Middle-Earth.
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