By Jessica Bowles-Martinez
This page is devoted to the upcoming movie trilogy that is based
on J. R. Tolkien's books. The site's creators have devoted a lot of
time and money to hyping up the production and story of the movie,
but have made odd choices by deciding to cut corners in areas where
other people viewing the page can interact. The movies don't currently
exist, so they need to build interest for the movie amongst fans of
the books through this web site, and by keeping visitors up to date
with production, but presenting it in an interesting way they hope
to have a devoted group that followed production and may highly anticipate
the movie.
The page is divided into three main sections titled "The Film,"
"The Legend," and "Join the Ring." The film section
covers the areas of cast, filmmakers, production, and "live from
the set." My favorite subcategory was "Live from the set"
which includes interviews available to either watch, listen to or
read from people who are working on the movie. Most of the interviews
are text but some are video that can be viewed with the RealPlayer
streaming software. The interviews try to justify and explain the
attempts to adapt for the screen JRR Tolkien's ideas, as well as other
difficulties and preparations to create the movie. I liked this part
quite a bit because usually I am disappointed by movies that are adaptations
of books because I disagree with the way it was changed. I would be
more inclined to forgive changes if I felt I was able to understand
why these choices are made. I also feel that it respects those who
are fans of the book by not insulting their intelligence in assuming
they wont notice differences in plot or will blindly accept these
changes without questioning it.
The section entitled "Join the Ring" seems like it would
be devoted to uniting the viewers and getting them involved, but there
was only one subcategory that did this. Instead, this area had an
online store and places to hear updated news on the production. The
only area that really had an outlet for discussion and interaction
was under communities, and it linked to an outside online forum provider.
It took a while to load and was no different than online forums that
I had started up with friends a few years ago. I was a bit surprised
(and a bit disappointed too) that they didn't use something more specific
to the movie or host the forum themselves. Though, I was impressed
with the level of traffic and the lack of fluffy posts that I saw.
Instead, people were submitting their views on what lines and scenes
should and should not be in the movie, and making guesses at specifics
of the plot based on information they inferred from the site. The
enthusiasm on the forum was encouraging after my initial feelings
of disappointment.
The third section called "The Legend" tries to create a
context for the movie. First it returns to its source with a brief
description of the books and its popularity. Then there is the option
of either looking at a map that shows where their movie takes place
or getting screen savers. I wasn't particularly interested in the
screensavers, which just seemed like a sort of boring and overdone
idea, but found the map to be neat. It gave me an idea of where they
were going how they decided to handle some of the traveling done in
the books. But, I still think that perhaps it could have been fleshed
out a bit more as it was very sparse information wise.
The site provides a lot of outlets for visitors to learn about the
progress and production information going towards making the movie,
as well as a lot of flashy graphics. I just wish it would provide
more opportunities for enthusiasts of the book to have an outlet to
communicate with one another.