dragonfire88's Full Review: Brian Sibley and Gary Russell - The Lord of the Ri...
Last year I discovered the world of The Lord of the Rings when I saw the movie. Before seeing the previews, I had no idea what the movie would be about. After seeing the previews, I was very interested in seeing the movie. I fell in love with the movie when I saw it and I’m impatient to see The Two Towers. I pre ordered the DVD of The Fellowship of the Ring months before it would be released. I read and loved The Hobbit. The Lord of the Rings trilogy is in my pile of books to read. A few months ago I was shopping and discovered The Lord of the Rings Official Movie Guide by Brian Sibley and I had to get it. The book is packed full of information about The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy and how the movies were made. When The Fellowship of the Ring was released on DVD, there was a coupon that could be mailed in to receive a free copy of this book. I think people should take advantage of this offer because this is a great book. I got my copy a month or two before the DVD came out, but my friend did send the coupon in. She got her copy of the book a few weeks ago.
General Information On the Book
The Lord of the Rings Official Movie Guide is a larger paperback book that is about the same size as many magazines. The book was printed on semi glossy paper. This book has 119 pages.
There is no plot to The Lord of the Rings Official Movie Guide. The book has several pictures from the many sets of the movie and information about how the movies were made. Since all three movies were filmed at the same time, many of the things in this book do concern all the movies. There does seem to be more of a focus on The Fellowship of the Ring. Nothing specific about the plot of The Two Towers or The Return of the King was mentioned, so people don’t have to worry about having the next two movies ruined for them. This is not a fiction book, but it did discuss a fictional story and characters.
Body of the Book
The Lord of the Rings Official Movie Guide briefly talked about some things that happen in The Fellowship of the Ring, but there really wasn’t a plot summary of the movie in this book. The fact that all three movies will deal with the one ring of power and Frodo’s journey with the ring was mentioned. A few things that happened on Frodo’s journey during the first movie were mentioned when the author discussed different things about how some scenes in the movie were filmed. There were only a few things mentioned briefly that related to The Two Towers or The Return of the King, like some characters becoming more important in one of those movies and things like that. One or two new characters were also mentioned briefly. I don’t think any of the things related to the plot of The Fellowship of the Ring that were talked about in the movie guide were spoilers. None of the major events from the movie were discussed.
The Lord of the Rings Official Movie Guide is divided into two main sections, with the second one having many subdivisions. The tow main sections are The Road to Middle Earth and The Journey, which is the section that has the subdivisions.
The Road to Middle Earth contains information about how The Lord of the Rings trilogy came to be made into three movies. Peter Jackson, the director, talks about different things related to the books and why he wanted to make them into movies. There is some biographical information about Peter Jackson included in this section. Some of the actors and crew members share their thoughts about the books and being involved in the movies. There is also some biographical information about J.R.R. Tolkien and how he came to write the books.
The Journey section of The Lord of the Rings Official Movie Guide focuses on how the books were turned into movies. First, the screen writers discussed how they went about adapting the books into screenplays. Peter Jackson was involved in the screen writing process right from the beginning.
Next, the way the world of Middle Earth was brought to life for the movies is explained. When The Hobbit was published, Tolkien sent some maps and illustrations of Middle Earth to the publisher. When The Lord of the Rings was first published, there were no illustrations included. Tolkien later made some drawings of different settings in the book. In 1991 the first fully illustrated version of The Lord of the Rings was published. The illustrator of that book, Alan Lee, worked on the movie, bringing the settings to life. He helped to design sets, and he even helped to build and paint some of them. There is a picture showing him doing some painting on the set of Rivendell. There were photographs of some of the New Zealand settings. Some of Lee’s illustrations were shown with stills from the movie near by to show how much the movie looked like the illustrations. The crew working on the sets spent much time adding small details to make Middle Earth come to life and seem like a real place. Elaborate sets were built, and much time was spent designing the costumes and weapons for the characters.
Several of the cast members talk about how they were cast in their roles in the movies in The Lord of the Rings Official Movie Guide. Some of the actors, like Christopher Lee, were determined to be cast, and they did some things to be considered for certain parts. Some actors originally auditioned for one role but ultimately ended up playing a different role. Stuart Townsend had originally been cast to play Aragorn, but he and Peter Jackson has some creative differences, so the part was recast. Viggo Mortensen actually didn’t want the role at first, but he changed his mind, mainly because his son wanted him to be in the movie. After seeing the movie, I couldn’t imagine anyone else playing Aragorn.
The next several pages of The Lord of the Rings Official Movie Guide focuses on fifteen of the actors and their characters. There is some biographical information about each actor, some thoughts from the actors on their characters, some information about each character and a full page photograph of each actor dressed as their character.
More of the crew talk about what they did on the movies in the next several pages of The Lord of the Rings Official Movie Guide. The sets and locations in New Zealand are discussed again. Peter Jackson wanted the locations to be as authentic looking as possible, so they started looking for locations more than a year before filming would start. When they found the site for Hobbiton, they started work transforming the site immediately. Flowers, shrubs, and vegetables were planted and given a full year to grow and become established so it would look like the plants had been growing there for years instead of having just been planted. There were more pictures of locations and stills from the movie in this section.
The Lord of the Rings Official Movie Guide explains how the inside of Bilbo’s house was designed. It is also explained how the actors who were about the same height were made to look as if they were different heights. Some were made to look a lot shorter - like the actors playing the Hobbits. Several different things were used, including tricks with camera angles, and smaller and larger body doubles. There is a two page picture spread of one scene from the movie that was included to show the result and how one character looked smaller than another. There is a copy of something that was drawn showing the different heights of the different types of characters included on one of the pages. The chart illustrates how tall Hobbits, Dwarfs, Orcs, elves, humans, trolls, and a few others are in relation to each other.
Next, The Lord of the Rings Official Movie Guide discusses how the make up and special effects for the movies were done. A company in New Zealand, Weta Workshop, that Peter Jackson had worked with in the past did the makeup. Another division of the company did the special effects for the movie. The other movies that Weta Workshop worked on with Peter Jackson are mentioned, along with some examples of what work they did on those movies. Costumes and props are also discussed. Many of the characters wear elaborate makeup and costumes in the movie. Several pictures show sets, props, and costumes.
Next, The Lord of the Rings Official Movie Guide explains how the many different languages that were created by Tolkien were brought to life for the movies. There were two dialog coaches for the movies that taught the actors how to speak the different languages. There were appendices in The Lord of the Rings in which Tolkien provided instructions on speaking and writing the languages. The dialogue coaches also had access to some recordings of Tolkien reading exerts from the book containing the languages. Some of the actors share their experiences with learning the languages. The cast and crew had to work hard to learn how to properly pronounce the names of characters and places.
Through a few pages of The Lord of the Rings Official Movie Guide, Peter Jackson shares a lot of his thoughts on turning the books into movies. Some of the cast and crew talk about Jackson and working with him. After that, that book discusses how the cast became good friends after working on the movies together for so long. Again, some cast members talk about working on the movie and with the other actors. The book ended with Peter Jackson saying that he hopes a day will come when the three movies are shown in a row at some sort of movie festival. More pictures show sets, models of sets, and the actors.
I really loved The Lord of the Rings Official Movie Guide. It is full of pictures and information related to how the movies were made. I found everything in the book to be very interesting. Nothing in the book was boring to me. The book was well written and easy to understand. I thought that the information was well organized. There were quotes from different cast and crew members throughout the book, but they weren’t just tossed in any place. They were well placed, and it made sense where they were added in. I learned a lot about how the movies were made. I also learned things about the actors that I hadn’t found before. I really enjoyed reading this book and learning more about how The Lord of the Rings movies were made.
There were several pictures throughout The Lord of the Rings Official Movie Guide. Some of them were stills from scenes from The Fellowship of the Ring. There were pictures showing the sets as they were being built, and there were pictures of a few models that were used. I thought that the pictures were beautiful. There is a picture of some snow capped mountains and a lake in New Zealand on page 20 that is gorgeous. The lake is a brilliant blue, and the mountains are reflected in the water. That picture really shows how beautiful New Zealand is.
The Lord of the Rings Official Movie Guide is a wonderful book for fans of the movie. The books shares many things related to the making of the movie that fans may find interesting. Anyone who would like to learn some things about how the movies were made should check out this book. I really think this is a must have book for people who loved the movie.
The Lord of the Rings Official Movie Guide
Brian Sibley
Few of the hundreds of characters within The Lord of the Rings are as fascinating as the tormented Gollum. Through he is entirely computer-generated o...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.