Review: “The Lord of the Rings: Chronicles”

The history of the origins of the trilogy movies – that is known, right? We will show here if there is more to it.

content (propaganda)

In 1937, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien took readers to Middle-earth for the first time with his children’s book The Hobbit. Seventeen years later, with the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, he created a sci-fi cultural phenomenon whose essence became ever more topical and set new standards in literature and cinema. The magic of the complex universe of elves, dwarves, humans and hobbits and their battle against orcs and the evil Sauron continues and continues to inspire people’s imaginations. “One ring to judge them, to find them all, to drive them into darkness and chain them forever.” CINEMA, Germany’s most famous film magazine, has opened its archives to “The Lord of the Rings: The Chronicle”. It offers exclusive reports from the filming of the six film adventures, numerous interviews with the stars and creators, stunning photos and a wealth of background facts in 224 pages. And not only that: the history of the origin of the previous series “The Rings of Power” is widely covered. Travel with CINEMA to the fires of Mordor, the psychedelic forests of Mirkwood, and the lush meadows of the Shire. Immerse yourself in a world where nothing seems impossible.

criticism

The cinema books thus far have been characterized by consistently well research and a loving writing style that even manages to include some previously unknown tidbits (depending on the topic). Now, with the Lord of the Rings storyline, they’re trying to round up two movie trilogies by Peter Jackson and also go over something about the new Amazon series. Here, too, there is one or another, less well-known, but also smaller detail to read. However, this book is not as good as the others.

Appearance in the usual hardcover quality: here you can enjoy color photos with captions, sometimes also on double pages. In addition, such as text blocks, background information. However, what is particularly remarkable this time around is that double-page pictures have taken the upper hand here and are more numerous than in other volumes. By itself you can live with it, but in combination with the text blocks, which also seem somewhat shorter (see next point), it’s amazing.

Because here it was decided not to go into too much detail about the individual origin stories. For example, Tolkien is only dealt with on about 20 pages (which, excluding images, yields less than half of the text) and his motives for the Lord of the Rings title or how everything is touched upon is only developed at best. A similar picture emerges later with the films, because here too, it’s only touched briefly on how the production came to be and how it all went before there are some details about key scenes, but then it continues with the next film.

On the one hand, this is understandable. Detailed information can be found elsewhere and should already be known to most fans (who are certainly a major target group). Even moviegoers probably know some of the background now. If you have gone too far, many may be bored. On the other hand, the question arises of what one would expect from the record. Short outlines for movies or just a little more background?

Because one can also criticize the main scenes mentioned. For example, Gollum and the One Ring are completely absent from the Hobbit trilogy, although they occupy a certain part of the plot. The individual chapters of the films culminate in interviews conducted by the cinema with the actors at the time (meaning: they were already printed in the magazine and are now available again here). In a lot of places, this reads like cold coffee, because this information in particular, in my opinion, offers little added value. Here, the space for said scene descriptions and how to make them could have been used more logically.

Eventually, Amazon’s new Lord of the Rings series was also taken up. In addition to a quick look at the production history, wokeness is discussed here, which was pinned there and which has led to some controversy among fans. At the time of going to press, the series may not have started yet, which is why not much can be said about the content or individual scenes. Somewhat understandable, but instead diversity experts have their say, the information content one can certainly argue about, as with the interviews. The volume is rounded out with a look at the borrowings from “Lord of the Rings” in pop culture, but someone limited themselves to the musical offshoots, while other things like parody are described at best succinctly.