Wired.com Review January 2005

02:00 AM Jan. 28, 2005 PT
Tolkien Gets Ringing Endorsement 

By Jason Silverman 

After the 2004 Academy Awards, the filmmaking team behind The Lord of the Rings headed out to celebrate. That's no surprise -- they had just won 11 Oscars.

What was unusual was the party -- it wasn't the one put on by New Line, the studio that invested more than $300 million to produce the Lord of the Rings trilogy. No, director Peter Jackson, cast and crew headed to an event produced by fan site TheOneRing.net, where they took the stage, hoisted their statues and mixed and mingled.

Hollywood insiders probably gasped -- the biggest Oscar sweep in history and these guys are partying with geeks! But Jackson and company recognized something essential about the success of The Lord of the Rings: It happened because of its rabid fans.


At least that's the case made by a new documentary, Ringers: Lord of the Fans, which premiered at the Slamdance Film Festival this week in Park City, Utah.


The film traces the history of Tolkien mania, which took off with the original publication of The Lord of the Rings in 1954. The book was quickly adopted by sci-fi fans and by some literati, including W.H. Auden and C.S. Lewis, and by the late 1960s, it had become countercultural gospel (hobbits, elves and Gandalfs were plentiful at Woodstock). Beginning in the 1970s, rock 'n' rollers such as Led Zeppelin and Rush immersed themselves in the Middle Earth mythology, and in 1977, publication of Tolkien's Silmarillion set off a new round of Tolkienism.


Then, of course, Jackson's trilogy pushed interest in The Lord of the Rings to a new plane.


Ringers scans this history and argues that Tolkien's books have had a substantial influence on our culture, inspiring everything from contemporary fantasy fiction to heavy metal to Star Wars.


"I was exposed to Lord of the Rings from the '60s generation ... but no one knew about that part of Tolkien's influence," said Carlene Cordova, Ringers' director/co-producer/co-writer. "Then there was Zeppelin, and people didn't realize their connection with Lord of the Rings. So that became the story we had to tell, how Lord of the Rings helped shape popular culture."


Any film about cultish sci-fi/fantasy fans is vulnerable to what might be called the Trekkie Syndrome. Aren't these people a bit wacky? Shouldn't they, as William Shatner suggested in a memorable Saturday Night Live skit, take off those silly costumes and get a life?


Cliff Broadway, the film's co-writer/co-producer, said he assured the film's subjects that he would be respectful of their obsession.


"There was suspicion," he said. "'You aren't going to make fun of us, are you?' And I'd say, 'Honey, I'm the biggest dyed-in-the-wool Ringer you'll ever meet. We aren't making a movie to make fun of you.'"


Ringers is respectful of Lord of the Rings fans without being reverent. The film does take fans a bit too seriously, but also is not afraid to use Tolkien's own words for perspective: "Many young Americans are involved in the stories in a way that I'm not," Tolkien wrote in a letter in the 1960s. He also described some fans as "deplorable cultus."


What's best about Ringers is the depth of knowledge that Broadway and Cordova bring. Broadway is co-author of The People's Guide to J.R.R. Tolkien (and played Gondorian Soldier 325 in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King). He and Cordova have both worked with TheOneRing.net for more than three years.


Ringers includes some charming, low-rent, Terry Gilliam-inspired cutout animations, and plenty of juicy factoids. (Did you know that Frodo's original name was Bingo? That the Beatles explored making a Lord of the Rings movie starring the model Twiggy?)


Amusing footage includes a clip of Leonard Nimoy singing a song in praise of Bilbo. Missing, however, are clips from the Rankin-Bass Lord of the Rings animations and from Ralph Bakshi's aborted version. Among the celebs interviewed are Jackson, Ian McKellen, Viggo Mortensen, Clive Barker, David Carradine and Rush's Geddy Lee.


Ringers' fan interviews consist mostly of gushing superlatives, but there are some memorable ones, too. The best features a girlfriend-proof man who spent six months building a chain-mail suit.


Others who talk for the camera include environmental activists who work Lord of the Rings themes into their protests, teenage girls mooning over photos of Elijah Wood, and a woman confessing that she sold her house so she could travel to the Return of the King premiere in New Zealand.


One of Ringers' more fascinating chapters explores the internet's role in the current round of Tolkien mania. Cordova remembered being asked at the Return of the King junket what she thought of the sneak preview scenes.


"They saw (the staff at TheOneRing.net) as ambassadors to the fans, and asked us if the fans would like it," she said. "We were like, 'Are you kidding me? It's obviously a masterpiece.' They were so nervous about what the fans would think. And we knew then that Peter and everyone else really cared about all of us fans."