A brief but bland history of Tolkien's life and how the books came to be written and published, followed by a torturous mishmash of interviews given to fantasy artists, comic book store owners, make-up artists and (good Lord) psychologists enamored with the Fantasy genre. Anything concerning "the origins of the rings" is abandoned for a thin promotion of the Fantasy culture and why we have Tolkien to thank for it all. If that's the case, thanks for nothing.
A bizarre portion of the documentary is worth mentioning. At some point visual effects people creating fantasy film scenes are interviewed about their craft. As they work, it becomes apparent that they are laboring on are the same cringe-inducing scenes of rubbery Middle-Earthy creatures stiffly doing Middle-Earthy things shown earlier in and apparently made expressly for the documentary! A knee-slapping paradox perhaps, but solipsistically appalling as a documentary about such a great achievement as _The_Lord_of_the_Rings_.
A bizarre portion of the documentary is worth mentioning. At some point visual effects people creating fantasy film scenes are interviewed about their craft. As they work, it becomes apparent that they are laboring on are the same cringe-inducing scenes of rubbery Middle-Earthy creatures stiffly doing Middle-Earthy things shown earlier in and apparently made expressly for the documentary! A knee-slapping paradox perhaps, but solipsistically appalling as a documentary about such a great achievement as _The_Lord_of_the_Rings_.
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