Back in the news - the Lord of the Rings

Q. Why is The Lord of the Rings back in the headlines

A. It�may have escaped your notice that a major three-part version of J.R.R. Tolkien's classic epic The Lord of the Rings is heading for our cinema screens. Estimates for the cost of production range from �60 million to �137 million, so it's remarkable if only for the budget.

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By all accounts the special effects are eye-popping and the real-life settings - the film has been shot around the New Zealand capital Wellington - stunning. Big names playing the denizens of Middle Earth include Sir Ian McKellen, Cate Blanchett, Sean Bean, Liv Tyler, Ian Holm and Christopher Lee. The director is Peter Jackson.

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Q. When's it out

A. The first part, The Fellowship of the Ring, is due out in December 2001; the second, The Two Towers, in 2002 and the final part, The Return of the King, a year later.

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Q. Sounds pretty sensational. A hit

A. Tolkien fans will no doubt swarm to see it - if only to complain that 'it's not right' - but it should satisfy most people. There have already been a few complaints from Tolkien buffs that the director has been over-playing the love-interest in the story to give it more general appeal. Jackson, however, is pretty confident that he's kept close to the story, saying that 'Tolkien hopefully has a clear voice in the film.'

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On the basis of early interest, not much can go wrong. Over 400 unofficial websites have sprung up and 1.75 million web users downloaded the trailer on its first day - more than double the number of hits for the first Star Wars prequel.

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Q. Haven't there been films before

A. In 1978, an animated version of the first two parts was released. Panned in most quarters, but admired, if only for the superior animation, in others, the project ran out of money and so was never completed.

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Q. What about the Beatles

A. Big fans of the book, the Beatles wanted to film a version in which they'd all star and write the music. Denis O'Dell, head of Apple Films, the Beatles' production company, duly set about trying to secure the rights. However, in true '60s style, the project went up in a puff of smoke, though O'Dell worked hard to pull it off. The full story can be found in his forthcoming memoir At the Apple's Core, to be published in 2002.

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Q. In brief - the Tolkien book's over 1,000 pages long - what's it all about

A. A mammoth tale of the battle between good and evil. There's this ring of ultimate power,�made - and lost - by�the Dark Lord, Sauron. In The Hobbit, a tale�Tolkien finished earlier, this�was found by Sm�agol (aka Gollum) who then lost it to Bilbo Baggins in a riddle competition.�The Lord of the Rings starts with Bilbo passing it on to his hobbit�nephew Frodo, who undertakes to decommission it. He's helped by�dwarves, elves, talking trees�and the wizard Gandalf, and chased by Ring-wraiths,�orks and giant, bloodthirsty�spiders... hokum, but still�a rattling good�read.

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Some people find it simplistic in its black-and-white morality and others are plain scornful of the quasi-mystical�'sword-and-sorcery' element, but there's no denying the fact that Tolkien's extraordinarily detailed imaginary world�really sucks you in.

Millions have read it, both adults and children, and it remains one of the best-selling books of all time.

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Q. How many millions

A. At current estimates, well over 50.

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Q. So, something of a publishing phenomenon, then

A. Published in 1954-5, it became�a worldwide�clut classic�in the 1960s and has never been out of print. Currently, with the heavy marketing surrounding the film, it's riding high in the top ten bestseller list again.

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Q. And a bit about the author

Born in South Africa in 1892, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was professor of Anglo-Saxon and of English language and literature at the University of Oxford. His scholarly works include an edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (1925) and Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics (1936), and his works show the influence of such Anglo-Saxon epics as well as Norse sagas in both their scope and their mythology.

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He began writing The Lord of the Rings as an undergraduate at Oxford, and, while working on it, wrote The Hobbit (1937) for his children.�A quiet, scholarly pipe-smoker, he died in 1973. Tolkier�was an unlikely cult-fiction hero, but�was a friend of�C.S. Lewis, whose Chronicles of Narnia also conjure up a magical alternative world. A prequel to The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, was published posthumously by his son in 1977.

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Q. And Bored of the Rings

The inevitable backlash, the spoof Bored of the Rings was written by the Harvard National Lampoon and published in 1969. It was�clearly�put together with�some affection for the original, though it�subverted Tolkien's work by including gratuitous sex and drug abuse� - as well as renaming the characters with absurd monikers, full of innuendo. Thus, Tom Bombadil became Tim Benzadrino, Aragorn becomes Arrowroot and Bilbo Baggins, Dildo B****r (go on, take a guess). Witty, huh

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by Simon Smith