January 24, 2001
World Goes Mad for
Lord of the Rings
Victor Olliver
The latest movie trailer for Lord Of The Rings (LOTR) has just been posted on the official site http://www.lordoftherings.net/
But if you have difficulty getting access to the trailer, it's because you're in competition with millions of fans.
The relaunched site was visited by 41m million people between January 12 and 16, and when the last trailer was posted last April, 1.7m people looked in just 24 hours.
LOTR is the nearest thing we have right now to a global movie obsession - almost on a par with anything George Lucas and Star Wars have dreamt up as marketing gimmicks.
Like Star Wars, LOTR offers a highly imagined alternative universe rich with its own esoteric language, bizarre characters, lore and law.
Fans are so fanatical that some of the less tolerant among them were abusive about Gandalf being played by a gay actor, namely Sir Ian McKellen. This nonsense aside, early pics of McKellen in character are stunning.
LOTR fans have an abundance of sites dedicated to their world of Tolkein (see links to the left for more articles).
For a guide to what all the fuss is all about one of the best sites to visit is http://www.Xenite.org/faqs/lotr_movie/
Here you'll learn that the LOTR trilogy, directed by Peter Jackson, comprises The Fellowship Of The Ring (out December 14 2001), The Two Towers (out December 2002) and The Return Of The King (December 2003).
In one of its many reports it tells of "a small group of Tolkien enthusiasts who have combined their interests in Tolkien and trains to create their own model railroads set in Middle Earth."