I love Lord of the Rings, books and films alike. This book was full of stunning photos of the making and letting you into the insight of the making of these films.

Fun and containing entirely new stories! I was afraid it would be a repeat of the film appendices, which I've watched dozens of times but it was really fresh and interesting.

Lovely little "biography" of the Lord of the Rings films, although a little top-heavy (the second and third films hadn't yet been released at the book's completion). It's full of lovely photographs and funny and interesting interviews with the cast and crew (mainly the crew). Chock-full of fun information for movie buffs and/or LOTR fans.

Brian Sibley's book contains loads of behind-the-scenes information, anecdotes and pictures. Rather than concentrating on minute technical details, Sibley writes in a more conversational tone, bringing the stories of the women and men involved in the unique production challenges of Lord of the Rings to vivid life. There are a few typos here and there, and with a publishing date of 2002 movies 2 and 3 had yet to be released, meaning Sibley was obviously prohibited from revealing too much of the latter instalments (practically nothing on Gollum, the great cinematic wonder of the age, for example), but this is a nice accompaniment to the films and a great read for any LotR fans and fans of movie magic in general.

It is a fantastic work, I recommend it

“The Lord of the Rings: The Making of the Movie Trilogy”. Brian Sibly

I much enjoyed watching the three LOTR films as they were released to the cinema in turn (2002, 2002, 2003). I didn’t chance across Mr Sibly’s “Collectors’ Edition” book until now (2016). I struggled through four-fifths of the text & pictures, but ultimately just couldn’t stomach the utter self-righteousness arrogant puff of it all. So very, very, unlike Professor Tolkien’s brilliantly imaginative writing.
The marketing spin on Mr Sibly’s book implies that you, the punter, can’t possibly be a ‘true’ fan without owning his book. Nonsense. I love good books. Mr Sibley’s tack-on “The Lord of the Rings: The Making of the Movie Trilogy”, is one of the most abysmal & badly written exercises in writing that I have ever had the misfortune to acquire. A very real case of the proverb Buy in haste, repent at leisure. In retrospect, the only good thing to come out of it was my donation to charity.

It’s by far, far, far better to read Professor Tolkien’s unabridged text, and enjoy using your own wits and imagination. Or, second best, watch the trilogy of films on as large a screen as you can find, before turning to Professor Tolkien’s masterpiece.

Buy in haste, repent at leisure. Yes. If ever there was a lesson to steer clear of any book labelled “Collector’s Edition”, this is it. Here I was, looking for a well presented “this is how we visualised and made LOTR for the Big Screen”. Instead I got “Our greatest ego-trip ever”!
The self-opinionated aggrandisement of the bitty text is breathtakingly ghastly, almost as though Mr Sibly had taken his cue from Sean Astin’s truly dire book: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8...

Persons illustrated, whether in or out of film costume, are not immediately identifiable by name, or function. Within Mr Sibly’s text there is an over-abundance of grammatically inappropriately located teenage exclamation marks. The photographs come in all sizes and shapes, carelessly cast three or four on a double page spread, as might a drunken fly-fisherman relieving himself after lunch.

What did I learn? That here was an industry NEVER to seek employment in.

Es de verdad esencial para cualquier amante de las adaptaciones, ya qué no sólo es la biografía de las películas, sino de las personas en la producción de las que nadie habla.

Mucho se dice de Peter Jackson, de los actores y quizá de los guionistas, pero nunca de los maquilladores, encargados de producción, del follaje, del sonido, de los extras, etc. Este libro les da el protagonismo que merecen. Es como leer todo el contenido extra de los DVD.

El único pero que le puedo poner es que al haber sido investigado y escrito durante la producción y antes del estreno de Las Dos Torres, no cubre la totalidad de las películas y sus detalles finos. Aún así, es una gran adición para cualquier fan de la trilogía y del libro.

Stars: 4

This is a very interesting book if you are a LOTR fan, but it probably doesn't get into enough detail if you were reading this purely to learn about the movie-making process. I can't make up my mind if I liked the format. It felt at times that a lot was getting glossed over, but I do appreciate that a lot of time was spent with the people that aren't the face of the franchise.

There was something interesting on nearly every page, and much of it I hadn't heard before.

The pictures needed a lot of work. I couldn't tell what the pictures were if they were of a dark scene. There were also too many times when the author would be describing something I would've like to see a picture of, but they'd put in something random like a picture of King Theoden.

Hell yeah

This book did a great job at capturing some of the work that went into making the Lord of the Rings movies. (The author himself admits that one could fill several books with the process of making the movie trilogy.)
The book is very well put together and has many amazing pictures.

This gave me a new appreciation for what's needed to put on such a large production. Short answer: a lot!

I am enjoying this, but I don't seem to make any progress. So I'm putting this down for the moment but I will finish it someday. On page 64.
Started june 26 2016 - DNF 11 july 2016