I’m not a big fantasy fan in general. However, I do respond well to the Tolkien variety of fantasy. Tolkien told tales set in a lush, imaginative world that was more literate than anything else, and very believable besides. He was a linguist, for heaven’s sake, and an Oxford professor. Such are the things that make a work more than the sum of its parts, and much more than mindless escapism. The themes of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings are those of war and peace, sacrifice and friendship, and of course, the notion that good men can conquer Evil, but only if they rise to the occasion. This is good stuff.
Well, a group of Lord of the Rings fans, having worn their various DVD versions of the film down to the nubs, and impatient waiting for Peter Jackson’s Hobbit movies to arrive, have gotten together and made a fan film based on the additional source material for Lord of the Rings – those notoriously impenetrable appendices at the end of the books. The Hunt For Gollum tells the story of Strider’s search for the little guy, as told by Tolkein, so we know the story is at least solid, part of the LotR canon, and relevant to the overall story.
I know. I say “fan film” and you can feel the puke rising in your throat, can’t you? You’ve seen one too many poorly done parodies, one too many mashups, one too many Scenes From the Movie with Different Music and/or Dialog Added by a Fan. From all appearances, this one seems different. The production values are high, the production design, music, composition, quality of picture. It’s all similar to the films we know and love. How many fan films have you seen that look like this?
I encourage you to go to the Official Hunt for Gollum website and have a look at the trailer, listen to the music. It all looks very promising, and hard to believe this was put together by a bunch of fans with only a budget of £3000. Not bad at all.
The film will debut online for free viewing (!) on May 3, 2009. Man. People keep giving away great films like this for free, how will anyone ever get paid to make a film again!?
