The Lord of the Rings Official Movie Guide (2001)

Amazon.com Amazon.com Review (ISBN 0618154027, Hardcover)

It's one of the most anticipated movies ever, and now you can see for yourself how the magic of Tolkien's fantasy masterpiece was created on screen in The Lord of the Rings: Official Movie Guide. Brian Sibley's straightforward approach takes the reader from the initial conception of the movie as it was developed and passed around studios (it initially started life as a two-hour condensed version of the three novels) to the months of complicated special-effects work necessary to do justice to Tolkien's extraordinary imagination. The book features interviews with all the key cast and production members and is liberally decorated with full-color photographs and behind-the-scenes images from the film itself. Sibley manages to document perfectly the filmmakers' painstaking attention to detail, much of which will be missed by many moviegoers, but he also captures a sense of camaraderie from all involved who wanted to make the best movie possible.

If it's facts and background trivia you are after, then this is the best place to be--the perfect starting point for those new to Tolkien or eager to find out more about how epic movies are put together. Dedicated Lord of the Rings fans who have been following the epic moviemaking process via the Internet won't find anything here they didn't already know, but this is still a very good companion no matter what level of knowledge or understanding you have of the greatest work of fantastic fiction ever written. --Jonathan Weir, Amazon.co.uk