The host is great and some of the experts interviewed are fine, but the rest of the material is sub-standard. Witness the recreations of scenes from the books: The hobbits are played by midgets wearing tacky feathered hats - the guy playing Frodo is probably 70 years old. The guy playing Aragorn, on the other hand, is maybe 28 and probably moonlights as an underwear model. Very little included about Tolkien's interesting life and how it shaped his Middle-earth stories. While I love the Brothers Hildebrandt illustrations, these are used so often you get tired of them.

Think of this as a very poor Cliff Notes for the video age. If it were my first exposure to Tolkien, I'd never look further.

If you are interested in learning about Tolkien read Humphrey Carpenter's excellent biography rather than wasting money on this DVD. The only thing of interest on this disc is the footage of Tolkien himself, but there's not enough to make the price you pay worthwhile. The majority is taken up by a badly performed synopsis of the story. Also includes a disc of totally boring music supposedly inspired by LOTR. Buy Howard Shore's soundtrack to the Peter Jackson films if you want great music that really sounds like it fits the story.

For those who have given this five stars have most likely not read the books, or else read the books when they were children and remember almost nothing of the facts. The only two interesting things about this DVD is the footage of Tolkien (which isn't really that much) and the 3D map, but even that is wrong, as any real Tolkien enthusiast can tell you. The artwork is interesting, but I've seen a lot better (check out artist Alan Lee, who actually also worked on the film and is world renown). It also has some reenactments of the book, but these are a little lame (they could've done a lot better). But the biggest thing that gets to me about this DVD is that though it tells the story in a condensed version, it presents a lot of misinformation, such as saying that it was Merry who destroyed the Witch-king (everyone knows it was Eowyn). It also states that the ethnic difficulties present in Middle-earth that were set aside for the Fellowship is comparable to the same that happened during World War II with the Allies and the Axis powers. This goes against the very things Tolkien (and his son Christopher) have said, that the Lord of the Rings is in no way allegorical.
So, in all, this may be of some interest to those who love the movies, but have never/not yet read the books, but for fans of the books, I recommend that you stay away from this and save your money! (Luckily I only spent $6 on this!)

This DVD provides a wealth of serious, academic oriented, introductory analysis of the Lord of the Rings and Tolkien. It is for the lover of the books interested in gaining some context and perspective. It will please primarily the Tolkien's fans and not the Peter Jackson's great rendition of Tolkien's fan. So be prepared for 80 minutes of a magisterial class on Tolkien, his times, and the Lord of the Rings as literature. The extras are nice. The picture gallery is a nice collection of one the most renowned Tolkien's illustrators, the Hildebrandt brothers, but you can find it in other places too. The others abound in a little extra depth in some of the material already covered in the main feature. The CD is a good collection for Rick Wakeman's fans and it will please new comers. Why 3 stars? I think the use of the menu is not as easy as it could have been and the video quality is not always top notch, but those are minor details. The main one would be that the presentation might have been a little more dynamic and the serious viewer might benefit from knowing the credentials of the speakers so their judgment can be rightly appreciated. I'm very pleased with this set, however I'm not quite sure of many times can you replay this one.

And that's about all it's worth. At first, the documentary disk is interesting, with film of Tolkien himself. However there is no new information here that you haven't seen in the nth docus done on Tolkien since the trilogy hit the silver screen. After you get past the biography info, you're subjected to talking heads droning on and on... none of which I could recall even under torture.

The worst part of the docu is a "synopsis" of the entire trilogy. One of the talking heads goes on and on, while the viewer is subjected to hazy video of dwarf actors in bad costumes "acting out" the story. It's utterly ridiculous! This is the point that I bailed out and I haven't touched the DVD since.

One of the reasons I bought this (besides it was cheap!) was the bonus CD of Rick Wakeman's music. Now, I've been a big fan of Yes in the past, and even of Wakeman's solo music. Some of the music is quite pleasant, but some is also quite ordinary. WARNING: all the music on the disc is retitled cuts from previous Wakeman discs. NOTHING on the CD is new music.

So if you're a Tolkien completist, look in the cut-out bins for this one.