Fraud of the rings?

Just as the year comes to an end, the second part of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy appears with the shameless tagline, "This Xmas the journey continues in... The Two Towers", a gloriously inappropriate way to promote the world's favourite modern pagan epic. It's unlikely, though, that this will matter a jot either to critics or the eager public. In fact, many of the former have only just seen the film.

Most movie pre-publicity is anything but secretive. Often videos are distributed, and screenings are open to everybody from the regional press to the wage slave who sells you a copy of the original novel, in an unattractive new film tie-in cover. But press and public previews, just as with The Fellowship of the Ring, have been severely restricted. This means that somewhat vague rave in your favourite monthly was almost certainly composed by a jobbing scrivener with broadband access to the trailers and a vague memory of the convoluted plot from their student days. In other words, if this is a war, then most journalists have lost the battle. For The Two Towers they'll have to queue up with us multiplex cattle to see the whole thing. There's little choice, anyway: no studio has dared to release anything else major this week or next (the film opens next Wednesday).

The imagery in The Lord of the Rings may be wifty-wafty; the thinking behind it is not. All three parts (next Xmas brings the concluding Return of the King) were filmed in Jackson's native New Zealand over a single intense year before later completion with computer-generated effects. This practically military operation (literally – questions were raised about the fee paid to the Kiwi troops used as extras in the battle scenes; like they'd have been needed elsewhere) guaranteed visual cohesion and no problems with actors raising their fees for the sequel.

Best of all for the bean-counters, the phenomenal return on the first episode ($860m worldwide, not counting video and DVD sales) has already covered the cost of the trilogy, a relatively paltry $300m for some nine hours of pre-sold epic. To put that figure in perspective, the current Bond instalment Die Another Day cost $150m alone, though it does boast Halle Berry in a bikini, which surely beats out small men in cowls.

Should we even care? Studios have always been quick to cash in on success and, in the past, have engineered whole movies with the express intent of selling little toy dinosaurs/goblins/pretty horses. And if you put all the murky economics to one side, the movie's actually supposed to be good. The print arrived so late, apparently, because Peter Jackson was doing some last-minute tinkering to get it exactly right.

So, from a certain point of view, The Lord of the Rings can be seen as the triumph of an eccentric visionary over the Hollywood system. Indeed, should we not all be hailing the arrival of a great auteur? Well, in a way... but the question arises: "What about the next big thing?" The example The Lord of the Rings has set is now firmly entrenched, so what happens when a studio realises that some future cash cow is in fact a dog and tries to hide the fact with lots of secrecy and hype? Will the critics all roll over and play dead? Will they be so used to taking the leftovers the publicists give them that they won't notice they're being given dross? Certainly PRs think they're in paradise at the moment.

The sad truth is, the success of this trilogy has nothing much to do with film-making. There are just so many Tolkienies out there that it simply can't fail, such fans easily outnumbering the handful of loons who affect confusion between the movie's title and the World Trade Centre. Tellingly Jackson refused to countenance a name change, admitting that he feared the wrath of the master's followers more. Even Ralph Bakshi's 1978 incomplete animated version (which I once fell asleep to) just about cleared a profit, as well as inspiring derision to this day when geek speaks unto geek.

So an even halfway competent adaptation is worth hyping. Blockbusters don't come more obvious than this. People will go just to spot the inconsistencies with the book before broadcasting their findings on the internet. In comparison, after Attack of the Clones George Lucas's franchise seems to be in serious trouble. It looks ever more likely that Star Wars: Episode III will attract only the truly dedicated (though, as they number in the tens of millions, that's not too much of a worry).

No literary figure can claim such a well-organised fan base. Potterites are bumbling and parochial in comparison. When Waterstone's organised their Novel of the Century vote a few years back, probably in collusion with publishers desperate to clear their warehouses of backlist before the millennium bug arrived, JRR's barmy army was mobilised and The Lord of the Rings swept all before it, unsurprisingly picking up a disproportionate share of the online ballots.

What the mild-mannered Oxford professor of philology, who died in 1973, would have made of such hysteria will forever be unknown. Like many folk brought up in Birmingham (eg Bruce Chatwin, Ozzy Osbourne) he possessed a vivid imagination and a desire to create his own secure world away from traumatic memories of youth. Yet the intellectual rigour of his works, with their allusions to classic sagas and cleverly devised languages, is undeniable. Though many of us might not comprehend or even care about his fantasy worlds, their influence is inescapable, for not only did he give his cast funny names, he also gave them furry feet. And he didn't borrow his plots from old Westerns.

Personally, being one those people who thinks "Elvish" is how Dean Martin described Mr Presley, I remain mystified, never having managed to finish even The Hobbit, let alone contemplate The Silmarillion, seriously unintelligible to the uninitiated. But thousands do care, and they care enough to provide their own twists on the characters. This opens the way for some seriously interesting plotlines (Xena the Warrior Princess in a tag team with Frodo? Why not?). Those grubby little hobbits already look like they're wandering around Glastonbury in a mud year, so why not introduce some entertainment into their grey lives?

As it is, The Two Towers features a digitised Gollum, that grumpy, tortured creature, "dubbed" over a performance by Andy Serkis, last spotted in 24 Hour Party People playing grumpy, tortured record producer Martin Hannett, who would, if alive today, undoubtedly be using digital recording techniques. Then there's love interest Liv Tyler, the daughter of rock gargoyle Steven, a man who could easily have taken a role. Any role.

Though the classic Variety headline on its review boldly declares "Two Towers Powers Frodo Franchise", more worrying is the claim of an idiot (and they are legion) on one message board that "Peter Jackson is indeed the Kiwi George Lucas". Admittedly there's little opposition, but that's not quite fair. Before this juggernaut took him over, he made quirky little films such as Heavenly Creatures, Braindead and Bad Taste, and there's every sign he wishes to return to that humble existence. He's just announced that he won't be filming The Hobbit, preferring to watch another's brave attempt at the unfilmable. So it'll be someone else, then, behind that LOTR prequel in three unconvincing parts that will shatter fond childhood memories forever...