All Rings are round, but some carry a deeper meaning

Rating: 6/10 (16 July 2005)

From a strict cinematic point of view this film is magnificent. Since I did nor read Tolkien's book I cannot comment on the deviations in plot, but the screenplay violates Aristotle rule: "The Tragedy is the imitation of superior men, the Comedy, the one of inferiors".
Perhaps Tolkien wanted it so, because it disguises the fact that his work is a copy of Wagner's "The Ring of the Nibelungen".
The following fragment from an article by ALEX ROSS in "The New Yorker", elucidates this point: " Tolkien refused to admit that his ring had anything to do with Wagner's. "Both rings were round, and there the resemblance ceased," he said. But he certainly knew his Wagner, and made an informal study of "Die Walküre" not long before writing the novels. The idea of the omnipotent ring must have come directly from Wagner; nothing quite like it appears in the old sagas. True, the Volsunga Saga features a ring from a cursed hoard, but it possesses no executive powers. In the "Nibelungenlied" saga, there is a magic rod that could be used to rule all, but it just sits around. Wagner combined these two objects into the awful amulet that is forged by Alberich from the gold of the Rhine. When Wotan steals the ring for his own godly purposes, Alberich places a curse upon it, and in so doing he speaks of "the lord of the ring as the slave of the ring." Such details make it hard to believe Tolkien's disavowals. Admit it, J.R.R., you used to run around brandishing a walking stick and singing "Nothung! Nothung!" like every other besotted Oxford lad. ". The whole Article is at http://www.newyorker.com/critics/atlarge/?031222crat_atlarge.
Is this a major fault?. I tend to believe so, because the Western Civilization currently lives too easily and pleasurably to dislike Tragedy and jokes are part of any conversation and some even say that the world is "dumbing down". This will not last forever...
A movie must please its audiences and the Lord of the Rings is a huge success, bur Wagner's Ring survived over a century and the Bible six Milleniums...
If Tolkien's Ring will still be in the Top 100 films in 2100, it would be a mighty achievement.