Fandom Voices: Impact of the Films by Dawn Felagund

Posted on 13 May 2022; updated on 25 November 2022

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Responses: The Lord of the Rings Films

If you were part of the Tolkien fandom before the Lord of the Rings films were released in December 2001, how do you think the films impacted the fandom? What other experiences/memories do you have related to the films and the fandom at this time?

All responses we've received to the above question are collected here without curation or commentary. Responses have been lightly edited.

Were you a part of the fandom before one or both films? We're still collecting responses and will update this page as new responses come in.

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I started reading Tolkien in the '80s and, apart from a few people and friends, had no-one to discuss the books with. I knew it was huge, the mountain in fantasy literature that couldn’t be ignored (if you liked fantasy!) I watched the old cartoon film endless times and read and reread the books, but I suppose I didn’t realise how much the films brought LotR into the spotlight. This was just after I came online. I realised that because of the internet people could suddenly discuss Tolkien almost in real time across the world. After being a quiet fan for so long, I was both intoxicated and a bit overwhelmed.

~ Spiced Wine, response collected on 24 March 2022

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All of a sudden there were fans everywhere, some of whom took PJ's films as canon.

~ Anonymous, response collected on 25 March 2022

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Before the films the fandom was much more concentrated and concerned with academia. It was still fun but there was less general talk.

~ OnTheTrail, response collected on 27 March 2022

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Prior to December 2001, the standard entry point into the fandom was via the books. Adaptations (Bakshi and Rankin-Bass) did exist, but generally speaking, one read the books and only then checked out adaptations. Since Jackson, I would suggest that most people see the movies first, and then follow up the books later. Many such people still do actually prefer the books, of course, and indeed it was not unknown for people to read The Lord of the Rings in, say, 2002, and then become a Purist for the remaining Jackson movies—despite the first movie being their own entry point into the fandom.

The major fandom dispute in the lead-up to December 2001 was Arwen replacing Glorfindel at the Ford of Bruinen. It cannot be emphasised enough how much of a lightning rod this was within the online community. It bore more than a bit of resemblance to current furore about the upcoming Rings of Power series, and often the same sort of pseudo-political arguments ("Political Correctness!") were getting wheeled out. The matter largely died once the film was actually released, and people saw Liv Tyler in action ... though I do find it hilarious that Jackson Purists are now a thing, and criticise The Rings of Power for diverging from the movies.

Personally, I am actually looking forward to The Rings of Power diverging from the movies precisely because after twenty years, I actually want to see the story get out from beneath Jackson's shadow. I do genuinely appreciate that the Jackson trilogy are excellent films—or at least the first two are (I will never forgive what they did to Denethor), but they are far from perfect, either as stand-alone art or as a representation of Tolkien's vision. I also do not think that it has been an entirely good thing for my home nation of New Zealand, but that is another story.

It might also be anecdotal, but I think one other impact the Jackson movies had on the fandom was in the fanfiction trends. So-called Tenth Walker fics were always popular, but the movies sparked an upsurge in Legomance fics (romances involving Legolas), due to the fascination that young women had with Orlando Bloom's performance as Legolas. Certainly, the notion of Legolas being blond-haired was very much a Jackson-driven thing—plenty of people before Jackson saw him as blond on account of his father, but we have now reached the point where it is genuinely rare to see a dark-haired Legolas in fan representation.

~Daniel Stride, response collected on 27 March 2022

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I think it opened up the fandom greatly. I never expected a one-to-one filming experience with the LotR trilogy. Film and prose are very different mediums so there's never a perfect transfer from one to another. But something I loved was how closely it followed the details and spirit of the books. And it opened the whole world of Arda to a new set of people who would have been reluctant to get into the written trilogy ... which, it has to be admitted, can be pretty dense. These are not beach-read materials. The trilogy demands your attention. 

I had been a fan of the novels since I was a child, long before the movies were made. So when friends who were never into the books saw the movies and were enthralled, it gave me the opportunity to say, "See? THIS is why I love the books. Now you see what I see." 

~ John, response collected on 27 March 2022

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I think the films drew new fans to Tolkien's work who may not have been introduced otherwise.

~ Anonymous, response collected on 27 March 2022

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I remember the doubts, the almost certainty that the films couldn't get even close to what Lord of the Rings was as a story. Then it was the hype, about the cast, about New Zealand. Then, of course, once the films were released, opinions, all kinds of them, from "how awful" to "brilliant" and everything in between. What I liked was the "after", once everyone had watched the films and grumbled about all that was left out, when lots of people, new to Tolkien fandom, began writing and talking about such obscure nuances as why Orlando Bloom had a slight Welsh accent, and if it was because Welsh archers were the best in medieval times ...

~ Anonymous, response collected on 28 March 2022

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The films dominated discussions and still do to this day—to the point where there seems to be distinct groups of fans: those who have only watched movies, those who like discussing the books, those who enjoy both, those who like one and not the other. The films dominate most Tolkien conversations.

~ The Red Book (Steven), response collected on 28 March 2022

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I was a solitary fan before the films after having started reading Tolkien in the mid 1970's. I desperately wanted to participate in the Tolkien Society moots, but never had the money to travel to them, and I did not live in an area where people were active. I ran across rumors of a possible film of The Lord of the Rings in early 1998, then discovered TheOneRing.com and TheOneRing.net in 1999 and was very pleased indeed to be able to interact with fellow fans online. Thankfully, the films brought fellow Tolkien fans out of the woodwork, even in my geographic neck of the woods, and I was finally able to join other folks to share our love of the Professor's works. I have the films to thank for that and I am grateful.

~ Anonymous, response collected on 29 March 2022

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Things definitely changed. Characterizations in fanfiction were altered. Fanart especially went from extremely diverse renderings of the characters to almost universal representation of them with the actors' faces.

~ Anonymous, response collected on 29 March 2022

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I only read LotR for the first time when I got it for Christmas in 2000. I was thirteen at the time and bullied in pretty much all of my social circles, so offline it was an amazing means of escapism. I actually made one of my best friends when she said she was a fan of The Hobbit and reading LotR.

I looked for a fan community online and made my "home" at herr-der-ringe-film.de, as well as an eight-person rapid forum. A lot of fic was only available in English, so I improved my English. I also learned that being queer is an option (in theory, for other people). I helped translate the chapter on the aorist for a Quenya course into German. 

Most of the fandom vibes I remember were jokes about teenage girls finding Legolas hot (as a teenage girl finding Legolas hot, I of course immediately distanced myself from that), the most reasonable and cerebral takes on why Arwen at Helm's Deep was an abomination and Liv Tyler should feel bad (as a reasonable and cerebral being, I regret nothing like the vitriolic nonsense I started spewing then), and how none of the new fans had any reading ability at all.

Generally it was a very welcoming place though; got me interested in linguistics; helped me study abroad; sparked a lifelong passion for roleplaying, reading, writing and drawing; changed my musical taste forever; and ultimately introduced me to my best friends, one of which I'm lucky enough to have married. I'm extremely glad for that very online, very LotR-heavy time in my life. I wouldn't be the same without it.

~ Anonymous, response collected on 29 March 2022

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I was more active in the fandom in the early 90's, in the pre-internet days, though I kept up with friends who were more active into the 2000s. Though Tolkien was already a big name, most people who had read him had only read LotR or The Hobbit, and stories from The Silmarillion or Unfinished Tales felt really obscure, a sort of shared secret among people who were real enthusiasts. But I don't think we really had separate parts of the fandom then, I don't think the term 'Silmarillion fans' would have resonated. There was just Tolkien fandom, and some people were deeper into it than others. 

Middle-earth Roleplaying (MERP) from Iron Crown Enterprises (ICE) was popular in my circles during that period, with a strong focus on the Third Age. Really beautiful material was written, developing on the Third Age setting with fabulous maps and additional place names and material written for role-players with considerable scholarly care. I knew Chris Seeman, who was involved with MERP, and also ran the short-lived Other Hands zine.

Then, in 1999, Tolkien Enterprises (not the Tolkien Estate, but the company that owns the movie rights) pulled the license from Iron Crown. No more MERP. They later sent Chris a cease and desist order, so no more Other Hands, either. And that was because there were movies on the horizon, and suddenly the beautiful, detailed, heavily-researched, and almost academic style of MERP wasn't commercial enough. There was more money to be made elsewhere. And that was the end of ICE, and Other Hands. This was not popular. 

I can remember seeing the appeal going around to join the movie fan club and raise funds for the movie project. On Usenet, I think? Or perhaps from friends on email. The people who donated got their names added to the end of the movie, and that does, I think, reflect the earlier world of the fandom, of there being a sort of sense of shared ownership, even while at the same time, it was one of the biggest and most expensive movie projects ever. 

I think about half my friends in the fandom weren't really interested in going to see the movies. They felt the graphics couldn't be as good as what was in their heads. The other half watched them enthusiastically as they came out. I was one of those, though I was nothing like as enthusiastic as many of the new fans who came flooding in at that time. 

To be honest, the whole thing got a bit over the top. What had been a book fandom full of nerdy enthusiasts became a megafandom filled with pretty much everyone, and that was a bit much. I was pleased so many people were having fun, but I'd already been moving away from that phase of my life, and all the RPF and loud arguments, drama and shipping maybe gave me a bit of an extra push in that direction. 

~ bunn, response collected on 29 March 2022

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I entered the German online fandom on the brink of the movies, in early 2001, on two forums—one already dedicated to discussion of the movies (www.herr-der-ringe-film.de), the other for general fandom activity (www.elbenwald.de), although there was a lot of overlap both in topics and in the userbase. At the time, the upcoming movies were already a huge part of the discussion—speculations about possible changes, discussions about the choice of actors, and analyses of leaked or promo material from the movies were widespread. For instance, there was great concern that the "splatter director" Peter Jackson would turn the story into a bloodbath, that he wouldn't care for Tolkien's messages of friendship and hope against hope, etc. The choice of New Zealand as location was also hotly discussed, as many people doubted that such an "exotic" place would be suitable for the pseudo-European landscapes they envisioned. Another discussion that dominated the German fandom at the time was the "new translation", which was generally hated for being too modern (Krege, the translator, had decided to let the Hobbits use 1990s slang, for instance). This makes the fandom sound like a very negative space, but of course there was also a lot of shared love for the books, the occasional fanfic (though never called fanfic!) or fanart, RPGs, as well as some muted hope for the movies. Regional or even nationwide offline meet-ups were an important fixture, with attendance ranging from under ten to about thirty people, while the forums had a membership in the low triple digits. You generally knew the other active users at least by name.

This changed drastically after the movies premiered, although I don't remember the exact timeframe in which user numbers rose! But there was a huge influx of new fans, bringing with them bright-eyed excitement and discussions ranging from "Why don't the Ringwraiths just ford the river?" to "Isn't Legolas the sexiest?"

There was quite a bit of gatekeeping, partly born from the frustration of having to explain "basics'' repeatedly because many new users weren't just new to the fandom, they were also new to forum culture and didn't bother to see if perhaps the thread they felt like opening already existed, and partly from people just liking to feel superior for having been there before LotR became cool and mainstream. The "old guard" was busy in tearing apart changes made to the book (where is Tom Bombadil? where is Glorfindel? why does Arwen threaten Aragorn with a knife to his throat, however playfully?), although some aspects of the movies were very well received (the casting of the Hobbits, Aragorn and Gandalf proved very popular, as well as the costume design and Howard Shore's epic score). After a while, there was a sort of parallel culture going on: Part of the forums were dominated by movie discourse, while other parts deliberately focused on discussing book lore. Nonetheless, even those parts adapted the visuals of the movies. Before, costumes (as they were sometimes worn at meet-ups or depicted in fanart) had been inspired by various medieval fantasy sources, from "Mittelaltermarkt" (German RenFaire) aesthetics to Prince Valiant. Now, the movie costumes influenced the picture everybody had of Middle-earth.

By and by, the differences between the two camps grew less, or at any rate less noticeable—many movie fans acquired book knowledge (through reading or osmosis) and many book fans softened towards the movies, although there are corners that chose to ignore the movies (or dismiss them as irrelevant) even today.

~ Lyra, response collected on 29 March 2022

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Made the fandom bigger! I could finally get my IRL friends interested in reading the book!

~ Megan Abrahamson, response collected on 29 March 2022

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The movies made the fandom bigger and more mainstream. Before the movies, when I would tell someone I was a Tolkien fan, I would wait half a beat to see if I needed to explain what that was. I don't need to do that any more.

I remember a few people on rec.org.sca (or maybe it was alt.tolkien) getting very, very, very upset because anyone who came into the fandom through the movies would have their image of the characters set by the movies, instead of developing their own. They never articulated to my satisfaction why that was a bad thing. My initial exposure to Tolkien was the Rankin-Bass The Hobbit, and the Bilbo in my head didn't look like the one from Rankin-Bass about five minutes after it ended.

The movies also put paid to the interminable threads about who you would cast in the movie. Not sorry about that. They got tiresome.

I also think the purpose of the casting threads is now met by face-claims and drawings. It wasn't really possible to share images over Usenet—I know it was technically possible, but is it really a thing if it's so much of a pain in the neck that people only bother with it for porn?

~ Rebecca, response collected on 29 March 2022

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I was mostly involved in the Tolkien fandom through forum sites, primarily The Barrow Downs, which was a forum dedicated to the books before the films came out, and then shifted to accommodate new fans once the movies started coming out. There was an IRC chat room associated with the forum, and that is where we mostly hung out and talked.

When the movies started coming out, membership at the forum and in the chat room really ballooned. It was like a massive influx of new faces and voices. Mostly they were younger than the original population of the forum, and new threads and whole new sections were added to discuss the movies. We got a lot of younger women who were brought in through crushes on Legolas. I mean, all the main characters had fangirls, but by far most of them were there for Legolas. The younger, newer fans were eager to prove their cred. Most of them started reading the books and the appendices. 

Before the movies, most of the disagreements were over classic Tolkien questions like, do Balrogs have wings, and do Hobbits have pointed ears. After the movies, the questions and debates shifted somewhat. They were much more about changes that had been made to the story. Many people were annoyed that some characters, like Merry, got short shrift in the movies, or were changed to the point of not being recognizable. Other people were worried about changes to Arwen's storyline. On the whole, though, most book fans also loved the movies, watched them multiple times, and wanted them to do well. And most movie fans that stayed at The Barrow Downs became a lot more educated on the books. The forum had roleplaying games based on things not covered in the movies, so if people wanted to participate and roll up a character, they needed book background. 

The biggest change to the chat room was that the age of most chatters shifted younger. We had a lot more teenagers and young adults than before. The chats became sillier, and less formal, which most people tolerated or enjoyed. We increased the number of mods in the channel and several offshoots of the main room started being made for more serious discussion. The talk shifted in the main room to being primarily about Elves, because, as mentioned earlier, many of the new members were very enamored of Legolas and so they started reading and exploring more about the Elves, including reading The Silmarillion. There were several fights about if Elves or humans were better or more interesting. The Dwarves also had fans, but fewer. The Barrow Downs was a fairly formal Tolkien site before the movies, and I think most people who stayed there post-movies were still older and more book-oriented than the average Tolkien fan space at the time, but that is my experience with the shift, at least.

On a personal note, I met many amazing, wonderful people in the chat room post movies, including my wife.

~ TheXPhial, response collected on 2 April 2022

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In September 1999, I started a mailing list, tolkien_slash, and a fanfic and fanart archive, Least Expected, specifically for m/m, f/f, poly, and generally queer fanworks. Over the next two years, the mailing list and archive became a small, friendly community, achieving many "firsts" in Tolkien fandom, such as the first m/m and f/f LotR and Silmarillion fanfics publicly available on the internet. 

The release of The Fellowship of the Ring meant that, within days, our small mailing list saw hundreds of people joining. Fanfic and fanart exploded in numbers. I also noticed many new mailing lists and some new archives being created, some that lasted for years, others that disappeared fairly quickly. From one mailing list for all Tolkien-based slash, the community blossomed into hundreds, some specifically for different characters, pairings, or even races, some for specific kinks or types of fic, some for fanart, personal or author-based mailing lists, and much more. There were also "anti" mailing lists as well, and archives were founded that didn't allow slash. This all happened within the space of a few months post December 2001. 

From my personal perspective, the films unleashed a vast flood of creativity in fans, to the point where it was almost overwhelming at times. People started writing fanfic in their own styles rather than even attempting to create pastiches of Tolkien's. Many people I knew from other fandoms came to spend some time in LotR fandom creating fanworks. The fanworks they were creating were usually based on the movies, but generally with at least superficial knowledge of the books, and over time, people tended to integrate book knowledge with movie style to create this hybrid style where it couldn't be stated clearly whether the fic was book-based or movie-based. A lot of the fanart tended to take on the "movie" look. The first fanvids appeared around 2002. 

A huge RPF fandom also sprang up alongside LotR fandom; many people I knew were part of both. (Early on, I had to make a decision that tolkien_slash and Least Expected were to be for fiction only, not because I was opposed to RPF, simply because I felt that it would be far too much for one mailing list to handle and it wasn't necessary or indeed possible to be all things to all people.) 

I think the rise in popularity of LiveJournal was also a huge factor in LotR fandom. As LJ became more and more the home of fandom, hundreds of communities sprang up, and in turn icons and photomanips became very popular. There was a great sense that LotR fandom wasn't the sole purview of the fanboys but now belonged to the fangirls as well. 

~ Elwin Fortuna, response collected on 4 April 2022

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The first things I talked about online were Tolkien and sport. I found a lot of awesome boards and zines for Tolkien and had a great time. I remember the usual glut of Mary Sues and the reactionary snobbery. (And the homophobia. I'm ashamed to admit that I nodded along with the whole "it's NOT CANON" bullshit even though I shipped Frodo/Sam and Maedhros/Fingon since before I found online Tolkien fandom. I remember getting shouted at for liking Mae/Fin because "SLASH YUCK" and "THEY COUSINS".

~ Anonymous, response collected on 26 April 2022

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Before the films the only proof you were part of the fandom you could have were the 'Frodo Lives' badges that had been popular since the '60s, and it was deeply uncool to be a fan. After the first film it was suddenly extremely cool, and that was great! Plus at long last we had merch! I loved that bit. The influx of new people sharing ideas was wonderful, and film fans reading the books and discovering how much they loved the mythology of Arda was the best. There were so many new ideas and discussions on the forums, and new ways of expressing fandom joy on LiveJournal and websites. I never read LotR fanfiction before the films but I certainly did during and after they came out (and still do). My most precious memory is attending TheOneRing.net's RotK Oscar Party, watching the show live with a thousand other fans as we swept the Oscars and all crying about it together, and being front-row centre stage (you can just about see me there in the crowd) for Billy Boyd singing, Elijah and Dom rapping, and Peter, Phillipa and Fran coming direct from the ceremony to our party to celebrate the film's epic win. Absolutely one of the highlights of my life. I liked the books before but the films really helped me *love* them.

~ neverwhere, response collected 29 April 2022

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I was not part of a formal/focused Tolkien fan group during my time in offline fandom (1976-1992), and had sort of drifted away from fanac between 1992 and the film release (mostly because I got tired of the sexism in the conference and APA fandoms I was active in which were more general in focus but included Tolkien fans). In fact, I'd drifted away from Tolkien as an angry young feminist. Jackson's films brought me back to Tolkien *and* to fandom (LiveJournal) because I was recruited by friends at an academic conference to join LJ.  Though I was protesting I would never write fanfiction, I started writing my first RPS [real person slash] on the flight back from the conference and soon started writing FPS [fictional person slash] as well.  So my experience is that the films (and the internet) had a fantastic effect on my fandom experience, and the fandom communities available to me. It was life-changing. It was not utopian—there were major differences/conflicts around book vs. film fans, around Silm vs. the other novels, around awards for fanfic, and around the fan focus (Elves fans, Men fans, Interspecies fans, etc.).  But it was soooooo much better than my previous experiences in (offline) fandom!

~ Ithiliana, response collected 30 April 2022

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My experience of Tolkien fandom prior to the announcement of the films was entirely through books, mainly art collections that featured or included artists’ depictions of Tolkien’s work as well as essays by fans or authors that appeared in more generalized fantasy/sci-fi publications. One -on-one interactions weren’t something I had with other fans outside of two family members and one close friend. 

My first broader experience of personal fandom interactions happened in the summer of 1999 when I was let loose in a library with an internet connection. My very first use of the internet while not under the guidance of a teacher showing me how to use it for academic research was an AltaVista search for “Tolkien.” The first search result I remember seeing was information about Peter Jackson’s films, then beginning production. I had no idea film adaptations of The Lord of the Rings were even being made until this moment. I slowly found my way onto various websites and message boards, including what I believe was the newly created TheOneRing.net. These online spaces are where I first encountered Tolkien fandom in a more conversational setting. This is also the time during which I first encountered transformative works and learned what fanart and fanfiction was.

Naturally, because of the timing, much of the discourse was about the films, but, as the films had not been released yet, it was almost entirely being had by book fans who were either very excited for the films or very skeptical of them, and featured debates about each new scrap of available information as it came out. The major divisions among fans that I remember (other than the excited/skeptical dichotomy) had to do with which Tolkien works a fan had read. I also got the sense that this correlated (to some degree) with the age of the fan, where older fans were more likely (though to what extent I couldn’t say) to have read The Silmarillion (and possibly the extended Middle-earth books like UT or HoMe as well as Carpenter’s biography, Letters, etc.—I remember feeling somewhat out of place as a teen fan who had read all of the above).

Once the films were released there was *definitely* an influx of new fans onto the boards who had come with a desire to talk about the films but also with a desire to learn more about Middle-earth. With this influx came a new sense of social hierarchy among the fan groups I remember, where “pre-film” fans definitely seemed to outrank “post-film” fans, and some “pre-film” fans looked down on “post-film fans,” particularly those who had not yet read the books. It has been over twenty years, so my memories may not be the most accurate, but I don’t remember this boiling over too much at the time, and while the divisions between “pro-film” and “anti-film” was definitely there, I mainly remember an environment of almost “Tolkien mentorship” in which older fans introduced younger fans who had mainly (or solely) experienced the films to the wider Legendarium.

There was also an explosion of transformative fanworks. For this new fanart, the aesthetic was very clearly (and unsurprisingly) based on the design of Jackson’s films. There was also, suddenly, a surprising amount of slash fic, even a small amount of slash fic which included one or more of the villains as a member of the pairing (I specifically remember an Aragorn/Sauron fic which I was surprised to find).

My participation in fandom started to fall off around 2004 and didn’t really pick up again until 2015, so I can’t comment on much between those dates.

~ PhoenixRisesOnceMore, response collected 1 May 2022

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The films have certainly had an important and major impact, both then and over time. (Personally, I think it was mostly for the better.) Offline, I somewhat followed what fan and non-fan anticipation and reactions were like before the premiere. More crucially, my biggest engagement before the films was regularly listening to the six-part first season (series) of a brand new and wonderful radio adaptation of The Lord of the Rings (The Fellowship of the Ring, specifically) in my native language, months before the film premiered.

~ Anonymous, response collected 25 May 2022

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At the time I thought the films were a negative. Too much Mary Sues. Too much stupid crack. Eventually, I came to enjoy it. I liked very much OFFUM and parodies. I also liked old SilmFics.

~ Anonymous, response collected 18 September 2022