Hot on the heels of the other reviews of the first Lord Of The Rings film, we have this review from someone called Dufus23. He has spotted some worrying similarities with another blockbuster film that the other reviewers seem to have overlooked.
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Hey Jim - I hear you are interested in this Lords of the Ring movie, right. Well I seen it and here's what I thought.
Well, you know my Dad kinda like scored these tickets for the screening of this movie you may of heard of called "The Lord of the Ring" coz he like works in a theater, right? But he was busy so I took the tickets and went to see it coz I heard it was kinda like Harry Potter but with people getting killed with swords and all like Gladiator.
The first thing is someone made a big mistake coz they got the name of the movie wrong - at the start the titles say, "The Fellows of the Rings" or something like that which is like real sloppy and gets the movie off on a real bad start.
Anyway, it starts off with like some chick talking and then all cool like battles and all with some guy making a Ring which is like some kind of power and stuff. The guy who makes the ring is like 20 feet tall and with black armor like Darth Vader on acid or some wierd s**t and he gets killed and this other guy takes the Ring and then he loses it and then some little guy finds the ring but he loses it when his friend (who is called either Smeegle or Gorlum) kills him. Then this Smeegle guy loses the Ring and some little guy called Bill finds it. Jeez, like at this point I was starting to lose track of like who had the thing.
Anyway the original guy who made the ring, Sow-Ron, it turns out he isn't dead but is still around somewhere and he wants it back and then Bill gives the ring to his son, Freddo and disappears. Then this Wizard called Gandalf turns up. Now this really sucks coz, this Wizard isn't like 10 years old and has glasses and stuff - he's some old guy like, what Dumbledore but old and like a vagrant or a wino. Oh yeah, he doesn't even ride a broomstick, right? Talk about missing the point!
He tells Freddo to take the ring somewhere and then goes to fight some other old Wizard who whups his ass, using the force or something. His midichlorian count must be off the radar! This other wizard is cloning all these ape monsters (yeah, another rip-off of George Lucas) and he's looking for this ring too.
Then we see Freddo and some of his buddies being chased by these guys on horses with big cloaks and hoods and look like Jawas (Star Wars again). But they meet a guy in a bar who agrees to help them (can I say "Han Solo"?). These big Jawas attack them in a castle but they get away. Then they meet a beautiful princess - nothing like Princess Leia, no siree! - who helps them get to her father's castle. Then she falls in love with the guy from the bar (like Han and Leia - right?). Then they have a big meeting to decide what to do with the Ring chaired by a guy called Elrond (is that an anagram of Dodonna?) and they discover that this Sow-ron has left a hole in his defences and they can beat him by throwing the ring into the thermal exhaust port, sorry, crack of doom.
Anyway, a gang of them set off to take the ring to this crack thing and have to travel through some caves where they get attacked by s**tloads of monsters and stuff. They've got this guy with them, Legolas, with pointy ears, who is an incredible fighter and is really cool, a direct rip of Obi Wan Kenobi in TPM. Then the Wizard gets killed by a massive demon and he shouts out "Run Luke, Run". Or something like that.
Then they all go to some place full of Elves, except these whack elves are all six feet tall and live in tree houses. Yeah, right. Oh and I couldn't see any sign of them but there must have been some serious Ewok construction teams there.
The Queen of the Elves, Galamidala or something, wants the ring and nearly takes it off Freddo but she changes her mind and lets them all go. Then they travel down a river in boats. Freddo isn't sure what to do with the ring, then this other guy, Borremeer who is with them, gets taken over by the dark side and tries to steal the ring. But Freddo escapes when another buncha the bad Wizard's ape monsters attack them. Borremeer gets killed and the monsters kidnap two of Freddo's little buddies - (no, they don't get frozen in carbonite, which surprised me too). Freddo and his other buddy run off to the cracks of doom and the rest of the party follow the monsters to find the ones who have been kidnapped. The End - to be continued...
Yeah, it was a good film but, really, you know I've already seen Star Wars and Gladiator. You know, if your going to rip off Star Wars, you need to be subtle about it, yeah? This was such a blatant, in your face copy that George Lucas's lawyers must be rubbing their hands. Is the next movie gonna be called "The Wizard Strikes back" or "Return of the King" or "The Phantom Elf"? Give me a break!
One last thing - the actors of reduced stature* in it were really good but no Warwick Davies? What with all the Star Wars and Leprechaun films, he's a big star - they probably couldn't afford him.
Dufus23
You know, when you look at it like that, those similarities do seem to be rather more than coincidental. George Lucas is probably writing to his lawyers as we speak.
Jimcalagon
*(I have edited the word "midget" out of Dufus 23's review after one email of complaint. Apparently the word is offensive to little short arses. My apologies, Jimcalagon)