The Rise of the Fellowship?

So, given that the campus library and gym is closed for winter break, *M and I have been rather desperate for entertainment lately. As a result, we have been plumming the depths of Netflix and Amazon Prime to an extent never before seen. One result of this boredom-spelunking is that we found a small indie film called The Rise of the Fellowship, which is pretty clearly a Tolkien knock-off --er, I mean, "tribute." The basic premise is that gamer geeks are pitted against gamer jocks (yes, gamer jocks) in an on-line LOTR gaming competition.

 I won't keep you in suspense -- it was bad. The production value was decent, actually, and the acting wasn't awful, especially for a low-budget indie film, but I'm pretty sure the whole "geeks vs. jocks" stereotype died in the 1990s. (And the fact that the film's relying on stereoptypes thirty years out of date also gives you a hint at the level of characterization.) *M and I only made it about a quarter of the way through the film, actually. Perhaps it picked up. Some of the reviews indicated that "Melvin," the Gandalf-Aragorn hybrid who operates as a hippie-ish commune leader, is pretty good. Still, we just weren't able to make it that far.

 Still, one can't be too harsh with fan productions. Kudos for them for trying and having fun doing it.

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