In the past day or two, I’ve come across not one, but two websites dealing with fan-made movies related to The Lord of the Rings. It’s interesting that people have the technology and the skills (not to mention the wardrobes and access to settings) to put together what appear to be pretty well-made movies.

Granted, I’m not sure about the acting, but I’d be interested in watching both of these “prequel” flicks. My guess is they’ll be much better than any of the three movies George Lucas put together for Star Wars “I to III”. And they’ll tide us over until Peter Jackson hits us with the Hobbit movie, and the “bridging” movie they’re putting together to come between The Hobbit and LotR.

I’m most interested in the first one, The Hunt for Gollum. Most of the scenes in the first trailer are shots of who I’m guessing is Strider, walking around, but hey, I like Rangers and the woods. The second trailer has more action, and elves! I’ll be curious to see how Gollum looks (I’m guessing he won’t be computerized) and what sort of new, cool things they can add to the story. This one is going to be available on Sunday, May 3rd, online.My guess is their servers will crash hard for a couple days.

And then the Tolkien estate will get cracking on them, led most likely by the Witch King of Angmar himself. Ow.

The second one is called Born of Hope, and while it has a strong Renaissance Faire feel to it, the movie could be kind of cool, as it also deals with Rangers. But man, no Gollum? No orcs? Hmmm… I’m a little uncertain of this one, and it also reminds me a bit too much of the first Star Wars prequel (maybe it’s the poster on the main page of the site). But it does have a cute lil baby at the end of the trailer. I believe that’s baby Viggo…

In any case, I think it’s awesome that film folks and actors are putting together such professional-looking films, and making them available online. Not sure how they’ll make money other than word of mouth, with the hope of getting picke up by a distributor, maybe, or just chalking it all up to experience, something to show producers and movie types.

And I hope they move on to make original movies, and not rely on familiar stories and settings like Middle-earth. I’m sure these creative folks have some great, original, non-fan-work inside them. Go do that next, I say.