Hunt for Gollum vs Born of Hope

I recently saw the two LOTR fan-films. Both vids have good production values & very good costuming, but there the resemblance ends. Of the two, "The Hunt For Gollum" is by far the stronger. It covers some of the events described in Chapter 2, "The Shadow of the Past". The actor playing Gandalf, Patrick O'Connor, is truly excellent. The one playing Aragorn comes off as too boyish and/or beta in closeups but he looks great in the long shots. The stuntwork in THFG is superb; the big fight scene is equal in quality to anything in Jackson's movies. If it were legally possible, the movie is good enough to be bundled in a package with the Hollywood trilogy. I will definitely watch it again.

"Born of Hope" on the other hand is a noble failure. BOH was written, produced, and directed by Katherine Madison who also acted in it. Both dialogue and narrative are written in a florid, faux-Tolkien style that's alternately ridiculous and annoying. The actors, while mostly ok, are not good enough to triumph over the flowery dialogue. There's an intrusive voice-over narrated by Madison that's just as bad. She also wrote in a girl-Ranger role for herself as well as a pointless romantic sub-plot for Grrrl Ranger.

The guy who plays Arathorn (ie, Aragorn's father) in BOH is pretty good but aside from him, many of the cast seem too well fed to be Dunadain Rangers. You'd think being hunted by the merciless minions of the Dark Lord would keep the weight off, but not in the Middle-earth of BOH. Madison's orcs aren't that alarming however; they basically shamble around like extras in a bad zombie movie. The fight scenes between the overweight Dunedain and the stumblebum goblins are ok but nothing special. I don't plan to watch this again.