The great web movie showdown

The online obsession with Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings has taken film hype to new heights. But in the virtual battle there can be only one victor.

Most minute minutiae

It's hard to top the Harry Potter Lexicon which overpowers visitors with a bestiary, an atlas, a book of spells and includes a complete timetable for all the events in the books (and thus the film). Potterspods can therefore find the exact day on which Hermione begins prepping for her exams in The Philosopher's Stone.
Yet even high scholarship such as this is modest compared to the depth of knowledge wielded by the many two-brains at the Tolkien Society who, after decades of philosophy and philology, produce the best date-impressing, post-movie factoid, namely that Aragorn (the warrior hero of the film) was originally the name of Gandalf's horse.

For inspiring others

The Lord of the Rings makes a strong showing here, from the absurd sight of a grown man reenacting the story in Lego to an entire independently produced film, Ancanar , set in Middle Earth but featuring new characters and an original story (elves, brigands, kidnapping).
But numbers also count and there are hundreds of Potter-inspired fan fictions like those at Potter Legacy , where Ron and Harry go to the beach and meet a mermaid (an allegorical rite of passage, perhaps?). And that's without mentioning the numerous "filks" , where stories from the film are set to famous tunes. Sample: "If you wanna be a Dursely", sung to the tune of the Spice Girls' Wannabe.

Best official site

Since these are the properties of Warners and New Line respectively, both have good access but there's only one winner. The Warners site ( harrypotter.warnerbros.co.uk ) is a doss-house of outdated Flash animations and games, while the official Lord of the Rings site ( lordoftherings.net ) teems with trailers, scene analyses, cast and crew biogs, behind-the-scenes interviews and the kind of production notes normally handed out to film critics at previews.

Best (tat) seller

Although you can't move for merchandise in the shops, there's an odd, almost Potterless vacuum on-line. Sylvan Lane Shoppe has Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans (including Booger flavour - that's bogies to you and me) trading cards, toiletries (as if), key rings, purses and kites, while the "wizard shop" has a few lame cuddly toys.
By comparison, lordotrings.com is awash with hideous little statuettes, life-size cardboard cutouts (for dateless netties at next year's Valentine's fancy-dress parties, perhaps) and bizarrely monogrammed tin boxes. Would-be Hobbits can also buy a One Ring engraved in Elvish (from $40 at Badali Jewelry ), wicked-looking swords (around $300 from Triad ) and even have their names translated into Hobbit names at barrowdowns.com . Mine is Nob Hill from Gamwich.

Best spoiler

Lord of the Rings wins hands down, thanks to the painstaking scene-by-contentious-scene analysis at www2.tolkienonline . Here you'll find out why Bombadil and the Barrow Downs were given the boot and, most unsettling of all, why Liv Tyler's Arwen was given a sword. But for sheer far-sighted bloody-mindedness, harrypotterfans.net takes visitors through to book seven, where Hermione is made head girl.

For putting the "fan" in "fanatical"

When adult Potterers are not engaging in meaningless debates over even the most paper thin of Rowling's characters (like this Yahoo group ) they occasionally turn their minds to more important things, like the length of the school year. "Couldn't someone write/ e-mail and ask her [Rowling] if she was basing the Hogwarts system on the Scottish system, then surely they would break up at the end of June and go back halfway through August?"

Nothing, however, matches the Frodo Baggins-like toiling of the fan who slogged round New Zealand trying - and mostly failing - to keep up with the helicopter-propelled film crew as it shot The Lord of the Rings. Photographs of empty mountains, hills and valleys at theonering.net testify that for a spy, she makes an excellent fan.

Maddest conspiracy theory

Potter by a knockout. First, thanks to our friends on the religious Right who conclude that (presumably along with Winnie the Witch) Harry Potter is the work of the Devil and second, due to an unexpected legal spat between Rowling and Nancy Stouffer who wrote a series of kids' activity books in the Eighties called Larry Potter which also featured "muggles" (Rowling's word for humans) and has consequently come calling for a share of the loot. Most Lord of the Rings sites are Shire-like in their equilibrium.

Most revealing insider info

Referring to the Hobbit's distinctive furry soles, Elijah Wood (Frodo) complains: "We would have to get up at 5.30 in the morning to get our feet glued on" ( theonering.net ). At empireonline , Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) remembers: "The most nerve-racking was the first day, because before it had just been me, Rupert, Emma and Chris [director Columbus] rehearsing in Chris's office. But then I got the call sheet for the day and it said Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint and I said 'Oh, that's fine, I'm used to that.' Then I turned over the page and it said. 'Extras, 150.' "

Strangest rumour

Harry and Hermione to get married and have a baby ( here ). Britney Spears to play Goldberry ( here ). At least the Lord of the Rings site is supposed to be full of spoofs.

THE FINAL VERDICT

There is only one lord of the web: Tolkien wins by a long nose.

London Life: Remember Lord of the Rings?