Readers Get an Early Look at Latest ‘Rings’ Movie

It was by no means your usual movie premiere: The screening took place in Norwalk, not Hollywood, and the invited guests arrived in school buses instead of limousines.

About 12,000 young scholars, ranging from fifth-graders to high school seniors, walked on a red carpet into the 20-screen AMC movie house over a three-day period recently. They got a day off from classes to see a hot film before its release date: “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.”

The movie, a sack lunch, a commemorative bookmark and a chance to win prizes -- including a trip to New Zealand -- were their rewards for voluntarily participating in Operation Read. It is a literacy program that began in Los Angeles County’s Probation Department and spread to classrooms throughout the county.

The price of admission was to have read the final book of J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic fantasy trilogy, which the movie is based on, and to have written an essay about it.

As in scores of other rewards-for-reading programs, organizers try to motivate youngsters by offering prizes or other incentives in the hope that participants will improve their skills and learn to enjoy reading.

“Reading is so important,” Los Angeles County Supervisor Don Knabe, who created Operation Read several years ago, told students waiting to see the movie. “You can’t even get a job flipping burgers if you can’t fill out the application.”

Besides, Knabe added, “Reading is a lot of fun.”

Many of those filing into the theater on the first day of the free screenings seemed to have figured that out already.

“I liked this book so much, I’m thinking of reading the other two,” said James Griffin, 13, an eighth-grader at Carmenita Middle School in Cerritos.

Organizers picked the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy because of its morality themes and its characters’ struggles to make choices and live with the consequences.

The books are long and, though engaging, not easy to read. The provided edition of “Return of the King” numbered 406 pages. Students who read all three books made it through 1,137 pages of complicated plots, complex characters and unfamiliar names and places.

In the fall of 2001, about 1,000 students signed up to read and write about the first book in the trilogy, “The Fellowship of the Ring,” and were treated to the film. The next year, 4,000 participated with “The Two Towers,” and this fall, 12,000 students earned the movie reward. Students in the ABC Unified School District, which includes Cerritos, Hawaiian Gardens and Lakewood, created a website -- projectlotr.org -- to help with the research and a cable TV show about the project.

Each student each got a copy of the book in September -- some donated by publishers Houghton Mifflin and Ballantine, others bought by British Petroleum. In late November, students wrote essays on how the book relates to their lives.

“I think that the one message that will help me in my life is that you need to have courage at all times, and that even the smallest things that a person does in their life can still influence and help the bigger picture,” wrote Brandon Clarke, 15, a sophomore at Torrance High School.

Samantha Orozco, 12, a seventh-grader at Fedde Middle School in Hawaiian Gardens, could relate to the many challenges Tolkien’s characters faced. She saw similarities between the brave but greatly outnumbered warriors in the book and the firefighters who died while trying to rescue those trapped in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. “I also admired the way they did not stop looking for people,” Samantha wrote of the firefighters.

Jamie Ortiz, 18, a senior at Downey High School, said the book “helped me overcome challenges today by standing up for what I believe in.... The challenges are drugs, alcohol and gangs.”

Corporate sponsors picked up most of the tab. AMC opened its theaters at no charge and New Line Cinema provided the free movie. Hyundai provided a $2,500 scholarship for a high school senior and Air Tahiti Nui gave plane tickets for a visit for two to New Zealand -- where the trilogy was filmed -- for the author of the best essay. Darryl Dunn, consul general of New Zealand, attended the ceremonies.

“I’m very surprised,” a giggling Karen Dorsey said when she was announced as this year’s trip winner. “I’d just like to thank everybody.”

Karen, 16 and a junior at Bellflower High School, wrote how the themes in the book helped her choose friends wisely.

Tom Hogan, her English teacher, said he had found the program to be just as important for his academically gifted students as for those who have trouble with reading or dislike it.

“Students who are gifted but unmotivated can be a real challenge,” Hogan said. The Tolkien books can interest them and, “once they get started, they’re fine.”

Project organizers said they planned to continue next year and were trying to decide which book (and film) to choose.

One of the program’s most enthusiastic backers is Wini Jackson, a longtime community relations and outreach worker for the Los Angeles County Probation Department. She said her work with juvenile delinquents in probation camps had made her realize that an inability to read lay at the core of many of these youngsters’ problems.

“If we don’t create an avenue for our children to become literate, we are destroying our country from the inside out,” said Jackson, who volunteers with Variety, a Children’s Charity that helps sponsor the program. She also works to line up supporters for Operation Read.

“Our students deserve to get a little bit of the spotlight for what they have accomplished,” she is fond of saying.

For some, seeing the movie before their friends could was spotlight enough.

As they waited for it to start, some students chatted about their favorite parts of the book and speculated on whether this movie would be as good as the first two. One boy brought a mask of Gollum, the creature who tries to steal the powerful ring from one of the book’s heroes; he slipped the mask over his face just as the film began.

After the screening, Kassie Nakaba, 15, and her sister, Rebecca, 13, both avid fans of the Tolkien books, could hardly contain their enthusiasm.

“I cried so much!” confessed Kassie, a sophomore at Palos Verdes Peninsula High School in Rolling Hills Estates.

Rebecca, an eighth-grader at Miraleste Intermediate School in Rancho Palos Verdes, also loved the movie, despite its occasional deviation from the novel and its omission of some scenes. “It went away from the book in some parts, but it would have been too long to put everything in,” Rebecca said.

Neither hesitated when asked which they liked better, the book or the movie. “The book,” they chorused.

It was just what Operation Read organizers would have wanted to hear.