Stefan Hall Critical Studies in Media, Film, and Culture American Culture Studies 101 East Hall Bowling Green State University Bowling Green, OH 43403 Playing Where the Shadows Lie: The Digital Dimension in The Lord of the Rings Introduction The proliferation of digital technologies has resulted in some interesting convergences between many diverse forms of media, but perhaps the closest links have been forged between film, a well established format with over a century of history, and video games, a rapidly escalating system that recently broke the twenty-five year mark. Ostensibly, the association between film and video games began primarily as one motivated by economics with business partnerships formed by companies who saw the potential for new markets and products resulting from a combination of the two industries. This commercialization underscored the tension within these media between creators who wanted to express themselves artistically and investors who responded to the market demands of profit. While this essay recognizes this particular aspect of each industry, it is more concerned with several other factors in the co-habitation of film and video games within US society. The first is the extent to which both film and video game production have become increasingly dependent on technological developments in the computer industry; this commonality has begun to blur the defined margins of each media, particularly when one considers narrative construction. This feeds into the second factor, namely the ways in which narrative may be expanded, fractured, or otherwise altered as it moves between, or is shared among, film and video games; this will also invoke ideas related to media