After a successful run at the Science Museum of London, The Lord Of The Rings exhibition gallery has moved across the pond to the Boston Museum of Science. Riding the coattails of Peter Jackson's popular trilogy, the exhibit showcases props, costumes, and technology from all three movies.

The entrance to the gallery is designed to look like the Mines of Moria from The Fellowship Of The Ring, the gigantic door towering over visitors. Indeed, the first thing guests come upon is a life-size version of the cave troll from Fellowship Of The Ring, charging forward mid-snarl and flanked by a goblin warrior.

The bulk of the exhibit is presented museum style, with cases devoted to each of the main characters. By far the most crowded area when we were there was the Aragorn display, which houses both the broken shards and Narsil (the sword with which Isildur slew Sauron) and the re-forged version (Anduril) that Viggo Mortensen wields in Return Of The King. Upon seeing his ranger outfit, my only thought was that Mortensen must be much shorter than he looks on-screen.

Similar areas were devoted to Arwen, Galadriel, Gandalf, and Saruman. Complementing the costumes and the trinkets were video presentations specific to each character, though these seem to have been taken wholesale from the extended edition DVDs, so avid Rings fans won't be seeing anything they haven't already. The hobbit and dwarf outfits are presented to scale and, thus, are not actual props from the film. Various maquettes, production artwork, and a gallery of armor and weapons complete the exhibit.

As a huge fan of the films, I was supremely disappointed with the offerings. While I enjoyed seeing the props and costumes, there really just wasn't that much there. Each area is built to guide you through via the videos that accompany each booth, but those who've already seen these behind-the-scenes featurettes will move past much more quickly.

Three interactive areas complement the showcase pieces. A motion capture station allows guests to experiment with a foam sword or bow and watch their computer-generated counterpart, decked out in full armor, do the same thing on-screen. Visitors can also visit a rendering station to have their face scanned in and replicated as a stone statue. Lastly, pairs can line up for a forced-perspective picture, with one person appearing small and one large via the two-camera technique used in the films. These stations are geared clearly toward the pre-teen and younger set. My wife and I were the only adults without kids even trying out any of them.