“They gutted the book, making an action movie for 15-25 year olds. And it seems that The Hobbit will be of the same ilk. Tolkien became…devoured by his popularity and absorbed by the absurdity of the time. The gap widened between the beauty, the seriousness of the work, and what it has become is beyond me. This level of marketing reduces to nothing the aesthetic and philosophical significance of this work.”
In a sense, the notoriously stuffy son of J.R.R. Tolkien isn’t far off about the popularity of The Lord of the Rings and how it’s own momentum and popularity has inherently changed Tolkien’s creation. The original book(s), and The Hobbit and The Silmarillion, will always exist in their own right, and, for those who choose it, can remain untouched by the explosion of popularity seen by the series over the past 15 years. Would Tolkien approve of all the films and videogames, t-shirts, action figures, bed sheets and director documentaries that are now available, each leaving the footprint of another creator/corporate executive on the soil of Middle Earth? I don’t know, but I’m not surprised that his son isn’t happy about it.
I could write a book on stupid requests that were made to me. Normally, the executors want to promote the work. [For us], the opposite is true. We want to clarify what is not Lord of the Rings.
The beauty of the books still exists, and always will exist, but there is a whole lot of white noise that fans, new and old, have to wade through. Some of it adds to the experience (like, say, The Lord of the Rings Online, a terrific MMORPG that absolutely nails the atmosphere of Tolkien’s world) and some of it is garbage that fits Christopher Tolkien’s grumblings. I’d put the films solidly in the former category.
His criticism falls apart when he begins referring to the films as “action movie[s] for 15-25 year olds.” Yep, film is a different story-telling medium that relies on certain methods of story-telling that are either unnecessary in novels or will weaken a prose story. Yes, Jackson’s versions of the story put more emphasis on the action and the warfare that was present in the novels, at the expense of some of the novel’s quieter moments (I do miss Glorfindel…). But they’re good films. I suppose, somewhere in there is a noble effort to retain his memories of his father, and the stories and worlds the man created for them as children, but it’s all lost in C. Tolkien’s surliness.
One thing I expect C. Tolkien and I would agree on in the whole Paths of the Dead/Baldor shenanigans that Jackson shoe-horned into the films. Gimme Ghân-buri-Ghân any day of the week.
The rest of Tolkien’s interview can be read on Examiner.com. It’s a fascinating read, regardless of what you think of C. Tolkien’s stance on his father’s opus.
He’s absolutely right. The movies would have been great if the books didn’t exist, but the movies are based on the books and misrepresent what’s in those books. Thankfully, the movie will fade and the books will remain, so no worries. But he is right.
I have to agree, I’m afraid, with Chad and Tolkien. Not to dismiss your view Aidan, but as an adult watching the films, after reading the books as a YA, I found them lacking the depth of the books. I realize that the books and movies were a continuous experience for you, so could see them via a, perhaps, broader perspective. I’m afraid that LoTR’s novels were also lost during the watered down poor imitation, Harry Potter “era”. I think I would recommend to newbies to see the movies first then revel in the books. Unless, like me, you prefer creating your own images.
I’m on board. Film and books are two different mediums. Jackson took the material and made a moving and exciting film. It takes nothing from the books to enjoy the movies. Nor does it cheapen the experience of reading to have made the sort of choices that good film makers make all the time.
My family and I watch the Harry Potter movies frequently, and the difference between the first two, which for all their charm are little more than ‘books-on-film’ and the later movies where brave choices were made to create what turned out an experience as compelling (in this case) as the books.
We should be thankful that there were any LotR movies at all, let alone some as great as Jackson’s. It’s a bit silly saying the movies should have followed the books more closely because if Jackson had attempted that the movies would not have been made at all, or people would have been complaining about sitting through 40 hours of movie, 10 hours of which were people (or elves) reciting poetry. I love the books– have read them 4 or 5 times– but let’s face it they are pretty slow.
I used to have this problem then I made the mental decision to stop connecting the movie and the books. I have always and will always love Tolkien’s work (I return to it probably once a year to remind me what great fantasy is like). The movies used to upset me especially the character assassination job on Faramir don’t get me started on that BS or that whole cowboy scene where Aragorn’s horse goes to find him. But then I started viewing the movies as telling the same story but from a different storyteller and I was able to appreciate much of what was there but still he’s right they did kind of botch major parts of the book to make the movie more exciting.
Tolkien invented most of the tropes and archetypes that comprise modern fantasy fiction. He did it with care and poetry and created a series of classic works. Like most classic works, I’m ashamed to admit they put me to sleep. I just can’t read this stuff. Maybe I’m too much a product of the MTV and videogames generation, but Tolkien’s works, although admittedly the basis of 99.999% of fantasy stuff that is popular now, hits me like a sleeping pill. I try to read that stuff and suddenly Peter Griffin jumps up and shouts, “For God’s sake, somebody throw a pie already!!” That said, I enjoyed the films, but like the books, they ran so long that they became painful torture experiments that I considered an offense to my backside which suffered through their long-winded wandering pretentiousness. It’s like watching a biblical epic, but without the religious guilt reflex forcing me to pay attention. I’m not interested in watching twelve hours of hobbits picking at their toenails and combing their foot hair. It’s boring in a way that makes watching the grass grow look like a combat sport. No offense to fans of these works, but I’ve already read the bible, and I did that only because I was in jail and there wasn’t much else to read. Even King James wouldn’t have made it through the Lord of the Rings, and the Silmarillion would have earned the author a beheading.
Peter Jackson and Phillipa Boyens have always stated that much of what they did in the movies was in the ‘spirit’ of Tolkein’s work, not a straight adaptation. I’ve always viewed them that way and am very fond of them, although I’m a huge fan of the books as well. When I don’t have hours and hours to commit to re-reading the books, I can still indulge in Middle Earth with the movies. True they don’t have the depth and nuances that the books have, but I think the movies would have suffered greatly if we’d had to watch a extended minutes of Treebeard’s poetry, Tom Bombadil’s singing and had to sit through Frodo spending months in the Shire before actually leaving on his adventure – all things that are wonderful to ‘read’ about, but wouldn’t have translated into film very well – and these are only a few examples.
I dislike when people try to compare the two mediums. They are SO different and for different entertainment reasons. Read the books if you want the whole experience, they are still there to enjoy and the movies are really just a companion piece to indulge in when you can’t spend the time on the books.
Every couple of years I read the books and I usually watch the trilogy many times during the year and I truly enjoy both – for very different reasons.
I’m not at all surprised that Christopher has taken that satnce…what he sadly doesn’t realize is just how many NEW fans who never read the books, appendices, Silmarillion et al. That Jackson’s movies drummed up. For me that is priceless.
And I WHOLLY agree with the film and books as different mediums. I’m friends with a lot of folk in the film industry and not a lot of people realize just HOW much “homage” has to go on in an adapted book or series of books to make it WORK as a film. In my opinion (as a HUGE fan of the books…all of them) what Jackson has done is an admirable homage to an untouchable source material. He’s made a compelling film series, and it exists separately from the books…which will forever be untouchable and will always be pristine on a reader’s shelf.
It therefore kind of melts my brain for Christopher Tolkien (a man who published his father’s work against the author’s wishes in a lot of cases) to not see the difference.
Example: The book SNOW FALLING ON CEDARS. The film version followed the source material SO slavishly that it made said film be nearly incomprehensible in that medium. Movies and books are REALLY different when you break it down.
So yeah, the LOTR movies lose something in the translation…but I feel they gain something else to make up for it.
And personally, when I watch the LOTR films (Extended Editions of course), and hopefully the same will be true when I watch the HOBBIT films…I keep the book knowledge as my backdrop to the enjoyment. They are separate and united at the same time. I love watching Gandalf and knowing that he is actually a Valar (Olorín), or Galadriel and knowing she has lived for over 60,000 years and is one of the last remnants of Beleriand and the Noldor who left Eressia with Feanor, or that both Thorin’s sword Orcrist and Bilbo/Frodo’s sword Sting were both smithed in the fabled, long lost Elven city of Gondolin, or that Sauron was also a Valar and spent years as a lieutenant to the last Dark Lord. So I have all that stuff to inform me as I watch and enjoy the film versions, but nothing will ever take those books and stories away from me.
And like I said, I’d love to see statistics on the amount of my and the next generations of youths who have read Tolkien now as a result of Jackson’s films. I bet the numbers are HUGE.
Sorry, Correction: Gandalf and Sauron were Maiar (lesser Valar) not proper Valar….my brain, she no worky today.
Legolas snowboarding down the stairs on a shield. The guy is right.
Oh I see. A few moments of dramatic license damns the films? Showing that Elven prowess on the battlefield is nothing short of spectacular (a notion very prevalent in the SILMARILLION) is a bad thing.
Right.
Enjoy your beige world then LeNainJaune.
I remember all the fuss when the news first broke on the Lord of the Rings films with the same indignation. Ordinarly, I’m a purist and cringe when books are adapted to films. Under any other conditions I’d be taking Christopher Tolkien’s side.
Peter Jackson’s work changed my mind. I’ll always have the memories of my first imagining of Saruman’s battle with Gandalf, stepping inside Mordor for the first time, Gandalf’s showdown with the balrog and – of course – Rivendell.
But the movies bring all that to life. The vivid imagery with the costumes, the settings and the special effects gave millions of people a glimpse into the worlds of JRR Tolkien they might never have had otherwise.
@Howard. Indeed, and I think that (again) “homage” is the key notion here. This is not LOTR as they are in the books, but it is a look at that same world from the filmic standpoint and lens. And for that we need to be grateful.
( Oh I see. A few moments of dramatic license damns the films? Showing that Elven prowess on the battlefield is nothing short of spectacular (a notion very prevalent in the SILMARILLION) is a bad thing… )
You know what SCOTT mon ami, you are right. I just remember this part in the Silmarillion.
There is this elf, Firthaldidallsomething, who is spinning his sword so fast that he can create living tornados with laser beam eyes. Ah ! so cool. so full of colors !
Let’s not pretend you’ve even READ the Silmarillion. k?
I’ve always felt a bit bad for Christopher Tolkien — here’s a man who’s dedicated his entire life to sorting through his father’s work. As much as he’s done for the legendarium, one wonders if he ever had any desire to create anything entirely his own.
No one has ever said (no one with any sense, anyway) that the films are anything but Peter Jackson’s adaptation of the books. The fact that the films have had such an amazing impact on sales of the books should be a positive thing.
Moreover, writers who don’t want to see creative license taken with film adaptations should not sell movie rights. Tolkien chose to do so. The Tolkien Estate should question whether their curmudgeonly attitude toward the whole affair is a mature one.
Well put, Jim.
No Scott i haven’t. I dont pretend to be a Tolkien scholar. All I was saying is that I do believe that the movie adaptation is more than anything else an action flick. It’s not poetry or existential or experimental, it’s a good old fashioned adventure-action movie with an incredible art direction. So you see i don’t piss on it ( or is it shit ? damn english language…) anyway, it’s just my opinion so don’t go nerd rage because of it.
Tolkien sold the movie rights at a time he thought the book could not be made into a movie anyway; it didn’t matter much to him. Now the technical tricks have reached a standard that can cope with a Fantasy world of balrogs and orcs and deal with huge battles convincingly., so of course, the movies would eventually be made.
And the good thing about the movies are the stunning visuals, including the non-realistic elements like orcs and Gollum. They did a great job with him, also as character. There are some scenes I like even when they deviate from the book like the Elves and Helm’s Deep, the dialogue between Eowyn and Wormtongue, the dynamics between Aragorn and Boromir, Pippin’s song while Denethor is eating (though I wish the Steward of Gondor had displayed better table manners). I also have no issues with leaving out Tom Bombadil and the Scouring of the Shire.
But I do have a lot of issue with the characterization: The character assassination of Faramir, whiny Arwen, whiny I Don’t Want To Be King-Aragon, whiny I Don’t Want To Make War Against Saruman-Théoden, and the whole ‘Arwen’s fate is now tied to the ring’ nonsense.
That’s not in the spirit of the books. And if the scrript screwers excuse themselves with the lack of character development in the books they had to change, maybe they should have picked some other book. Aragorn accepts his heritage despite his self doubts and it doesn’t take Elrond telling him some nonsense about Arwen dying and giving him a special sword he shoud have gotten 800 pages earler – Aragon accepts the heritage and all that goes with it when Anduril is re-forged and it’s one of those epic elements of Lord of the Rings. The same with Théoden, warrior king of AngloSaxon/Viking spirit who will fight a battle already lost for a death still worth a song, not someone who runs away from battle and has to be pushed by Aragorn. At least, there are some glimpses of the real Théoden in the third movie, but did we need the character detour to get there? Same with Faramir, the deschendant of the Stewards worth to be king, the man in whom the blood of Numenor runs strong, equal to Aragorn and because he is is equal in moral and wisdom, willing to take the second place. Because of that he is able to resist the ring at once, not after two hours worth of diddling and Sam’s words – though those words themselves are good and within the spirit of the book. (The fact that Davi Wenham gave me something of the Faramir I love, esp. with the additional scenes of the EE, says a lot for the actor.). Faramir, too, gets closer to the book in the thrid movie, but again, why the detour? For me, LOTR is not so much about character development (though that aspect is definitely there if you look close enough) but about the reinvention of the great epics of the past. The movies tone the epic greatness down too much for my taste.
And then we get the Hollywood stuff that’s about as useful as nipples on a breastploate.
Legolas’ stunts (they are so not the restrained and somewhat remote Elf of the book), Denethor as torch – seriously, I had to laught at the point which is totally not the right reaction to the death of a great, albeit misguided man. The silly additons like Aragorn falling off the Cliff of Uncanonicity, Eowym’s stew (seriously, ad a woman overseeing the household of a king she would have know how to cook even if she seldom did it herself). Gimli as comic relief which is an insult to the races of Dwarves. The green ghosts – I mean, come on, there must be some other colour for them, why are the always green? 
Some of these are not real biggies (like the ghosts and Aragorn falling off the cliff) but overall the movies left me unsatisfied. I loved the landscapes and the music and sometimes they did move me (Boromir’s death) but too often I got the niggling feeling that they could have done better, could have stayed truer to the spirit of the book if they didn’t have played the Hollywood games and Americanized some of the charactes. They were fine as an action movies, but it was not the epic tale Tolkien gave us. Thus I can’t blame his son for not liking them. A hour or so less overall, cutting the character detour scenes, cutting the crap, and the movies could have been great. The potential was there.
I think I recall Christopher Tolkien speaking out against the films when they were still being made. He is obviously entitled to his own opinion, and perhaps for many people his opinion has greater weight than any other because of who he is. I think, however, that he stands too close to his father’s creation and thus tends to forget that any creative work acquires a life of its own. It is read/watched/etc by many many people, each seeing it differently. LOTR has been around for so long that it acquired its own, quite substantial, legacy. At this point, I think, nothing can possibly reduce its ‘aesthetic and philosophical significance’ or what have you. It’s like saying that after seeing the movie Troy, nobody will ever appreciate Homer’s Iliad ever again.
To me they were a strange comulgation of research into the Medieval English sources that made up Tolkien’s scholarship at Oxford University from where he got his ideas for the story and the Hollywood conventions that make up action movies. And here in New Zealand they are marketed as creating a film industry in New Zealand, which has become too dependent on it, and promoting New Zealand as a tourist destination, while at the same time writing off the education processes that made the story possible to be written in the first place, which is a shame given that it is the birth place of Kenneth Sisam Tolkien’s first tutor in Old and Middle English and Old Icelandic literature, who came through NZ’s education system to go to Oxford University on a Rhodes Scholarship. And Tolkien cited Sisam in his letters as someone who he owed a great debt to for teaching him to read these sources and Tolkien only got the professorship of the programme at Oxford after going head to head with Sisam for it, which had to be decided in the end by the rarely cast vote of the University’s Vice Chancellor. This makes Sisam a much more important NZ connection to Tolkien than Peter Jackson. As for the selling of the film rights of the book. Tolkien only did this because of the complexities around royalty taxes and inheritance taxes in Britian at the time, while the film industry has enjoyed a lot of tax breaks. Also, the Tolkien Trust were doing well out of it for the best part of a half century and therefore the books didn’t need the movies to do well out of it, while the movies needed the books to be as popular as they were for the movies even to be made.
While having the utmost respect for the above comments, I personally should like to see Mr. Jackson chained to a lorry and dragged the entire circumference of the M25, until every scrap of flesh had been scraped from his fat carcass. . . . for perpetrating one of the most heinous acts of literary sacrilege I have ever sat through. . . 9 hours of unrelenting Americanised vulgarity.
1. Why are 2 of the hobbits Scottish ?
2. What’s with all the slapstick nonsense at the start.
3. New Zealand does not look like England / Europe.
4. Where in Tolkien do you find the phrase ‘Nobody tosses a dwarf’.
I could go on, but what’s the point. Jackson and his crew took a classic of English literature and extracted every ounce of beauty, originality and lyricism, replacing it with glib cliches and gratuitous mediocrities.
Sure, there’s a lot more copies of the book sold . .. all sitting in pristine condition and unread on the shelves of the illiterates who would rather play the video game.
Great books rarely make great films. If only the philistines could leave them alone. Poor old J.R.R. . . . must be turning in his barrow.
I never thought that I would see the day when someone who describes himself as: ‘A Storyboard/Concept Artist /Illustrator/Cartoonist/Character Designer/ Animator and Painter [who has] worked for most of the press as well as T.V [and] designed the characters for ITV’s ‘HEADCASES’ series, also Spitting Image, Henson’s etc’ would make a remark like: ‘Jackson and his crew took a classic of English literature and extracted every ounce of beauty, originality and lyricism, replacing it with glib cliches and gratuitous mediocrities. Sure, there’s a lot more copies of the book sold… all sitting in pristine condition and unread on the shelves of the illiterates who would rather play the video game. Great books rarely make great films. If only the philistines could leave them alone. Poor old J.R.R. must be turning in his barrow’.
I have read enough on JRR Tolkien to know that he would be glad that you haven’t let the learning of such technologies kill your appreciation for the beauty, originality and lyricism of his text. In Christopher Tolkien’s edition of The History of Middle-earth in The Notion Club Papers two characters talk about how the technology involved in space travel would impact on learning the language and culture of the inhabitants of another planet. This conversation was based on an actual conversation that JRR Tolkien had with CS Lewis, which inspired the latter’s cosmic trilogy, Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra/Voyage to Venus and That Hideous Strength, which has the premise of a philologist, who is based on JRR Tolkien, being kidnapped in the first book and taken into space by two unscrupulous academics who take him to Mars where he is able to learn the language and culture of the creatures there because he isn’t contaminated by the technology of space travel, who in the second book is taken by one of the creatures he meets in Mars to Venus/Perelandra to stop the Biblical Fall from happening there who then in the Third book gets an assortment of animals together along with the legendary Merlin to stop the vivisectionists taking over the university that he works at on Earth. I think a big part of the problem with The Lord of the Rings movies is that a lot of the beauty, originality and lyricism of the original book got lost in the technology that it took to make the movies.
@Reeve What the hell is wrong with you…
Its disheartening to hear Christopher’s dislike of the films. I think Jackson and the hundreds of crew members created something that J.R.R would have enjoyed. Regardless of how Christopher, or anyone associated with the Tolkien Estate, feels about the films the books were and are selling. Children, young adults, adults, people who have never read a Tolkien book and people who are rediscovering Tolkiens’ works are reading!
Personally I find Christopher Tolkien’s dislike of the films very heartening because I have found that the people who were involved in making them are quite dismissive of the books that they came from and the Old and Middle English and Old Icelandic sources that the books were drawn from, which they have never even bothered to read even though those sources were consulted in the development of the films. And for that reason alone JRR Tolkien would not have liked the films. As for the increase in the sales of the books, the movies really only hiked them up when they had been doing quite well without them for the best part of half a century, which is also the reason why the films were made and also why they did well in the box office. Also, at least Christopher Tolkien of the Tolkien Estate, as his father before him, doesn’t really care about the quantity of the book sales as much as introducing people to the sources that they came from, which made up the scholarship of both JRR and Christopher Tolkien. The books, at the end of the day, didn’t need the films to do well but the films needed the books to do well and Christopher Tolkien would rather people turn to those sources than have movies made out of the books as did his father.
To the die hard fans of Tolkien’s work,
These movies were not made for you, because no movie adaption could please you. A 100 hour epic that follows the books line-for-line directed by Orson Welles himself would not please you. The films were made for those who had no prior experience with the original books like myself and for general movie going audiences. Movies are not made to please fans (mostly because attempting to do so is an utter waste of time), they are commercial ventures in order to make money at least from the studios point of view, which is something a lot of people in this thread seem to have forgotten. If you look at the history of the LOTR movies, much worse could have come out of it. The fact is that the films were about the best product that could have come out of the situation. The art direction included the most well known illustrators of Tolkien’s work, the director had genuine appreciate of the original work, hell they even got Christopher Lee (who has actually met Tolkien) to act in the film. In regards to the actual script, yes it has been cut down and condensed, but what did you really expect? The movies have done undeniable good for Tolkien’s books. Myself and my friends would never have read the books if not for them and that probably goes for a lot of people. Decrying the commercialization and mainsteam popularity of something smacks of the same hipster BS that afflicts so many other things these days (comic book films being a recent example). When die hard Tolkien fans complain about the films accuracy, they sound no different than comic book nerds complaining about the Captain America’s costume in The Avengers film. I get why C. Tolkien dislikes the film. Nothing outside of his own writings or his fathers could ever please him, so even bothering to ask his opinion on the films is an utter waste of time. I also find him utterly reprehensible for having disowned his own son over his support of the films. Seriously, disowning your own son for having a dissenting opinion from your own? That is the mark of a true A-hole and if that doesn’t drive home how high C. Tolkien regards his fathers original vision then I don’t what does. Finally, to the first poster in this thread: no, a series of films that are regularly regarded as some of the best ever made by a wide range of film critics are not going anyway anytime soon.
No movie is ever going to be a faithful adaption of a book and nor have die-hard fans of JRR Tolkien works ever expected his works to be faithfully adapted into movies, as Christopher Tolkien said before the release of The Fellowship of the Ring movie: ‘The Lord of the Rings is unsuitable for transformation into visual dramatic form. On the other hand, this is a debatable and complex question of art’. And this is entirely consistent with what he is saying now because what he was meaning was that the movies could not represent at all the linguistic intentions of the books but at the same time could represent other forms of art such as those which make up action movies. Therefore if the success of the movies is to be determined by the former then it failed because even though it used some Old English and the languages that JT created from Old Finnish and Old Welsh it was done in ways that he never intended, just like The Hobbit movies will probably use Old Icelandic and the languages that JT created in ways that he never intended. Meanwhile, the LOTR movies undoubtedly were not failures as action movies just like the Hobbit movies undoubtedly will not be failures as action movies. But in saying that I also qualify that by saying that JT did not intend The Hobbit and LOTR to be action sequences.
Meanwhile, as far as movies being commercial ventures in order to make money, at least from the studio’s point of view, go I have certainly not forgotten that. I hear about that all the time, which I really can’t escape. Especially given that I virtually live on the street where the red carpet was rolled out for the NZ premieres of the LOTR movies and will be rolled out again for those of the Hobbit movies. And this view doesn’t stop with the studio but extends to other things such as how the movies are greatly discussed in NZ to the exclusion of everything else as movie making manuals and draw cards for other movie productions from Hollywood and as tourist brochures for the scenery of NZ for those from overseas who can afford to come to it. Also, as far as the history of the LOTR movies goes, I think much better would have come out of it if Ralph Bakshi had of made and released the second part of his animated version of LOTR, which the first part of was my introduction to Tolkien’s works, and if the BBC radio production of LOTR, with a Tom Bombadil sequence made later on, had of been adapted to the big screen, which could have been achieved by not having so many of the special effects that Peter Jackson’s version had and less inflated battle scenes like the Helm’s Deep sequence. But then having said that that while the Ralph Bakshi and BBC versions both completed and represented on the big screen would have been different art forms from each other and Peter Jackson’s version, they still would not have fulfilled JT’s linguistic intentions.
I am also well aware that the art department employed the likes of Alan Lee and John Howe and also aware of the fact that they got employed by the publishers of JT’s works because of someone employed by them who had done at university level Old and Middle English and Old Icelandic who head hunted them because of the work they did on some of the Old English and Old Icelandic sources that JT got his ideas from. I am also aware that they were employed by Peter Jackson because he was aware that he did not have the genuine appreciation of the original work that the media often portrays him to have, which is probably not his intention. And this is also why he consulted people like Professor Tom Shippey, who is a scholar like J and CT were in Old and Middle English and Old Icelandic. Meanwhile, the fact that Christopher Lee has met JT is inconsequential to me (as it probably is to Lee) because I have had as lecturers people who have been scholars of Old and Middle English and Old Icelandic. One of those was actually tutored by JT at Oxford University and had many professional encounters with him after that up to JT’s death. But I consider that inconsequential because I never had that lecturer in his scholarship. Rather what was consequential to me was that I had another Oxford graduate as a lecturer in that scholarship who never met Tolkien but taught me that the only difference between JT and other lecturers in that scholarship, like herself, Tom Shippey and CT, was that he happened to write a piece of fiction that made him world famous as an author, which frustrated him because he really wanted to be remembered more as an academic. And consequentially because of that he would regard the movies as being only good for his books if the consequence of people reading them after watching the movies leads to them next learning to read the actual works that make up his scholarship. Otherwise the movies are merely monumental failures in regards to that.
I also have not found it a waste of time for the interviewer of the piece that this article refers to ask CT’s opinion on the films because I have wanted to know it for some time though I am not sure if that interview gave all CT’s opinion of it, just like I am not sure if the media has given an accurate picture of the ‘disowning’ of Simon Tolkien by CT or of Peter Jackson’s genuine appreciation of the original work, which as I said above led him to employ others more qualified than himself. Consequentially I don’t want to make a judgement on whether or not CT is an A-hole. Rather I appreciate the fact that he has finally put up his opinion.
What is great about the movies is it gives the books interest. If were not for the movies a whole generation of young readers would not have been curious enough to want to read the books. The books are a timeless classic that bring new adventures and insights every time you open the novels however, not many young readers know about such great classics. The lord of the rings trilogy is quite long and detailed which becomes long winded and boring for young readers however combined with the visuals of sir Peter Jackson’s interpretation of the books young readers are able to more clearly visualize the books. They will discover exciting detail not claimed in the movies which adds to the experience of the read.
In my humble opinion they compliment each other if you think of them contextually instead of subjectively movie based on novel. Christopher Tolkein in my opinion shouldnt complain i am sure he has the opportunity to be apart of the making of the film and put in his opinion of the interpretation if he is so disgusted but whether he likes it or not the movies have excited the young generation of timeless writing that anyone who reads them can appreciate and the movies have renewed a sense of Tolkien respect and excitement for his writing.
I agree that every book that has a movie made from it has most of its meaning stripped away and only a few of the key moments are portrayed. But it is foolish to believe that the books will forever be popular if they did not get a movie adaptation. As great as the books are, the audience for them are growing smaller. With the making of the movies it got children and adults who never wanted to entertain the idea reading a book of Elves, Dragons and other magical beings interested in the fantasy worlds created by Tolkien and other authors of the genre. With the population of the world increasing as fast as it is, and the internet increasing, and information in general being recorded at the rate it is, and the less people actually read, it is not out of line to say that all works from the past 500 years could be swallowed up and forgotten in the next 100 years.
I found the movies to be more enjoyable than the books because it wasn’t a 200 page etymology lesson on a made up elf language.
I first saw the movies when I was quite young and so I hadn’t read the books as I didn’t understand them at all. I loved the movies and by the time the 3rd one came out I had started reading the books. Young and naive I got to wondering who the heck all these characters were (Glorfindel, Bombadil etc) And i wondered why the books and the movies were so different. Now I understand why it is so hard to convert books into movies, It is incredibly difficult to transfer the characters emotions without it being explained to you in the book. This is the reason for the long-winded character paths in the movies because otherwise the characters would never make any sense, we’d feel like there had been something left out.
It’s natural for Christopher to hate on the movies I suppose, but I think it’s shortsighted. Tolkien sold the rights because he believed a film adaptation un-doable. Today, we have the technology to do a great job on establishing real-looking monsters, huge cityscapes and the location shooting required to give the books justice.
A lot of people have posted some hugely ignorant comments. “Why are the hobbits scottish?” – you serious? Where does it say every single “good” character must be English? Yes, Tolkien based his world on the lands he knew – England and Europe, but New Zealand is an absolutely gorgeous place with a lot of different scenery which lent itself amazingly for the filming of the original trilogy. Jackson made changes so the movie would be watchable – the point is not to directly adapt the story page-for-page. He could never get funding to make that, and nobody would watch it. I don’t think anyone could have done a better job, unless they waited ANOTHER two decades and funded it as generously as they did the Hobbit from the get-go, but it took the success of LOTR to get basically free license on an immensely expanded budget for The Hobbit.
The books are unreadable for a lot of people, and the movies do a great job of expressing the world, and the plot in a very watchable way. Some of the changes weren’t great, but no movie is perfect, and I think that in general people should be very happy with what PJ and company have done. I’m sure sales of the book have skyrocketed since Fellowship was released, and we’ll see the same with the Hobbit. The effect can only be positive from the movies – anyone who watches the movies and finds the books boring would never read the books anyway, while the converse is not true – there are many people who would never have read the books originally, but did so after watching the movies. Same can be said for Game of Thrones. I think Chris Tolkien is being shortsighted, and not separating the books and movies properly in his mind, otherwise his criticisms wouldn’t be so harsh, and he’d realize its not a proper comparison to make anyway.
Maybe C. Tolkien should consider how Snorri Sturluson’s relatives feel about Tolkien ripping off his versions of Norse mythology. I love LOTR and I love the movies. Jackson did a brilliant job of translating the books into movies.
Doesn’t matter. I still have a first edition printing of LOTR. Envy ensue.
The books have a dark tone. The movies alternate between drama and straight comedy. That should be enough to ruin it for anyone remotely interested in Tolkien’s work. A lot of assumptions are made about the viewers. ie. The dwarf starts a sentence by stating a fact about his race being good sprinters etc… If you don’t know that much, then you won’t appreciate any of this world. It’s more than details…
The writer nailed it; many of the commentator’s still don’t get his point. Any film adaptation of a book, or hell, book adaptation of a movie, should only be compared to the original as an adaptation, with special consideration of the medium. If Jackson had created bad films that poorly express the original, then he’s worthy of criticism. But I think you would have to be purposefully abstruse to say that Jackson’s films were both poor films and poor adaptations of the original work. He did a bang-up job by creating deep, spectacular entertainment that captured large parts of the book’s spirit. Hopefully it has and will continue to encourage more people to pick up the books. That alone is worth it.
I disagree that the movies are “in the spirit” of the books; they couldn’t be farther from the spirit of the books. They are, instead, long mishmashes of fistfights with random words from the books thrown in at random times. I also disagree that the movies would be any good even if the books had never been. They’re ridiculous, badly written, silly movies.
The films are crap. Really. They completely miss all that is powerful, beautiful, and terrifying in Tolkien. Sauron is a good example. The power of Sauron is that he takes what we love, corrupts it, and sends it back to us broken and unlovely and we are tormented with grief into despair. He eats out the heart of the world and vomits emptiness back into it. But Jackson depicts Sauron in the opening sequence as a giant badass with a big stick, a la Die Hard Middle Earth. Like some kind of RoboDarkLord. It’s pathetic, and ironically Jackson is doing what Sauron failed to do…
After two decades of looking at Christopher Tolkien’s work on Middle-earth, and acknowledging the integrity in resisting the calls to release ‘original’ Middle-earth material not written by his father, I have come to the conclusion that Christopher Tolkien doesn’t actually understand or ‘get’ what his father was trying to do with the mythology. Or if he does, he is being purposefully obtuse.
Consider: Tolkien wrote his books out of a deep desire to create an original mythology for England. The thing about mythologies is that they are subject to argument, discussion and reinterpretation. Tolkien himself published an interpretation and translation of BEOWULF that is merely one take on the legend. Tolkien, in his own lifetime, said he envisaged people similarly re-interpreting Middle-earth on their own terms: artists with their own paintings, and composers with their own songs inspired by Middle-earth, for example.
When it came to dramatic adaptation, Tolkien was not opposed. He allowed the BBC to release a radio play based on the books in the late 1950s which he actively disliked (whilst becoming so fascinated by the technology – Tolkien wasn’t a luddite, despite his reputation – that he bought his own recording equipment and produced his own mini-plays and readings) but didn’t object to morally or legally, only aesthetically. After the books hit the big time in the late 1960s, he and his agent settled on a simple approach to the issue of film adaptations: ‘cash or kudos’, on the basis that both was unachievable. Tolkien certainly had no problem at all with what he termed the ‘grosser forms of literary success’.
The second JRRT died and Christopher took over, Middle-earth was essentially ring-fenced. He refused to let any further film rights be sold, and dedicated his life to bringing to publication everything his father wrote about Middle-earth. On the one hand this is a great gift to scholars and literary historians, but it was completely at odds with Tolkien’s own beliefs (Christopher says in UNFINISHED TALES that his father would not have approved of the publication of incomplete material, or even the more completed but unrevised narratives). Whilst acknowledging the hard work Christopher put into UT and the HISTORY OF MIDDLE-EARTH series, it’s also hard to deny that JRRT would himself have not approved of their publication (THE SILMARILLION is different, as JRRT had worked out a scheme for publication before his death and was explicit in his intentions for the book, which Christopher was made aware of).
As for the Jackson films, they are certainly flawed, in some cases badly so, both as movies and as adaptations – though, as mentioned above, shield-surfing Legolas is actually somewhat less ludicrous than the elves of the First Age slaying Balrogs single-handedly in THE SILMARILLION and wounding Morgoth in single combat, when Morgoth was so powerful he made Sauron look like a hobbit. In other scenes the spirit and power of Tolkien emerges clearly, even under a different context: Theoden pumping up the Rohirrim before the Pelennor Fields (awesome, but totally different to the books where the Rohirrim take advantage of the darkness to hit the orcs whilst they are totally unprepared); Frodo and Sam rallying to carry on their quest into Mordor; or Gandalf acknowledging the gift of mercy that Bilbo gave to Gollum.
Ultimately, they represent Jackson’s interpretation of Tolkien, warts and all, just as we previously had Ralph Bakshi’s interpretation (in the 1978 animated film) and Brian Sibley’s (in the 1981 BBC radio drama). I have no doubt that decades from now someone else will try to adapt the books to film, and that adaptation will also be valid. Tolkien himself always said that other people’s take on the legendarium would be appropriate, and by opposing and denying that, Christopher appears to be flatly contradicting his father’s wishes.
Tolkien once setting out to create a “mythology for England” doesn’t really mean that that’s what he ultimately created. That was the very earliest beginnings of his world-creation, and by the time we’re at LotR, well, that’s a pretty distant memory.
The key point of CT’s attitude, and one that should very much be thought about, is at the end: his complaint of the crass commercialization, the result of the absurdity of the present culture as he sees it, that overwhelms the art and serious philosophy behind what his father did.
Who, in 1969, could have believed that a film — any film, much less a sui generis fantasy unlike anything ever put to screen before that — would spawn so many tie-ins, spin-offs, knick-knacks, and kitsch, to the point where the films might be construed to exist to peddle these things endlessly rather than to be art that stands on its own?
If Tolkien were given a silver dish of water in which he could look to the year 2012 and see children in Frodo underoos, grown men swinging about their Authentic Replica Glamdring, and endless commercials hawking the latest tie-in (“Collect your Lord of the Rings Commemorative Glasses from Burger King!”), would he have still sold those rights? CT seems to think not.
One might compare the situation to that of Alan Moore, who when he signed his contract with DC over WATCHMEN believed and stated that after a couple of years the ownership would revert to him and Gibbon since by then DC would no longer be printing it. That was, after all, the pattern of all works before it, and that seemed fine to Moore, a useful arrangement. And then, well, WATCHMEN happened.
For the Tolkien Estate, it’s STAR WARS that happened, ushering the increasing typhoon of commercialization of film that was pretty much unheard of before then. Perhaps if all of Jackson’s films that existed was Jackson’s films, and not the hundreds (thousands?) of bits of kitsch that are now the sum total of what LotR means to far too many people, Christopher Tolkien would shrug and not mind. But the world of film and commercial exploitation in the 21st century is very different to what it was in the late 60s when Tolkien sold those rights.
“If Tolkien were given a silver dish of water in which he could look to the year 2012 and see children in Frodo underoos, grown men swinging about their Authentic Replica Glamdring, and endless commercials hawking the latest tie-in (“Collect your Lord of the Rings Commemorative Glasses from Burger King!”), would he have still sold those rights?”
Tolkien sold the film rights to pay for the education of several of his grandchildren, IIRC, and to buoy up the family finances after his book income got hammered by tax. So I believe the answer to that would be ‘yes’, but he might have put in a reversion clause to ensure the film rights reverted to the estate if the film wasn’t made in, say eight years?
As for the over-commercialization of the product, that’s actually a somewhat different issue (to the one of reinterpreting the original work in a different medium) and a thornier one. Tolkien, who was very much against the glorification of warfare, would probably not be happy with the Games Workshop wargame, and I don’t think anyone is with the gambling stuff (which the Tolkien Estate is currently suing Warner Brothers over). But a lot of this stuff related to the film – the Burger King kitsch – is fairly ephemereal and will vanish a few weeks after the film came out. What survives now from when the Jackson movies came out? The Jackson movies alone, pretty much (Lord of the Rings Online is based directly on the books, not the films), and what’s left of the Games Workshop game. Most of the other kitsch is long gone, and the same will be true of the Hobbit movies.
Oh, gosh, there’s lots and lots of LotR stuff still around. Just the other day there was a photo of NZ’s prime minister waving around a replica of Sting that President Obama had given him. I doubt CT thinks any better of the replicas than he does of the Underoos.
Perhaps Tolkien would have put in a reversion clause and signed the deal, had he known what the future would bring. Who knows, really? But basically CT bemoans the fact that when his father signed that deal, he had no idea that it would lead to all this material that CT considers crass — and which, I’d guess, he thinks his father would consider crass as well, and distracting from the meaning of his work. Seems to me there’s no one alive today who has a better sense of what Tolkien would say today, so I’ll take CT’s feelings as indicative of what Tolkien’s would have been.
And now they’re stuck with it, in any case, and people expect the Tolkien Estate to actually be happy about it, or say, “Well, they should have known better” without thinking about how vastly more commercialized films are today than they were 40-odd years ago.
Gabriele said it best. Peter Jackson made films that LOOKED spectacular – the actors were beautiful. What he couldn’t do well was tell the story. And why not? The story was right there. All he had to do was TELL it. I disagree totally the film is a different midium and all that bunk. I have seen deep stories, beautifully told on film. (Think Amadeus). The movie was self-indulgent and dumbed down – and I guess the dumb crowd liked it and and are now Tolkien fans – sort of. I just wish since PJ went to all the trouble of puting LOTR in film he would have made an effort to do it right. Kudos to Reeve and a few others who already said this better than I did.
The movies weren’t perfect. For example, I strongly dislike the changes to Faramir and especially the entire Osgilliath sequence. However, I think that they did an admirable job capturing the emotional and philosophical essence of the LOTR while making the story accessible to a mass, modern audience, and I enjoyed them immensely. I think that the purists’ characterization of the movies as mere action films- as though they were on the same level as the Transformers movie or a Jason Statham movie- is absurd. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but, as someone who first read the LOTR as a young teen and had re-read it several times before the release of the first movie, I think that the purists lose some credibility when they can’t bring themselves to have anything good to say about the movies. Some people are just knee jerk contrarians.
The commercialization is vulgar to some extent- the LOTR Pez dispenser set that I saw earlier today seems a bit much- but I don’t think that that’s a reason to hate the movies. Some people, even people who were fans of the books decades before the movies came out, love the fact that they can find LOTR memorabilia. Who hasn’t daydreamed about being in Middle Earth? I think that it’s great that I can go buy a replica Glamdring if I’d like. That doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate the underlying message of the books, nor does it debase what was written on the pages. If you don’t want to buy the LOTR Pez dispensers, then don’t buy them.
As for Mr. Christopher Tolkien, I believe that his opinions are really beyond the scope of what us fans can debate. His entire life and his memory of his father are involved, and there are certainly emotional factors that color his views on the books and the movies that we can’t really address or understand. I have read that the rifts in his family that were caused by differing views on the movies have been healed, and I’m glad for that.
I hope I’m around when they remake the films so that they are true to the books. Where is The Scouring of the Shire, for instance? I’ve read with great interest peoples comments, especially those castigating CT. It’s his father’s work and his opinion means far more to me than any other available in the world today. I’m not a great fan of the films. I just end up pointing out the major deviations (story, characterization, etc) to my friends that haven’t read the books. Some on here say that the films couldn’t have been true to the books because they would have been too long blah, blah, blah. Are you serious? What are they doing with The Hobbit? They could have made 5 or 6 films and stayed true to The Lord of the Rings, whilst raking in greater profits. When someone gives you the material on a plate (JRRT), don’t start messing with it too much.
I have read that Peter Jackson has basically said that the age group Christopher Tolkien said it would be targeting were not complaining about it. Being much older and having seen The Hobbit movie I can say that if Christopher Tolkien didn’t read it right for The Lord of the Rings he certainly did for The Hobbit movie. So why bother with complaining about what he said especially since the movie appears to be what Peter Jackson was aiming for?
I just saw The Hobbit last night and I am ashamed that I contributed my 11.45 dollars to this shameful, godawful crime against culture. The movie is very bad. The story is choppy, the characters (except for Bilbo, Gollum and some of the dwarves) are bland and uninspiring (which is the precise opposite of the book’s characters), the jokes are meant for those of the half-brain-dead amongst us who fancy themselves “nerds” because they own all episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer with special unseen footage and also, perhaps, for 16 year-old boys. But all this is nothing compared to the movie’s aesthetic side– the colors, the characters’ dress, all of it resembles the kitschy landschaft painting you’d hang on the wall of your bathroom. Rivendell looks like a village Renaissance fair, complete with pseudo-Elves wearing ‘some sort of old ‘-looking garb and playing the flute. This movie (it goes for LOTR movies, too, but to a slightly lesser extent, I think) is not only a brutal travesty of the original, beautiful and profound story and a masterful prelude to the themes of the Trilogy, but also a terrible terrible thing in itself. Yes, there is such thing as good taste, and Peter Jackson has none. And don’t even get me started on the ways in which Jackson drags out the story to squeeze more money out of it.
Unbelievable that Christopher Tolkien takes the heat for what is basically Peter Jackson’s lack of talent. Unbelievable. And that reading Tolkien should be boring?? Are you kidding me? What was REALLY boring was the endlass war footage in the movie at the expense of story telling moments -the ones I missed most were the events in the houses of healing – which caused the people of Minas Tirith to accept that Aragorn was the true king instead of a usurper and a bully. Peter Jackson’s Gandalf was nothing but a political opportunist and a murderer!! (Consider his mangling of the incident in the Tombs where Gandalf actually pushed Denethor into the fire instead of trying to talk him down as he did in the book!!) Some of these things appalled me – and actually made the movies unwatchable, over time. Does nobody else have a problem with this stuff? If I were just seeing the movies, not having read the book, I would think Gandalf and Aragorn were just awful people, and I wouldn’t understand why Faramir, instead of just laying down for them, didn’t take up arms and fight them to the death.
And why his people didn’t join him.
Such is the effect of leaving out critical material – if the viewer has any kind of a critical mind.
I’m just saying…
Maybe watching The Hobbit in 3D zeroed me in too much on the visual representations that I hate about Peter Jackson’s movies, which made it look like he was filling in the time with a reversion to ‘Meet the Feebles’ and ‘Bad Taste’. But perhaps these things aren’t so pronounced in 2D. And yes the story telling moments in The Lord of the Rings movies are seriously underdeveloped. I always liked the scene in the book where Frodo back in Bag End at the end of the scouring of the Shire tells Sam not to kill Saruman after he tries to stab Frodo but is foiled by the mithril coat with Frodo saying: ‘No, Sam! Do not kill him even now. For he has not hurt me. And in any case I do not wish him to be slain in this evil mood. He was great once, of a noble kind that we should not dare to raise our hands against. He is fallen, and his cure is beyond us; but I would still spare him, in the hope that he may find it’, at which Saruman looks at Frodo with mingled wonder and respect and hatred and says: ‘You have grown, Halfling. Yes, you have grown very much. You are wise, and cruel. You have robbed my revenge of sweetness, and now I must go hence in bitterness, in debt to your mercy. I hate it and you! Well, I go and I will trouble you no more. But do not expect me to wish you health and long life. You will have neither. But that is not my doing. I merely foretell.’. It retains both the pity and mercy as shown by Bilbo in the Orc Tunnels and Frodo in the Emyn Muil and Sam on Mt Doom to Gollum, which ultimately enables the Ring to be destroyed, and the potential for Saruman’s repentence as Gollum is portrayed, which in the end is suffocated by Sam’s suspicions of him on the stairs of Cirith Ungol. People can go on to the death about how there would not have been time for these things though perhaps there could have been if the battle scenes weren’t so pronounced. I found watching them boring, while reading moments like the ones I refer to above inspiring.