18 ms·
My Father's "Eviscerated" work - Son of J.R.R. Tolkien finally speaks out
- rjzzleep 14y ago> Invited to meet Peter Jackson, the Tolkien family preferred not to. Why? "They eviscerated the book by making it an action movie for young people aged 15 to 25," Christopher says regretfully. "And it seems that The Hobbit will be the same kind of film." no, hobbit is worse. the first episode of hobbit was a 3 hour long trailer with zero substance.
- ComputerGuru 14y agoWait, what do you mean no substance? We had a rabbit-powered Santa Clause-esque sleigh, a "thunder battle" between two Michael Bay-esque transformers ("robots in disguise" as mountains), lots of silly makeup for the dwarves, Voldemort from Harry Potter made a cameo as the "pale orc," and we got to re-watch maybe 25 minutes of The Fellowship of the Ring again. Oh, and we learn that Kili is apparently related to Legalos, when you see his unrivaled agility and skill with a bow and arrow. It takes a lot of effort and hard work to take a great story that would have easily made the best 3 hour movie of the decade and turn it into a 10 hour, 3-part ridiculous something. "No substance," he says!
- mietek 14y agoYou see, the producers discovered J.R.R. Tolkien belonged to the Lucas and Rowling school of thought, and named Kili — or should I say… Kill-i — after the role he was meant to play in the story.
- iand 14y agoThe giants were in the book. Everything else was in the books and writings around the Hobbit (apart from the rabbits of course). I'd heard that the Radagast scene was terrible but I didn't think it was that bad in the end - they portrayed him pretty well as one of the wizards that had lost interest in the peoples of Middle Earth in favour of animals.
- SideburnsOfDoom 14y ago> The giants were in the book Yes. But the giants were in the book for all of one paragraph. The Hobbit is a much lighter work than LotR, and it was aimed at a younger audience, and so can sustain a lot more whimsy and silliness. IMHO the Radagast stuff worked well enought, and the giants a lot less so, mainly since the movie was too long and there's no good reason why they were there at all. They didn't add to any plotline, or tie up with anything else.
- ComputerGuru 14y ago> The giants were in the book. Do you mean the mountain transformers? Sorry, they weren't. Here's a quote from the "thunder-battle" scene: > He knew that something unexpected might happen, and he hardly dared to hope that they would pass without fearful adventure over those great tall mountains with lonely peaks and valleys where no king ruled. They did not. All was well, until one day they met a thunderstorm, more than a thunderstorm, a thunder-battle. You know how terrific a really big thunderstorm can be down in the land and in a river valley; especially at times when two great thunderstorms meet and clash. More terrible still are thunder and lightning in the mountains at night, when storms come up from East and West and make war. The lightning splinters on the peaks, and rocks shiver, and great crashes split the air and go rolling and tumbling into every cave and hollow; and the darkness is filled with overwhelming noise and sudden light. To me, that quite clearly is a symbolic "battle." Not mountains turning to golems or giants or transformers or what-not.
- andrewl 14y agoI think Tolkien meant the giants to be real in the Hobbit. The paragraph after then one you quoted starts with: When [Bilbo] peeped out in the lightning flashes, he saw that across the valley the stone-giants were out, and were hurling rocks at one another for a game, and catching then, and tossing them down into the darkness where they smashed among the trees far below, or splintered into little bits with a bang...They could hear the giants guffawing and shouting all over the mountansides. "This won't do at all!" said Thorin, "If we don't get blown off or drowned, or struck by lightning, we shall be picked up by some giant and kicked sky-high for a football." After the party escapes the goblins and gets through the mountains, Gandalf suggests blocking up the entrance in the pass through which they had been ambushed: "I must see if I can't find a more or less decent giant to block it up again," said Gandalf, "or soon there will be no getting over the mountains at all."
- adrianbravo 14y agoYou forgot the fast-paced escape from the goblin caverns.
- whatusername 14y agoWhich was at least partly in the book: ""Good heavens! Can you ask! Goblins fighting and biting in the dark, everybody falling over bodies and hitting one another! You nearly chopped off my head with Glamdring, and Thorin Was stabbing here there and everywhere with Orcrist. All of a sudden you gave one of your blinding flashes, and we saw the goblins running back yelping. You shouted 'follow me everybody!' and everybody ought to have followed. We thought everybody had. There was no time to count, as you know quite well, till we had dashed through the gate-guards, out of the lower door, and helter-skelter down here. And here we are-without the burglar, confusticate him!""
- rjzzleep 14y agolol, this made my day. probably the best summary i have read.
- CamperBob2 14y agoYeah, I hate it when they do that. The worst part is when the MPAA henchmen break into my house and steal the copies of the original books that I legitimately paid for. I guess Orwell was right... control the past, and you control the future. Or maybe Christopher Tolkien needs to STFU, sign his royalty checks, and let culture take its course. Or - gasp - get a word processor and earn his own keep. I haven't seen the Hobbit, but as far as I'm concerned, Jackson owns LotR now. The best-rendered edition of the story is his.
- jspthrowaway2 14y agoI think people hating on The Hobbit were just mad they ran out of popcorn before the third act. It's a valid criticism that the film does run a little long to not have a definite conclusion.
- jpxxx 14y agoThere were many, many, many things to hate about the Hobbit beyond its length, and none of them are particularly well kept secrets. - Hobbit Hater
- pdonis 14y agoget a word processor and earn his own keep. He has, by organizing, editing, and publishing all of his father's posthumous work, from The Silmarillion on. He is his father's literary executor, so he was doing his job, and publishing books that people will pay for counts as earning his keep.
- varjag 14y agoFunny, me and my friends certainly belonged to 15-25 age bracket when we got into Tolkien books. As to literary qualities of Hobbit, well. I like it quite a lot less now than when I was 15.
- dchichkov 14y agoBest age for Hobbit is probably 6-8, and re-read at 13-15, with the LOTR...
- gurkendoktor 14y agoI did pretty much that. Which makes it even weirder that the movie was so dark and gloomy and showed so many cut-off heads up close. (Maybe some of the darkness was caused by the 3D.)
- tjr 14y agoI had somehow managed to never read or see any of the Tolkien books or related films, until going to see The Hobbit a few weeks ago. I greatly enjoyed the movie, and have thus far greatly enjoyed reading the book (about 2/3 of the way through now). I suppose I can understand how he feels though, as he is probably closer to the original material than anyone else alive today.
- jspthrowaway2 14y agoI find it hard to have sympathy for Christopher Tolkien, who hasn't exactly been a model steward of his father's imagination. I'm reminded a lot of Brian Herbert, who really hit left field with the posthumous Dune stuff. Given some of his actions, calling the film franchise an "evisceration" is the pot calling the kettle black. Yes, let's film a 16-hour word-for-word rendition of each book, because that will work on film. I've liked everything Jackson has done, and I think his work can coexist with the source material without issue. I'm in the minority; I enjoyed The Hobbit even fully aware it suffered from First Film Syndrome. (Just had a thought: Peter Jackson should film Dune next, so he can annoy two posthumous estates.)
- monochromatic 14y ago> I've liked everything Jackson has done, and I think his work can coexist with the source material without issue. So have I, and as much as I wish it could coexist, I'm not sure it really can. For an entire generation, "Lord of the Rings" really pretty just means the movies.
- dantheman 14y agoWhat's First Film Syndrome?
- jspthrowaway2 14y agoUnlike The Matrix, The Hobbit was created knowing it would be the first of a trilogy (early in production, a two-part series). As such, it spends all of its frames laying the groundwork for the next film. One reviewer, I forget who, described the experience as "all foreplay with no sex", which I agree with. That said, still a rousing ride and a lot of fun. I enjoyed it, particularly the Thorin/Bilbo story that concluded near the end.
- kmfrk 14y agoTo borrow a term from TV, it's a "premise movie", the counterpart to a premise pilot, which doesn't work as a regular episode, but as the set-up for the rest of the show.
- jballanc 14y agoHonestly, I think the only thing you need to know to understand how the books and the movies differ is that, in the books, the ring is destroyed half-way through the last book...
- pdwetz 14y agoI was bummed when they changed the ending; I loved how in the books the Hobbits went back home and kicked ass.
- simonh 14y agoI prefer the ending in the film, that the go back to the shire as ordinary folk. That when Sam proposes to his sweetheart he does it not as a conquering hero, but as a humble, nervous young man. "It was the bravest thing he ever did". Perfect.
- robterrell 14y agoHe could have kicked ass scourging the shire AND get nervous proposing to his sweetheart. That's even endearing.
- stan_rogers 14y agoI don't know... I always thought that Saruman as a cheap hood was the weakest part of the book, and it doesn't really work unless you also take the time in Fellowship to go into the whole Bill Ferny thing, which would lead to Maggot as more than a mention. At some point you have to make the story fit the screen, and I think Jackson did that admirably. Even keeping the Men of the Mountains going until the end of the Battle of Pelennor fields made sense, in that it didn't have to involve the Rangers and another whole army raised elsewhere. It wasn't the original story, but it was an elegant solution to a story-telling problem.
- Jare 14y agoI much prefer the movie approach where The Shire and its inhabitants remain largely oblivious to and untouched by all the evil, death and suffering that has happened. It's almost as if everything happened so a little part of the world could remain innocent like a child.
- acabal 14y agoI'm a little torn on this. On one hand, the estate is clearly a victim of "Hollywood accounting" (as was Peter Jackson, I believe, which is why he refused to direct the Hobbit movie for such a long time). That's a downright criminal practice and "victims" perfectly describes those unfortunate enough to be targeted. On the other hand, JRR the man passed away years ago, and his son is almost 90. Copyright law says one thing, but at what point do we as humans say that the creator has died long ago, and his work should now pass to the public to retell as it sees fit? How long should his children, and their children, and their children, expect to control and profit off of the work of a long-dead man? (Yes C. Tolkien did some original stuff with Silmarillion and Hurin but we're talking Hobbit and LotR here.) That's a loaded question and obviously C. Tolkien and companies like Disney think copyright should be eternal. (And no doubt New Line now wishes its own copyright on its little gold mine would remain eternal too.) But personally I think stuff should enter the public domain much more aggressively for the good of culture and society. In such a world C. Tolkien might have made a little cash for a while, perhaps been happy that his family created a cultural touchstone, and maybe went on to do something original and no doubt productive with his own talent. But we'll never know, and now he's spending his last days growing increasingly embittered because he feels that he's lost control of something he didn't even create in the first place.
- zanny 14y agoI wouldn't call it loaded, because the same companies trying to screw over Tolkein Junior want these unlimited copyrights to stifle culture and innovation and hold a vicegrip on information. They are just hypocrites, but that is nothing new, they have been for decades. If the big businesses get to fuck over every new idea under the sun that borrows from creative works of the last century without a license, the descendent's of the creators of those works that still, by the hands of the same enterprise, inherit the licenses deserve their compensation. It is the house of cards built by Hollywood and they want to live in it.
- pekk 14y agoThe validity of copyright really isn't the issue here... if anyone and everyone could make Tolkien films then C. Tolkien's desire to get paid might be worth discussing, but that simply isn't the case.
- teilo 14y agoI sympathize with Christopher. I won't even say that he's wrong to feel the way he does. However, I do not think what has happened with the films is wrong at all. I think it is a fine and lasting tribute to Tolkien. It has done more than any single thing to introduce a vast audience to this fabulous world and to Tolkien's original work, millions of people that would never have picked up the books otherwise.
- kqr2 14y agoWith regards to the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy: Cathleen Blackburn, lawyer for the Tolkien Estate in Oxford, recounts ironically, "These hugely popular films apparently did not make any profit! We were receiving statements saying that the producers did not owe the Tolkien Estate a dime." In "Hollywood Accounting", a $19 million movie can make $150 million and still not be profitable. http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121018/01054720744/hollywood-accounting-how-19-million-movie-makes-150-million-still-isnt-profitable.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121018/01054720744/hollyw... http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/05/the_friday_podcast_angelina_sh.html http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/05/the_friday_podcast_an...
- pm90 14y agoWe all know what high ethical standards the movie industry adheres to. The lawyers they hire must be experts in these accounting shenanigans
- vidarh 14y agoTheir lawyers don't need to be experts: It's trivial. It boils down to buying services and rights from other companies you control, such as production companies for past movies you didn't grant royalties for to channel the revenue straight out again.
- Evbn 14y agoIf the transactions aren't arms length, he IRS and SEC can punch right through them and see that there was a large gift made from one side to the other, for purposes of tax evasion. But for whatever reason, the courts don't give the same protections to private counterparties.
- tsotha 14y agoIsn't it amazing how wildly successful films like The Return of the Jedi never made a dime, and yet Hollywood seems eager to make more every year?
- slowpoke 14y agoI seriously do not understand his problem. I don't like LotR either, but its cultural impact is huge and it does in no way devalue the gigantic literary work that Tolkien has created. Idiotic copyright lawsuits won't change reality, either.
- bborud 14y agoI'm sorry, but I think Christopher Tolkien is a pretentious cunt who has wasted his life squeezing the last drops out of his father's writing career. He should have spent his life creating original material rather than fussing endlessly over someone else's creative output. I think he owes Peter Jackson an apology for pissing on the greatest thing to have happened to the Tolkien books in many decades. What a whiny asshole.
- kostchtchy 14y agoI wish the younger tolkiens were not such artistic snobs and would produce more material for my role playing games- both computer and pen and paper. Moar contentz already. I guess if you're a literary art-snob you retire to France and criticise and rarely produce. Pity
- mitchi 14y agoHe really doesn't like the movies Peter Jackson made? Shit. Other authors weren't so lucky with their movies... The LOTR series is a real success.
- tsotha 14y agoHow does that make Tolkein lucky? According to the LOTR producers the trilogy didn't make any money, so they don't owe the family anything.
- mitchi 14y agokeep on reading, they got their money in the end. Besides, their books were making piles of bacon
- mynameishere 14y agoStephen King didn't like Kubrick's "The Shining", one of the best book adaptations ever. People just like to complain sometimes.
- exodust 14y agoKing recently announced a sequel to the Shining, 36 years after the original. Danny is grown up and working in a care centre. All seems well, but then something from Stephen King's brain knocks at the door! I never liked the LOTR movies for the reasons described. Certain scenes are spectacular, and Gollum is cool, but that's about it for me. For a great Peter Jackson movie that suits his epic action style, try King Kong.
- enneff 14y agoI wish PKD could have lived to see Blade Runner, (the original) Total Recall, and A Scanner Darkly. He would have loved them.
- mitchi 14y agoI think too. It's funny you mention PKD because he sold Paycheck $200 and another only $2500 http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.12/philip.html http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.12/philip.html
- Camillo 14y agoSurprisingly, one of the most interesting things on that page is the comment by Thomas John Mosbo explaining a subtle but profound difference between the way the One Ring is destroyed in the book and the way it is destroyed in the movie.
- pdonis 14y agoI noticed this too, and I agree with Mosbo's take on it.
- tomasien 14y agoTo call Jackson's work an "evisceration" is just so misguided I can barely stand to read on. J.R.R. Tolkien was an academic of the highest caliber, and it seems his son has retained his love of the more arcane and in-depth aspects of the Middle Earth world. I, personally, agree with them: I find the Silmarillion to be the most interesting work of Middle Earth, but that's only because I'm a massive geek. As far as a pop-culture and on-screen rendition of the books go, Jackson's work has been superbly loyal to the source literature and to the audience who pays to see them. This is just straight-out snobbery, and I don't care for it.
- marze 14y agoCartoon physics meets gratuitous story changes. The Jackson films have gone downhill from Fellowship (which wasn't too bad) to the unwatchable Hobbit film.
- floody-berry 14y agoIt has been loyal insofar as the character's names are the same and occasionally including lines verbatim from the books (although sometimes in the wrong place). I don't actually know if them myriad of changes, small and large, made the films more accessible to someone who had never read the books, but calling the work "superbly loyal" is laughable - especially the Lord of the Rings "Extended Editions" which contain almost no material from the books whatsoever.
- geargrinder 14y agoWhile the Jackson films may be entertaining and good in their own right, they aren't very loyal to Tolkien's source material, or even their own canon, as someone else has pointed out. For a Tolkien fanatic like myself, they are almost unwatchable. I can understand changing details and dialogue because it is a different medium. But Jackson changes the motivations and major actions of many of the main characters in LoTR.
- tomasien 14y agoAh he has a book coming out. Mystery solved.
- teeja 14y agoNever a fan of Tolkien's works, many friends have been, and I still recognize what's not in the movies. But I don't underestimate the power of the literature that moved so many. It's not diminished one iota by any attempt at a performance in another medium. Some who've not read the originals may be misled about them for a time, just as a great piece of music may be misrepresented by a crappy performance - say, what Karajan did for Beethoven (not saying Jackson did that or not) - but never diminished by it. One is momentary, one is lasting.
- beloch 14y agoI don't mean to sound so mean, but I am kind of looking forward to the day when C. Tolkien is "out of the way" and J.R.R's materials (which are hopefully somewhat organized by now thanks to CT) can be turned over to an author who is able to spin a proper tale out of those notes. Middle Earth is a great setting, but it took a consummate story teller to make LOTR into a three-volume page-turner. I'm not terribly interested in reading what CT has published. It's like reading a screenplay for an unfilmed movie or code for an unfinished video game. While it's interesting, it just feels like spoiling what could be a great first-read somewhere down the line.
- vowofnow 14y ago"In an era where most people would sell their souls to be talked about..." What an outlandish and completely rediculous intro. I stopped reading right there.
- IvyMike 14y agoEverything I ever heard on the subject says that Tolkien "wanted to write a mythology for England" when he started writing LOTR. Mythologies are almost by definition uncontrollable, so the fact that it's taken on a life of its own in a way proves that Tolkien actually succeeded with his initial goal.
- wissler 14y agoI have a hard time seeing how the work was "eviscerated" -- last I checked I could still buy the actual work, i.e. Tolkien's books (which I'm sure got a bump in popularity from the movies).
- tesmar2 14y agoAnyone wanting to know the perspective in which JRR Tolkein wrote his fantasy ought to read this PDF: http://brainstorm-services.com/wcu-2004/fairystories-tolkien.pdf http://brainstorm-services.com/wcu-2004/fairystories-tolkien... You should be able to then judge whether or not the movies have done justice to the spirit in which his books were written. Judge for yourself as C. Tolkein may or may not be right. After reading it, I think the movies get a lot right and a little wrong. It helps to know the mind of the one you are reading.
- pdonis 14y agoAfter reading it, I think the movies get a lot right and a little wrong. I read this essay years ago (in The Tolkien Reader), and I couldn't disagree more. If the standard is being faithful to the spirit in which Tolkien wrote, I think the movies got a lot wrong and very little right. There's plenty of discussion of this elsewhere in the thread so I won't belabor it, but I'm surprised that anyone could read "On Fairy-Stories" and think that that spirit is what the films portray. The films are Hollywood action movies with a "fantasy" veneer; Tolkien's essay was talking about something very different.
- stcredzero 14y ago> Over the years, a sort of parallel universe has formed around Tolkien's work, a world of sparkling images and of figurines, colored by the original books of the cult, but often very different from them, like a continent that has drifted far from its original land mass. I much prefer the Legend of the Seeker author's attitude toward the television adaptation: The story in the two different mediums are each their own separate things, to be enjoyed in their own separate ways. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sword_of_Truth#TV_series_adaptation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sword_of_Truth#TV_series_ad... Let's face it, there are certain people who will read the books and enjoy them for what they are. Then there are other people who won't read the books but will see the movies. What difference does it make? As for the "Hollywood accounting," that's unfortunate. All parties in a deal should feel they benefit, and none should feel hey have short shrift.
- corporalagumbo 14y agoA lot of "tough shit" responses here. I like to sympathise with sensitive people - I think Tolkien was clearly a very sensitive, quiet, private man, and Christopher similarly. I don't think Tolkien ever imagined his work becoming as popular and mass-culture as it did. He took it so seriously I think it would have shocked him. And from the way this article describes it, Tolkien's work formed the bedrock of a very sensitive, private, tender father-son relationship - and that bedrock is now being smeared around every cinema and toystore in the world. Rightly or wrongly, that must hurt a lot for Christopher. Perhaps nothing should be allowed to remain private. Perhaps privacy is an affront to the rights of the people. But I don't think so. I think everyone has special, private things from their lives - special things they would be upset to see appropriated and distorted at will by other people with little to no understanding or reverence for the meaning those things hold to you. Christopher is only different because the things that made his childhood special and to which he feels protective have become an unstoppable blockbuster film series. Hell, I can sympathise. Maybe it's just snobbery, but damned if I don't feel disgusted by the shameless, opportunistic faux-Tolkienism whipped up by by New Zealanders in the wake of the films. Nobody in New Zealand gave a shit about Tolkien before the movies. It was only when people realised that it was going to be huge that suddenly everyone became a lifelong Tolkien fan and every farmer next to a film site was running a Hobbit tour... You know, my grandpa read The Hobbit to me when I was young, and he even has a photo from when he met Tolkien (before the books took off.) Edit: On another note, I think it's a bit rich for Hackernews readers to criticise Christopher for snobbery/possessiveness - after all, the whole bloody point of Hackernews is to discourage average internet users, prevent that 'Eternal September' thing - and maintain a conversation to an elite-defined standard. Everyone has their own snobbish preferences I think.
- ramblerman 14y ago"Perhaps nothing should be allowed to remain private. Perhaps privacy is an affront to the rights of the people. But I don't think so." What are you talking about? This has nothing to do with privacy. Tolkien sold his books publicly and then sold the rights for the movies. We can certainly argue about the quality, and correctness of the films, as well as the due compensation to the Tolkien estate. But privacy, really?? It's not like hollywood execs snuck in and recorded these bedtime stories in the dark. They were sold by their owner.
- smky80 14y agoI read a lot of comments that people felt the movies were pretty loyal to the books, so I thought I would add my own little rant to add some perspective for those who maybe read the LOTR books when they were ~15 or so and never read the Silmarillion. The movies are fairly loyal to the books from a pure "action" perspective, in that they're about some midgets that find a ring and try to drop it in a volcano, there's a wizard, a ranger who's supposed to be a king, some elves and dwarves and stuff, and some battles, etc ... The movies are NOT loyal at all to the broader mythology and spiritual aspects of Tolkien's world. The movies are full of scenes where these aspects are sacrificed in order to add very tiny bits of drama and action. Case in point: Elrond's racist rant in "The Two Towers" movie to his Elf daughter Arwen, trying to convince her not to marry the mortal Man Aragorn. Look, I get it from a screenwriter's perspective: it adds some drama to the Aragorn/Arwen love story (which doesn't get much play in the books), it modernizes the story a bit to add the racism angle, and Elrond is a minor character in the movies anyway, so why not make him a Heel? The problem from a broader perspective in the Tolkien universe is that Elrond (the Half-elven) is himself a descendant of Elves, Men, and Maiar (angels). His ancestors are among the great heroes of the First Age of the world. And in fact the reason why Sauron's boss isn't ruling the world at the time of LOTR is because Elrond's half-elf dad went himself to the Gods to request their help, on behalf of both Elves and Men. He was returning to the Gods a jewel containing the original Light of the world, that Elrond's human great-great-grandfather rescued from the Devil so he could marry Elrond's elf/angel great-great-grandmother. Oh, and Aragorn is a direct descendant of Elrond's brother Elros. And Elrond himself had lived 6000+ years by the time of LOTR and had fought alongside Men at the end of the Second Age. From that perspective, the scene in the TTT movie, and the characterization of Elrond in general, is ridiculous. And the movies are full of these sorts of changes, where a little bit of drama/action is added at the expense of RUINING the story from the broader perspective of Tolkien's mythology.
- anthonyb 14y agodwarf tossing!
- Digit-Al 14y agoI would say two things in response to this. Firstly, think of the plight of the screenwriter who has to a) adapt a story that will take most people about a week to read into a three hour film; and b) has to create something that will make lots of money. I can completely understand the resentment felt at a beloved book being turned into a very different film - I have seen a number of well liked stories turned into something completely different (see my next point). I think you just have to view film adaptations as a completely different product. Secondly, there is a long history of books being turned into films that do not bear much relation to the original work. A few examples from my own life. The Stephen King novella "The Running Man" was turned into a film that contained the same themes, but was a very different story. The film "The Lawnmower Man" was also taken from a Stephen King short story of the same name. The story of the film bore absolutely no relation to the film, and to this day I can't work out how they could possibly draw any relation between the two. A long time ago I hired a video of a Dean R Koontz story called "Watchers". I had enjoyed the book and jumped at the chance to see a film adaptation. I was to be disappointed. What I watched, whilst having the name of the book was not an adaptation of that book - the story was completely different. I can only think that they wanted the name of a popular author to help sell their shoddy film.
- shmerl 14y agoWhile I usually prefer film adaptations to be as truthful to the original as possible, I think in order to be be good films, they sometimes need to introduce something new. A simple example mentioned in the article are women. I don't really understand what they complain about. While book story can ignore some aspects of the world, visual film is a different matter. Imagine picturing Dale without showing any women. While Tolkien doesn't speak about female Dwarves for example, ignoring them completely while picturing refugees would be simply unnatural. The same goes about Elves and etc. However not all changes are the same. When characters are changed in some weird manner, which makes them very different from the books - it already becomes bothering and there is simply no justifying reason for it, except for director's ego. In the Lord Of The Rings there were several such examples. For example Aragorn, Boromir and Frodo were changed in a big way. Their actions in the film didn't match their characters from the book (i.e. for their book versions it'd be unnatural to do certain things which they did in the film). So I partially agree with criticism, but only partially. Making a carbon copy of the book probably wouldn't make a good film.
- generalseven 14y agoThis article says Chris Tolkien hasn't spoken to the press in about 40 years. Consider what the hacker community was like forty years ago, and the meaning that LOTR had to this community forty years ago compared to now. I could be wrong, but maybe that could be what Chris Tolkien means by "eviscerated."