“They eviscerated the book by making it an action movie for young people aged 15 to 25,” Christopher Tolkien says, explaining why the family declined to meet Peter Jackson. In what’s said to be his first interview, published in Le Monde, the 87-year-old executor of the literary estate and editor of the twelve-volume History of Middle Earth expresses his sadness over what the world his father created has become. He mentions not only the movies but video games and the like.
“Tolkien has become a monster, devoured by his own popularity and absorbed into the absurdity of our time,” Christopher Tolkien observes sadly. “The chasm between the beauty and seriousness of the work, and what it has become, has overwhelmed me. The commercialization has reduced the aesthetic and philosophical impact of the creation to nothing. There is only one solution for me: to turn my head away.”
Christopher Tolkien’s own extraordinary work took not only a scholar’s care — he resigned as a professor of Old English at Oxford to do it — but a son’s devotion. He
received his father’s papers after the death: 70 boxes of archives, each stuffed with thousands of unpublished pages. Narratives, tales, lectures, poems of 4,000 lines more or less complete, letters and more letters, all in a frightening disorder. Almost nothing was dated or numbered, just stuffed higgledy-piggledy into the boxes.
“He had the habit of traveling between Oxford and Bournemouth, where he often stayed,” Baillie Tolkien [Christopher's wife] recounts. “When he left, he would put armfuls of papers into a suitcase which he always kept with him. When he arrived, he would sometimes pull out any sheet at random and start with that one!” On top of all this, the handwritten manuscripts were almost indecipherable because his handwriting was so cramped.
January 17th, 2013 | 7:12 am
I can understand why he thinks that! Especially after The Hobbit and the extended versions of the other movies, and the way the films demolished a number of the characters, took away the end of LOTR, and pretty much said “these books are about heroic people but there aren’t any so forget THAT.” Still, they seem to have enough real Tolkien in them to intrigue people and bring a lot of htem to the books, so at least that’s good. But if were my dad’s books, I’d say the same.
January 17th, 2013 | 7:52 am
We do something similar to the Lord himself. Tolkien, his extraordinary servant, will not be spared.
January 17th, 2013 | 8:25 am
I’m puzzled – why did he approve the movie then? Surely he could have known what Peter Jackson would do with it. As literary executor, wouldn’t Christopher Tolkien have veto power?
January 17th, 2013 | 9:11 am
This discussion would not be complete without mentioning Denny’s new “Middle Earth-inspired” menu: http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/10/24/breakfast-like-bilbo-dennys-launches-a-middle-earth-inspired-menu/
January 17th, 2013 | 9:11 am
I read someplace that Tom Clancy said, to paraphrase, that “giving/selling the rights to your book to Hollywood is like giving/selling your teenage daughter to a pimp.” I can’t attribute it more thoroughly; however, Clancy’s detailed manuscripts were no more or no less maltreated in the Hollywood transition from books to movies than Tolkien’s own works.
January 17th, 2013 | 9:25 am
ARM,
No approval was sought, nor was one needed. His father sold the movie rights to both LOTR and The Hobbit back in the 60s. He needed the money to pay off debts, and so was lost any veto power the family might have had.
When you sell movie rights you lose all control over the story, including casting. Ask any modern author who’s done the same.
The Tolkien Estate still owns the rights to everything else he wrote, like The Silmarillion, the above-mentioned History of Middle-Earth, and more – lots more (70 cartons, remember?).
Not likely Jackson will ever get a deal to ruin them, and the family is probably so gun-shy now I doubt they’ll ever give permissionto another group to do the rest, no matter the promises. Too bad,because there is so much there.
January 17th, 2013 | 9:53 am
Well, if the son feels that way, I am sorry he is unhappy. But I think he’s misguided. Whatever he values in Tolkien’s work is still there for those who want it. It’s kind of like the commercialization of Christmas. It may be annoying, but it doesn’t destroy authentic appreciations and celebrations of Christmas.
January 17th, 2013 | 10:18 am
I can’t believe the grief you people are giving Peter Jackson.
I’ve seen a lot of books adapted into films. Jackson did one of the best jobs I’ve ever seen, if not the best. Did Jackson change a lot of things, things that I wouldn’t have, and many that I find deeply disappointing? Yes. Did that affect the messaging at times? Yes.
But did his films still capture the main themes of the book? Absolutely! Come on, look at what Hollywood did to the Narnia Chronicles, Dune, Starship Troopers, or for that matter any of the Philip K. Dick stories adapted to the big screen. Even the best of them (Blade Runner) has little in common with the original novella (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?). I’ll take Jackson’s LOTR over the standard Hollywood adaptation any day.
January 17th, 2013 | 11:03 am
I’m puzzled. I clearly understood The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe to have a serious purpose as a religious allegory. In contrast, it never occurred to me that Lord of the Rings was anything more than an action/adventure story for people 15-25.
And yes, the movies differ from the books. Which differences do people find so objectionable?
January 17th, 2013 | 11:10 am
@Jack Perry,
I think the reason for the grief given to Peter Jackson is summed up in an old Latin saying.
Optima corrupta pessima: the best things corrupted become the worst. J.R.R. Tolkein certainly understood this; and for the bizare dipiction of the elves alone (in the LOTR films), one has ample reason to both avoid The Hobbit movies, and to boldly aggrieve Peter Jackson’s films for the corruptions that they have brought upon J.R.R. Tolkein’s work.
January 17th, 2013 | 11:32 am
PeterG My memory is bad, but I read the books right before the first movie came out, and I don’t recall anything bizarre about the depiction. This isn’t to say that they were identical, but can you give a specific example?
January 17th, 2013 | 11:41 am
Perhaps you should do a little outside reading on Tolkien. I’d start with Joseph Pearce and Bradley Birzer, Jr, but you could also try Stratford Caldecott and Peter J. Kreeft.
All of them and others have written plenty on Tolkien’s Catholic world-view or philosophy, and any of them is capable of explaining that millions of unsuspecting fans of the books – and to a lesser extent, the movies – have been unknowingly embracing with enthusiasm Catholic concepts, ideas, virtues, and more.
LOTR is far more than an action/adventure story for people 15-25. Christopher Tolkien is mourning the price paid to gain such saturation of the entertainment world by Middle-earth, and that price is the loss of the fullness of his father’s vision which can ONLY be seen in that fullness in the books.
That said, I think Jackson did about as well as possible; conveying LOTR to the screen without such loss is nigh impossible to have done without sacrificing the appeal of the movies to the general theater audience.
BTW, C.S. Lewis similarly wrote the Narnia stories from a decidedly (and more obviously) Christian perspective, which still escapes notice of millions.
January 17th, 2013 | 12:09 pm
Nobody, “action-adventure”, like epic fantasy is not specifically age group oriented, and is certainly not specifically “childish” and one could equally argue that “serious literature” is childish as it requires less imagination. In any case Tolkien is epic fantasy, not action adventure. Finally that is rather like calling the Hagia Sophia a “building”.
January 17th, 2013 | 12:18 pm
Would people quit talking about “commercialization”. That is absurd occupational snobbery toward merchants. Commercialization has been one of the creators of civilization, perhaps THE creator of civilization. And a world ruled by gold is a far more pleasant place when all is said, then the old world ruled by iron.
More to the point, we wouldn’t have Tolkien in the first place were it not for “Commercialization”.
January 17th, 2013 | 2:10 pm
Edified to hear it. I’d be even more edified by examples — ideally, examples of Catholic concepts, ideas, and virtues reflected in the books but not the films.
For instance, I know Jackson deviate from the books by enhancing the roles of women; does that count?
January 17th, 2013 | 3:05 pm
nobody.really:
One can point to several examples:
1. The fact that the “wise” (i.e., Saruman, Sauron, Denethor) do not recognize power (salvation) in the humble (the Hobbits).
2. Gandalf’s “resurrection” as “Gandalf the White”
3. “Lembas” or “waybread” is an allusion to the Eucharist (so Tolkien tells us in his letters – “waybread” was an old English name for the Eurcharist).
4. Galadriel is a figure or type of the Virgin Mary and the light she brings to those “in dark places.” (This allusion is, unfortunately, greatly obscured in the movie.)
5. All evil creatures in ME are merely corruptions and “mockeries” of the good things created by Illuvatar, the one creator-God.
6. Perhaps most importantly, evil and its great power is overcome not by more power but by self-sacrifice and love. As a corrolary to this, evil is self-destructive (see Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I, 48). Thus, Sauron is mostly undone by his own blindness, assuming that his opponents would choose using his Ring against him and not destroying it and, on a smaller scale, we see the orcs of Shagrat and Gorbag destroy each other due to their greed in Cirith Ungol, thus alllowing Sam and Frodo to escape into Morder.
I could go on and on.
January 17th, 2013 | 4:13 pm
The Jackson film adaptations still convey the overarching themes of Providence and Grace that suffuse JRRT’s novel. How could the movies not without warping the plot and characters beyond all recognition? Jackson did err badly in his characterizations, and several omitted/altered scenes and characters increased the distance between the dots Tolkien left to be connected. Of special sadness for me were the omissions of Frodo’s vision of Glorfindel at the Ford, the scene where another Power strives with Sauron when Frodo is wearing the ring atop Amon Hen and the scourging of the Shire. Perhaps worst of all, the movie Aragorn was a mistake from start to finish.
Jackson made up for some of this by including new scenes and dialog or by reemphasizing native dialog by moving it. Here I am especially thinking of the conversation between Gandalf and Frodo in Moria. Too often, the immediate effect of the tinkering is to highlight the heroism of a particular character (e.g., Sam’s speeches to Faramir in Osgiliath and to Frodo on the slops of Orodruin). But not always. For instance, I think the expansion of the battle at Helm’s Deep was well done and allowed a deeper exploration of the themes of despair and trusting to Hope. And how can one not tremble watching the more fully exposed battle between Gandalf and the Balrog in the Two Towers?
Jackson’s chief mistake was the attempt at converting the story into what I have heard referred to again and again as a battle between good and evil, read as between good characters and bad characters. That’s not Tolkien’s story, but more than enough remains of the original to whet the appetite of a world hungering for something real. I completely understand Christopher Tolkien’s reluctance, nonetheless.
January 17th, 2013 | 5:22 pm
Oh, please. I loved the movies. And so did many of the rabid Tolkien fans I know.
January 17th, 2013 | 5:23 pm
Ok, some sound Catholic themes here; fair enough. But most of these themes were in the films as well as the books, so I’m still puzzled about people’s objections.
I don’t recall any point in the movies in which Saruman, Sauron, or Denethor said, “Look out, make way — here come those big, bad hobbits!”
Uh … yeah, that’s in the movies: “death,” “resurrection,” wardrobe change.
Don’t recall the word “Lembas” of “waybread” in the movies. I scarcely recall them from the books. Honestly, if you cite Tolkien’s letters for the proposition that lembas refers to the Eucharist, that suggests that this idea isn’t really well conveyed in the books.
Most of this is in the films.
And the part that isn’t — is nonsense. Yes, love/self-sacrifice play a role – but so does power!
Sauron loses the One Ring — because he’s confronted by power. Frodo and Sam survive their journey — by holding Gollum at swordpoint. They sneak into Mt. Doom — because Sauron is distracted by an invading army.
And ultimately Sauron is vindicated: No one voluntarily casts the ring into Mt. Doom. Rather, Frodo decides to keep it; Gollum takes it by force, then falls in by accident.
January 17th, 2013 | 5:53 pm
Something else to remember is that a visual medium cannot do the same sorts of things that a textual medium can or in the same way. (And vice versa.) Ikon vs. logos. Just as every science demands the methodology proper to it, so does every art. Therefore, a film treatment of a novel will differ from the novel itself. Some departures will disappoint devotees of the logos, but may have been required by the necessary externalization of all subject matter.
January 17th, 2013 | 9:07 pm
I wish I could write a letter to the guy telling him that I for one came to the books finally through the film. The philosophical impact he talks about has been reduced of course like a one cup bag used for two cups of tea. But not to nothing. Even if its only my testimony to the contrary.
January 17th, 2013 | 11:04 pm
Before I re-read the Trilogy, and before I read the commentaries of the authors I mentioned in my comment above, I wouldn’t have known much about some of the things I said there or am about to say now.
With my more deeply developed perspective I can understand Christopher Tolkien’s distress. He knew his father bemoaned the loss of an English culture which had all but died with the introduction of the age of mechanization, as seen in WW I, but also in English (western) culture at large. Both Tom Bombadil (who was excised totally from the movie) and the hobbits of the Shire represented a way of life which Tolkien knew was almost gone forever (and by now is totally extinct). There is something terribly dreadful to mourn in this.
The commercialization he saw then (hardly as crass as it has emerged since, yet evil enough to Tolkien) was another element which was and remains central to the replacement culture Tolkien quickly abhorred for its sterility and lack of virtue.
As I said, I recognize the difficulties Jackson had in remaining more true to Tolkien’s sensibilities. Having said that, the truth is that there were many elements intrinsic to the books which failed to make it into the films that would have better represented the depth and richness of Tolkien’s masterwork. I’d like to provide examples, as someone asked, but even more so I’d like to address a lot of the simply mistaken – or at least short-sighted – perspectives expressed by others here who still may be rooted in LOTR as a terrific action/adventure movie – which it is for those who haven’t yet discovered what lies beneath.
However, that would take an even longer comment than I’m writing now. Besides, I don’t want to deprive you guys of the joy of learning a lot more about what Tolkien was up to throughout the books, which deserve several re-readings. Instead, I strongly recommend that…
January 18th, 2013 | 2:20 am
“And ultimately Sauron is vindicated: No one voluntarily casts the ring into Mt. Doom. Rather, Frodo decides to keep it; Gollum takes it by force, then falls in by accident.”
Sauron isn’t vindicated by the brokenness of men and elves, far from it, and the doom of the ring couldn’t have been farther from an accident. There are many pieces to the puzzle. Yes, power plays its part, but it simply isn’t enough. Power wielded by man is never enough. The same goes for wizards and elvish queens as Gandalf and Galadriel clearly indicate!
So what bridges the gap? A long string of seemingly inexplicable mercies sets up the final conflict. Bilbo spares Gollum in the tunnel beneath the Misty Mountains. Aragorn spares him in the wilds after he and Gandalf have captured the wretch for interrogation. The wood elves spare him once again during his incarceration in their dungeons. Finally, Frodo spares the imp time and again as he begins to see his own fate reflected in Gollum’s degradation.
One must ask how ancient elves, war-hardened men and naive hobbits all were moved to the same mercy when exposed to such a disgusting, clearly vile and evil creature? What or, more to the point, who allowed them to see Gollum’s faded humanity and pity him?
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