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12 Jul, 2012
2012-7-12 5:05:45 PM UTC
I do have to agree with something said/implied by Christopher, and echoed on the Mythopoeic Society discussion groups and elsewhere:

The mental landscape (the inner vision, imaginations, whatever) of readers of the books, has forever been altered by the movies. Fan art post-PJ is almost all movie derived imagery, for example. For myself, I have to fight my inner voice when reading, even when it is saying innocuous things like "this is written so much better than what the movie showed for this scene." Shut up, voice! Of course it is, now stop distracting me from the story.

I do believe that there will be LOTR (and Hobbit) readers into the next century, whose imaginative vistas will be unspoiled by PJ imagery as those moves age, the effects become dated, and the tastes of film-goers evolve.

At that point, the movie remakes will come out.
12 Jul, 2012 (edited)
2012-7-12 5:48:26 PM UTC
I have to agree with Uruloke, things inevitably change with time. We have to remember that PJ is not the first to make a movie out of The Hobbit or LOtR, and in my opinion his movies are a far cry from the adaptations made in the 70s. I believe that the main reason the new movies are causing anyone to get upset is because they actually are good, visually and story wise, but it is a pain to not be able to think of Frodo without imagining Elijah Wood. But at the end of the day the movies cannot hold a candle to the books and that will never change, whether rights are sold for 100,000GBP or multi-millions, the ink on paper will always remain invaluable.

I will say that I'm glad that there will never (more than likely) be adaptations of The Silmarillion. It's possible we'll be seeing some actor as Turin in the future, but I think Beren and Luthien are safe as well as the Valar. My personal take is that LOtR and The Hobbt were meant to be mass audience entertainment, so I'm glad I'll probably never see a producer try and put the Battle of The Powers or Thingol and Melian entranced for years or the Trees of Valinor and so on onto the big screen. It's true, there are images and voices that will be in the back of our minds when reading LOtR but take heart that some things will remain sacred!
13 Jul, 2012
2012-7-13 1:05:29 AM UTC

Urulókë wrote:
I do have to agree with something said/implied by Christopher, and echoed on the Mythopoeic Society discussion groups and elsewhere:

The mental landscape (the inner vision, imaginations, whatever) of readers of the books, has forever been altered by the movies. Fan art post-PJ is almost all movie derived imagery, for example. For myself, I have to fight my inner voice when reading, even when it is saying innocuous things like "this is written so much better than what the movie showed for this scene." Shut up, voice! Of course it is, now stop distracting me from the story.

That is, of course, the danger with any adaptation. The answer is just to not see the movies, really. I haven't seem them since the RoTK DVD set came out, and have no plans on ever seeing them again. Nor will I go and see the Hobbit movies. I am actually very fortunate to have been "inoculated" at an early age with the BBC Radio Dramatisation of LoTR*, and those are largely the voices in my head when I read the books. Sir Michael Hordern IS Gandalf.


I do believe that there will be LOTR (and Hobbit) readers into the next century, whose imaginative vistas will be unspoiled by PJ imagery as those moves age, the effects become dated, and the tastes of film-goers evolve.

At that point, the movie remakes will come out.

It isn't really PJ imagery, it is Lee/Howe + NZ imagery , so I blame them (except for NZ - it seems a bit harsh to blame an entire country)! The movies look pretty, but my imagination is stronger than their art, which I find a bit tedious (due to overexposure), to be honest.

  • WARNING:: Don't accidentally inoculate yourself with the BBC Dramatisation of the Hobbit or you will have to kill yourself. Gandaaaalf, Indeed.
13 Jul, 2012
2012-7-13 1:54:24 AM UTC
Khamul wrote:

In terms of the movie tie-in covers, I think The Tolkien Estate probably doesn't have a great deal of leverage here. I would think it's HarperCollins who have (historically & presently) pushed the movie covers. Are the Estate really going to start arguing with their publisher?; probably not recommended. Plus, it looks from papers in the public domain that both GA&U and Tolkien had certain "rights" to future movie adaptations i.e. cuts of profits (--although never artistic interference.) HarperCollins presumably can exercise these rights independent of the Estate i.e. arrange movie covers.

We have every reason to believe that the Estate has indeed exercised influence on HarperCollins to minimize the effect that Stu refers to, of 'cementing a relationship between the books and the films'. Naturally, the publishers of Tolkien's works want to capitalize on the publicity surrounding the Jackson films; and although members of the Estate may dislike the film adaptations, like Tolkien himself in his day, they recognize that his publishers have a stake in his works too. But a publisher needs to keep in the good graces of a copyright holder who is also the source, from time to time, of other material to publish; so although HarperCollins, at least for their own editions, have issued film tie-in editions of Tolkien's works, the covers always have been subdued, with no images of the principal actors except in silhouette -- instead, Black Riders, towers, a wide shot of an indistinct army, the Ring. Less control is evidently possible, however, for foreign, sub-licensed editions -- in America, those from Ballantine Books especially tend to be plastered with close-ups of Elijah Wood et al. -- or for "making of"-type books about the films.

Wayne & Christina
15 Jul, 2012
2012-7-15 5:01:57 PM UTC
We should be careful not to put our own interpretations of the words as fact. What he says as I understand it is not that the movies will harm the books or make them dissapear, but that he doesn't consider the movies to be very accurate representations of the books. Either way the comments is about the movies.
15 Jul, 2012
2012-7-15 10:40:48 PM UTC

Turbo wrote:
We should be careful not to put our own interpretations of the words as fact. What he says as I understand it is not that the movies will harm the books or make them dissapear, but that he doesn't consider the movies to be very accurate representations of the books. Either way the comments is about the movies.

The (translated) article that I read implies very strongly that CTs view is that the movies harm the books and Tolkien's Legacy.

For example, the following quote is attributed to CT: "The chasm between the beauty and seriousness of the work, and what it has become, has gone too far for me. Such commercialisation has reduced the esthetic and philosophical impact of this creation to nothing. There is only one solution for me: turning my head away."

The above quote could indeed be taken as "The movies in and of themselves have no aesthetic or philosophical impact", but that certainly isn't how most people seem to have read it (judging by the various comments on various fora). It has widely been read as "The movies and commercialisation have reduced the value of the original work to nothing".

It may be that the article is ambiguous (or the translation is ambiguous), unfortunately. Readers can only go on the words that are written...
16 Jul, 2012
2012-7-16 4:36:06 PM UTC
He says that about the commercialisation which is itself an effect of the movies.

In a way perhaps what he dislikes or regrets is that the movies have now become more genreally known than the books.

Especially if he don't think of the moveis as good representations of the story.
16 Jul, 2012
2012-7-16 10:14:35 PM UTC
Sorry, but of course that's his point. The movies are, for a start, derivative; additionally, in my opinion, they're crap --as they have very little in common with the works of J. R. R. Tolkien. That these are better known (if that is actually the case) is a travesty, both for fans of literature, & for The Tolkien Estate --as they are a catastrophic misrepresentation of the literature they derive from.

This in itself is not (or does not need to be) particularly important to you or me --but it is for a the heirs of J. R. R. Tolkien, whose job it is to preserve & share the literature (& its "message", whatever that may be) that Tolkien left the world. I suggest to you that Christopher thinks Jackson has made a poor job of this.

BH
16 Jul, 2012
2012-7-16 10:22:03 PM UTC

Khamul wrote:
Sorry, but of course that's his point. The movies are, for a start, derivative; additionally, in my opinion, they're crap --as they have very little in common with the works of J. R. R. Tolkien. That these are better known (if that is actually the case) is a travesty, both for fans of literature, & for The Tolkien Estate --as they are a catastrophic misrepresentation of the literature they derive from.

This in itself is not (or does not need to be) particularly important to you or me --but it is for a the heirs of J. R. R. Tolkien, whose job it is to preserve & share the literature (& its "message", whatever that may be) that Tolkien left the world. I suggest to you that Christopher thinks Jackson has made a poor job of this.

BH


Out of interest, is CT on record as having an opinion with regards to the BBC Radio dramatisation of the LoTR? I thought that it succeeded in pretty much every aspect where the movies utterly failed.
16 Jul, 2012
2012-7-16 10:28:41 PM UTC
He said it sucked too!

BH
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