Matthew M - if you want to write to CT, the usual way is to send a letter via the publishers.
Anyway, I be surprised if CT had managed to avoid the films so far, even if he's only taken a sneaky peak at them. And the marketing images are pretty strong and pervasive so he cannot have avoided those - least of all if he had to 'approve' them in any way.
Really, why should a film cloud our imaginations any more than paintings and illustrations would? Yes, certain things from the films creep into our internal vision, but can anyone here deny that John Howe's
Gandalf has not also influenced them? There's a long history of Tolkien art - including by Tolkien himself - and I'm sure I'm not the only one to be influenced by it.
I suppose some of the film images will fade over time, but not all will (e.g. the image of Frodo with the Ring, and the Gollum they created), and they will form part of that collective idea of what Middle-earth looks like. Even then readers will still form their own view despite what they are told or shown - otherwise why would I still persist in seeing a grey, bearded Elrond?
