Quote:
Originally Posted by tumhalad2
Going back to my original post, I'm interested in how a film version might change the kinds of "memes" that 'pop up' in people's heads when the hear the word "Tolkien". Put it another way; how might a film version of CoH inculcate itself into popular culture, and what effect would this have on ideas that are held about Tolkien atm? Would our perception of him change radically? This of course assumes CoH is a very different story to LoTR in many respects, which I contend it is, particularly in its stand alone form.
As I explained, film has the power to reach a far greater audience than a book does. When the novel was released, many reviewers were surprised or astonished at the contents, which were unfamiliar "memes" that one usually wouldn't associate with Tolkien, at least not in popular culture. An academic study of Tolkien can of course be far more perceptive, and we may tease out layers of convergance or similarity, but I still contend that there is a fundemental metaphysical difference between the universes depicted in LoTR and CoH. One is fully providential, the other is atheistic (this is in no way meant to be a pejorative term).
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Well, as I've said elsewhere, I don't agree that there
is this "fundamental metaphysical difference", and having already given my reasons for this at some length on the "Turin the Hopeless" thread, I can't be bothered restating them here. So I wouldn't be particularly excited about promoting what to my mind is just an opinion of some readers. Certainly the story is, as you say very different
anyway, and might change the view a good many people have of Tolkien as simply the Father of Fantasy Cliché... but I think that's more if it were widely
read. When people have
only seen a film version, most of their associations tend to concern the director or the actors– which is fair enough, since they have no way of telling what the source was like. If they do know the author's name, they'll usually think of him more-or-less as
"that guy that wrote the book [film title] was based on". Well, then: I suppose if all you want to do is influence whatever vague notions people may have about the authors of books they haven't read, it can be done– but how much point is there to that?