To touch upon a recurring issue of mine, once again the Facebook pages for
The Hobbit and
The Lord of the Rings give damning evidence of how the films are bulldozing the books in the popular consciousness. Both pages, which are for the books and run by the very publishers of those books, posted in accompaniment to Professor Tolkien's illustration of Rivendell:
Quote:
"There is some good in this world, and it's worth fighting for."
-J.R.R. Tolkien
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Balderdash. As some right-thinking commenters have pointed out in the comments section, this line is only from the film script. I might tolerate that, barely (although it would still be frustrating to see it from the Facebook page for the books) but the fact that it is misattributed to Professor Tolkien is firstly a disservice to the man, who would not have written such a cliché or in such a trite idiom, and secondly is evidence of how incompetently handled his life's work is by its very publishers. This is not the first time they have posted this film quote and attributed it to the Professor either.
Interestingly in the comments it is mentioned that according to certain DVD special features this was a line the filmmakers deliberated over at length and included, allegedly, even though they considered it to be hackneyed and cliché, which adds insult to injury when it's misattributed to the Professor himself in my opinion. This may seem like an overreaction but I think this kind of thing is both appallingly unprofessional and genuine evidence of the adverse affect the films have had by corrupting knowledge about the books.