Inching closer to The Hobbit film

[Sauron the White]

WCH - "No comment" indeed contradicts nothing. Unless of course there are other pronouncements, statements or actions which say otherwise. Which goes back to my original question as to what supports your statement that the last people in the world CT would work with would be Jackson and New Line. And you seemed to indicate this is much more than a mere suspicion or deduction that you hold true.

davem - everyone, including CT and his family and Estate partners, have a right to their opinion. That is fine. I do think it is less than honest for someone to take one position on an issue where they maintain the high road due to their official capacity in an organization and then take a far different position and claim it is only the feelings of a single individual and means nothing. Lets face it and be frank about this. Is there any single person alive who is more the face and power behindThe Tolkien Estate than Christopher Tolkien?

[William Cloud Hicklin]

"No comment" indeed contradicts nothing. Unless of course there is other pronouncements, statements or actions which say otherwise.

"No comment" contradicts nothing, including other comments. It's just a way of saying "whatever I may think, I'm not telling you." As a lawyer, my telling a reporter "no comment' doesn't mean I have no opinion about the case!

If your spouse/significant other puts on what you deem to be an absolutely hideous outfit, it's not 'contradictory or two-faced' to keep your mouth shut and avoid a night on the sofa.


"No comment" certainly isn't some sort of declaration along the lines of "I promise not to form a personal opinion about the movies when they come out."

I do think it is less than honest for someone to take one position on an issue where they maintain the high road due to their official capacity in an organization and then take a far different position and claim it is only the feelings of a single individual and means nothing.

Your argument would have force only if the Estate/Tolkien family had done some such thing. In fact, their personal and private opinions have remained private. Moreover, you again assert that there are 'far different' positions involved here: which is, in your phrase, comparing apples to cinderblocks when one 'position' is mere silence. Nothing in CRT's public statements declares or implies "I'm completely indifferent." Just "I'm not talking."

[Sauron the White]

WCH - Is Christopher Tolkien a private person in the same way that you or I are? Can someone of the stature and fame of CT ever be a private person? I do not feel it is possible for someone of that stature to become a private person when they feel it is convenient for them to do so.

There are issues here which are never discussed by folks like yourself. For example.... why did the Estate willingly participate in the promotion of the movie through reissues of the books with cover tie-ins with the films in return for higher than normal royalty payments? How do you willingly participate in that, cash the checks from the revenues which were four to five times higher than in non-film years, and then engage in comments against the hand that is helping to feed you?

How do you sit at the head of the Estate, perhaps wielding enough power to be the Estate itself for all practical purposes, and take one position of "we have nothing to say about the movies" and then conveniently put on the uniform of the private person and engage in letter writings, conversations with people like yourself and others saying negative things about the movies? Especially when you have a very reasonable expectation that many of the feelings you expressed as a private person will somehow filter back in places just like this forum making your true feelings known to your hardcore fan base?

Yes, you sometimes try to take the high road of non-involvement but in actuality are taking a side which has been well known. But your hypocritical position then gives cover to your hardcover true believers who can then post in places like this and claim with a straight face that there is no position pro or con on the movies from CT and the Estate?

I think that is less than honest and straight forward. Just like I have repeatedly stated that the selling of COH as a "new book" was less than honest and straight forward as well.

[Mithalwen]

Personally I would say that yes Christopher Tolkien is a private person in the same way as I am. In fact he is more of a private person than I am since I choose to voice my opinions in public fora and he does not. He has never been a public person other than in the way that any academic who lectures is public.

Why you seem to expect him to be grateful to Jackson I don't know. If he was interested in the money there were far more lucrative ways off exploiting his father's works than slaving away for 20 years. And LOTR was voted book of the century several years before the films came out. You behaveas if noone had heard or bought the books before the film. It was hardly and original screen play or a little known work. Jackson was quite happy to take advantage of the huge existing fan base and insult them.....

I very much doubt he had the power to stop tie in editions being made. I bought mine cos I needed a new set at a knock down price at a supermarket so I doubt that greatly supplemented CT's pension. As for the allegation that CoH was sold as a new book - that really doesn't stand up. the origins are quite clear in every serious article I have seen. And if you don't happen to know the origins it is going to be new...... nouvel but not neuf.. English unlike French does not make the distinction between brand new and new to you.

The Tolkien Trust has donated the incidental revenue from the film to charity. If this is hypocritical then I can only hope that in similar circumstances I would be as good a hypocrite.

[Sauron the White]

Mithalwen. New is new. Period. Something which has been around in slightly other form for some time now cannot be described as new. Its like being pregnant or dead. Either you are or you are not. The fact is that the origins of COH mean nothing in this regard. The book was sold by the designated publishers of the Tolkien Estate and marketed as a new book. In fact, if you look at the websites which promoted the book you will see that the word NEW - the first new JRRT book in thirty years - was a major part of the advertising campaign. That is an undeniable fact.

According to your reasoning, if I have not seen a certain TV show that has already been shown many times, it is new to me. In that regard, everything can said to be NEW according to someone who was ignorant or not aware of it. That is stretching the definition of NEW to something even Orwell did not comtemplate.

You do realize that the contract between JRRT (and now his heirs) and his publishers gave him far more monetary payback and artistic control than almost every other author. The idea that the Estate stands there powerless and impotent while the mean old money-grubbing publishers milk the books with movie-tie ins is naive at best, ridiculous at worst.

The fact is a simple one. The publishers sold four to five more times the number of books each year for the four years of the film cycle. The royalty checks to the Estate were higher because of the movie-tie ins. Had there been no movies and no tie-in movie stills as covers, the Estate would never had reaped that extra bonanza. That is a fact if you go back and look at sales for the previous 20 years.

You say Jackson insulted the fan base. How can he willingly go about to do that and expect to have a hit film? The fact is this --- there are a small number of hardcore book purists who hate the films and take that tact as is their right. But hundreds of millions of people bought tickets to the films and obviously were happy with them. Insult indeed!

Regarding charitable donations. Someone was good enough to provide the links to the people who received those monies. Yes, many were deserving and worthwhile. Among others were groups dedicated to Tolkien research and study. So some of the money was kept within the same circles while lableing it as charity. Its there money to do as they want. Fine.

All I want is to stop the double talk. When I bring up the fact that CT does not like the films I am told by others here that that is not true - that CT is silent and without a posive position. Then others want to use the opposition and feelings of CT to show that the films were not very good. You cannot have it both ways folks. Pick a side - any side - just stay on it and stay consistent.

[Mithalwen]

Not my reasoning Shakespeare's.... but clearly I am dishonest for referring to the car I have had for a couple of months as my new car....it was built in 2003.... so no new is not new period to speakers of English. It is one "signifier" more than one thing signified. Death isn't that clear cut either these days either or pregnancy come to that ...

People are free not to take a position since we don't live in Airstrip One.

Yours is clearly to bash a decent man for allegedly not liking films he had no contol over. In the scale of crimes it isn't child murder is it.

I don't care whether CT liked the films or not. Why do you since you clearly do not respect him? Clearly he can do nothing right in your eyes. I provided a link to the charity but clearly funding an archive for the author is a misuse of funds.

You claim to know CT's opinions as fact. Know better than someone who actually knows him. You seem to think he should have withdrawn his father's works from sale else he is a hypocrite.... ridiculous.

Really so what if the book sales went up because of the film? I bought a new set becasue the old ones fel apart and bought others because I happened to have the money in 2001-2 that I didn't have as a teenager. So my pounds count to wards you bonanza but I wasn't motivated by the films. I onlymanaged to sit through the second two once..... even when they came on TV I found better stuff to watch and they seem dated already. The Jackson films will I think be as the Nahum Tate "improvements" on King Lear - popular at the time but little more than curiosities now. Tolkien will owe no more to Jackson than Shakespeare does to Tate.

[Sauron the White]

Mithalwen - I am not bashing anyone, especially CTolkien. I think he has done fine work and am glad I was around to purchase and enjoy it.... several times over. This discussion started today when William CH said that CT would not allow Jackson use of anything outside of what New Line already owned if he was the last person on earth. Thats pretty strong. What made this interesting is that right here in this very forum many people have told me that CT was silent about the films and took no position neither pro or con. I consider William Cloud Hicklin to be an intelligent and well informed Tolkien reader and fan. In fact, in my humble opinion, I would place him in the top ten percent of intelligence here. So when he writes such a strong statement and seems to know the mind of CT, I stop and listen and ask why and where he got this from?

It seems to me that you can parse the language all you want and reduce yourself to the level of a courtroom lawyer arguing about the meaning of what is is. Most people think they already know. That is probably because they use common sense, live in the real world where people do not talk like Harvard debaters who challenge every definition if it does not fit their preconceived arguments.

I know what new is. I know what a new book is. I know that COH was by no means the first new Tolkien novel in thirty years. That is simply advertising fraud. And if the Tolkien Estate had any imput on that then shame on them for being part of it.

You say I claim to know the opinion of Christopher Tolkien. No I do not because I read others here saying many different things on the same subject. But I am trying to find out. And CT is no more a private person than Stephen King is. Despite the seclusion and demand for privacy, his name is out there like it or not. You cannot be that famous and then put on the shroud of a private person and think you can hide behind that. It just does not work that way. Very few people in the real world cares if CT is the Tolkien Estate of how the Estate is constituted, how they make decisions or what CT has to do with it. Christoper Tolkien is Christopher Tolkien and is a whole lot more of a public person than I or most of us ever will hope to be.

There is a difference between funding charities for the poor and funding academic or scholarly research for your own cause. If I have to explain that, then we better go back to what the true meaning of is is.

[davem]

Look, if the Estate made any comment about the movies, positive or negative, it would be taken as an OFFICIAL endorsement/condemnation & link the Estate into the movies for good or ill. The Tolkien Estate cannot express an OFFICIAL opinion on something which is, in effect, a matter of taste. Maybe some members of the Estate like the movies & others don't. Maybe none of them like the movies, but they want fans to be able to watch them & make up their own minds.

It could just be as simple as the fact that Christopher thinks the movies are rubbish but doesn't want to upset anyone who likes them by stating that opinion in public.