PJ wants to do The Hobbit {seriously}

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

Erm, perhaps best to avoid the debate over the rights and wrongs of CJT's current inclination to withhold the rights to the Hobbit.

I couldn't agree more. I'm afraid that I got rather heated in my last post, and it was entirely because people seemed to be gloating over the age and inevitable death of someone who is after all a human being. I try not to voice my opinion of the New Line films too often, because I know what heresy some consider such criticism; but I draw the line when I read posts that heap scorn, derision and what borders on hatred on a man who is only exercising his legal rights. I'll be letting this issue drop once I've addressed the rather spirited rebuttal of my views above.

I for one wouldn't be too ready to judge an issue based on one aggrieved party's description of it. Family problems are seldom as simple as one issue, and I just don't want to involve myself in something that's a private matter between the Tolkiens. In my opinion there may well be more to that issue than what the article is telling us (journalists hate people who won't talk to them), and anyway that's not the point. My point is that if J.R.R. Tolkien's executor wants to stop a director from filming Tolkien's books, then he's entitled to do so; and I think he's a bit more qualified to tell what his father would have wanted than people who never met him.

Personally I thought that the most telling quotation in that article (from an artistic point of view) came from Michael Drout, who's currently editing Tolkien's translation of <I>Beowulf</I>:

[Christopher Tolkien] appears to want to present JRR Tolkien’s work. Period. Given that the words have to be interpreted in order to be made into visual form, I can see why he didn’t participate.

But even this is only speculation. Christopher Tolkien doesn't want to talk about the issue, and I think that this has been exploited by those who want to film his father's works, and others who perhaps have more personal grievances against him, to put pressure on him to give in. I believe that increasingly fans will be exploited and manipulated in order to generate this pressure, and Christopher Tolkien's siege mentality will only grow more pronounced the more this is done. This, too, will be exploited. That's just the way things are going to be: it's going to be acrimonious, it's going to be messy and a lot of people are going to suffer; but don't worry: there will almost certainly be more films, and New Line's backers will laugh all the way to the bank.

As for "cashing in" on his father's unpublished material: yes, the younger Tolkien has made a lot of money out of the Silmarillion, The History of Middle-earth and other posthumous publications, but he preserved a very high editorial standard throughout. Had he just wanted to make money he could simply have thrown the manuscripts together and sent them to the publishers, or hired somebody else to do the editing. As it was, he put a lot of time and trouble into compiling and explaining the material, whilst allowing his father's writing to take centre stage. He wasn't trying to "build on" J.R.R. Tolkien (that is to use his father's name to get his own Middle-earth stories published), nor was he trying to 'adapt' his father's writing (re-cast it in an image of his choosing), and that is what I mean by respect for the material. J.R.R. Tolkien believed in representing works that he translated as faithfully as the medium of English allowed, and making a film is a translation of a kind. In my opinion, and it can only be my opinion, given my scanty evidence, he would have been mystified by some of the character and plot changes that took place in bringing his work to film.

As soon as anyone starts behaving like any work of art is beyond any change or alteration then they are losing touch with reality. These aren’t the words of God. It isn’t the Qu’ran.

I know that, Eurytus; and it's a misrepresentation of my opinion to imply that I don't. I had no objection to alterations in the story that were clearly imposed by the demands of a visual medium and the time constraints of film-making. Although it's comfortable to assume that I wanted a word-for-word translation onto film, that isn't what I wanted or expected to see. I began to get annoyed only when new scenes were written (and I'm not referring to the Ents' attack on Isengard, but that ridiculous warg scene and Frodo and Sam's diversion to Osgiliath, to name but two), which took up valuable space that could have been used to film scenes that Tolkien wrote. That to me is arrogance: the attempt not just to film the book, warts and all, but to 'improve' it. What is worse for me is that their 'improvements' tended to leave plot holes and bizarre shifts in character that would otherwise not have been present. In other words, where the changes actually detracted from the work without being clearly necessary to translation, I got annoyed. Where I felt that a change was justified and well done I was content. Sadly, there were enough gratuitous changes for me to feel that the writers of the screenplay were more concerned with showing how much better The Lord of the Rings would have been had they written it than with telling the story that the film was supposedly all about.

I do find it amusing to note, however, that the very people who complain that the likes of me see Tolkien's books as sacred and unalterable texts seem to get very hot under the collar when anyone criticises the films, or suggests that they could have been done better. I am well aware that years of work went into them, but if they still don't strike me as good films, I'm entitled to say so. I am also entitled to disagree with what the producers and owners of a film say about its integrity and quality. As it happens, they are good films, just imperfect adaptations of Tolkien. Had they perhaps not carried Tolkien's titles and Tolkien's name I would probably have enjoyed them a lot more, but as it is they strike me as little more than inaccurate fan-fiction. Others are entitled to think of them what they will: I have no desire to persuade them otherwise, but I see no reason to remain silent in what is after all a discussion forum just because my opinion is unfashionable.

Returning, inevitably, to the issue of commercialisation. To my mind there's a world of difference between editing and publishing a lot of manuscripts with a commentary and presenting a substantially altered version of an existing, published work and using it as a vehicle to sell action figures, role-play games, calendars and whatever other bewildering arrays of merchandise have been released on the back of the films. I look at the New Line machine and I see fans being exploited for money by the usual suspects: corporate executives and shareholders. If it helps at all, I think that Peter Jackson has been used as well (although he's been well paid in return), and my anger is really reserved for the businessmen and script-writers who have tried to beef up the commercial appeal of a story that was already one of the most popular books of all time. There would have been nothing wrong with this, but they seem to have felt that the story as written somehow interfered with the potential popularity; a bizarre opinion, given the massive sales that the original story generated. I don't feel obliged to prostrate myself in gratitude before these people, but I'm not sitting here implying that they should die as soon as possible. I don't care if people want a Hobbit film. I don't care how much they loved the existing films, and I certainly don't want to persuade them that they shouldn't. I just wanted to make sure that somebody stood up and pointed out that Christopher Tolkien is well within his rights, that he has made a more valuable contribution than New Line Cinema to the understanding (rather than the popularity) of J.R.R. Tolkien's works and that the personal discussion of him was getting dangerously vitriolic. Jackson can make a film of The Hobbit for all I care. Even Disney could do it: at least then it would be so bad that it wouldn't overshadow the book; but personal attacks on those who oppose such moves are out of bounds as far as I'm concerned. I would feel exactly the same way about people making personal attacks on Peter Jackson for some family quarrel in which he was involved. Such quarrels are not for the public to discuss, but for the family to resolve as they see fit. I should object strongly and violently if people tried to interfere in my family's private affairs based on gossip they had heard, so I extend the same courtesy to those in public life. I think that we could all do as much.


Looking at this post again, I'm reminded why I normally avoid reading or participating in these discussions. I've got far too involved in this one already for someone who isn't interested in converting or being converted, so I shall now leave you to consider who would make the best cast for a Hobbit film in peace. Anyone who wants to drag me back to the issue will have to do so via personal messages.