New interview with Christopher Tolkien

[Nogrod]

Originally Posted by CT

"My own position is that The Lord Of The Rings is peculiarly unsuitable to transformation into visual dramatic form. On the other hand, I recognise that this is a debatable and complex question of art"

It is, I think also debatable, whether he or the prof himself would have thought about this differently had they not being tied into their view of the "visual dramatic form" as a theatre piece or a movie that can only last for a certain amount of time, like three to four hours maximum?

What would have Tolkien thought about an HBO/GoT kind of a settlement with something like six seasons fex. (one season to every book) aka. 60 hours of top class drama? Would that kind of possibility, if presented to them, have changed their minds from the LotR being "in principle" unsuited to transform into a visual dramatic form?

[Mithalwen]

If more time meant more fildelity and development I imagine it would be preferable but I don't know whether it would solve the issues say related to depicting the various races of Middle Earth. Not being familiar with GoT I can't say whether they have similar issues to solve.

Elves are the killer really.... meant to be so beautiful, so elegant, graceful, old yet young. Cate Blanchett pulled it off but she has the advantage of being arguably the best actress of her generation as well as having the right physicality. Not many can do it and even though there aren't so many elves in LOTR as would be needed say for any filming of the Silmarillion. But they just get tall skinny slghtly odd looking humans.... doesn't quite work. Not for me anyhow.