Why did Tolkien dislike Disney?

[THE Ka]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

I can't remember if this was brought up before, but what do you think about Disney's happily ever after endings? Would Tolkien have agreed?

I doubt it. A precious few of Tolkien's stories have a truly happy end, and even fewer have a definite end at all. Instead, they all seem to flow on, the end of one story becoming the beginning of another.

Even in the dour F.A. there are a few, but the key word is that they are passing. Even Beren and Luthien's legacy intertwine with that of Hurin and Turin's tale, which compared to Disney's clean cut happily ever-afters, is quite the opposite.

Like others have mentioned, Tolkien had a firm grasp of how things like 'closure' are in reality. He repeatedly makes it keenly aware to the reader that yes, some of his characters will find happiness at the end of their tale, but this is far from everlasting. Sometimes one's happiness comes at a consequence to another, whether they know or even care at that point.

Also, the idea that you can't necessarily guard the fallout of anyone's actions upon others is something he visits time and time again. What he does offer is a plethora of responses to this based on the diversity of the nature of his characters. Something we as readers can take away with us and ponder over, or identify with.

Themes like this are about as close to a typical Disney plot anti-thesis as you can get. Even if a main character suffers/looses continuously throughout the narrative, there is always some climatic point where deux ex machina happens for the sake of a clean-cut happy ending that is rewarding to the audience.

Is this good for Disney? Yes, that is what they are known for and what audiences typically expect of them.
For Tolkien? Not very much at all, or at least, not very marketable to Disney (without them making severe changes of course).

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by THE Ka

Is this good for Disney? Yes, that is what they are known for and what audiences typically expect of them.
For Tolkien? Not very much at all, or at least, not very marketable to Disney (without them making severe changes of course).

Makes you wonder (God forbid such a thing ever actually happen...) what a Disney adaptation of Tolkien's tales would look like. Beren and Lúthien is easy enough to imagine: they get married and live happily ever after, and if there's any hint of Lúthien's change of fate, it would be cast as completely romantic--not unlike Tangled--which, as far as THAT goes, would be an adaptation that I would not utterly hate... though I suspect Celegorm and Curufin would turn out to be in cahoots with Morgoth if they made it into the story at all, and Finrod likewise might not die... maybe not Draugluin or Thuringwethil either... and one wonders whether Mandos would appear at all.

Okay, "The Tale of Tinúviel" has problems, but it could be done, probably alone of Tolkien's tales (unless, say, you want to do Tuor's tale, but have it end when he gets the girl--you know, before the action of The Fall of Gondolin really begins). Just trying to IMAGINE a tale of Turin takes all sorts of mental gymnastics. Probably the ONLY thing you could keep from the incestastic ending is killing the dragon--no more dead Turin, dead Brandir, dead Nienor, certainly no Mrs. Nienor Turinswife. That means that Finduilas has to be the princess, so she's not dead, so that probably means no return to Dor-Lómin... and at this point it probably makes sense to either lose Nienor and Morwen completely or distort their story so much as to be unrecognisable. Same with Hurin--perhaps killing the dragon will result in him being freed, so that means the Nirnaeth is starting to look more like Smaug's Destruction of Dale.

I suppose there could be a Dwarf in the story, though....

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Just trying to IMAGINE a tale of Turin takes all sorts of mental gymnastics. Probably the ONLY thing you could keep from the incestastic ending is killing the dragon--no more dead Turin, dead Brandir, dead Nienor, certainly no Mrs. Nienor Turinswife. That means that Finduilas has to be the princess, so she's not dead, so that probably means no return to Dor-Lómin... and at this point it probably makes sense to either lose Nienor and Morwen completely or distort their story so much as to be unrecognisable. Same with Hurin--perhaps killing the dragon will result in him being freed, so that means the Nirnaeth is starting to look more like Smaug's Destruction of Dale.

Sssh! Don't give Peter Jackson any ideas.

[Lalwendë]

I'd recoil in horror at the traditional Disney take on a Tolkien story, though an impish part of me would quite like to see what Pixar could do with one of Tolkien's stories...

I think one of the big issues isn't particularly the 'look' of Disney animation, it's about how sanitised it is. The correct word is probably Bowdlerised. But, for the child viewer, much rewriting of stories is often necessary. The original AA Milne text of Winnie the Pooh is quite odd as I found when reading it aloud last year, but the Disney animations are acceptable. Another good example, though not a Disney interpretation is of Thomas the Tank Engine. The original books have some unpleasant stuff in them such as an engine being to all intents and purposes buried alive as punishment for being naughty. And there are numerous stories with serious or casual racism, cruelty, and dodgy values - even Narnia includes some attitudes I would not be happy for a child to take on board. What we deem as children's stories are not always suitable for kids.

The Hobbit itself has an authorial tone that's now quite jarring, though the content is mostly safe enough for school age children. However I feel Disney really would go to town on bowdlerising it. No trolls discussing boiling the Dwarves, or scary Gollum, and no really nasty spiders. Rather than Jackson's take which was to pick up and build on the action in the text, Disney would be more likely to pick up on 'silly' Elves and Dwarves - would the tra-la-la-lally be in there? Oh yes. With Katy Perry singing

Disney's not all bad at all, I can see that some stories do need to be altered for tiny ones to enjoy them. But some stories lose all their appeal when bowdlerised and The Hobbit would be one of them.

Of course, this is all assuming that a Disney adaptation would be animation, when we know they can also produce a cracking live action film (Pirates, anyone?). I wonder if Tolkien ever considered what a live action film might be like.

[Ardent]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

...Of course, this is all assuming that a Disney adaptation would be animation, when we know they can also produce a cracking live action film (Pirates, anyone?). I wonder if Tolkien ever considered what a live action film might be like.

There were plenty of live action Epics around in Tolkien's time. Gone with the Wind in 1939 and The Ten Commandments was released in 1956, the year after Return of the King was published. So there were studios with the resources to produce films of the scale required for LotR but I doubt he'd have been very impressed with the special effects. The face of Moses on The Mountain in DeMilles' film is hardly up to portraying the light actually coming from the person; when it is lit at all it's obviously from an outside source. That would miss the point that JRR wants to make in the transformation of Gandalf and Galadriel revealing an inner, otherwise veiled nature.

Some great leaps have been made in effects since then, and the scope of Star Wars is epic, but even in the wake of Lucas Films directorship continues to be tampered with by backers and editors. Seeing how much Bladerunner was interfered with, cutting vital scenes like the unicorn, I can well understand the need for artistic control being established before Tolkien estates gave the go ahead to producers.
Even in a live action film I think Disney studios would still have given us a chirpy Glorfindel and an 'oo da lally' Gandalf.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

I wonder if Tolkien ever considered what a live action film might be like.

Tolkien's concern was not just limited to whethyer or not special effects and celluloid wizrdry could create the illusion of Middle-earth reality.

Here's what he wrote in "On Fairy-Stories:" However good in themselves, illustrations do little good to fairy-stories. The radical distinction between all art (including drama) that offers a visible presentation and true literature is that it imposes one visible form. Literature works from mind to mind and is thus more progenitive. It is at once more universal and more poignantly particular. If it speaks of bread or wine or stone or tree, it appeals to the whole of these things, to their ideas, yet each hearer will give to them a peculiar personal embodiment in his imagination.

Moreover, as we all know it is simply not possible to get the wealth and richness of the LR into even ten or twelve hours of screen-time. And even if that were piossible, one still couldn't tell the stroy in the gradually-unfolding manner Tolkien did; the early chapters *before* Bree are masterful, and one needs to get past the character of Bombadil himself to take another look, in those three chapters, at how deftly Tolkien step by step expand's Frodo's (and the reader's) perception of the world in both space and time.

Besides, as a practical matter all that f/x costs money, which means no film would ever be made except as a lowest-common-denominator mass blockbuster like Jackson's vulgar action flicks.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

Tolkien's concern was not just limited to whethyer or not special effects and celluloid wizrdry could create the illusion of Middle-earth reality.

Here's what he wrote in "On Fairy-Stories:" However good in themselves, illustrations do little good to fairy-stories. The radical distinction between all art (including drama) that offers a visible presentation and true literature is that it imposes one visible form. Literature works from mind to mind and is thus more progenitive. It is at once more universal and more poignantly particular. If it speaks of bread or wine or stone or tree, it appeals to the whole of these things, to their ideas, yet each hearer will give to them a peculiar personal embodiment in his imagination.

Still, he sold the rights so he must have considered it. Even if he thought it unfilmable then that indicates he thought about this.

I saw the writer of Life Of Pi on TV the other night stating that he thought the novel was unfilmable - and as we now know, it was.

I'm struggling to think of any writers who have refused to sell film/TV rights to their work.

Originally Posted by Ardent

There were plenty of live action Epics around in Tolkien's time. Gone with the Wind in 1939 and The Ten Commandments was released in 1956, the year after Return of the King was published. So there were studios with the resources to produce films of the scale required for LotR but I doubt he'd have been very impressed with the special effects. The face of Moses on The Mountain in DeMilles' film is hardly up to portraying the light actually coming from the person; when it is lit at all it's obviously from an outside source. That would miss the point that JRR wants to make in the transformation of Gandalf and Galadriel revealing an inner, otherwise veiled nature.

I'm probably committing a mortal sin now, but to my taste, a De Mille film of Tolkien's work would have been as bad as a classic Disney style one. Tolkien will no doubt have seen some of these famous epic films (I think it's likely that everyone saw Gone With The Wind), but where they differ from Jackson is that they were exactly that - epics. One thing I can say for Jackson is that he has a lot of levity and his light heartedness saves the films from being pompous epics (*cough* Braveheart *cough*).