Why did Tolkien dislike Disney?

[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.