Light On Dark Water

“An action movie for young people aged 15 to 25”

That's Christopher Tolkien's opinion of Peter Jackson's movies. I agree more than disagree with him, as I've said here more than once. 

The piece in question (from Le Monde) is full of fascinating information about Christopher Tolkien's work and the course of Tolkien-related events after the writer's death. I think it's a bit misleading in describing The Lord of the Rings as "an epiphenomenon" in Tolkien's writing at large. True, the events in that book are only one small piece in a very, very large narrative, but that doesn't mean JRRT thought lightly of it: "It was written in my heart's blood" is a remark from one of his letters (to Christopher, if I remember correctly).

I've wondered how much control the Tolkien family had over the movies. The answer seems to be "not much."

I do know at least one person who knows The Lord of the Rings only through the movies but nevertheless has a pretty good sense of what the story is about, so perhaps it's not all for nothing.

Maclin Horton

11 responses to ““An action movie for young people aged 15 to 25””

  1. Charles Kinnaird

    The Hobbit was the first of Tolkien’s books that I read back when I was 14 years old. I haven’t seen the movie yet, but I was surprised to learn that it is to be a trilogy of movies.
    About the LOTR trilogy, if folks don’t know Tom Bombadil, you know they haven’t read the books.

    Reply
  2. Mac

    I can see why they left that out of the movies. It’s sort of a side trip that doesn’t have much to do with anything else. I may be remembering wrong, but I think there may have been some discussion in Tolkien’s letters about whether the Bombadil part really belonged. If I am indeed remembering the discussion, it was probably with Christopher.

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  3. Janet

    I read part of that interview yesterday. I’m hoping to get back to it before Jackson makes the last movie.
    AMDG

    Reply
  4. Robert Gotcher

    Mac,
    the link doesn’t work.

    Reply
  5. Mac

    Durn, I thought I had checked that. I guess I need to check my checking. Thanks for letting me know.

    Reply
  6. godescalc

    Sometimes even a watered-down version of a thing can be striking and a useful introduction to the real thing. Though the best example I can think of is the marginally less edifying one of Judge Dredd – the Stallone movie was hated by many Dredd fans, but even a botched and diluted Dredd was notable in comparison with normal hollywood action figures, and was enough to get me interested in the comic.

    Reply
  7. Mac

    I don’t know Judge Dredd, but that’s a good description of the LotR movies: “notable in comparison with normal hollywood action figures.”
    I think the person I mentioned did read the book later, but wasn’t that wild about it.

    Reply
  8. Anne-Marie

    Totally off-topic, but congratulations, Mac, on Alabama’s victory last night. They were impressively dominant in every respect.
    We Redskins-ND fans had a brief hope that the parallels between the first quarters of Sunday’s and Monday’s games would extend to the final score, but no. (Not that we wanted your QB to wreck his knee!)

    Reply
  9. Mac

    Thank you. The game was way beyond anything I expected. I was worried that we were complacent, which has been known to happen, and ND would be really fired up and pull off an upset. Eventually kinda felt sorry for them. I read about RG–very sad–I hope it’s something he can recover from.

    Reply
  10. Janet

    I thought for a minute you meant Robert Gotcher. I mean, I know his team lost, but I figured he could recover eventually.
    AMDG

    Reply
  11. Mac

    Oh, heh, I didn’t think of that. Although I believe the football player RG is more conventionally referred to as RGIII–Robert Griffin III.

    Reply

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