
But he didn't, and he was very much concerned with being faithful, I believe it is letter 210. I love how many "fans" like to toss the bullshit gate keeper line while letting a trillion dollar company completely change characters, time, locations, and story beats so they can make money off a shit tier adaptation (which may or may not be a good show, for WoT it was shit all around).
Also fuck that I think people need to gatekeep harder, stop letting Hollywood get away with fuck awful adaptations just because people want to see something on screen, we as consumers shouldn't be happy we get terrible products, we should demand good products, made with love and care. What we are getting currently is directors who are talking about ruining lore/changing characters simply because some dumb fucks on twitter say some idiotic shit (Rafe and Watiti both said this).

Letter 210 starts off apologising if the creator of the film treatment finds his criticisms irritating. Reading through it you can seen that Tolkien understood that different media would entail changes to the story in some way, and while he was firmly displeased with some of the changes he was also respectful to the creators. It's similar to how Christopher Tolkien disliked Peter Jackson making "action movies for 15 - 25 year olds" but didn't resent their existence.
Whatever the Tolkiens may have thought of the series, as they were gentlemen it's likely they would have been far more upset about the mindless vitriol being pushed against the creators by opportunistic YouTubers and their fans pretending to care about Tolkien's work.
This lol, it was what happened with percy jackson, eragon, the golden compass and now Whell of time, they are ruining a lot of franchises for the lolz and killing potential new ones;
At Least Percy jackson will get a reboot with the author overseeing, but not many books have this second chance

Well, there's just the small matter of Sauron never assuming a female form, always assigning male titles and names to himself like Tar Mairon (tar = king/lord) and Annatar (lord of gifts), and Tolkien never referring to him as female at any point in any of his writings. There's also, you know, the name of the book: The Lord Of The Rings.
But yeah, WhY dOeS hE hAvE tO bE a MaN? For fucks sake.

Like you said this is just an adaptation. Think of it as Tolkien.....what if?. It is going to be Galadriel: Warrior Princess running about kicking ass. The best you can hope for is that it will be a good fantasy show but if you want authenticity then you are going to be sorely disappointed. I will give the same three episodes i give any tv show i watch.
No, it isn't an adaptation by any definition, at most you can claim it is inspired by Tolkein. I am just tired of so many "fans" telling me to be happy that I am getting crap, because hey at least you got served shit. I would rather not have a show/movie if they are just going to produce crap instead of giving it the love and care it deserves.
So you agree I am right even if I am being a bit of an ass? Fine by me, Tolkien is a better man than me too, I fully acknowledge that.
I firmly disagree he would be more upset by the "opportunistic youtuber creators", Tolkien probably wouldn't pay them any heed. Just because they are gentleman doesn't mean they would be okay with the creators of the show actually twisting and changing his messages, that was on one topic that really got to Tolkien, something those youtubers have gotten right.
Also just because some people are out there pissed and throwing shit doesn't excuse the show runners from every fuck up they do, stop using whataboutisms to defend shit.
Finally I believe that if Tolkien was forced to see how many terrible adaptations Hollywood has shit out over the past decade or so he might be a bit more harsh in his critique, more along the lines of what Jordan said about some of the fanfic he had seen.


Imagine posters advocating and saying we should be gatekeeping more, keeping the thing they love the same, undeviated story they already know, and out of the hands of a wider audience.
It's utter arrogance, that others have to conform to what you believe about a property, and a lack of ability to think creatively and see the property through a new (and potentially exciting) new lens.
i hope you realise how oxymoronic this statement is when talking about the universe Tolkein built, the books have been translated into every major language in the world today, they have been enjoyed by generations of people, i don't think you could get any wider of an audience than this, and yet here you are advocating to allowing it be made available to a 'wider audience' when the franchise has i would argue THE widest audience of any franchise of the last 75 years, so just who exactly are you hoping to bring in with this likely shitshow?, outside of very young kids born in the last 10 years or so there's not really too many people left to bring into the universe.

And yet Stranger things has managed to do quite well, because good story telling finds a way. You also don't have to invest a billion dollars in every project, in fact a lot of great films/shows started with low budgets and found a plot the audience craved. Just because they CAN adapt an existing franchise doesn't mean they should or it is right to do so.
I don't need 5 million people around to enjoy what I enjoy, the amount of people adds no extra value to me. Also btw the most wide spread fantasy story ever, if people haven't heard of it they have to actively avoided it at this point. You know what would actively harm more people reading it though, a shit tier adaptation that gives people the wrong impression of the stories.
What I don't want is people to claim they falsely love something then turn around and completely change it/conform it (as you so put it) to FIT THERE OWN PERSON vision of the story. You seem fine with directors making that decision but when I stand up for them fucking a story completely it is wrong? At least with me I'm not trying to make money off of it.
You are drastically over selling the reach of fantasy novels if you think LoTR is the widest franchise in the last 75 years, even as far as such series go it’s likely behind some Others as it’s in the same ball park as Harry hotter which sold way faster and likely reached more people with the movies then LoTR did.
Last edited by Lorgar Aurelian; 2022-07-24 at 04:48 PM.
Evil only wins when it spreads. It can cause destruction, it can cause death—but those are consequences of its nature, not its victory. Not its goal. The danger of evil, the purpose of evil, is that it causes those who would oppose it to become evil also.