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Why Christopher Tolkien Hated Peter Jackson's Lord Of The Rings Movies
The late Christopher Tolkien absolutely hated Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies. Most audiences view Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy as a cinematic masterpiece. Promotion for the upcoming Amazon TV series The Rings of Power has naturally drawn on this affection - and yet those nods are about all viewers are going to get. Amazon is even moving from New Zealand with season 2, while Jackson himself has no involvement with the series.
Amazon and the showrunners seem to have had quite a high regard for Jackson, but the Tolkien Estate reportedly insisted he should have nothing to do with The Rings of Power. As production continued, it seems the show diverged ever further. In an interview with SFX Magazine, director J.A. Bayona explained they originally wanted to establish "some kind of a bridge between the show and the movies," but realized they had to take their own direction - in part because they were generally dealing with different characters.
There's a sense in which the Tolkien Estate's attitude is hardly a surprise. Christopher Tolkien, the son of JRR Tolkien who headed the estate until 2017, was actually no fan of Jackson's films. Although Christopher Tolkien passed away in 2020, his history with the films may well have had a lasting effect, creating a certain distance between Jackson and the estate.
Christopher Tolkien Had Served As Defender Of His Father's Work
Christopher Tolkien had seen himself as both a curator and protector of his father's work. He gathered J.R.R. Tolkien's scattered notes, and assembled them into a (mostly) coherent narrative to help lovers of Middle-earth. He fought to ensure merchandising opportunities taken by Warner Bros. and New Line were appropriate for the franchise, and in 2012 the Tolkien Estate filed a lawsuit to block the creation of an online slot machine inspired by The Lord of the Rings. He was certainly right that his father J.R.R. Tolkien would not have been happy at this idea. He was a devout Roman Catholic from childhood, and he described The Lord of the Rings as a fundamentally religious and Catholic work. The idea of associating it with gambling would most likely have horrified J.R.R. Tolkien.
Tolkien had sold the film rights to The Lord of the Rings back in 1969, but by the 2000s they had found their way to Warner Bros. The contracts required the studio to pay a percentage of the films' profits to the Tolkien Estate, but Warner Bros. attempted to claim no money was owed over The Lord of the Rings. As Tolkien Estate lawyer Cathleen Blackburn told Le Monde in an interview in 2012, "These hugely popular films apparently did not make any profit! We were receiving statements saying that the producers did not owe the Tolkien Estate a dime." This kind of approach was hardly conducive to a healthy relationship.
Christopher Tolkien Objected To The Hollywood Approach
Outside of the business world, it is clear Christopher Tolkien's problems with Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy itself ran very deeply indeed. Speaking to Le Monde back in 2012, he launched a stinging criticism of the films. "Tolkien has become a monster, devoured by his own popularity and absorbed into the absurdity of our time," he complained. "The chasm between the beauty and seriousness of the work, and what it has become, has overwhelmed me. The commercialization has reduced the aesthetic and philosophical impact of the creation to nothing. There is only one solution for me: to turn my head away... They eviscerated the book by making it an action movie for young people aged 15 to 25."
To be fair to the film trilogy, Christopher Tolkien's unflattering assessment is hardly accurate. The Lord of the Rings movies may involve a lot of action, but they're hardly aimed only at young people aged 15 to 25. Rather, it feels as though Tolkien's issue ran deeper; that he felt The Lord of the Rings cut too much in order to create a strong narrative flow, and thus didn't do justice to the beauty and intricacy of his father's world-building. This is a problem with any adaptation; what works well in one medium does not translate effectively into another, meaning modifications need to be made and, of course, things need to be cut. J.R.R. Tolkien's books are renowned for a slow pace, while any Hollywood movie needs to move much quicker. It's hard not to feel Christopher Tolkien would have found any serious attempt to turn the books into films disappointing, regardless of their quality as films.
Christopher Tolkien appears to have been particularly unimpressed by what he saw as the commercialization of The Lord of the Rings, demonstrated through the massive amounts of promotion and merchandise. The remarkable success of The Lord of the Rings meant it became a franchise in the modern sense of the word, something Tolkien deeply disliked. Making matters worse, he seems to have feared this success threatened to eclipse his father's novels in the public eye. This led to a curious situation where, under Christopher Tolkien, the estate did its best to distance itself from the blockbuster trilogy, rather than praise it.
The Tolkien Estate Is Much Happier With The Rings Of Power
Christopher Tolkien stepped down as chair of the Tolkien Estate in 2017, before sadly passing away in 2020. The Tolkien Estate has cultivated a much better relationship with Amazon, and seem to be happy to promote The Rings of Power. In part this is likely because of a change in leadership - there were reports the family was not united around Christopher Tolkien's position - but it also potentially indicates the benefits of a different medium. There is a sense in which TV fantasy shows are ideal for longer-form storytelling with deeper world-building, and indeed this approach is very fashionable indeed after Game of Thrones. Amazon is clearly positioning The Rings of Power as an attempt to fill the gap left by the end of Game of Thrones, which logically means the show will take its time enjoying the world J.R.R. Tolkien has created. All in all, then, this hopefully means the relationship between the Tolkien Estate and the people involved in adapting The Lord of the Rings will run a lot smoother going forward.
