The White Council

Re: Beef with the Movies...

Tolkien and Inklings Discussion

: It's not that simple. A bad movie will seem like a mockery to : LotR, and will cause people to have some wrong ideas about it. : Plus, it Does make Me feel bad when a good (or a very good, in : this case) idea gets ruined. I still remember how dissapointed : I was when I saw Starship Troopers: lot's of action and special : effects, but no movie and almost nothing in common with the : book. I shiver when I think that this can also happen to LotR.

People already have "wrong ideas" about the book, and I'm not referring to the Medieval/Balrog Wings/Who Spoke on Mount Doom/Bombadil issues. I'm referring to the allegations of allegory and racism, to the perceptions of otherworldliness, to the shallow or casual knowledge that some people develop without delving deeply into the stories and backgrounds (and I don't consider that to be a requirement for personal enjoyment -- I mean nothing condescending or pejorative in this, but not everyone tries to figure out where Aragorn lived).

Misperceptions and flaky ideas have abounded for years. Look at some of the crap that artists and authors like David Day have been able to perpetrate. In the end, you have to let the viewing audience discern for itself what is true and faithful to the story, and if that's important to them for the enjoyment of the movie or the original story.

I was looking at some sites about "Ever After" the other day, and I came across one (the official site, I think) which mentioned there have been over 500 versions of the Cinderella story. And those are just undoubtedly the versions which have been formally published or produced as movies and/or television and radio shows.

Cinderella was originally a Chinese tale. How many people discern that from the Disney movie, or the Brandy television special, or the Drew Barrymore movie? I doubt anyone would be able to deduce it from these adaptations. And yet people have enjoyed these retellings for years, generations in the case of the Disney movie.

Story-telling doesn't just retell the original story. It expands and enlarges the story, which in turn expands and enlarges the audience. The difference between a living story and a dead story is the fact that the living story goes on being told and retold.

I'm disappointed with some of Jackson's decisions from a purist's perspective, but these movies are not going to topple THE LORD OF THE RINGS from its highly coveted position as the best modern fantasy novel written to date. Nor are they going to wipe away all the literature and Web sites which have appeared through the years to celebrate the original story. People won't be able to forget or overlook the original so easily.