W. H. Auden’s 1954 review of The Fellowship of the Ring

Re:W. H. Auden’s 1954 review of The Fellowship of the Ring by hogepiyo on Saturday August 19, 2023 @09:38PM (#37195174)

I don't think the original Lord of the Rings trilogy would really be filmable as a 1:1 book to film adaptation. As a book fan I think Peter Jackson did a pretty good job with it in general; the behind the scenes footage really shows that they did care about the source material. Fellowship particularly I would still say is great, Two Towers and ROTK have some moments that are either downright ridiculous or against the spirit of the novel but they're still okay as films.

The Hobbit on the other hand really feels generally awful. I watched a fan-cut of it that cuts all 3 movies down to about 4 hours of content and it felt just about watchable.

>The Harry Potter movies were fabulous in my opinion because the stories were not hacked by directors who felt they knew better than the original author. I may be wrong on that but that's my understanding - that largely the Harry Potter movies are true to the script.

I think you can attribute this more to JKR being still alive and in control of her creation than well-meaning production studios / directors.

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Re:W. H. Auden’s 1954 review of The Fellowship of the Ring by mikepurvis on Saturday August 19, 2023 @10:20PM (#37195437)

As a potential heir to the stewardship, Christopher Tolkien was very much alive at the time the movies were being made and was famously opposed to a lot of the artistic choices being made.

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Re:W. H. Auden’s 1954 review of The Fellowship of the Ring by bombcar on Sunday August 20, 2023 @02:01AM (#37196559)

Rowling apparently maintained some artistic control on her movies, whereas Tolkien had sold the rights entirely, so Christopher didn't have much of a say beyond complaining.

I think the thing that really "solved" it for me was realizing that the vast majority of the people who watch LotR will never read the book, let alone the Silmarillion. And those who DO decide to read those after seeing the movie - the movie won't destroy it for them.

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Re:W. H. Auden’s 1954 review of The Fellowship of the Ring by wolverine876 on Sunday August 20, 2023 @02:34AM (#37196748)

Christopher had no say; JRR sold the movie (and some other) rights ~1970.

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Re:W. H. Auden’s 1954 review of The Fellowship of the Ring by stevekemp on Sunday August 20, 2023 @03:49AM (#37197049)

In his letters there's a comment:

"Stanley & I have agreed on our policy : Art or Cash. Either very profitable terms indeed; or absolute author’s veto on objectionable features or alterations."

I don't think it was explicitly stated there, but I think it is clear they went for "cash". Though I recall some of his letters saying that the unexpected success of LotR meant that he wished he'd retired earlier. It was clear that there was a lot of financial struggle in his life, but that's not to say he wrote for the money of course!

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Re:W. H. Auden’s 1954 review of The Fellowship of the Ring by wolverine876 on Monday August 21, 2023 @09:03PM (#37217310)

Not cash either. I think they sold for ~100,000 pounds.

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Re:W. H. Auden’s 1954 review of The Fellowship of the Ring by hinkley on Saturday August 19, 2023 @10:22PM (#37195451)

It is for instance interesting to see Gaiman’s adaptations before and after he basically had a blank check from studios.

Stardust is… okay. Cute. I need a new Neverwhere. Even though half the reason I gave “Vigil” a shot is because it had the Marquis as the captain.

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Re:W. H. Auden’s 1954 review of The Fellowship of the Ring by slyall on Sunday August 20, 2023 @06:20AM (#37197772)

One thing Amazon could do is adapt the Lord of the Rings into a TV show. 60 one hour episodes could be interesting.

Personally I prefer the books to the movies and dislike many of the changes.

I'm following the "Other Minds and Hands" podcast/video. Corey "Tolkiien Professor" Olsen and Maggie Parke talking about adaptation especially for Tolkien but also lots else.

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Re:W. H. Auden’s 1954 review of The Fellowship of the Ring by musicale on Sunday August 20, 2023 @11:19PM (#37205100)

> One thing Amazon could do is adapt the Lord of the Rings into a TV show. 60 one hour episodes could be interesting.

Presumably Amazon decided on an original prequel series for reasons; perhaps that they didn't see a need for an LOTR series after the Peter Jackson films (and other adaptations), or perhaps there were rights/exclusivity issues.

I found the first season of Rings of Power visually stunning, and some of the characters and environments were appealing as well, but it's hard to beat the original material. On the other hand, I feel like Wheel of Time could turn out great by cherry-picking the best parts of its source material.

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