Children of Hurin

[Ebenstone]

All I was saying was that there is something dodgy about the idea of rummaging around. It really sounds like he's just looking to squeeze some more bucks out of his father's legacy. I've never read any of the post LOTR work-I just have to say it doesn't interest me. Maybe I'll have to give it a try.

[Ran]

It really sounds like he's just looking to squeeze some more bucks out of his father's legacy.

It may _sound_ like it, but it's not actually true.

If CT had _really_ wanted to squeeze money out, he could have opened up the Middle-Earth setting for other writers to create tie-in works and ... well, all sorts of insanity. He didn't.

CT is, in fact, extremely protective of his father's legacy. It's one reason why it makes sense for _him_ to be the one to compile the information that his father donated/sold to Marquette University and the Bodliean Library, because he was in a position to make sure it was done with the greatest knowledge and respect for his father's work.

There's dozens of ways he could have cashed in on the legacy, as the literary estate's executor, with minimal effort on his part beyond cashing checks. He hasn't done so.

[Stego]

He hasn't?

I have a Gimli action figure that disagrees, Ran.

[Angalin]

Having seen the studies of several Oxford dons, I can well believe that Christopher Tolkien "rummaged around" and found new papers. Especially if at some point, as I suspect, everything had to be boxed up and moved or stored (likely even more than once).

[Angalin]

He hasn't?

I have a Gimli action figure that disagrees, Ran.

If New Line hadn't gotten a licensing deal before spending $300 million on a possibly-disastrous movie trilogy, they would have been crazy and the guy responsible for the project - Mike something? - would have been fired even earlier than he was.

[Stego]

Heh.

Yeah.

How much money did CT make off of the movies? Off of the action figures? Off of the calendars and art books and bookmarks and toy swords and replica swords and replica armor and replica One Rings and bed sheets and curtains and sleeping bags and tshirts and pajamas and lunch boxes and candy and happy meal toys and every piece of absolute shit you can imagine?

J.R.R. Tolkien wrote the Lord of The Rings. Yet Christopher is the one who is a millionaire because of them.

And Ran, have you read After The King?

[Ran]

Stego,

I have a Gimli action figure that disagrees, Ran.

The Tolkien Estate is not the same entity as Tolkien Enterprises, which is responsible for most all the LotR merchandise you've ever seen.

The Tolkien Estate does not control the film rights to LotR and the Hobbit, nor a slew of merchandising rights. Those rights eventually fell into the hands of Saul Zaentz, who set up Tolkien Enterprises to make use of those rights, following JRRT himself signing away the rights to United Artists in 1968 for what in retrospect was a truly paltry sum, but it was a sum he was happy to take at the time (see Wert for more details on this). Tolkien Enterprises is responsible for all games, action figures, films, commemorative plates, replica weapons, and so on.

The Estate basically controls the literary rights to LotR and The Hobbit and, I believe, retains full rights to The Silmarillion. The volume of "merchandise" from the Tolkien Estate is extremely small when compared to what Tolkien Enterprises has been able to churn out. I think, basically, the illustrated editions and certain related books (the lovely 'Art of J.R.R. Tolkien, for example) are the main of what they've done. Maybe the calendars, too, I'm not sure.

Edited to add, to answer Stego's further questions:

My understanding is that the Tolkien Estate made $0 off of all of that. See above as for why.

Honestly, you should read up on this stuff.

And yes, I've read and own After the King.

Edited to add further corrections:

By "$0", I should hasten to add that I mean direct profit from the film and Tolkien Enterprise's merchandising efforts. The increased publicity and public interest certainly helped the book sales. But the Estate had no say in this stuff. It was all determined by the deal JRRT made with United Artists several years before his death.

[Eurytus]

He hasn't?

I have a Gimli action figure that disagrees, Ran.

Yeah cos Chris Tolkien was the one who sold the rights to the film makers wasn't he.

Oh no, wait a minute, no he wasn't. In fact he was steadfastly AGAINST the movies being made.

Perhaps getting informed before you make such a false comment might be wiser.

[Stego]

*throws up hands*

I'll admit that it didn't occur to me that JRRT would be stupid enough to sign away his lifes work.

Why would one read up on the son of an author? I mean....seriously? An author, sure, though too much is a bit weird.

But the son of an author?

*shakes head*

Anyway, CT is ace in my book for his maps. But as for the rest, you can keep it.

[Eurytus]

Its not required to read up on the son of the author. Anyone who knows much about Tolkien himself will be aware of which parts of his works he sold off the rights to.

And around the time of the film's release stories about the Tolkien families unhappiness with them (and about the unlikelihood of CRT selling the film rights to the Silmarillion) were featured in several papers.

[Ebenstone]

There is no denying that he is the beneficiary of the movies, but I do remember reading that he was opposed to the films. That being said, how many "long lost" or "author's notes" could there be? I didn't think I would unleash such a firestorm with this. It was merely a flippant observation. As I said, I've never read any of the other books beyond LOTR. I guess it might be worth a quick checking out for arguements sake. And I can see why it could happen. If I make millions off my writing, I think I would let my kids take over the mantle.

[Stego]

Its not required to read up on the son of the author. Anyone who knows much about Tolkien himself will be aware of which parts of his works he sold off the rights to.

I concentrate on art and not the artist. I simply do not care.

And do people really still read newspapers? How gauche.

[Werthead]

J.R.R. Tolkien wrote the Lord of The Rings. Yet Christopher is the one who is a millionaire because of them.

And this is bad because...? Lots of people make immense fortunes then leave it to their kids. Maybe CT should have given all the money to charity and lived in poverty all his life, but if he did that rather than continue to secure his own future and that of his children, he'd be a saint. And whilst JRRT didn't get very rich even off the success of The Hobbit, he certainly did from The Lord of the Rings. The last few years of his life were extremely comfortable for him.

There is no comparison between CT and the Anderson/Herbert situation. CT had permission from his father to bring more of his father's work to the masses. Anderson/Herbert did not (Herbert Jnr. was once asked by his father to co-author a Dune novel some time after Dune 7 was completed, but his father died before this came to pass).

CT makes it extremely clear that the only 'proper' canonical Middle-earth books are The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. He asks the reader to consider The Silmarillion as the closest they'll ever get to the 'proper' edition of the book, but no more than that (he even admits that discoveries he made whilst going through his father's notes for HoME would have meant rethinks to The Silmarillion, particularly its ending, if he had been aware of them at the time), and HoME as adding perhaps another perspective to Middle-earth, but again no more than that. He even says in the introduction to Unfinished Tales that those after another Middle-earth novel are looking in the wrong place.

Anderson/Herbert, on the other hand, arrogantly claim that their books, which barely qualify as fan-fiction in quality, are absolutely 100% canonical and have devised elaborate timelines showing how their books fit into Herbert's wider scheme. Sorry boys, the only person who can legitimately create new canonical Dune fiction has been dead for twenty-one years. You want to get rich off his memory? Fine. Do what CT has done and publish Frank Herbert's notes with commentary or whatever and let the reader decide what FH was attempting.

I concentrate on art and not the artist. I simply do not care.

The artist informs the art and rarely is this as true as in the case of JRR Tolkien. His life story is fascinating and the impact it had on his work impressive. An obvious example is that seeing his best friends lying face-down dead in the mud of the Western Front in WWI was the direct inspiration for the Dead Marshes, whilst his recurring nightmare about the inundation of the land by a tidal wave directly informed the story of Numenor. Plus the bit in his biography (the Carpenter one, not the less-impressive White one) when he tells the Nazis anxiously seeking German publication rights to The Hobbit in 1938 (but only if he provides them with a detailed family tree to prove his Aryan heritage) to go screw themselves because of their debasement of the German spirit is pretty amusing.

[Ten Minute Timer]

The discussion here really just goes to show the lasting power of Tolkien's work, but for me it just comes down to one thing. I'd love to see more complete story Tolkien works. I loved the Hobbit, I love LoTR, and I'd love to see more... but only from JRRT himself. If I can't have the real thing then an insight into what could have been is a clear second best. CT could have chosen to write more, to continue the story, and 'cash in', but he didn't. Instead he's provided a lot of the background, and helped build the world that JRRT intended. Simple as.

If money was earned in the process, why should I give a shit.

Simple as.

And I thought the prior sale of film rights was very common knowledge. In fact, CT's reluctance to give rights to anyone has been as restrictive to Tolkien fans as anything over the years. My biggest problem with it is that it's restricted any new ventures to material purely covered by the Hobbit and LoTR, and hidden so much good stuff from the general public in the process.

[Tears of Lys]

Say what you want about CT, but I am thankful that he decided to compile his father's notes and publish them as a further background source for LotR. By reading Silmarillion and the HoME, you can fully appreciate Tolkien's genius. Has anyone else so fully developed a fantasy world as him? The answer is no.

I doubt CT did it for the money. He did it for the fans, man.

Count me as another grateful fan. But I think CT may have done it more for his father's memory.

I begrudge Christopher Tolkien not one cent. He is the beloved son of someone I worship. I'm sure JRRT would tell his critics to sod off, of course in more elegant terms - and would probably go on for pages

[naz]

Count me in as another grateful fan of both Tolkiens - the first for obvious reasons and the second for taking on an enormously difficult task and presenting it primarily for a smidgeon of (arguably skewed ) people who were actually interested in it ... and clearly not for purely financial reasons. If I were to tell a publisher today (yes, even now, post-movies) that I wanted to compile a 12-volume series of notes and commentaries on how some books were written and rewritten and rewritten and rewritten, I'd get laughed out of their offices.

This was precisely what Tolkien wanted - for his work to be appreciated and analysed as any other work of classic literature. Because CT was in the enviable position of being the most qualified (and willing) to do so is lucky for us, yet is sure to draw cynicism from a world that is used to seeing families of accomplished artists devalue the work of the former by squeezing it for every last cent with endless sequels and prequels and dumbquels. That CT has NOT done so (and this point is clearly unarguable) is exceedingly admirable, and considerably difficult considering the surely interminable chain of people who have knocked on his door wanting him to do so. If only all writers had someone with as much fortitude and integrity to posthumously defend their life's work as Christopher Tolkien has done with his father's.

Ran and Wert have elegantly made these points abundantly clear.

[berencamlost7]

Would Tolkien have approved of the HoME? Yes. He wanted people to look at his work in a professional and academic manner. That's why he sold the manuscripts to the American universities in the first place. Tolkien was also quite poor for much of his life (not even the success of The Hobbit in the late 1930s allowed him to retire) and, frankly, didn't have a problem with milking his books for every penny they were worth. He sold the radio adaption rights to The Lord of the Rings to the BBC in the late 1950s (he hated the result); and he sold the film rights a decade or so later (whilst claiming that the books could never be filmed). If the same marketing opportunities existed then as they do now, he'd have given away licenses without a second's hesitation, and probably wouldn't have cared about the end product's quality as long as cash was in his pocket to secure his retirement and the future of his children (whom he didn't want growing up with the same problems he did). To quote the man himself: "There is a great deal to be said for the grosser forms of literary success."

While I agree with most of what's been said, in particular most of Ran's and Wert's posts I must take some objection to the above, or rather put a different slant on things.

Tolkien had a deep anathema for what he called "the bones of compostion". He far preferred people to view finished works,and accept them for what they were, and criticise them based on the final product.

What he most certainly did NOT like was people digging around in his "box of tricks" for hidden meanings, and source material, and the course of composition. You can read Letters by him that make this clear, or better still read On Fairy Stories where he quotes Dasent (a famous C19 Philiogist)

"We must be satisfied with the soup that is set before us, and not desire to see the bones of the ox out of which its been boiled"

Tolkien goes on to say that he does "not, of course, forbid criticism of the soup as soup"

And I think that CT on the whole avoids criticism in HOME, and simply presents his fathers writings for public viewing, but on the whole I think his father would have been horrified by the actual publishing of what were in JRRT's eyes "the bones of composition"

As to Werts POV that Tolkien was not adverse to making a penny or two. Indeed he wasn't. But only of the finished article as far as I can see, and there's no way that HOME could be so construed. What he also did not like was versions of his works. Hence his dislike for the BBC Radio adaptation, and you can also assume therefore that he would have hated the recently released films.

On the whole though I applaud CT for his work, as I have no personal problem with seeing Tolkien's "bones" and eagerly await The Children of Hurin.

[Sword of the Morning]

I wonder about that though.

I have read Tolkien's Letters and while I agree with the general sentiment of the post, I'm not sure if Tolkien's views wouldn't have been more balanced.

After all, this is a man who CREATED Middle Earth. Apart from everything else, he must have first and foremost a powerful and wonderful imagination and that sense of wonder unique to the greatest storytellers.

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy really represents a level of movie making unimaginable to people living in Tolkien's day.

The special effects and the quality of the actors along with the passion of an entire nation basically made an unadaptable novel into an amazing series of films.

I have a hard time imagining Tolkien not appreciating the McKellan's performance as Gandalf or be amazed at the Balrog or Cave Troll or Gollum.

I'm sure there would have been oversimplifications and portrayals and edits that he would have disliked but I have a hard time imagining even the most curmudgeonly and conservative Oxford professor not watching the WHOLE trilogy and not smiling in approval at what Jackson accomplished. This movie is far from Bakshi and those corny radio readings and while by no means perfect is about as good as any movie adaptation of Lord of the Rings can get.

As an aside, I think that sometimes Tolkien purists are so concerned with defending every single minuscule detail that they forget the forest for the trees. I often wonder if Tolkien himself would have been so dogmatic or whether he would have understood and appreciated the necessity of edits and been tolerant of changes as long as the overall THEMES that were important to him were maintained. After reading Letters, I couldn't help but think that Jackson, Walsh, and Boyens adapted Lord of the Rings almost exactly in the spirit and manner in which Tolkien would have wished with the limitations of the medium they were working with.

And would Tolkien have been completely immune and unaware of the incredible boon the films were to the LITERATURE of Middle Earth. The billion dollar success of the Trilogy has once again made him an icon and introduced literally generations of people world-wide to his work. I can't help but think that he would have appreciated that as well.

All of this is speculation and I suppose we'll never know but after reading Letters I get the feeling that Tolkien might have been more fair and more reasonable than we give him credit for.

Dennis

[Eurytus]

As has been said, Tolkien was critical of versions of his work. The infamous screenplay for a never filmed Hollywood version of LotR featuing feathered Orcs and the fellowship flying from action scene to action scene on Giant Eagles and his reaction to it is well known. God knows what he would have thought of the Beatles planned version.

As for the radio version was his criticism of a version pre the BBC version with Ian Holm? I assume it was because I thought the latter was very well done.

As to the films, no he probably wouldn't have liked them much. If anything because they would have resulted in him being hounded even more than previously. But as has been said I can't believe he wouldn't have found something to like in McKellen's performance as Gandalf or in the accurate depiction of various LotR locales, especially the view of Hobbiton and especially The Hill with Bag End at the top.

[Nightwatcher]

Wow, some of you have such a dislike for CT. I for one am glad he does this kind of work. First, he never claimed to be better than his father or that the books edited by him are canon. He does seem to sincerely attempt to make them as accurately as possible, and he is very protective of his father's work. I certainly don't think he is milking Arda for it's worth (ala Dune).

I loved The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales. I consider them to be the work of JRRT because of the source material with a bit of CT's interpretation simply because his father is not alive anymore. And who better to do such a thing than CT, since he was given direct permission from his dad?

You better believe I'm looking foward to Hurin. To call it the product of rummaging or just making thing up on CT's part is an ignorant misrepresentation. It has been 30 years since the last Tolkien stand alone book was published. I have no doubt it's going to be great.