Squatter, you are right, my language was inappropriate. Lampooned it is then! I believe that Christopher is in his right to challenge certain publications of his fathers material.
Oringinally posted by Child of the 7th Age
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The estate threatened to bring lawsuits and all these sites were shut down so that it is now difficult to find a good online map. Writers outside the circle chosen by the estate have had trouble publishing some materials.
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I think this is no different to those on this site and other forum sites who make a point to correct other members of their points made in their posts. To some degree we seek for a perfection in the understanding of Tolkien's world and with it at times comes said correction of others.
In a way Christopher is performing this "correction", he is preserving the Tolkien estate from being completely diluted by the masses. He is very much of the same "thought" stock as Tolkien himself. Who in his letters we see is disappointed with certain representations of characters by critics.
I can quote a fair amount from the letters, mostly to Allen & Unwin,
"An abridgement by selection with some good picture-work would be pleasant, & perhaps worth a good deal in publicity; but the present script is rather a compression with resultant over-crowding and confusion, blurring of climaxes, and general degradation: a pull-back towards more conventional 'fairy-stories'. People gallop about on Eagles at the least provocation; Lórien becomes a fairy-castle with 'delicate minarets', and all that sort of thing. But I am quite prepared to play ball, if they are open to advice..." (Letter #201)
"As far as I am concerned personally, I should welcome the idea of an animated motion picture, with all the risk of vulgarization; and that quite apart from the glint of money, though on the brink of retirement that is not an unpleasant possibility. I think I should find vulgarization less painful than the sillification achieved by the B.B.C." (Letter #198) [My bold]
I could continue and bloat my post to the most hideous of distended proportions, including much of letter #210, of which many of the points are critisisms. Tolkien is at best scathing of the attempts at an adaptation. Much like the Tolkien estate today, and referring back to
Child of the 7th Age's example of their "censoring". Despite the possibility of money coming their way in return (I refer to my bold).
Christopher is Tolkien pure and simple, far more interested in protecting the interests of his father's work and the work itself, who, to use a term Tolkien frequently wrote, would "degrade" the story. Long live Christopher and his sensible censorship!