[davem]

Originally Posted by Bb

There is a world of difference between CT the scholar and the writers of the ST and SW universes. Yet hasn't CT invited, even inflamed, the desire, whetted by these other situations, for other Middle earth stories? Once JRRT opened up his imagination to CT, a subtle knife cut into the canonicity issue and the dust spills over.

I don't know. CT produced the '77 Sil because his father had been promising to publish the Silmarillion for years, & had always wanted to see it in print. CT's 'contribution' was mainly the final 3 chapters, which Tolkien had not brought into a sufficiently complete state (probably the understatement of the century). For the rest CT has basically published what his father left in pretty much the state he left it.

CoH is a case in point. That is 99.99% Tolkien pere, & CT's contribution has been in the main to provide linking sentences:

In the result, while I have had to introduce bridging passages here and there in the piecing together of different drafts, there is no element of extraneous 'invention' of any kind, however slight, in the longer text here presented. The text is nonetheless artificial, as it could not be otherwise: the more especially since this great body of manuscript represents a continual evolution in the actual story. Drafts that are essential to the formation of an uninterrupted narrative may in fact belong to an earlier stage. Thus, to give an example from an earlier point, a primary text for the story of the coming of Túrin's band to the hill of Amon Rûdh, the dwelling place that they found upon it and their life there, and the ephemeral success of the land of Dor-Cúarthol, was written before there was any suggestion of the Petty-dwarves; and indeed a fully-developed description of Mîm's house beneath the summit appears before Mîm himself.
In the remainder of the story, from Túrin's return to Dor-lómin, to which my father gave a finished form, there are naturally very few differences from the text in Unfinished Tales. But there are two matters of detail in the account of the attack on Glaurung at Cabed-en-Aras where I have emended the original words and which should be explained. (CoH Composition of the Text)

If any of the other tales were in such a virtually complete state, I'd be all for them being published. They aren't - nowhere near.

Originally Posted by Sauron the White

Is it possible that there can be some acceptable world in between those of THE CANON as written directly by Tolkien himself and the fan fiction area?
Perhaps we can find an area that is not considered THE CANON but is considerable more authoritative than fan fiction.

No, there's Tolkien's creation. Anything else is fanfic (whatever you choose to call it). Look, there is little chance of anyone producing authoritative or acceptable versions of the other 'Great Tales' (Fall of Gondolin & Beren & Luthien) for very good reasons - the Gondolin material is too confused & contradictory in nature, style & content for anything better than CT has produced in the '77 Sil to be produced ( I suspect that anyone trying to put together a novel length version of it would find themselves very bogged very quickly) & Beren & Luthien should simply be considered untouchable out of respect for Tolkien. B&E simply meant too much to him, was too personal. The idea that someone would turn it into an adventure story is about as distasteful an idea as I can imagine. This is not to treat the story as 'Holy Writ', merely to show proper respect to Tolkien.

The earlier suggestion that someone could one day write a story about the finding of the Silmarils shows a complete misunderstanding of the symbolism of the Jewels finding their end in Air, Earth & Water, & would be as silly as the repeated death/resurrection of the bad guys in trashy horror movie sequels.

The other option would be to write novels, or series of novels, set in Middle-earth, with Elves, Dwarves & Hobbits going off to have adventures - which would basically reduce Middle-earth to a standard fantasy world franchise & cheapen Tolkien's creation. And I hope any response to that point can avoid the 'Well, one day a genius may come along...' argument.

What will happen when the copyrights begin to expire?

I'm sure the vultures will gather & wring every penny out of Tolkien's genius they can.