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Originally Posted by davem
Its unlikely any movie of Lord of the Rings would have suited CT - and certainly not his father given his comments in OFS. Still, Tolkien sold the film rights & made PJ's movie possible. It could certainly be argued that if CT feels as he does he should direct at least some of his anger at his father for selling his pearl of great price in the first place. The book is still there for those who want to read it.
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Well, it's not like Tolkien was rolling in the money selling the film rights, and at those days commercial merchandise was nowhere near what it would become after Lucas' Star Wars films.
Just my observations here, but it seems at first Christopher Tolkien did not care a great deal about the films. Maybe he did not like them/approve of their making, but for the most part it seemed as if Chistopher's opinion was "Hollywood will do what they want and I don't want any part of it." I can't really fault him for that, because with as much money that was dumped into the films, big showtime Hollywood was going to get the movie they wanted. You can't exactly tell a corporation dumping 100s of millions of dollars into films "Haldir doesn't die, and the only elf at Helm's Deep was Legolas." With the end product, I don't blame Christopher for refusing Jackson's invitation to advise on the films.
The real anger though, I believe, was New Line attempting to cheat the Estate out of their royalties. There really is no excuse for such blatant crookery and it's doubly disgusting that the Estate had to spend years in litigation to get what was their just due from the contract. Even if New Line's part was not Jackson's fault, I think with the product of the films, combined with New Line being crooks, I can see why Christopher Tolkien is far more peeved at the movie-industry then you or me.