Do you think Tolkien would be insulted by the LOTR movies?

[narfforc]

Tolkien could never come to terms with the enormous thing he had created, and the commercial aspect of the films resulting in doubling book sales, would have gone over his head I think. He would have been happy generally, somethings may have upset him, missing out bits you can understand, but inventing bits of your own, well who knows what he would have said. Maybe he would have felt like many of us, however I would like to think for the good reasons. Think of how many people have gone on to read the written word of Tolkien, and remember why this gift was given in the first place, and why he spent a lifetime to give us it.

[davem]

Its well known that Tolkien was uncomfortable with dramatisations of fantasy/fairy stories generally - see his comments in OFS for example. I suspect that he would have felt that out of all the various movies Jackson's version was the best overall adaptation. Having said that, we know that this adaptation (the only one we can presume he would have seen) did meet with authorial approval for the performances (Bogart's Frodo is in many ways superior to Wood's) if not for the modern day setting. Chandler's script does of course omit many of the subtleties of the novel, but Hawks' direction manages to communicate the deeper themes well.