The age of anxiety:

[Ibrîniðilpathânezel]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

It is rather disquieting to consider that a classic such as LotR, with a readership of millions, requires such incessant meddling to make it palatable for the general public (who obviously require flashing lights and rapid, jerky movements to maintain their interest, much like my cat). This is not only true in gaming, but in the making of the films as well. James O'Barr (creator of The Crow) once said of the Hollywood process and how they try to change the original plot of stories, "You have this beautiful tree and everyone wants to p*** on it".

Only too true, I'm afraid -- although I would venture to say that often, the meddling is required to make the material palatable to the number crunchers whose bottom line is profit, and thus who keep lowering the bar on the lowest common denominator of what they think will make a thing appeal to the largest possible number of people (everyone, if they could manage it). And, I think, there are people who make film and television adaptations who cannot do so without "leaving their mark" on their source material, too often inappropriately. As you have seen this in the gaming community, I have seen it in the literary field. One of my fiction writing mentors was an enormously popular SF author, and has been approached again and again by people wanting to turn her works into movies or TV shows. (I think there have been at least as many attempts to adapt her books as there have been attempts at adapting LotR, possibly more.) To date all of them have failed, either because of financial issues or "creative differences." I'm sure there are a few people in the movie industry grumbling about the impossibility of trying to make a movie based a book when the author is still alive and insists on exerting creative control.