I‘ve just read an interesting article entitled Tolkien’s children fight for ‘Lord of the Rings’ gold by Los Angeles Times columnist Rachel Abramowitz. She claims that the Tolkien Estate has not received a penny from New Line Cinema for basing their trilogy of hugely successful films based on his fantasy classic Lord of the Rings.
While this may be true and I deplore the chronic failure of crooked movie companies to compensate authors, what she fails to mention in her article is that the success of Peter Jackson’s three LOTR movies has created a windfall for the Tolkien Estate because of the concurrent upsurge in the popularity of the professor’s books.
I remember what it was like back in the early 2000’s walking into a bookstore. The shelves were brimming with all sorts of Tolkien books. The truth is that this resurgence was all made possible by Peter Jackson and the New Line movies. Christopher Tolkien had nothing to do with it.
Making the Forbes List
For 3 years in a row J.R.R. Tolkien made the Forbes Richest Dead Celebrities List. In 2001 Tolkien ranked #8 with $8 million. In 2002 he ranked #7 with $12 million. Finally in 2003 Forbes ranked him a stunning #3 with $22 million only surpassed by Elvis and Charles Schultz of Peanuts comic strip fame. Let’s also not forget that the Tolkien Estate probably earned a significant boost in book sales from the films both before and after the movies were released.
I find it amusing that the columnist tries to make us feel sorry for the Tolkien Estate. Many times in the article she refers to the Tolkien heirs as “elderly” conjuring up images of frail senior citizens wasting away in an old age home. Once she refers to them as children — as if they are helpless waifs trapped in Dickensian workhouse. Well they’re hardly children anymore and they’re certainly not penniless.
It’s hard to feel sorry for Tolkien’s heirs considering the way they may have treated their own children as reported by the UK Independent article and by Entertainment Weekly both in December of 2001. Imagine being disowned by your father all because you publicly expressed the opinion that you liked Peter Jackson’s films. Some family!
Sticks and Stones
Every time Christopher makes the news he’s suing someone. The Tolkien Estate is now trying to prevent New Line Cinema from making the Hobbit movie. He even sicked his lawyers on a blogger who called him a “pr*ck”. When you consider the horrors that J.R.R. Tolkien must have witnessed in the trenches in France in World War 1 being called a foul name pales in comparison. Methinks the prodigal son should grow a thicker skin of mithril.
Considering the millions of additional dollars that this glorified file clerk who has existed for most of his life on the coattails of his famous father and the Tolkien Estate have made because of Peter Jackson’s adaptations of his father’s classic works it’s hard to feel sorry for him. Apparently Christopher Tolkien failed to appreciate the themes of the ills of greed and abuse of power contained within the Lord of the Rings.
How many millions is enough for you Christopher?
The True Impact of the Movies
Let’s also not forget that because of Peter Jackson and New Line millions of people have been exposed to the literary masterpiece that is Lord of the Rings both in books and in movies. That fact alone should be enough of a triumph to console poor old Christopher Tolkien.
I’m getting tired of the stranglehold that lawsuits over intellectual property are having on our freedom and culture. The sooner that the works of J.R.R. Tolkien enter into the public domain and join the esteemed ranks of Homer,Virgil, Shakespeare and other literary giants — the better.
-Wolfshead
Christopher Tolkien has a bad reputation for ages by now. The Grail Keeper of the Tolkien Heritage knows how to make money. One cannot blame him for that, he is sitting on a gold mine, after all.
Think of the “Children of Hurin”. The book would indeed never have sold so well or got so many positive reviews if it would not have benn released just in time to ride the wave of renewed Tolkien enthusiasm. It is not a bad book, but I have already forgotten it.
Regarding “The Hobbit”, one of my first computer RPG experiences was this game: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hobbit_(1982_video_game)
Wikipedia has a lot of praise for the parser. Well, I was 5 or 6 years old and could not understand what Thorin Oakenshield actually wanted from me. My father had to translate, but I quickly realized that knowing some verbs and nouns is enough to play text adventures. I just read “Dragon” and loved the box art.
I was stuck so often in this game it was not funny anymore. I needed 1 hour to leave the house… I tried everything. But I was always told “the way is blocked”. 🙁
Then I got a genius idea: “open door”.
Then I met an orc somewhere on the road… he was killing me several hundred times. My father killed him, because he knew the right words to deal with him. Then I was talking to Gollum about “fish?” for over an hour…
For those interested in contemporary fantasy literature, I recommend G.R.R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire”, Jim Butcher’s “Codex Alera” and Joe Abercrombie’s “The First Law” trilogy. 🙂
Good golly, I didn’t know anyone else actually shared my opinion of C. Tolkien and his rapacious parental corpse-consumption. (Maybe I should be careful what I say — I might get sued! :D)
As a slight tangent, I’ve been increasingly saddened to see the same sort of thing happen to Frank Herbert’s estate. I’m not sure he was a Tolkien, but he was certainly an imaginative writer who contributed a great deal to the SF field back in the day. A few years back I tried to read 0ne of the derivative “Dune saga continues! It’s not written by Frank, but it’s okay really, you’ll never notice the difference, we promise!” books, and was sorely disappointed.
Here’s where I could rant, as a Lit graduate (English AND French, because I’m just that awesome), that setting a book in a known setting does NOT make you that setting’s author and certainly does not make you any kind of a decent writer. But then that would lead to a rant about the abysmal quality of editing today (people who, have no idea where; to use punctuation and lets not get into speling), after which I’d have to circle back to progeny who think that just because they share Mum or Dad’s chromosomes, they have a right to be selfish bastards about what Mum or Dad created.
I try really, really hard to believe in the essential goodness of humans, but at the end of the day it seems more likely that we’re mostly asshats in sheep’s clothing. Bah humbug! 😉
Dune was great. The series kept getting weirder and less appealing to me, though, so I didn’t even dare pick up the non-Herbert sequels.
Ysh, poor editing is one of my pet peeves as well. I’ve read many, many books, and it seems like editors are getting lazier as time goes on.
OH! And don’t get me started on the film companies!
/wanders off, tin-foil hat in hand, muttering a to giant invisible bunny
There’s got to be some kind of happy medium between utter mendacity and letting oneself get ripped off — whereas sadly these days, film companies are on one extreme and solitary saps whose work gets nicked are on the other.
Oh and I used to laugh myself silly as a kid in Geneva every time I drove past the intellectual property organisation building — it’s hard not to grin at something called WIPO.
I’ve previously heard tales about how poorly the steward of the Tolkien legacy has treated others when it comes to the IP. That is always a shame to see. I am fully with you on how insane IP laws are getting. I’m all for content creators profiting but at some point it does become ridiculous.
Organizations like the RIAA and MIAA just keep pushing and pushing to lock down everything. At some point enough money should be enough.
In general, I’m a strong supporter of intellectual property laws. They help the little guy protect what’s his. But, sometimes things go too far. Tolkien died before I was born, and the fact that his works are still under such control is saddening. Eventually works should pass into the public domain, especially ones that become cultural touchstones.
Unfortunately, there’s no good solution to the issue. Take away rights and the little guy gets screwed. Keep the current rights and you get B.S. like this. Just sad.
I got so disgruntled and tired of the Tolkien estate that I never even picked up Children of Hurin. I wanted to, but I figured it was another cash-grab that wouldn’t be worth the time I would sink into it. My life’s pretty much the same with or without it, which is a terrible thing to say about any book, really.
@Ysharros: I wanted to try the entire Dune series (I read the first one for my Master’s comps), but I haven’t been able to delve into anything new lately. I loved the first one.
@Longasc: Does the Codex Alera get better after the first one? It was so bland compared to The Dresden Files that I never started book 2.
@Beej regarding Codex Alera: Consensus among the readers of CA is that the first one is not nearly as good as the later ones. But I have only read the first one so far, and there are some even more pretty cliché and trivial things that happen in the later books (I reads some summaries and reviews), so I am not sure if this is actually true. CA has just been released in Germany, the Dresden Files have already been translated for quite some time and it is funny to see that mamy German readers say the same as the English readers: It is just not the Dresden Files!
I think the problem is that you and many other Dresden File readers expected something more like the Dresden Files, while Codex Alera is just the classic High Fantasy scheme with a few twists, like the Furies. I think this is the deal breaker for most.
This is a bit sad, as Butcher is an awesome writer, and it shows in Codex Alera. I would say, give it another chance. There will be some more races like the Canim and the Icemen, just do not expect too much innovation from the series. 🙂
Don’t have much to say to add to the prickly state (pun intended) of the current Tolkien legacy.
But as for Dune, I loved the first 3 volumes, then gradually disliked the others more and more. But the new serie has rekindled my interest. I’ve just read the first one, and truly enjoyed it. It’s just… I don’t see the link with the first Dune universe yet -___-.
I find the characters interesting, and liked the fact that there were 3 different stories at once. Kind of reminds me of Ilium and Olympos, from Dan Simmons, which I heartily advise you to read. The Trojan War like you’ve never seen it…
I liked Ilium, it was weird, crazy, fascinating, but Olympos was such a letdown! I almost expected that Simmons could not come to a satisfying end after all that weirdness.
Very well said, Wolfshead! I get tired of this money grabbing attitude that seems to prevail everywhere these days, particuarly in the film industry. It seems to either be actors demanding obscene amounts of cash or film companies trying to screw people over. Anyway, I digress 🙂
I’m sure the Tolkien estate is making a ton of cash and I’m equally sure they got paid a heavty sum for the films. I’d bet my bottom dollar that they just didn’t think the films were going to be as successful as they were and now they want a bigger slice of the pie.
While C. Tolkien may or may not be a nice person, according to the LA Times article, it sounds like he has a legitimate case against Warner Brothers. The article said, “…Tolkien licensed motion picture rights to United Artists back in 1969 for a low six-figure sum and 7.5% of the *gross receipts.*”
And: “The film trilogy, which grossed $2.96 billion worldwide at the box office and $3 billion or so more in DVD and ancillary markets…”
Assuming the article is correct, the Tolkiens *do* have a legal claim to a percentage of the gross, which the studio is refusing to pay. You can argue that their book sales increased, but that doesn’t change the fact that the studio *also* owes them royalties on the films.Which is hasn’t paid. Personally, like him or not, I hope Chris Tolkien wins the lawsuit – studios need to be held accountable, not just use “creative” accounting to avoid paying contractually-required royalties.
Screw moviemakers. They’re meant to be books. The books are the important thing. They’re a literary legacy and not a movie legacy, and a million rabid Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings fans won’t change that. While I agree to a certain extent about copyright infringement strangleholds, it has more to do with sharing things online than outright piracy. Why buy anything when you can read it/see it for free? Do the numbers add up? Are the amount of people who see things for free, decide it’s worthy, and buy it more than the number of leeches? Do most have no sense of empathy because they themselves are not trying to live off of books or art? In music it doesn’t hurt the oldsters who have gotten theirs and can afford to put things out for free, and it would appear to help expose new talent – but the new talent hits a plateau, because the number of people downloading material evens out the number of actual sales. Art used to be IMPORTANT, and now it’s just a bloody meal ticket for increasingly infantile and plain stupid people who are convinced that they can learn greatness by buying it instead of having a real grasp of the direction of art and their own genius. People used to have appreciation for every aspect of an album, from it’s cover art to the lyrics, to the live presentation, the skill of the performers, the lighting, the storytelling. Now it’s just style style style. People in the 18th century didn’t have cable, or satellites, or television, or the internet, or computers, or iPods, or tape machines – NONE of it. They had ALL day long to not be distracted by trivia and work on new works of greatness. Not that there weren’t egos, and costumes, and behind the scenes politics, but everything was deemed IMPORTANT. A high standard was always grasped for, even if not attained. Now any joe blow can produce music in their home on their laptop and the amount of crap-to-brilliant-ratio is discouragingly disproportionate. And this isn’t subjective, as there are objective standards of skill that go a long way towards describing whether or not something is good before it gets into the hazy realm of subjective experience. So screw moviemakers – there is not one final ultimate vision of someone’s books, like Tolkien – each and every reader sees their own version of Middle Earth in their own minds. That’s what it’s about, not how many sales of merchandise the movie has spawned. Bollocks to that.