Don't worry he's not dead

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user its' going to get much, much, much, worse. Peter Jackson had to earn our trust first with an adaptation that most will agree was acceptable for both normies and fans so at least we had that.

Now any hack with enough money can make official canon out of one of the most beloved and universal persistent fantasy worlds in history.

ANYONE can now make official canon in one of the most popular and universal fictional worlds.

Isn't he the guy that got butthurt that DnD had hobbits and forced them to change some stuff? I don't really know who was in charge of the estate at a given time. Either way I'm not really losing sleep over it in a world where we have stuff like Shadow of Mordor (granted that's not even something he benefited from) or those Hobbit movies

I'm gonna play devils advocate, maybe this is good. Hear me out.

It's going to be bad for Tolkien's work. Like, hellova bad. Shit's gonna be shit, yo. But that in itself could be a good thing.

Tolkiens works have been enshrined for so long, they've long since formed the pop culture foundations for our concepts of fantasy. Their sacredness has led to stagnation, as no changes could be made to the canon. Furthermore, the lack of exploration into the material means that to this day, only the fanatics who get fucking degrees in 'Tolkien Studies' or actually manage to read The Silmarillion from cover to cover and RETAIN it (fuck you that thing is literally a history text book, a fun and well written textbook but a textbook none the less) have any real appreciation for the DEPTH and nuance in Tolkiens works. Most normies just know elves hobbits dwarves sauron lmao - particularly because that's all that's been adapted.

This is an opportunity, to really dig into the WEIRD that is the expanded works (like the time a fucking dog kicked Saurons ass), and also upend the paradigms and grognards are forced to find a new altar to worship at by the impetus of hipsterism.

There is a future here, friend. But it only grows off the rotting, defiled corpse of J.R.R. Tolkien.

The fucking vultures are already circling around, probably looking to make Middle Earth cinematic universe

user, I...

Having the rights to something doesn't mean you get to decide what is and is not canon. That resides purely with the original author who last I checked is dead.

>Their sacredness has led to stagnation
That's perfectly alright though. We don't need another Lord of the Rings movie on the same release schedule as star wars movies. Just read a new book god damn

t. retard that hasn't read Moorcock, Lieber, Howard, etc

I did read Moorcock, it was awful. It amuses me to this day how salty he was about Tolkien being so much better than him

>Announcing: 'Disney's The Lord of the Rings Cinematic Universe!'

>other members of the estate were much more willing to negotiate J.R.R. Tolkien’s properties
How the fuck is that possible? How has he not complete control over this? Can't he just invite all of his cunty relatives to his island estate of pretense of dying and revealing his will, kill off the cunts and leave all of his wealth and responsibility to the one nice that reminds him of his father and will carry on the legacy with reverence? Isn't this how shit is done in the UK?

How long do the rights to something even matter? I'm sure Disney or something similar has made it somehow effectively forever, but I'm kind of curious

Tolkien was a brit, so Disney's deathgrip probably doesn't affect his works the same way

>it can't get any worse

You make some good points. The best that could come out of this is that we are able to expand facets of middle-earth that the LotR and Hobbit movies haven't touched, like a series about the Silmarillion or a movie about Beren and Lúthien. Or even stories that take place where no Tolkien has led us, for example what the other wizards did, fucking around in the east. Hardcore fans can safely disregard them as fanfiction that don't interfer with official stories. And they would be fanfiction, something that doesn't tarnish what the fans love.

The worst that can happen are endless rehashes of the same Ring story.

>'Disney's The Lord of the Rings Cinematic Universe!'

In the UK and US it's death of the creator + 70 years. Because that makes sense.

It's infinity, user. Everything else is delusional.

This is a good thing. Maybe somebody else can take a crack at the IP and make it more relevant to today and less relevant to old white guys 50 years ago. I realise this may be a controversial opinion in a place where fat losers have stained their actual keyboards yellow from the cheetos dust.

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>probably can't get any worse.
You just said the magic words.....

This is the reality where 'Death of the Author' as a literary concept exists.

Literary 'intellectuals' are allowed to repurpose and rape the entirety of your work's meanings, even if you're still alive and kicking to explicitly tell them that they're wrong about their interpretations.

Like I was saying shit like Disney trying to keep their mouse and friends to themselves is actually a pretty gigantic lobbying force. I remembered it being something rediculous, but wasn't sure how long after a death it was. I'm not surprised it's the case outside the US. Either way this is just another reason I don't really care who's controlling the Tolkien estate since it's all just a joke

YOU TAKE THAT BACK, ORC FUCKER!

DELET THIS

Basically. They'll just keep bumping it up indefinitely

lmao he was? I did not know that

It's not bait, faggot. Seriously, those books are dated, they feel dated and the story hasn't changed in 50 years while the world has moved on. We make updated versions of Shakespeare's plays all the time and noone but spasticated autists on the internet gives a damn if we make Orsino and indian prince or Othello a nuclear submarine skipper. Grow up, faggots.

>muh speshal book is too perfect to be criticized and repurposed

Satan, is that you~?

Maybe a comment about how Tolkien is just an old white guy thinking about elves in the trenches of Sommes or something like this?

>It's already happened, probably can't get any worse.

>my special book that I've put my heart and soul into should be taken as it is, with my intentions behind it.
>mistakes and all, because who the fuck are you to decide what's a mistake and what isn't?
I don't think that's an unreasonable request, honestly.

>probably can't get any worse

It's a valid way of adapting Romeo & Juliet to modern world. Also makes you consider the implications of their deaths being not tragic - anyone who uses this many emojis deserves death and worse.

It's not all about you, user.

By publishing a work, you're making it part of collective human cultural experience and allowing others to partake.

If you want to keep it to yourself, don't publish it.

...

Or he's just doubling down because some people will respond to the exact same bait if it's posted twice

I wish it was my friend. Big family, it'd be chaos at every death.

I always thought Romeo and Juliet was more about making fun of hope stupid teenagers were than tragic

Really? It was all about stupidity of the rivalry between Capulets and Montagues imo. R&J's ultimate incompatibility resulting in their death was kind of tragic but it helped mend relations between their families.

Whatever Shakespear intended is pretty irrelevant, it all comes down to interpretation and all of them are valid if you're basing them on the text.

I disagree with your outlook on how culture is cultivated.

The creator has the final say. Lord of the Rings wasn't an allegory for the nuke.

>I guess I was the true Lord of the Rings this whole time...

You are wrong.
It's not like Lovecraft or Howard, Tolkien is still under copyright. We will not see original adaptations by courageous people on crowdfunding or garage kit models made by some artist in the spare time. born by passion.

Instead Tolkien will become another property of some big corporation. Untouchable, except for the licensed projects.

DELET

plz no

Jesus Christ. I'm not sure if I can even imagine something worse than this

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fuck me

>no changes could be made to the canon
and?

It's a set of books. They don't really need adding to or revising.

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And they'll keep shitting out any crap to make sure they don't loose the licence.

It will get worse, one film a year by the cheapest director with a shred of believability worse
People who only care about their next paycheck are going to be in charge of one of the most defining literary works of the past century (argue with this, I dare you)

I can already see a film version of Silmarilion. Fingolfin is played by Benedict Cumberbatch and the duel with Morgoth is a Marvel esque quipfest.

I'm scared, Veeky Forums, has the Dark Lord won?

...

Look at and tell me what you think

>mfw
youtube.com/watch?v=Ux0Irxb9mDo

>Sauron is dead.
>Middle earth rejoices
>BUT THIS SUMMER THAT'S ALL GOING TO END
>Get ready for MORGOTH STRIKES BACK

F

What exactly is the big deal?
Are they gonna stop printing the books or something?

We're likely getting movie adaptation where Frodo is butch dyke and Aragorn black transsexual.

Ok so another thing I won't watch or pay any attention too.

Exactly. The books won't change so who gives a fuck.

Jacksons LOTR aren't perfect but they'll never be topped neither for quality and definitely not for popularity.

It'll be like the Clash of the Titans. No one will remember the 2000s movies only the original stop motion. It can't be bettered.

Ok, I'm gonna bite here. But I promise I will not troll.

The Silmarillion is shit.

Pure, unbiased shit.

Tolkien is already interesting as a writer because his at best mediocre prose works contrarywise to the greatness of his ideas. In this, The Epic Pooh is more than correct, it's actually illuminating.
Note that in this he's unique to fantasy as well.

The Silmarillion is atrocious not only in writing (which is a whole metric fuckton of worse anyway compared to the Hobbit or even LOTR) but because it lacks ideas.Yes, you read me right. The characters have no qualities to distinguish them, there is (and this is incredibly importante in Tolkien) almost no memorable "landscape feature", even the tragedies are boring (LOTR is interesting in its "tragic" parts because it's very introspective, the Silmarillion reads as a glorified game review). It would be impossible to make it a) faithful and b) captiviting, but that's not dependent on the directors or anything.
The only thing I would save is the Ainulindale, amusignly enough.

Hell, the Lost Tales are incredibly better. Even those. But in the end it's pretty telling he didn't publish the S.

Jackson will be topped easily, it's not that hard to stop making fun of burping dwarves, but that's not gonna happen with Amazon.

>It would be impossible to make it a) faithful and b) captivating
Can you name one movie adaptation (of anything) from recent years that gave two tugs of dead mutt's rotten cock about column a)? I honestly can't.

...

Watchmen was pretty darn faithful. Swapping out the Squid for Dr. Manhattan was basically just an aesthetic difference.

I specified the LOTR. The Hobbit movies never happened.

Fellowship of the Ring without a doubt will never be topped. It will be the definitive fantasy movie for at least a good couple of decades. (Conan the Barbarian is the only competitor).

this guy gets it

As a complete troglodyte, can someone explain why the Hobbit films were so bad and the LotR ones were not? I mean, I've seen people bitch about the LotR trilogy as well, but most everyone seems to hate the Hobbit ones.

how can someone ask this and post on this board?

Have you seen any of them?
Are you familiar with the corresponding books?

The Hobbit was a short book dragged out over three movies, no changes were for the better, and its excessive use of greenscreen caused Sir Ian McKellen to break down in tears at a point. It's a fucking disgrace.

I still think about suicide after that

>Literary 'intellectuals' are allowed to repurpose and rape the entirety of your work's meanings, even if you're still alive and kicking to explicitly tell them that they're wrong about their interpretations.
>Disney's marketing executives are "Literary 'intellectuals'"
t. Cleetus

Incredible deviation from the source texts, beyond simple streamlining attempts for pragmatic reasons. We're talking a new, unnecessary villain, romance subplot, and extended, over-the-top final fight scenes.
The only addition of any real worth was showing what the fuck Gandalf and the White Council did with that Necromancer guy, and they even screwed the execution of that one up. Extreme lighting changes are useful tools, yes, but coupled with all that blue lighting and colour desaturation it just looks like a fucking photo negative. I can't believe I'm saying this, but if I want to see high-power magic duels, I'd prefer the Harry Potter movies over that.

>Dwarves muh dikin elvish wimmenz
LOTR trilogy had issues, but issues you could overlook and forget about

Death of the Author is legit you trog

In both of them, PJ's edits from the original books tend to be in the same "direction" for lack of a better term. He changes things to conform the stories being told into a grander epic about how the Good Guys fight the Bad Guys, personified by Sauron. That's why you have things like the Elves at Helms Deep, which is usually the go to "what the fuck" change in the original films.

The thing is, while that's not really the main point of the LoTR trilogy, it's close enough and the war of the Ring is a big enough deal that you can get away with it, and whatever errors are introduced because of this direction are mostly compensated by good visuals and good acting.

Then we have the Hobbit. Which is very much not about how epic heroic good guys fight Sauron. In fact, Sauron's participation is pretty incidental to the story. But PJ can't have that, so he has to work in about half a movie's worth of stuff that was deliberately excluded from the books. He also has to make the dwarves badasses, (but bumbling comic badasses), because he wants to tell an epic heroic tale of tough supersoldiers who get Bilbo to be another tough supersoldier instead of a bunch of bumbling accountants who get in over their heads very quickly. He has to cover more distance, and he doesn't.

Also, the visuals were pretty bad looking, and the acting wasn't nearly as good, so not only does it attempt to diverge from the books harder, it does so without the saving graces of the earlier movies.

So any copyright lawyers on Veeky Forums tonight to explain what exactly is going to happen to the IP, now, legally? I never knew you could just sort of abdicate copyright. Does that just make it public domain? I don't think it does, but I honestly can't figure out how else it would work unless "resigns from estate" is just a fancy way of saying "Amazon put Chris' nuts in a vice until he sold them the rights"

Why wouldn't he just sign it off to one of his kids or grandkids?

The Martian.

>inb4 they changed the ship to some bullshit liner

It's not really that hard to find better fantasy movies, user. The trilogy is... good, probably not thanks to PJ, but...

The Hobbit movies are Wuite good and they could edit one really good fantasy movie out of the trilogy. No doubt someone has, but the stuff on the cutting room floor made all the hyperbolic prequel hate of the turn of the century seem completely redundant.

That lickspittle character alone is enough for me to never watch the theatrical cut again.

I say in all seriousness and without exaggeration Jackson should have committed suicide after the Battle of the Five Armies.

>Incredible deviation from the source texts, beyond simple streamlining attempts for pragmatic reasons
Are you seriously implying the LoTR trilogy didn't have this?

>The only addition of any real worth was showing what the fuck Gandalf and the White Council did with that Necromancer guy,
But that's a retarded addition, and it changes what the core story of the Hobbit is about; no longer is it Bilbo's journey and the realization that a victorian stand-in can function, and function well in an archaic fantasy world, but it's now "Lord of the Rings: THE PREQUEL!"

>what exactly is going to happen to the IP
the highest bidder

The martian
pretty much the only difference is that in the book he suggests going iron man and his commander calls him retarded so he doesn't do it. In the film he does it anyway and fails horribly.
Also the book goes really into the science of everything, but the film doesn't actually change anything that happens, just doesn't explain it all to the same level of tism.

Too hard for you to name any in your post.

That's... my first post, actually. Do you need it after or before the Fellowship?