Disp, did you make this video just because it gave you a chance to comment on the ineptitude of both journalists and academics at the same time? Yes. Yes I did. Let me know your thoughts down below and as always, thanks for watching :)

That’s the biggest “press X to doubt” I have ever seen.

What seems much more likely is the Tolkien, perhaps naïvely, was willing to work with the Tiller adaptation, but during 'discussions' came to realise they were going to change it in ways he did not approve of and hence was 'dismayed' and later disparaged it.

Oh how convenient “lost scripts” of Tolkien’s work just happens to pop up at the time where REAL Tolkien fans are calling this show out.

Mindboggling! Next they will be saying Tolkien got in touch with them via a seance! "He loved the script".

Let’s be honest, Tolkien probably wouldn’t have been overly fond of the LotR trilogy, and especially not the Hobbit, so why do these buffoons think he would be okay with this garbage? Also, very convenient and timely discovery from the BBC, almost as if they knew it was there and just happened to ‘discover’ it

The spelling and grammar corrections that Tolkien objected to included people trying to switch the plural of 'elf' to 'elfs' and the plural of 'dwarf' to 'dwarfs' (instead of elves and dwarves respectively). This was a very big deal to him because everything related to the English language was a big deal to him, so when people tried to 'correct' him he was understandably irked

A picture's worth a thousand words. All I take away from the article is Tolkien's Big Red X on their adaptation.

News from next week: PBS and NPR have consulted with the world renown medium, Madame Distortionia, who has been constantly in contact with the spirit of JRR Tolkien. Accord to her sworn testimony, Tolkien is delighted with the changes made in ROP. Distortionia says "He is elated!! He is so happy someone finally noticed there were no African Dwarfs. He says that was his biggest regret was not living long enough to edit his writings to include the most famous dwarf empire, Compton-Dur. He also wanted to be sure the LGBTQ+ community got the representation he forgot. He alluded to the fact that he always meant to explain that the Entwives disappeared because there were lesbians and wanted to live away from the Ents. Ohhh, and just in case anyone was interested, Radagast was trans." NPR and PBS both applaud the strength and courage of the departed author, reaching out from beyond to set matters right.

If they put half as much effort into making the series fit Tolkien's work as they put into trying to justify their changes we'd be sitting with a masterpiece.

tolkien spend about seven decades writing The Lord of The Rings, The Hobbit, The Simlarilion, plus tons of side lore, languages, genealogical trees, maps, history lessons, and more. i bet he's not happy a group of idiots are changing everything in the spawn of a single year

Oh wow they just happened to turn up all of a sudden? :o How magical!

These people think Tolkien would approve of Amazon's adaptation? They're surely mistaken

It’s funny that they’re trying to say Tolkien would approve when he absolutely hated it when people tried to make adaptations that didn’t properly follow his books

Even calling this fan fiction is giving Amazon too much credit.

So to them, he was a racist, anti-semite yada yada whose fanbase is also said buzzwords, but also totally ok with his work being turned upside down and filled with an outdating agenda as its internal message because they "found" a manuscript regarding him discussing alterations for the sake of adaptation from one medium to another, so he's cool now, but also isn't depending on if the situation deems it better to call him bad or word around to say he'd be ok with them making something else and adding his IP's name on it for attention

"Early in his career, Tolkien worked with the BBC to adapt his story for radio and then never again worked that closely with anyone for another adaptation again. He must have loved the experience!"

They are insane. Maybe they can ask him when he returns to haunt them for what they are doing to his life's work.

Dude this channel has quickly become one of my favorites…by a mile. 🤙🏻

The BBC did adapt LOTR into a radio play (26 hours!). It was very faithful from what I remember with a great cast of classically trained voice actors. In 1981 the BBC didn’t feel the need to make sweeping changes to characters/world building. Same is true of Ralph Bakshi’s animated adaptation …. wonder if this was due to Christopher Tolkiens stewardship???? Seems like a direct contradiction to the BBC/guardians current take when you think about it? Very subjective (boarding on mental gymnastics) view from the BBC/Guardian - poor journalism.

A LotR adaptation is one thing. An adaptation altered to "reflect what the world actually looks like" is another thing entirely. *BTW Tolkien rigorously fought to stop editors for American publishers from changing "dwarves" to "dwarfs"

So what if he did work on an adaption, doesn't mean he liked it, maybe he wanted to make sure they didn't screw it up! Maybe the writers had the intention of staying true to his work, after all, this was at a time before the world lost its mind! And why exactly does any of this automatically mean he'd agree with Amazon's effort! What a nonsensical world we live in!

next it will be a audio recording of Tolkien saying he wishes he put more Transsexual Nigerian Hobbits in

Amazon keeps learning the hard way that you shouldn't meddle with someones life work that countless fans have fallen in love with. If you do said fans will act out in a most vituperative manner towards the disrespect of that authors legacy.

He's ok with it, eh? Did they Bill and Ted him to get that bullshit conclusion?

All these articles lately, really show that Amazon has indeed felt the sting of the Tolkien fandom, i don't care what they say, they are in a bit of a panic.

I was willing to do a lot of things in my business when it was a nascent one, versus what I learned hurt my brand as it grew. The fact he later vociferously opposed a film adaptation suggests the radio adaptation may have been a very bad experience for him.

Instead of realizing this is DOA and not wanted Amazon will spend millions more to still fail if the backlash is this bad you cannot change it redo the show or accept it will fail

Breaking: BBC archivist discovers Tolkien's lost treatment for Galadriel: Warrior Princess of Harad, set to star Ethel Merman and Bill Cosby. "I totally wrote this and all kids should subscribe to Amazon Prime" found in Tolkien's handwriting on 1960s scripts, say Tolkien scholars.

If Tom Shippey and Simon Tolkien were involved in this Amazon show, this SJW disaster wouldn't happened. Sadly, Simon Tolkien wasn't there, and Shippey's fired. We're doomed.

I'm almost certain Tolkien would not like Peter Jackson's adaptations despite them being largely faithful to the books and they think he would like their abomination? Their lack of self-awareness is hilarious... :D

the only "changes" they're making is what folks considered the bottom of the barrel desecration and desperation.

Every video you upload is amazing. Thanks so much!!

Vitrupitive, hell yes. After 5 decades of reading Tolkein he can still school me on new words. Fuck, i love that guy.

They are reaching big time to come to this conclusion

Yeah, he hated it. We all know that. He wrote it down to prove it.

You're so right. Anyone who knows a bit about Tolkien and his authorship knows that he did not like alterations and dramatisations at all. He was a linguist and built his mythology around his ever evolving work on the languages of Middle Earth. So much so that if he changed a word in one of those languages, that caused him to go back and rewrite parts of the story. This was a man who cared passionately about his creation and I think he deserves deep respect for his desicions. He was the creator. I think he would have been very, very upset and bitter about the way this production seems to have gone. It is so sad. 😔

The text in dark ink is in Tolkien's hand. The red crayon is that of some other person (presumably an editor for the radio production). Also, since Tolkien is here offering two alternative approaches to the editor, the editorial markings amount to nothing more than the editor selecting one offered alternative (the first) and rejecting the other. What this shows is that Tolkien was willing to reshape his own narrative (in terms of who provides what information) to suit the medium of radio. (It certainly does not show Tolkien being willing to add completely foreign elements to the narrative, even for radio; or to fundamentally misrepresent its themes and concerns.)

After reading The Lord of the Rings decades ago when I was in school, I believe I had a few insights of the writer's mind. I must admit, Professor Tolkien's books are a hard read, and for that, I don't believe he will be happy for any changes because he had poured his will to a specific narrative. And that narrative made most of us, the fans, happy. So when you make changes and then say he'd be glad for it... Sirs, you lie!

Reworking a screen and add new characters, changing whole characters, changing the story itself are different things.

This is sad to see. The cultural vandalism is horrific

I wouldn't poison my chips with that rag.

I love how they flipflop. The Tolkien scholar starts with “Tolkien's” Opinion wouldn't matter, that obviously caused back lash and now its “Tolkien's” opinion would have been positive. If you recall he sent a nasty letter to a fan about how Disney's aim for profit off of snow white and not staying true to the story was sad. This is an interpretation, stories of the modern era took scary fairytales and made them palatable for children. If I may paraphrase Tolkien. I think he would find rings of power “Too disnified.”

At this rate we could probably wrap Tolkien's remains with magnets and run a copper wire around his grave to generate infinite power.

Good news I got a new copy of The Hobbit hard cover with illustrations and The Children of Hurin, The Fall of Gondolin and Beren and Luthien on sale, also hard cover. Soooooo Happy.

I hope they have cars and airplanes in the series. It would reflect our world, and there's way too much walking in Tolkien's original.

AY UP DISPARU

Very teacher, crossing's student homework which was a trash in the beginning. 🤣🤣

"One doesn't edit Tolkien." (Tom Shippey, LOTR box set.) The RADIO mentioned in this article "conveniently" discovered, is entirely different to Movie (or Television). In the '65 interview Tolkien himself stated that he never wanted to see a visual adaptation of his works because "it would change the mental image he had of his own creation", and this is why he didn't want it made. From this perspective, I can understand his issue- but from our perspective as fans, we're glad it's been done in LOTR. As for alterations- Tolkien fought often with publishers about editing (understandable as a Professor of English!) As stated by Tom Shippey. The BBC may have dusted this off from 1956 as evidence, but Tolkien's own interview of 1965 and his opinions trump that- so nice try BBC-shills, but it's a no-goal lol.

The guardian is a typical publication the bbc would buy, liberal and totally woke. Ill bet though these "adaptations" stick pretty close to his actual books and was not stuffed full of identity politics.

Tolkien would've hated the Jackson films, let alone this

They are just awful, and i hope it at best only get one season then it will be left to die

I have enjoyed your take on many of the Amazon series issues, but I went and read the article and also looked up the upcoming publication and I don't think this has any subtle or overt points to make about the Amazon series, other than a brief mention that it is coming. While I am concerned about what Amazon is doing (and how they attack the fan base), I try not to be cynical about everything mildly related. The Guardian article is only talking about how in the early days of his publication he was willing to work closely to get an adaptation he was happy with, even referencing how he changed his mind about Frodo delivering dialogue and instead had the narrator deliver the description; more an acknowledgement of how a book and a script are very different. Adaptation is inevitable and necessary, but what Amazon appear to be doing is "ignoring" and attacking anyone who isn't giddy with excitement. When Stuart Lee mentions how 70 years later it would be treated as a "sacred text" I think he is referring to the discovered scripts being treated with reverence in comparison to how the BBC at the time just stuffed them away in a dark box, never knowing how important they would become. In defence of the academics, a multi-author publication of collected works can take years to get published due to peer review processes, rewrites, missed deadlines etc. so this will have been in the pipe line for a long time. Contributing authors have to agree not to share their chapter before, and usually for a certain time after, publication. The likelihood here is that they have been permitted to share about this find partly to promote the book itself. The book is also dedicated to the memory of Christopher Tolkien, with contributions and the permission of the Tolkien Estate, and of the contributors one is Tom Shippey, who we all know was fired from the Amazon series. Anyway, that's my take. Keep up the good work :)

Lol. The gymnastics are impressive.

So... they're attempting to throw our own argument back at us now? Remember the letter Tolkien wrote to Forrest J. Ackerman regarding his attempted film adaptation of LoTR. Tolkien hated it... but also understood the need for change and even went so far as to make his own suggestions on the topic. So... Yes, The Guardian we know he was alright with change. Just as long as it didn't butcher his story or the characters.

you can't judge the Guardian whilst simultaneously reading the daily mail 😂😂

By their logic, Tolkien would have *loved* Peter Jackson's adaptation, too....

Brandon Sanderson fought hard to try and change all the crap in the wheel of woke, but more often than not rafe didn't listen to him. I understand exactly what you mean - he can make all the suggestions in the world, but ultimately, the showrunner can do whatever they like. Gosh, I hate this crap!!

It even says there directly in the text that he dissaproved of the reduction from 45 minutes to 30 minutes. Talk about Trojan Source.

Is that the same as the 1970s radio 4 produced version with Ian Holmes Robert Stephenson and Michael horden which was my first introduction to the lord of the rings that script wasn't lost the whole lot is on you tube

There is a really strange NPR version of Lord of the rings from a long time ago circling around the internet I wonder if this had anything to do with it. NPR liked the broadcast a lot of foreign radio shows.

If only The Guardian had people who could research these things the way you do....

If he thought they ruined snow white the first time hes lucky hes not around to see round 2...

Tolkien working to adapt his trilogy to radio is completely different from amazon adapting the trilogy into a TV show. Tolkien willing to "balance" the narrative and rewrite some dialogue seems to be because of the medium of radio and I highly doubt he or the director of the radio show were making any adaptations akin to Amazon's motives. As others have said "well, Tolkien didn't say there couldn't be flying icecream trucks in middle earth so let's put those in." The amount of "double think" being deployed here is absolutely mind boggling.

They show a page all crossed in red and where Tolkien "screams" at the writer to "PLEASE TYPE" and show that has him agreeing with what was being done! XD

around 50 journalists, 27 days, 37 twits and comments to every single person in the community and yet no single answer from amazon... where is Celeborn?

Yeah and we all born yesterday

When they do an adaptation of an African legend, I expect the same amount of representation. I expect the hero, the main tribe chief, to be redheaded white woman.

There is a vast difference between what was in 1950 called a Radio Play and a visual series intended to go on for years. Of course. without a visual element, virtually everything is dialogue, which is not true of the books, so naturally adjustments had to be made. But except for considerations of running time that would requite some cutting or condensing, nothing essential needs to be changed for film.

If he was fine with adaptations shitting on his life work. Where are all these adaptations? Sounds like they all got canned to me.

We are lucky that the BBC didn't tippex over these scripts and reuse the paper. I'd love to have a nosey at them.

So he worked with them to help "abridge the text and adjust the balance of dialogue and narration" - that's the kind of stuff you do to make something shorter *without* changing it. He was probably just trying to make sure they didn't cut anything too important or invent some stupid shit to cover up a hole they made.

Tolkien wasn't even pleased with some of the early translations of The Lord of the Rings. Max Schuchart, who translated the books in Dutch in 1956-57 called it 'In de Ban van de Ring', a loose translation in English is 'Under the Spell of the Ring'. I originally read the books in Dutch and now that I've read them a few times in English, it's clear that Schuchart took a lot of liberties with the names. Apparently Tolkien wrote to Schuchart about the changes, but couldn't convince him to change them to be closer to the original. Changing the names is a usual thing in Dutch translations, but those names often start to sound silly.

well hell if they found lost scripts there maybe they should look for the lost Doctor Who episodes there too

Actually as a Fan have cancelled my Prime subscription due to the bollocks now going down over at Amazon.

1:10 Well Technically Amazon can change or do whatever they want with the material IF THEY BOUGHT IT. However that doesn't mean as consumers we have to consume whatever bullshit they deign to serve us. Amazon can push and try as they might to convince us to watch and even call us, the consumers names but it doesn't mean we have to rise to the bait. That's the difference. As for the whole writers VS adaptation I want to say there is a debate but I'm not sure that is the proper word. I am a writer myself though I do not as of yet have one of my books published. The world of publishing is about as bad as Hollywood and the entertainment world in general. It's very dog eat dog and thankless. However I do have friends that are published novelist. The ones I know would argue that the director should be given some autonomy when it comes to brining a work to life. At that point it does become their vision as much as it is yours (the writer). That being said the same writer who say that are also very careful about who they decide to sell their IP too because they don't want to see their work turned into something unrecognizable from what they created. There are horror stories regarding that. The writers I know happen to be non white and they have seen their characters changed from either being non white/ethnic to being drastically watered down from what they were intended to be much to their chagrin. So there has to be some leeway for the producer/director to create but they should still honor the work they are adapting. Also Tolkein was very critical of those who did try to adapt his work. I'm not trying to plug this channel but Midnights Edge did a spectacular video about this that included the WOT. You should check it out.

"Tolkien totally loves the show, but if he didn't, it doesn't matter and he's a bigot".

Riiiiiiiight...apparently we all look stupid enough to buy into this propaganda to these people.

Hard Pass and I’m planning on cancelling service when this flaming bag of poop is plopped on my doorstep.

Waiting for an Amazon-sponsored medium to come forward claiming they have contacted the spirit of Tolkien and that he’s given the series his blessing. And I couldn’t agree more about Wikipedia.

That sucks that the fifties ones were destroyed but the '80s ones are still alive and well thank God.

Should we bet on what crap they will fling at the wall next or would that be giving them ideas?

crazy............

Shortening the text is not the same as altering and inventing different text.

My brother let me borrow his car once, so obviously that means I can now take it whenever and wherever I like, without asking. That’s logic that is.

What is Amazon going to chance, exacly, of they don't have the rights of the story they are writing? Rather, they are creating an original series that happens to use some characters from TLOTR movies, that's all

_Hey, look you guys! We found some old rough drafts & lost sketches of the Sistine Chapel! Despite the years spent by Michelangelo in his life's artwork, we know he would be fine with any changes we want to make in order to better reflect our more diverse, more inclusive, more representative modern world!_ The BBC's weak & illogical argument in a nutshell.

So adjust the balance of dialogue and narration= black elves?

It's the typical approach by cooperation making corporate fiction. Netflix puts out that Shinichirou Watanabe, the creator of Cowboy Bebop, was a consultant on the Netflix series, but in fact he was nothing of the sort. He passed notes to them, which were probably all ignored. He even stated that he had nothing to do with the series other than that and not to blame him for its failure. However, Netflix and the show runners can then go ahead and employ smoke and mirrors to portray Watanabe as a consultant. This is a tactic, plain and simple.

The BBC article says that the document found has "Tolkien’s handwritten suggestions in red..." (at least in the picture description).I honestly think that, comparing to other letters of Tolkien, the written text in black seems to me awfully similar. The document even starts with "Suggestion of alteration". Anyone agrees? Is BBC trying to pull something off with this?

If reporters at the Guardian see red 'x's and corrections as 'approval', did any of them pass grade school? Don't know how it works in the UK, but red marks, 'x's and notes in the margin means: you messed up, correct this.

Really? Since the man’s been dead since 1973 I would like to know how they held a conversation with him.

Going to use that term to describe people now whenever they decide to be loud and obnoxious

The Guardian: The Science Fiction/Fantasy has 'changed!'

Jeff Bezos: Rings of Power! J.R.R. Tolkien: You young ass, this is tripe.

I am sure Tolkien own changes significantly changed the flavour.

hahahaahaha.. Awesome! stuff.. Great Vid : )

Someone needs to nail a board reading 'FALSE EQUIVALENCE' to these buffoon's doors.

Can you do a video about those tweets saying that Sauron is non-binary and theoneringdotnet agreeing on it?

Soon amazon will claim that they spoke with tolkien directly beyond the grave (spirit), saying that the author agrees on their woke adapdation and what they are doing is canon.. 😂