The letter that outlined JRR Tolkien’s demands for a ‘Lord of the Rings’ adaptation
Until Peter Jackson strolled into view and orchestrated one of cinema’s greatest-ever trilogies, it was beginning to look as though J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings really was unfilmable. As it applied to live-action, at least.
Ralph Bakshi’s cult favourite animation did manage to make it through to the finish line in the late 1970s, but trying to realise the world of Middle-Earth using flesh and blood actors, visual effects, and practical sets was an obstacle many notable filmmakers and producers failed to clear despite their best efforts.
William Snyder, Peter Shaffer, and John Boorman all toyed with the prospect, with producer Denis O’Dell boldly envisioning David Lean, Stanley Kubrick, Michelangelo Antonioni, and George Lucas as his directorial wish-list. Little did the world know, but Bakshi’s animation captured the imagination of a young Jackson, who was encouraged to read the book for the first time as a result. As they say, the rest is history, but there was still a long road to go before his ambitious trio hit the big screen.
Although Tolkien died in 1973, his estate have remained keenly involved in any productions that utilise any elements of his work, so there’s a chance they’ll be as thorough as the author was when he responded to Morton Grady Zimmerman’s screenplay for a planned Lord of the Rings adaptation with extensive notes.
Setting the tone for what was to come, Tolkien apologised in advance for the nit-picking to follow. “I have at last finished my commentary on the Story-line. Its length and detail will, I hope, give evidence of my interest in the matter,” he wrote before setting the stage for his dissatisfaction.
“They may be irritated or aggrieved by the tone of many of my criticisms. If so, I am sorry (though not surprised),” the author continued. “But I would ask them to make an effort of imagination sufficient to understand the irritation (and on occasion the resentment) of an author, who finds, increasingly as he proceeds, his work treated as it would seem carelessly in general, in places recklessly, and with no evident signs of any appreciation of what it is all about.”
The abridged version is that Zimmerman didn’t do a very good job in Tolkien’s eyes, making so many changes to the source material that it was borderline unrecognisable to the person who wrote it. The timeline was condensed far too much for his liking, Tom Bombadil’s “language was sillified,” Aragorn singing a song belted out by Sam in the book was “wholly inappropriate,” and he wasn’t thrilled with the entire narrative devolving into bombastic wizard fights at the expense of the depth he favoured in his writing.
Particularly scathing was his assessment of the Balrog encounter, with Tolkien musing that Zimmerman “may think he knows more about Balrogs than I do, but he cannot expect me to agree with him.” In general, the writer was of the opinion that Zimmerman’s Lord of the Rings scripts were “totally unacceptable to me, as a whole and in detail.” Needless to say, things didn’t advance much further than that.
