J.R.R. Tolkien Torched A Lord Of The Rings Film Treatment For Being Treated Carelessly, Recklessly And Showing “No Evident Signs Of Any Appreciation Of What It Is All About”

J.R.R. Tolkien Torched A Lord Of The Rings Film Treatment For Being Treated Carelessly, Recklessly And Showing “No Evident Signs Of Any Appreciation Of What It Is All About”

J.R.R. Tolkien, the creator of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, torched a film treatment for an adaptation of The Lord of the Rings back in June 1958.

In letter 210 to Forrest J. Ackerman, Tolkien did not hold back his criticism of the film treatment and it gives us an idea of what he might have thought about Amazon Studios’ upcoming adaptation in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.

Towards the beginning of the letter, Tolkien preemptively apologizes for his tone used in his commentary on the film treatment.

He wrote, “If [Mr. Zimmerman] and/or others do so, they may be irritated or aggrieved by the tone of many of my criticisms. If so, I am sorry (though not surprised).”

Tolkien went on to explain the apology, “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.”

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