Was Christopher Tolkien right?

[Child of the 7th Age]

I have just returned from seeing TTT, and, although I enjoyed it, I was a tad disappointed. Apparently, I'm not the only one. Take a look in the "overall impression thread" within the Movies forum (but beware of spoilers). Some folk were extremely pleased, while others were vehemently unhappy. I'm somewhere in the middle, but was definitely expecting a film with more soul in it.

But I wanted to raise a question that goes far beyond PJ, and this particular movie. On several occasions, we have heard Christopher Tolkien say that the Lord of the Rings can never be successfully adapted to film. When I first heard this, I dismissed it, and thought it was sour grapes since the family is not reaping any direct financial reward from the film (just an indirect reward from the sale of the books).

But as I walked away from the theater this afternoon, I began to wonder if Christopher was right. The book is marvelously complex. It not only has action and suspense, but poetry and insights on human behavior that reach down to the insides of your heart. We can talk endlessly about the Christian influences on the author's ideas or the epic source material that JRRT loved. This list of topics could go on and on (as it generally does on the Downs).

The question is this--Can a book become so rich and complex that it can never be successfully adapted to the format of a movie, which must necessarily simplify? And, if so, does LotR fall into this category, with any film adaptation inevitably falling short, and failing to capture the richness of Middle-earth?

[ December 18, 2002: Message edited by: Child of the 7th Age ]