Film Rights to First & Second Age

[Sauron the White]

I would remind everyone here that when I started this thread my intention was not to build a case for legal action or litigation taken against Christopher Tolkien, The Tolkien Estate or anyone else. It was motivated by a desire for future filmmakers to , as far as is possible withing the confines of changing mediums from one art form to another, "get it right".

Over the last several pages we have become enmeshed in legal arguements about copyright, enforcement, penalites and other "legal aspects" as one poster put it. I have stated several times that I am not a lawyer, did not attend law school and am at a disadvantage in arguing the technical legalities of a situation.

There are going to be two more movies about Middle-earth. Like it or hate it that is now the reality of the situation. It has been announced that one will be of THE HOBBIT while the second will use material from the Appendicies to bridge the gap of years betweent HOBBIT and LOTR. This caused the usual speculation about what can be used and portrayed and what cannot be portrayed in a film.

I stated here that I do not want to be here five or ten years from now arguing about the rightness or wrongness of what was placed in those movies. Did they confine themselves strictly to the Appendicies or did they go beyond and include material they could only have gotten from other Tolkien sources outside of HOBBIT and LOTR? I would like to avoid that if possible.

I said there now exists a situation where the current film rights holders could make a movie containing the following events taken from the Appendicies:

- Feanor is shown to be the greatest of the Eldar making the Silmarils filling them with the radiance of the Two Trees
- Morgoth stealing the Silmarils
-Morgoth destroying the Two Trees by poisoning them
- Morgoth retreating to his great fortress of Thangorodrim with the Silmarils
- Feanor leading his people into exile
- War between the Eldar and Edain against Morgoth and his forces
- the defeat of the Eldar and Edain
- the union of Beren and Luthien and their lineage
-Beren and Luthien steal a Silmaril from the Iron Crown of Morgoth
-Luthien becomes mortal and gives birth to Dior
-the city of Gondolin with Turgon as its king
-the wedding of Earendil to Elwing
-the overthrow of Morgoth
-the ship of Earendil is set into the heavens

At the same time, the Estate owns all rights to THE SIL and that would include potential film rights to those exact same events plus more. So we have an area of overlapping rights.

And that is just the tip of the iceberg since the Appendicies go on for many more pages giving accounts of far more Middle-earth history than just those major First Age events. Again, the right to include all that in a film in held by New Line Cinema.

I said more than once that I think everyone would benefit if both parties, the Estate and current film rights holders sat down like two civilized people and said lets see what we can do about this. Is there a way that material can be shown on screen taken from the Appendicies but do it in such a way so that it is as accurate as possible when compared to the larger Tolkien writings that many people know so well?

I believe that if this could be done, the movies would be more accurate, be better and everyone wins. I agree that they will never be as accurate or as faithful as some people want them to be. When you change from one art form to another, things are lost, things are changed, things are added, things are gained - in short its not the same thing.

My entire thrust was to say that given that the currents rights holders are between a rock and a hard place in depicting many Appendicies events accurately, it would be in everyones interest to sit down like two civilized parties and try to reach some steps to improve the situation.