Tolkien's comments on the film treatment of The Lord of the Rings

The script writers may be irritated or aggrieved by the tone of many of my criticisms. If so, I am sorry (though not surprised). 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. He has cut the parts of the story upon which its characteristic and peculiar tone principally depends, showing a preference for fights; and he has made no serious attempt to represent the heart of the tale adequately: the journey of the Ringbearers. The last and most important part of this has, and it is not too strong a word, simply been murdered.... Why has my account been entirely rewritten here, with regard for the rest of the tale? I have spent some time on this passage, as an example of what I find too frequent to give me 'pleasure or satisfaction': deliberate alteration of the story, in fact and significance, with out any practical or artistic object (that I can see).... Part III is totally unacceptable to me, as a whole and in detail. All I can say is: The Lord of the Rings can not be garbled like that.

—The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, 210: From a letter to Forrest J. Ackerman, p 270.

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