"Perhaps nothing should be allowed to remain private. Perhaps privacy is an affront to the rights of the people. But I don't think so."
What are you talking about? This has nothing to do with privacy. Tolkien sold his books publicly and then sold the rights for the movies.
We can certainly argue about the quality, and correctness of the films, as well as the due compensation to the Tolkien estate. But privacy, really?? It's not like hollywood execs snuck in and recorded these bedtime stories in the dark. They were sold by their owner.
I wasn't talking about the legal situation. I was trying to sympathise with why this man might feel wounded - after all, he was young when that decision was made, and he didn't make it. And neither he nor Tolkien everimagined how big LotR would become. But he still has to accept and deal with something very private and special to him being reshaped and reappropriated for the whole world, in a way completely alien to his own feelings about the works.
Like I said, maybe he is wrong to feel possessive, maybe not. But I still think just writing him off as a hyper-sensitive, overly-possessive snob, as a few HN readers have done, is very mean-spirited.
What are you talking about? This has nothing to do with privacy. Tolkien sold his books publicly and then sold the rights for the movies.
We can certainly argue about the quality, and correctness of the films, as well as the due compensation to the Tolkien estate. But privacy, really?? It's not like hollywood execs snuck in and recorded these bedtime stories in the dark. They were sold by their owner.