Works inspired by J. R. R. Tolkien
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The works of J. R. R. Tolkien have served as the inspiration to painters, musicians, film-makers and writers, to such an extent that Tolkien is sometimes seen as the "father" of the entire genre of "high fantasy. [1] The production of such derivative works is sometimes of doubtful legality, because Tolkien's published works will remain copyrighted until 2043. The film, stage and merchandise rights of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are owned by Tolkien Enterprises, while the rights of The Silmarillion and other material remain with The J.R.R. Tolkien Estate Ltd..
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[edit] Art and illustration
The earliest illustrations of Tolkien's works were drawn by the author himself. In 1937, The Hobbit was first illustrated by professional draughtsmen for the American edition. Tolkien was very critical of these, and in 1946 he rejected illustrations by Horus Engels for the German edition of the Hobbit as "too Disnified".
Milein Cosman illustrated Farmer Giles of Ham in 1948, and Tolkien was not happy with this work, either. In 1949, Cosman was replaced by Pauline Baynes, who became Tolkien's favourite illustrator and who created drawings for The Adventures of Tom Bombadil as well as for Farmer Giles of Ham. Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, an accomplished and critically-acclaimed painter, was inspired to illustrations to The Lord of the Rings in the early 1970s. She sent them to Tolkien, who was struck by the similarity to the style of his own drawings.[citation needed] In 1977, Queen Margrethe's drawings were published in the Danish translation of the book, which was reissued in 2002[2], redrawn by the British artist Eric Fraser.[citation needed]
Tim and Greg Hildebrandt were also well-known Tolkien illustrators during the first decades after the publication of The Lord of the Rings.
In the 1970s, British artist Jimmy Cauty created a best-selling poster of the Hobbit for the retailer Athena.[3]
Probably the widest-known Tolkien illustrators of the 1990s and 2000s are John Howe, Alan Lee, and Ted Nasmith — Alan Lee for illustrated editions of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, Ted Nasmith for illustrated editions of The Silmarillion, and John Howe for the cover artwork to several Tolkien publications. (Howe and Lee were also involved in the creation of Peter Jackson's movie trilogy as concept artists — Nasmith was also invited to take part in the films, but was forced to reluctantly decline due to a personal crisis at the time.) In 2004, Lee won an Academy Award for Best Art Direction for his work on the third film in the trilogy, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.[4]
Other artists who have found inspiration in Tolkien's works include Catherine Karina Chmiel, Inger Edelfeldt, Anke Katrin Eißmann, Roger Garland, Michael Hague, Tove Jansson (of Moomin fame, illustrator of a Finnish translation of The Hobbit), Angus McBride, Kay Miner, and Jenny Dolfen.
[edit] Audio
Three radio plays based on The Lord of the Rings have been made, broadcast in 1955-1956, 1979 and 1981 respectively. The first and last ones were produced by the BBC.
[edit] Music
- See also: Middle-earth in popular culture#Music
Donald Swann set music to The Road Goes Ever On, a collection of Tolkien's lyrics and poems. The work was approved by Tolkien himself.[citation needed]
Tom Rapp set most of The Verse of the One Ring ("Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky...") to music as "Ring Thing" in Pearls Before Swine's second album, Balaklava (1968).
The Tolkien Ensemble published four Cd's from 1997 to 2005 with the aim to create "the worlds first complete musical interpretation of the poems and songs from The Lord of the Rings". The project was given approval by both the Tolkien Estate and Harper Collins Publishers. Queen Margarethe II of Denmark gave permission to use her illustrations in the CD layout.
"The Hobbitons" released a CD in 1996 with song versions of poems of the Hobbit and from The Adventures of Tom Bombadil.
Other musicians inspired by Tolkien include Battlelore, David Arkenstone, Summoning, Blind Guardian, Mostly Autumn, Bo Hansson, and Led Zeppelin (certainly "Over The Hills and Far Away", "Misty Mountain Hop", "The Battle of Evermore," and "Ramble On," with debate about some parts of Stairway to Heaven).
Neil Peart, Canadian rock composer and drummer for Rush, has based many of his lyrics on Tolkien, most notably "Rivendell."
"In The House Of Tom Bombadil" is an instrumental song from Nickel Creek's self-titled album from 2000.
Ensio Kosta composed in 1980–1982 a chamber music series called "Music Of Middle-earth", with movements like "Awakening of Shire", "Incantation", "Winding Paths", "Lament of Galadriel", "Riders of Rohan", and "Grey Havens".
Johan de Meij’s first symphony “The Lord of the Rings” is based on the novel. The symphony consists of five separate movements, each illustrating a personage or an important episode from the series. The symphony was written in the period between March 1984 and December 1987, and had its première in Brussels on 15th March 1988.
The movements are:
I. GANDALF (The Wizard)
II. LOTHLORIEN (The Elvenwood)
III. GOLLUM (Sméagol)
IV. JOURNEY IN THE DARK
a. The Mines of Moria
b. The Bridge of Khazad-Dûm
V. HOBBITS
Leonard Rosenman composed music for the Ralph Bakshi animated movie and Howard Shore composed the music for the three Peter Jackson films.
A.R. Rahman collaborated with Varttina to compose the music for the stage adaptation "The Lord of the Rings Musical".
The Loss and the Silence, a string quartet by Ezequiel Viñao (inspired by the story of Aragorn and Arwen.)
A comprehensive list of music "inspired by or referential to the fiction writings of J.R.R. Tolkien" can be seen at the Tolkien Music List.
[edit] Film
Tolkien originally sold the film, stage and merchandise rights of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings to United Artists in 1968, but they never made a film, and in 1976 the rights were sold to Tolkien Enterprises, a division of the Saul Zaentz Company.
In the early seventies John Boorman was planning a film of The Lord of the Rings, but the plans never went further because of movie studio politics. Some of the work done was resurrected for the film Excalibur in 1981.
Ralph Bakshi directed an animated movie adaptation of The Lord of the Rings in 1978 (partly made with the rotoscope technique), which covered only the first half of The Lord of the Rings. Rankin-Bass covered the second half with a children's TV animation The Return of the King (1980); earlier they had made a TV animation of The Hobbit (1977).
The Lord of the Rings was adapted as a trilogy of films (2001–03), directed by Peter Jackson.
The split of Tolkien's works between Tolkien Enterprises and the Tolkien Estate means that none of the Tolkien Enterprises' products can include source material from outside The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and therefore a film or stage version of The Silmarillion is highly unlikely.
[edit] Language
[edit] Literature
Many authors have found inspiration in Tolkien's work as well. Following the success of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings in the 1960s, publishers were quick to try to meet a new demand for literate fantasy in the American marketplace. Ballantine, under the direction of editor Lin Carter, published public domain and relatively obscure works under the banner of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy. Lester Del Rey, however, sought for new books that would mirror Tolkien's work, and published Terry Brooks's The Sword of Shannara (accused at the time of direct plagiarism of Tolkien's book) and Stephen Donaldson's The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever. Nick Perumov created sequel stories about Middle-earth, and Dennis L. McKiernan's Iron Tower trilogy was intended to be a direct sequel to The Lord of the Rings but had to be altered.
Throughout the next two decades, the term fantasy became synonymous with the general aspects of Tolkien's work: multiple races including dwarves and elves, a quest to destroy a magical artifact, and an evil that seeks to control the world. The plot of Novelist Pat Murphy's There and Back Again mirrors that of The Hobbit, but is transposed into a science fiction setting involving space travel. Eragon and Eldest, the first two parts of the as-yet unfinished Inheritance Trilogy by Christopher Paolini largely rehashed The Lord of the Rings, and creatures such as elves and dwarves in his books bear similar qualities to the elves and dwarves of Middle-earth. Some people have so far as to accuse Paolini of plagiarism, but these claims have never been taken seriously.[citation needed] Even the Harry Potter series mirror themes from The Lord of the Rings, as the current plot focusing on the destruction of horcruxes to defeat Voldemort mirrors the destruction of the One Ring to defeat Sauron.
[edit] Parody
- Probably the best-known parody of Tolkien is Bored of the Rings (1968). More websites, books, and other works that parody The Lord of the Rings can be found at Satire and parody based on The Lord of the Rings
- The Veggie Tales episode Lord of the Beans.
[edit] Poetry
Some people were inspired to compose poems in Quenya or Sindarin, the two most developed of Tolkien's created languages. For example, Helge Fauskanger translated the first two chapters of Genesis into Quenya. Tyalië Tyelelliéva is a journal dedicated to poems in the Elvish languages.
[edit] Scholarship
- See also: Themes in The Lord of the Rings
Tolkien has also been the subject of a number of academic works. Vinyar Tengwar and Parma Eldalamberon are journals focusing on linguistic study of Tolkien's works.
External link: A Bibliography of Scholarly Studies of J. R. R. Tolkien and His Works by Michael D.C. Drout
[edit] Games
There are multiple model-based games, trading card games, board games and video games that take place in Middle-earth, most depicting scenes and characters from The Lord of the Rings.
[edit] Video games
The books have been reproduced in video game form a number of times over the last two decades, including Melbourne House's Lord of the Rings, Shadows of Mordor, War in Middle-earth; Interplay's Lord of the Rings Vol. 1 and Lord of the Rings Vol. 2.; Electronic Arts' action platformer adaptations of The Two Towers and The Return of the King, real-time strategy games The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth and The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II, and the role-playing game The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age, all based on the Jackson films; and Sierra Entertainment's action platformer based on The Fellowship of the Ring, and the real-time strategy game.There is also a PSP Game titled The Lord of the Rings Tactics based on the Jackson films. The Two Towers (MUD) is also set in Tolkien's world.
Games in development include Turbine Inc's massively multiplayer online role-playing game, The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar, and Electronic Arts' The Lord of the Rings: The White Council.
[edit] Other games
Several games have been based directly on The Lord of the Rings and related works, including, amongst many, Iron Crown Enterprises' Middle-earth Role Playing game (1982–1999) and Middle-earth Collectible Card Game (1995-1999), as well as The Lord of the Rings Trading Card Game (2001) made by Decipher. All of these predate Jackson's film trilogy except for Decipher's card game, which is part of the latter's merchandise.
There is also a Games Workshop miniature wargame called The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game, which, while part of the film trilogy's merchandise, combines elements from both the books and films. Many of Games Workshop's other battle games that are not directly related to the books have had some key background based on it.
Decipher also created the Lord of the Rings RPG, a role-playing game based on the Jackson films.
Board games include Risk: Lord of the Rings Trilogy Edition and Lord of the Rings (board game) as well as the Middle Earth Games from SPI containing the games War of the Ring (strategic, covering all three books), Gondor (tactical, covering the siege of Minas Tirith) and Sauron (covering the decisive battle of the Second Age) in 1977. There are also Trivial Pursuit and Monopoly editions based on The Lord of the Rings, as well as a The Lord of the Rings Trivia Game quiz game. Chess sets have also been created with the figures based on people and other characters from The Lord of the Rings.
[edit] Homages
The creators of the Dungeons and Dragons role playing game were also strongly influenced by Tolkien. The game has (clearly Tolkien-influenced) dwarves and elves as playable characters, and formerly had hobbits as well. After being threatened with a lawsuit by the Tolkien estate, they replaced hobbits with the similar "halflings" — a term also used in The Lord Of the Rings. In most versions of the game, halflings were especially good at being thieves/rogues, a nod to Bilbo the thief in The Hobbit. The Kender of Krynn (from the Dragonlance Campaign setting) are again essentially renamed hobbits, although the innate racial personalities contrast greatly. His works also indirectly inspired the Warcraft series via their use in Games Workshop's battle games.
Equally common is the use of the term orc for a variety of hobgoblin type creatures in later fantasy although Tolkien created this modern usage of the word. Even more removed genre games such as Shadowrun and Warhammer 40,000 use the term, therein spelt Ork, possibly to sidestep possible legal issues (though Tolkien actually preferred -k in late writings).
[edit] Other
The Tudor Mint company produces silver plate pewter models of all of the main characters of The Lord of the Rings.
[edit] References
- ^ Mitchell, Christopher. J. R. R. Tolkien: Father of Modern Fantasy Literature (Google Video). "Let There Be Light" series. University of California Television. Retrieved on 2006-07-20..
- ^ Queen Margrethe II of Denmark. Hello Magazine. Retrieved on 2006-05-29.
- ^ Spencer, Neil, "A guerrilla raid on the arts establishment", The Guardian (Manchester) ISSN 0261-3077 , 31 October 1993, The Observer Review Page.
- ^ 76th Academy Awards. Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Retrieved on 2006-05-29.
