Why Tolkien Hated Disney

[@bigseven8227]

Tolkien: "I will never allow Disney to bastardize and insult my work" Amazon: "Fine. I'll do it myself"

[@Disneyfan82]

Not all adaptations have to be one hundred percent correct from novels. But then again, what Amazon did is much worse.

[@chronovore3726]

Oh come on, you know that really, secretly, deep down, Tolkein had wanted to make all the characters in his books black, gay, trans, feminist girlbosses but was held back by the bigoted audiences of his time. Thankfully, enlightened companies like Amazon are finally starting to set things right.

[@williammongoose3007]

​@@chronovore3726 Well, he did create the original modern fantasy girl boss. Rings of Power has a lot of problems, it isn't very good and ironically it shows male elves to be traditionally masculine and female elves to traditionally feminine, even when in Tolkiens writing elves are often very androgynous.

[@floflo1645]

Christopher Tolkien hated the movies for being action packed with no substance and he is considered the person to be the closest to his father. There wasn't much that would satisfy Tolkien anyway. And the amazon adaptation is bad bc of bad writing. Black elves and dwarves is the last thing to complain about it

[@Disneyfan82]

@@floflo1645 I wouldn't have a problem with black elves or dwarves if they had true character in them and not written for toxic activism

[@stephenandersen4625]

Some modern people use “fairy tale” as a pejorative, Tolkien knew better

[@SeniorAdrian]

Yeah, some are doing the same with the words "actor" (especially used in politics) or "clown".

[@differous01]

"The child has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon." [G.K. Chesterton Tremendous Trifles].

[@TheBigMclargehuge]

Only because they are fiction not because of anything against fairy tales. Amazing how a statement that makes so little sense can get 700 ups.

[@quantumvideoscz2052]

They use it as pejorative because they are mostly familiar with the intellectually hollow fairy tales Tolkien was criticizing. It's the very topic of this video. @@TheBigMclargehuge

[@TheBigMclargehuge]

@@quantumvideoscz2052 no, calling something a fairy tail is to call something false, not to call something puerile or unsophisticated. If anything fairy tail is used more to describe a situation as wonderful and otherworldly. EG a fairy tale wedding.

[@rockmangurlx4973]

I love how Tolkien gives no shits about expressing what he thinks, but even then he’s respectful about it.

[@CriminallyUnderatted]

Not many people today would do that

[@szabok1999]

Lewis was also pretty harsh. He said about Walt "What might not have come of it if this man had been educated-or even brought up in a decent society?" Damn professor Lewis chill

[@goldman77700]

​@@szabok1999 Professorial burns feel like their own separate class. 😂

[@redline841]

"Dune wasn't fun for me, it's a good book but not for me."

[@austinjones8964]

That's the way people used to be.

[@sibylsaint]

I wonder what he would've thought of Don Bluth. He didn't mess around. Don Bluth spoke at my art school, and I told him I deeply appreciated, as a child, how scary the cats are in American Tail, and the sad reality of parental loss in Land Before Time. He was happy to hear it.

[@brandonlyon730]

If he read the original Secret of Nimh novel I can see him having issues on some of the changes they made to the book. He might also take issue of Anastasia taking liberties on real history or his adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale Thumbelina

[@Robin_Glorb]

Was the ' in ex'pression intentional?

[@sibylsaint]

@@Robin_Glorb Sadly, yes. That's what it was called. Good school though.

[@denisenova7494]

I may sound like a pick me but I loved Secret of Nimh so much! All the other kids were scared af of the owl with the glowing eyes and I loved this imagery so much!

[@PoisonelleMisty4311]

hear that I connected with those aspects of his films and said that he always tried to bring a sense of depth and emotion to his animations, even when they were meant for children. He also discussed the challenges and risks he faced in the industry, but emphasized the importance of staying true to his vision and not compromising his artistic integrity. It was a truly inspiring and insightful talk, and I'll always be grateful for the opportunity to hear from such a legendary and innovative animator.

[@revol_000]

For professor Tolkien, who loved the origanal european fairy tales, Disney's adaptations of them were what Disney's live-action remakes are for us now

[@Thane3999]

That's the thing anout myth and fairy tales. There is kind a no original. There is no fixed canon, and these stories change from era to era, storyteller to storyteller and country to country. Even stuff like Greek mythology. Disney adaptations are versions cattered to AMERICAN audiences and their senses. Americans are not mediavel European peasants.

[@Simbala-bq5vy]

But the adaptations are better than the remake

[@hardcharging]

And the remakes go even farther away from the original stories than the initial animations.

[@archeogeek315]

That's why I always find it funny when people talk about respecting the original work. Did you think Disney give a shit about the original work like the little mermaid which is about the immortality of the soul or snow queen which is about growing up.

[@petetrc9671]

Not really, the adaptations were well-received by the general public back in the day and are still popular today.. the remakes, not so (to put it mildly)

[@mitchelltheawesome1]

If he hated Disney then, imagine how much he'd hate it now.

[@Simbala-bq5vy]

Even Disney would hate it. He was creative and his target audience was for everyone. And in the present it's yeah you know

[@friendlyotaku9525]

@@Simbala-bq5vy "it's yeah you know" it's what?

[@Simbala-bq5vy]

@@friendlyotaku9525 For kids for feminists for black people you know the typical stuff of the 20s

[@friendlyotaku9525]

@@Simbala-bq5vy And what's the problem? Movies should be inclusive.

[@Simbala-bq5vy]

@@friendlyotaku9525 the target audience isn't really the problem its the execution of these new movies

[@theincrediblebray5686]

I find interesting that Tolkien not only didn’t like Dune or the Narnia books but also Disney films. Tolkien is a very opinionated artist that has never said anything negative about the individual artist but only to the art itself. I think we need more artist like Tolkien, ones that don’t disrespect the artist but are still honest about the art and its meaning. It proves that you can still be both critical & respectful

[@Disneyfan82]

He didn't like the Chronicles of Narnia?

[@michaelv2297]

100%. That's something I find fascinating about Tolkien, he had extremely high standards for a good story, and saw as lacking works that I myself consider masterpieces. But he still respected the author as a fellow creator. That's something important about his criticisms, they weren't merely criticisms of things he had never tried himself. He could criticize other stories because he himself was making his own stories, and making them to the highest art he possibly could.

[@theincrediblebray5686]

@@Disneyfan82No he didn’t.

[@sebastianmunozochoa1485]

I find it ironic that he didn't like Dune , he Compared the characters to Sauron and Saruman , which means he got the point of the story that the Atreides are manipulating the fremen for their own goals. A point that many of the fans of the book missed .

[@CJVS995]

Its funny to me because GRR Martin who while can tell a good story has nothing but "thespian porn/gore" as a friend of mine put it and all he does is shit talk Tolkien when fantasy comes up.

[@karmiccj1911]

MAD RESPECT for Tolkien... he wasn't salty. Didn't go to the nearest reporters to get an article in the papers to trash talk on Disney (that time's version of a twitter thread). The man was legitimately offended and decided to leave letters about it. I'm not the biggest fan of the Hobbit and it's universe, but I can appreciate it more for the author's take on how fiction should be handed. That feeling of holding something as one of your dearest memories, such as a book, and years later discover that it subconsciously influenced your childish past into becoming the man that you are today. Or it comes back years later as a small glimpse of light in a moment of hardship with a new lesson to be learn... This feeling is truly amazing, like meeting with an old friend.

[@martavdz4972]

Funny thing is, you say you aren´t the biggest fan of Tolkien´s universe but you seem to have captured its essence pretty well 🙂 This is absolutely one of the things it was supposed to be about.

[@Zodroo_Tint]

You couldn't just go to the nearest reporter to get an article in the papers back then, this is not how this worked. That time's version of a twitter thread was writing a letter and he did just that. :)

[@karmiccj1911]

@@martavdz4972 Well my brother is a huge fan of LoTR and the Hobbit. I wasn't really into the story but we both love all the different scenaries. Forests, villages, snow mountains and caves with horrible monsters. I wish we could see something like that. Personally I'm more into videogames and whenever I replay some of my favorites I think that's how my brother and the rest of you fell like

[@forwardtsender8573]

​@@Zodroo_TintMore the point is that he griped to a friend about it rather than air his grievances to the public.

[@vizion007]

Even more so, those moments are the rare jewel/spice of life that elucidated life itself that there is oh so much more going on than we can imagine. From Hamlet: there is more in Heaven and Earth Horatio than is dreamt of in your philosophy

[@fredblonder7850]

I note that Jay Ward - Creator of “Rocky Bullwinkle” peppered his work with digs against Disney. An extreme example is one of the Fractured Fairy Tales, where Prince Charming is drawn to look like Walt, goes into the forest to find Sleeping Beauty asleep in the castle. Instead of waking her, he has the forest torn-down and turned into a parking lot and he charges visitors admission to see the sleeping princess.

[@richardranke3158]

"Sleeping Beauty-Land"

[@amynazza]

To me that sounds like a great joke! Satire at its best 😂😂😂😂

[@susanjoyce-yq2mg]

Fractured Fairy Tales was/is my fave.

[@PeteOtton]

Much closer to the original.

[@Valentineatelier]

I remember watching this as a kid, holy crap

[@gustyko8668]

Funny enough, Walt Disney himself also didn't like being labeled as "an entertainer for kids", he always considered his work to be "for everyone to enjoy". Obviously both men grew up in totally different environments, and also had very different philosophies when it came to storytelling.

[@dustintacohands1107]

Walt knew where the money was

[@watchforever1724]

Oh okay then

[@heyyodude8637]

@@dustintacohands1107What is that supposed to mean?

[@Nemo-Nihil]

So fantasy (as a literary genre) was for much of modernity (Victorian era ~ 1950) was seen as a children's genre. All the old classic fantasy stories are strictly aimed at children in some fashion: Alice in Wonderland, Wizard of Oz, ect. That was society's view on fantasy. A story where a child character left the mundane world for a magical one and returned. Even Narnia was considered children's stories at the time of publication if I recall correctly. Tolkien changed that. He did two things different that cemented the fantasy genre into what it is today. 1. He set his stories in a fantastical world removed from ours (granted, Middle-Earth is supposed to be "our world" in a mythic way, but that's another discussion. For literary semantics, it was a secondary world). 2. He wrote for a mature audience. I don't mean 18+, what I mean is that he assumed his audience had a modicum of intelligence and wrote for that. He didn't shy away from the darker aspects. Frodo clearly has PTSD, but Tolkien dressed it up in a pretty "magical sword wound that will never fully heal". Bilbo is cunning and brave in the Hobbit, despite being a hobbit. He's not shy about the trolls wanting to eat Bilbo and the dwarves. So he wrote towards that. These two things added a level of sophistication to fantasy and legitimatize the genre into something literary that adults could read without being shamed for liking "children's stories". (Now we just shame them for reading made up stories about magic and space wizards. Only 'real' consisseurs of literary read "literary" fiction 🙄)

[@geoffreyrichards6079]

@@Nemo-Nihil As much as a trend setter as Tolkien was for modern fantasy aimed at an older audience, it would be a disservice to the authors that set the stage before him to call him the founder of the genre. The likes of George McDonald, William Morris, and Lord Dunsany are really the true builders of the genre as we recognize it, and writers like Robert W. Chambers, Robert E. Howard, H. P. Lovecraft, and August Derleth did all the decor.

[@AtheAetheling]

Its important to remember that we don't need to agree with every opinion of a man we deeply respect. If you love Tolkien and also classic Disney, that's not an issue unless you make it one. He and CS Lewis disagreed on a huge amount of things but were very great friends.

[@shawnmayo8210]

Best comment.

[@rockmangurlx4973]

I like all three

[@Mirage-pz]

Thats not the case. Clearly Tolkien recognize Walt's talent but the methods he use in delivering animation is the case. This isnt uncommon and been a topic for quite sometime. Treat children as if they are some dumb and simple people or treat them as new intellectual people that capable of thinking far

[@balabanasireti]

​@@Mirage-pzI disagree

[@thedarkside7508]

This is an excellent point. Thank you!

[@nascenticity]

i respect tolkien’s perspective on children literature as described here. as a kid i could definitely tell when adults were dumbing things down for me, and i wasn’t a fan. the stories that had the biggest impact and stuck with me the longest were those that didn’t shy away from complex concepts just because the characters or audience was kids. the reality is that kids encounter complex topics in real life too and though i’m no child psychologist i can see how depriving kids of the opportunity to experience complex stories would be detrimental to their ability to handle those situations in real life.

[@actadiurna6733]

Exactly. When I was a child I hated children's books because I saw them as deliberately dumbed-down. I had a bunch of adult books which I gradually grew into over time, initially mostly looking at the paintings, photos, maps etc and then gradually learning to understand more of the text.

[@yami122]

One thing I find kind of funny is a bit of a cycle where the author of game of Thrones has came out and stated one of his main motivations for beginning writing game of Thrones was because he thought that Tolkien's works were too childish and fairy tale happy ending ish that ignored many real life of brutal questions things such as the fact that Aragon is just a better person because of his breeding The fact that his country was basically ruined its capital sacked and the vast majority of its army destroyed in fact his enemies still outnumbered him And yet as soon as the villain is defeated his nation is able to all of a sudden not only prosper but drastically expand its lands despite the fact it lacks armies and its fields and farms were raided and destroyed the fact that he's able to even be a competent king despite the fact he hasn't spent a day in court actually doing politics he doesn't even know the culture of the land he's ruling he grew up half a continent away and yes he did visit gondor In his youth that's hardly going to be enough to make him an expert on being a king and how is he going to handle his court his advisors and donors lords all of whom he's meeting for the first time and he is an outsider he would be although seeing as a hero There's no reason to expect he'd be able to handle the complex power dealings Of a medieval court system And all of these things be author of game of Thrones noted and thought made the story very childishly unrealistic that it just has a happy ending and as soon as evil is defeated the grass grows green and everything's better and men are either good or evil there is no inbetween or moral ambiguity So I do find it interesting how one author would criticize works for being too childish only to Later in the future be viewed by At least one prominent author as having that same flaw

[@ecthox-1mork909]

"though i’m no child psychologist i can see how depriving kids of the opportunity to experience complex stories would be detrimental to their ability to handle those situations in real life" - VERY well-said.

[@chickenmadness1732]

Yeah I tried reading Harry Potter as a kid and couldn't get past the first chapter. Also read narnia and I didn't really like it that much or remember it at all. I read LOTR when I was in primary school and it's one of my favourite books of all time.

[@wesltall1]

The sanitisation of Red Riding Hood goes even further back than the XX Century, I'm afraid. The Brothers Grimm took what was essentially a cautionary tale for young maidens to beware of predatory men (i.e. "wolves") and de-aged Red, turning her into a little girl instead of a young maiden, removing the sexual references of the original tale. Interestingly, a similar thing happened when Schubert set 'The Trout' to music, he removed the final stanza of the poem, thereby turning a cautionary parable for young women against (again) predatory men (with their "rods"!!!) into a story of a poor, sympathetic fish who was outwitted by a cunning angler.

[@TheSocratesofAthens]

I think it's essentially a softer way to lead children into the world. We all learn about the sexual stuff later in most cases: all children have to know is not to trust strangers. We can understand things at different levels as we grow older.

[@spencerfrankclayton4348]

That's awful. They really didn't care about women's safety as much then, anyway. It was all about a man's "honor," or blaming the woman.

[@DerPinguim]

​@@spencerfrankclayton4348I don't think that's the right reading of it. It seems to me that there is a natural pull towards sanitizing the thing on which you work to ensure A) A bigger audience and B) Not be associated with "bad" or "lowly" things.

[@SmallSpoonBrigade]

That was a trend that was kicked off by L. Frank Baum when he wrote the, admittedly not safe for children, book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz with the incredibly gory tale of the woodman.

[@heyitsme1618]

Schubert didn't "sanitize" the trout for its sexual allusions, but because he disliked the brutality and prudery of the last stanza (letter to his brother Ignaz of July 1817)

[@auger0073]

The original fairy tails were dark. The ultimate lesson is: life is freaking tough. Something he carries in all his stories. Good always won, but it was a struggle and required sacrifice and lots of discomfort. Something Disney really tends to brush over.

[@KOTEBANAROT]

Its more complicated than that and many fairy tales were created by writers such as Cinderella and Beauty and the beast. But yeah sure

[@lateonaname]

Disney told you to wish upon a star, put on a dress, take a nap, and your prince will come ….

[@dersaegefisch]

​​@@KOTEBANAROTSure it's not always like that. "Cinderella" and "Beauty and the Beast" are German and French folktales respectively though. Edit: Maybe I should add: in their core they are folktales, as they obviously were shaped and changed by the writers who ultimately wrote them down to make for a more coherent and in their eyes maybe better story. And then changed again by the writers for the Disney movies to fit the direction they were going with their movies.

[@mardenhill]

evil always wins. the villains always call the others evil.

[@nancyneyedly4587]

Disney had a lot of parentless or dead parent stories which I found a bit strange.

[@Zobeid]

I sense some irony here. Walt Disney himself upheld a belief that his "family" entertainment should not be excessively dumbed-down and should work for both children and adults. Remember that Disney also produced Fantasia with high hopes and big plans, but it was largely rejected by the public as being too stuffy and "highbrow". I'm sure Walt would have been just as repulsed as Tolkien by some of the sappy children's fare that came along in later decades, which adults find largely unwatchable. In that sense, one might consider Disney as the middle ground rather than the antithesis of Tolkien. Although both men would undoubtedly have detested Power Rangers, and for similar reasons, Disney perhaps added extra insult to Tolkien by systematically adapting and bastardizing Grimm's Fairy Tales and other long-established myths and legends, on a scale that nobody else has really done. Disney also had a way of overwhelming the identity of adapted works, like Pinnochio or Winnie-the-Pooh. When most people hear those names, the Disney version is all that comes to mind. Our culture would be poorer if that had been the fate of The Hobbit as well.

[@amynazza]

It’s like the Shirley Temple effect.

[@cyanimation1605]

You mention Pinocchio and Winnie the Pooh, but he had every copy of the book Dumbo bought up just before its publication so nobody had any alternatives to seeing the film, while most people are at least aware Pooh was a book, and Pinocchio's seen quite a few other adaptations since the 90s.

[@zoruasnivy]

​​@@cyanimation1605The newish Guillermo Del Toro one is excellent, Pinocchio has some fantastic adaptations outside of Disney. Never knew that about Dumbo, that's terrible

[@Thane3999]

You can't really bastardize fairy tales, myth or folklore, because the whole point is ppl adding and changing the lore and stories as times go on. That's something Tolkien and many ppl today aren't willing to accept, because they don't view myths not as collective stories with unknown authors. Even Grimm's Fairy Tales are just one of MANY versions of said fairy tales

[@specialnewb9821]

Disney famously black listed the Snow White actress's career to not spoil the illusion of snow white.

[@hazardeur]

"hopelessly corrupted" beautifully put. never have i read such a precise yet efficient description of disney and amazon

[@HelcaraxeUlairi]

I love Tolkien and I appreciate him. I’d read an illustrated version of the LOTR to my daughter. She loved the Ents. She adored Treebeard, when we played outside she’d include the trees in our yard and pretend they were Ents. We watched Snow White and she was very upset that Snow White was afraid of the trees. My daughter was borderline offended. We had to stop the film and go outside to visit with our Ents.

[@Motuochez]

Oh nooo, that's adorable!

[@ivonned32]

What a lovely Mother and Daughter relationship you both have. 🙏🏾✨💜👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽

[@faustomadebr]

Hahahaha. Amazing!

[@AishathFauzaaIbrahim]

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww❤

[@wolfgangd3653]

But fears can be very irrational even in real life.

[@Ggdivhjkjl]

Tolkien was completely right about how most children aren't idiots. It's a pity so many adults are.

[@alexanderjaruk]

How do you think they GET that way...?

[@AUDREYZGAMER]

It’s so true! But. I feel like now days there is more kids that are a bit dumb..like a lot of gen alpha..because all of the stories that are made for kids i think it’s starting to shape them. Luckily, I’m not one of them. But yes, I’m a kid. But I’m more of a kid who cares about the story than mindlessly watching it. And there’s plenty of other kids that are like that as well!

[@ribps289]

Nah dude not all kids are created equal, remember your kindergarten days, some of them were very very stupid, and that's okay! They still could do a lot even if they finally learned to read properly at 11.

[@annien.1727]

Walt Disney said the VERY same thing about children. Read his quotes: "I don't believe in talking down to children. I don't believe in talking down to any certain segment." "I don't believe in playing down to children, either in life or in motion pictures. I didn't treat my own youngsters like fragile flowers, and I think no parent should." "You're dead if you aim only for kids. Adults are only kids grown up, anyway." Both Tolkien and Disney had somewhat the same mindset. He shouldn't have a reason to hate Disney.

[@GreenBlueWalkthrough]

To me it's more modern aproce's to parent's like most parents don't want to show kids nudity or get scary stuff or see actual violence. Which Tolken for all that Didsney hate did not add graphic content to his work etheir... So yeah very odd stance he had.

[@plzletmebefrank]

Let me dumb this down just a little, Tolkein saw the maturity and wisdom children have inside them, Disney saw the wonder, sillyness, and simple fun inside adults. One saw the adult inside the child, the other the child inside the adult.

[@unicornactual3432]

Disney saw dollar signs. Nothing more.

[@RyanofAndor]

I get your point. It's not heretical to enjoy classical music and popular music. It's not heretical to enjoy chess and video games. It is not heretical to enjoy an adaptation such as Disney's version of Snow White, but also to enjoy the original tales. It was the Disney Channel showing the RB version of the Hobbit that got me to read the book and the LotR. It was my enjoyment of Aladdin that got me to read the 1001 nights. The same with other fairy tales. There is nothing mutually exclusive in enjoying the old and the new. The real sin is in forgetting.

[@plzletmebefrank]

@@unicornactual3432 The man who kept the animation department going even when it was the least cost effective, least profitable part of the company? The man had ISSUES, yes. But if you're trying to tell me that Walt Disney pushing animated movies was all in the pursuit of profit... No. That's insane.

[@LordSiravant]

@@unicornactual3432 You're thinking modern Disney well after the man himself was dead.

[@annien.1727]

@@unicornactual3432 Doofus, he did not. Walt didn't care about profits, all he cared about was making other people happy.

[@etheriousjackal5577]

I can completely understand his reasoning. It's exactly what's happening these days. Cartoons and stories from our childhood is being taken and rebooted and dumbed down further for today's kids and it's just sad.

[@___David__]

I'm absolutely sure if both Walt and Tolkien were alive today, they would BOTH loathe what Disney has become and the things they produce.

[@Attmay]

Disney hates itself and that’s why we get so much garbage from them.

[@hunsler1006]

Disney was always a shallow money grabbing organisation? Or do you mean that the company isn't outwardly racist anymore?

[@jamesmcbeth4463]

PUT A CHICK IN IT AND MAKE HER GAY!

[@Selenite11]

Not Walt. He’d love it.

[@jolovesmusichz2827]

@@Selenite11 No he wouldn’t love it 😂 Walt would fucking hate modern Disney

[@danieldietrich9969]

The funny thing to me is that Walt Disney held a similar belief about treating children with a little more maturity. Usually in regards to allowing children to feel their emotions and not hide, or change things, solely to prevent children from being sad or scared, etc. Which is why films like Bambi and Old Yeller don't hold back. Walt never thought himself as making films for childern, but instead for families, that anyone could enjoy.

[@melissasaint3283]

Unfortunately, that trend in 20th century mass entertainment grew and grew, until by the 70s through the 90s, most of the films marketed to children had crushingly sad or incredibly frightening parts.

[@milo_thatch_incarnate]

On the contrary, I would argue that even his “darker” movies still held back compared to other artists and directors. Even in Bambi, when the mother dies, nothing is shown. Only implied. He makes the audience “look away“. Off the top of my head, I always loved The Secret of NIMH and The Land Before Time more, particularly because the audience does not “look away“ during the death of a parent or potential death of a loved one (as with the end of The Secret of NIMH). It made me think about and process grief and fear earlier and in more depth than any of Disney’s movies. I don’t think Disney lets anyone sit in the grief or fear for more than a moment. I can’t think of an instance where Disney really allows children to see something tragic or frightening without making it implied. Which is a shame, since I believe allowing a story to confront a child with real emotion, like literally watching Little Foot’s mother DIE, is so impactful.

[@melissasaint3283]

@@milo_thatch_incarnate are we forgetting the f*cking Lion King?

[@milo_thatch_incarnate]

@@melissasaint3283 - Oops, lol, I meant to include it actually. I wrote a similar comment somewhere else, and I included the Lion King there, then I forgot to include it here. Silly mistake. I mentioned in that other comment that The Lion King is basically the only Disney movie that I can think of that actually SHOWS something tragic. Which is why it's still one of my favorite Disney movies, far and above most of the others.

[@callingofcreation6420]

The stories were dumb down and even manipulated. Bambi is a good example. If you are dumbing an story then, why present an scene with bambi's dead mother? Clearly is part of manipulation. This is outrageous but how things are going now a days, way out of ordered. 2030 agenda still up.

[@bretsheeley4034]

Stories should never be dumbed down for children, for that will only dumb down the child. Have the stories aim above the child, encouraging them to reach higher.

[@Slav4o911]

Now they dumb down everything, so children can watch everything... and there is almost no adult stuff left. I mean the whole thing started with "family friendly"... but now everything has to be children friendly... everything has to be simple, like it's not make for humans but for some dumbed down beings. No real subjects or strife can be discussed or showed, because they might cause some controversy and that's forbidden.

[@kacperaskawski3461]

I mean they can change some things for example I don't think that anyone in Cinderla would like scenę when sisters are mutilating their feet to fit the shoe, having their eyer gourged out by birds ir Lady Tremaine dancing to death in hot iron shoes. Not everything have to be familly friendly, but some things shouldn't be shown to child.

[@Qs_Internet_Cafe]

Dunno man, I've seen Alien when I was like 10. Good stuff !@@kacperaskawski3461

[@saiberunato]

An infamous example would be the Comics Code Authority in the 1950's. The beginning of the dumbing down of American comic books.

[@Attmay]

The production code would not have allowed that scene to be adapted, and the animators probably would’ve thrown up if they had had to animate it. Tolkien didn’t have to deal with the Hays/Breen office. Disney did.

[@BETMARKonTube]

If you know what *Walt Disney* did to *P. L. Travers* and her *Mary Poppins,* then you'll agree *Tolkien* saw it through right and dodged the same bullet. She literally cried in theatre for how much he changed her book, its meanings and its characters, despite that he literally sworn to her to respect her requests. And to add insult to injury: as soon as she died, *Disney's* made a movie about her, twisting the story in favor of the studio. The movie even kept the crying part, but this time, of course, it was because she was moved by ending and not destroyed by the disrespect.

[@CMVBrielman]

Tolkien almost certainly did not hate Walt Disney. He just did not like Disney’s approach.

[@alexv3357]

"... (for all whose works I have a heartfelt loathing)."

[@CMVBrielman]

@@alexv3357 exactly. Disney’s work, not Disney. A man known for his linguistic prowess and his devout Catholic Christian faith is going to separate a person from their actions.

[@twenty-fifth420]

"All whose works'. The work belong to disney the person. Also your last sentence is non sequiter at best. I think it is ambigious per se, but I do think Tolkien did not have a high opinion Disney the man. After all, he changed fairy tales left and right. @@CMVBrielman

[@caucasoidape8838]

Theif! theif! theif! Disney! We hates it! We hates it forever!

[@CMVBrielman]

@@twenty-fifth420 Not a non-sequiter at all. L As a linguist, it is likely that Tolkien would be precise when he spoke. So, if he held an opinion regarding a person, he would say so. If he held an opinion regarding that person’s actions, he would say so. As a devout Catholic, Tolkien would believe that one should separate one’s opinion of a sinner from one’s opinion of the sin. Given that there was nothing inherently sinful about telling stories in a way that Tolkien disagreed with, it is reasonable to extrapolate that he would similarly distinguish between Walt Disney as a man and his actions. I think the issue here, in this discussion, is that many are being very casual with their use of the word ‘hate.’

[@NostalgicGamerRickOShay]

I will admit that when my father read to me and my brothers The Hobbit as a bedtime story, I couldn't help but envision the snow white dwarfs on multiple occasions in my head as I listened to the story. I must thank Peter Jackson for cleansing my head of such silly visions.

[@alexanderjaruk]

Okay, now here's a REAL question for you: how do you think Tolkien would have reacted to THIS...? kzbin.info/www/bejne/momQZomJaNBgg6c Would he have loved it, or loathed it...?

[@Democratic-Patriot-Of-Freedom]

​@@alexanderjarukthats a twerking dog

[@techpriest2854]

@@alexanderjaruk I can only think he would be conflicted but I don't think he would be much a fan of rock music which this is similar to. were it more orchestral I think he would lean slightly positive.

[@Daniel_Rodrigues_89]

Oh, don't worry about it, Tolkien probably would have hated Peter Jackson's movies too.

[@alexanderjaruk]

So more along these lines:@@techpriest2854 ? kzbin.info/www/bejne/r6W6q2Oni9t1kJI

[@BT-su1yf]

If only he could have predicted Amazon at the time so he could explicitly prevent them from adapting his works

[@zerobyte802]

They butchered his characters leagues beyond the worst of Jackson’s worst. I wish Tolkien could send barrow wights to vex the showrunners of Rings of Power.

[@Woopor]

He already did, there’s a reason the whole show is a new prequel storyline instead of Sillmarillion or Legendarium

[@the13inquisitor59]

Boys, if you ever get a time machine...

[@specialnewb9821]

Based on his reaction to adapting his work into film in 60s and 70s I think he might have been more open to it than you might think. Not that he'd especially like it but able to ignore it.

[@FriendlyNeighborhoodSnyderMan]

I tend to agree with Tolkein. I have been reading the classics to my daughter since she was a baby. I use the unabridged versions of the tales, and when she doesn't understand something , she asks. She is now 10 years old and is in love with Tolkein's world. We read Harry Potter last year, and she said it felt like it was for littler kids than her....she was 9 at the time, haha. I got my view on this from my father, who undoubtedly got it from his. We always read a book before we see a movie. And we always say the book was better 😄

[@aaronmontgomery2055]

I would say while most books are better than their adaptation, there are some where the adaption is better (Jaws, Shawshank Redemption, The Princess Bride, etc). I agree with the Harry Potter point. I was 9 and thought the writing was dumbed down. I just couldn't see why people liked the books of Harry Potter. Of course I was reading books that I think were to mature for me like "Animal Farm", "Ready Player One", and "Grave of the Fireflies" by Akiyuki Nosaka (my parents didn't speak or understand language so they didn't know what Grave of Fireflies was about)

[@talithakoum3922]

​@@aaronmontgomery2055 Harry Potter is a book aimed at people who hate reading and can't appreciate a good book when you offer them one. There, I said it 😂

[@JediJared-bs1wt]

That’s great! Though it should be noted that the Harry Potter books got more mature over time, they sort of grew up with their audience, so to speak.

[@JediJared-bs1wt]

@@talithakoum3922tbf I didn’t like reading much until I read it at age 11 so at least something good came out of it

[@shahidabegum4195]

@@aaronmontgomery2055 I love reading, always have & always will. I've been in the teens section & adults section reading books since elementary school. I love the Harry Potter books, I read them as they came out back in the time. I also read the LOTR between ages 10-13 and I loved them. I agree with what Tolkein says about keeping stories in their orginial form and not dumbing them down for kids however, I don't understand the shitting on HP books. Yes, it would appear as if they were directed at kids but that's because Harry was 11 when the books came out. You see his growth and maturity with each passing book. Don't just watch the movies and make snide remarks. If you're going to comment and have an opinion, you should at least familiarize yourself with all the books by reading them! (Goodness, I'm all riled up!) btw, I don't give a damn about the movies, I couldn't stomach them.

[@DellDuckfan313]

Disney's approach to storytelling was in no small part influenced by the dynamics of 20th century popular media. For instance, the Hays Code, a very strict content regulation code in Hollywood. Especially around the time The Hobbit first appeared, Disney was pushing the envelope and trying to get animation recognized as a serious and mature art form. That said, the man had incredible taste for kitsch. Tolkien was by his own nature fairly secluded from the modern world. That's what LOTR is all about. He was an academic, writing in an ivory tower. Animation cannot be produced that way, the production costs demand a mass audience. I don't mean to sketch an idea that Tolkien was old-fashioned and Disney was the way of the future. Just that there are different dynamics at play that leads artists to make different creative choices.

[@specialnewb9821]

The irony there is no one has done more to associate animation with children's fare than Disney.

[@zeromagnum2811]

Tolkien was a story teller first and foremost. The Depth of the world and the narrative or a story and the characters in it. He understood the art of story telling better than most. Disney's approach was about profit, Tolkiens was story telling without compromise to his vision of it.

[@LudwigSauerteig]

But the today shi* filmshow he would like ?

[@Attmay]

Except all the cut rate knock offs of Disney that Disney has suffered by association with.

[@Attmay]

Using a Marxist argument to defend Xtian propaganda. A monumental FAIL on so many levels.

[@GoranXII]

As someone who's read Rudyard Kipling's various 'Jungle Book' stories, particularly those featuring Mowgli, the man (Tolkien) has a point! Not only does make Kaa a villain (the Python was just as much a hero as Bagheera or Baloo), but his invention of King Louie ruined the Bandar-log.

[@Attmay]

There was already an existing live-action film by Alexander Korda with Sabu as Mowgli acting alongside real animals. Walt likely wanted to avoid overlap as much as possible. He even told his animators not to read the book when he told them to pay as close attention as they could to the book when that book was *Winnie-the-Pooh.*

[@mevb]

The thing is that the masses couldn't think of a snake being anything but sinister consindering the snake in the Adam and Eve story who tricked them into eating the fruit of knowledge, which led them realize and feel pain, anguish and dispair because they went against God's will. Not to mention that many are scared of snakes for how they look, sliver and stick their forked tounges out, in addition that boa constrictors can and will crush even a human to death by wrapping around them or certain snakes a poisonous bites like rattle snakes, mambas and cobras. It's no wonder Disney made Kaa into an antagonist.

[@michaelbrownlee9497]

@@Attmay wasnt walt dead by the time jungle book came out.

[@SaintD382]

Your spelling, precision, and attention to detail are too good to allow the error "Rubyard" to endure!

[@michaelbrownlee9497]

@@SaintD382 what about mugly?

[@Grandmaster-Kush]

It is sad that modern folklore and fairytales almost exclusively exist in a kid friendly format accessible to the masses, I got heavily into local folklore in my country and it's filled with interesting observations, anecdotes, wisdom, philosophy, language and morals so I can 100% understand this aspect.

[@mori1bund]

Disney's usual course of action is steal some local folklore from another country, dumb it down for the masses as "family friendly" and then sell it as a Disney product. ^^

[@virginiaconnor8350]

The Disney films today have been modernized to the point of being so progressive and even including cancel- culture that becomes more important than the original story itself.

[@Thane3999]

Modern folklore abd fairy tales? Buddy, this has been a a thing since at least 16th century Victorian Europe, and ironically Grims brothers, who popularized only few versions of famous fairy tales, that existed. Fairy tales don't have fixed cannon, they change from storyteller to storyteller, country to country, and era to era and so on and so forth...applying different wisdoms, morals, anecdotes as time goes on. After all, mediavel European are not same as 20th century Americans

[@Tatokun92]

"Growing old is mandatory, but growing up is optional" -Walt Disney

[@patrickkelmer6290]

The way the "dumbing down" of fairy tales is described reminds me why I always loved the fairy tale adaptations made in the USSR, East Germany and Czechoslovakia. They often stayed very true to the material and were often darker than any Disney adaptation.

[@GeneralChangFromDanang]

I especially like the Russo-Finnish version of Jack Frost, even though it was thoroughly made fun of by Mystery Science Theater.

[@geoffreyrichards6079]

Disney wasn’t really at fault for it, though. Many of the standards and practices they set for their adaptations were the result of the society they were created in, which was very much a post-Victorian/Civil War world. At lot of media that was designed to be digestible was created around that time.

[@genyakozlov1316]

​@@GeneralChangFromDanangMy blood still boils over the fact they took a movie considered an absolute classic in Russia and other post-soviet countries and mocked it relentlessly. Not like other episodes constitute proper critique, especially their episodes on the Gamera films, but it's one thing to make fun of the special effects when the studio couldn't possibly make better ones on their budget, another to take a film important to another culture, one which won multiple international awards, and basically call it garbage. Really sending the: "only Hollywood, Canadian, and England movies and those which imitate them are good" message to the world. Mystery Science theatre is really the beginning of the awful video essays which used to dominate KZbin in 2012, with Red Letter Media's slop about the Star Wars prequels being the next step into the abyss. Thank god the pendulum has (mostly) swung the other way and KZbin is no longer defined by negativity. That being said Морозко still softens the original story by having the mean step sister get garbage as a present rather than freezing to death like in the original fairy tale, so I don't think Tolkien would like that very much.

[@Hyperlingualism]

​@@genyakozlov1316 I don't mean to diminish what you've said as I value your comment and the way you express your views, but video essays are a more popular format than ever before and have not declined. I feel like they reached their popularity in 2020 and haven't declined much since. Maybe KZbin's not entirely defined by negativity anymore, considering "Video essayist makes video about why a good video game was good" is kind of a meme by this point, plenty take the same view towards the type of media like Морозко. Especially that most aren't from skilled critics or artists but any random person with recording software, most take very amateur surface-level views of the medium, whatever has the best relatively-viral take about their favorite or least-favorite media.

[@thenumbah1birdman]

While not a fairy tale, check out the Soviet adaptation of Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book: Unlike the Bowdlerized Disney version it still retains much of the edge/maturity present in the original work (as an example, has the balls to show Kaa as the force of nature he was in the book, not the bumbling Pooh-esque fool he was in the Disney version) and follows the original text quite closely.

[@weaponmaster1515]

Disney: *makes snow white* Tolkien: WE MINE FOR ROCK AND STONE!!!

[@ApplesAndOranges1]

Tolien would be proud of Deep Rock😂

[@cardboardbox5704]

How would Tolkien react if he ever saw "Snow White and the Huntsman"?: kzbin.info/www/bejne/pouWcqx4qNijbqMsi=ke7PIplr_VxuQhEp

[@BlueTemplar15]

I still have somewhere my scathing review of Peter Jackson's The Two Towers : I generally liked the movie, but I did **not** appreciate how it made Gimli into comedic relief... Also that kill-counting competition between Gimli and Legolas would have probably felt unseemly to someone that went through WW1... (I've mellowed on it since then, it's just... different : most noticeably perhaps how the battle of Helm's Deep is like a couple of pages in the book but like a third of the movie...)

[@Yabuturtle]

I would not say he hated him, more like he didn't care for his approach on certain things. I don't pick sides or anything, both were ahead of their time and made great stuff.

[@DualStupidity]

His realization of what Disney was doing to classic tales is very akin to what some critics saw the original Star Wars doing to the film industry, drawing crowds through flashy effects rather than story. Ultimately, I believe this is all a consequence of differing mediums. The greatest film teams will never have the freedom afforded to the greatest writers, but literature has become more and more of an acquired taste over the decades due to the availability of "quality" visual entertainment.

[@shirleymaemattthews4862]

1:37 Oh boy...Tolkien would DEFINITELY hate Skibidi Toilet for SURE!

[@Bob-po2dp]

Imagine if he saw half the shit we engage with today on a regular basis. He would be foaming at the mouth lol. “You scroll for how many hours on that website watching ten second videos!?”

[@No-ut1dn]

Do you know any person from 20th century who would not hate it?

[@Neilos-sd6ti]

That isnt even a question.

[@its_dey_mate]

And so would he hate 00s kids brain-rot like mlg and such. There is no difference, let kids enjoy their neo-brainrot.

[@chimpanzinc1790]

@@its_dey_mate how about we just take a U-turn instead of letting children and their children degenerate down the line?

[@chiissu]

I like how both Naoko Takeuchi of Sailor Moon creation and Tolkien both went out of their way to keep disney from befouling their works. But Tolkien was right about not dumbing things down for kids. Things like Don Bluth and the 90s Batman cartoon were good as kids but once you grow up and learn more of life and love, you can truly appreciate how good they were. I've been watching Sailor Moon in Japanese and its more than just babes in miniskirts, but has heart and romance that as a kid I didn't get. Just because somethin isn't a Hard R rating doesn't mean adults can't like it. And likewise, because something is serious and deep doesn't mean it can't have young fans. Fist of the North Star was made for 8-15 year olds and deals with deep love and honor and sacrifice and has moved me to tears. Star Trek in the 60s and Robotech in the 80s were both safe enough for kids to watch but intelligent enough for adults to enjoy. as a 90s kid I watched Beast Wars with my dad and he liked it as there was more to it than a half hour toy add, but had good characters and stories. Then we got Beast Machines and it was a serious religious epic that was clean enough for kids. When you focus only on 1 group you miss all the others. When by making something with something for all, it brings us together.

[@annien.1727]

Well, I don't see how Sailor Moon would ever match with Disney's princesses.🤷🏻‍♀ They're all pretty in their own right. And as much as I love anime, I'm a huge fan of Disney, and I've watched every Disney movie made in my childhood. You're right about many things, but I highly doubt that Disney would even be interested in remaking Sailor Moon or Lord of the Rings. And IMO, saying that Disney would "befoul" anything is nonsensical. Once I make my original manga series, I'm heading over to Disney Animation to make it the first Disney American anime.

[@toddkurzbard]

I've never watched any (with very rare exception, those being an "Akira" cartoon from the '80's, and a Japanese cartoon that was turned into "Gigantor" in America) watched any anime, because I regarded as "Those-Bug-Eyed Characters-Whom-I-Can't-Understand-Because-It's-All-Spoken-In-Japanese". I also thought "Sailor Moon" was a show for girls (from the look of it).

[@toddkurzbard]

@@annien.1727 You must be VERY sad these days.

[@Angie2343]

Agreed

[@priscillajimenez27]

I prefer the DIC version

[@drakeishere]

"When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up... I enjoy fairy tales now more than I did as a child. As an adult, I can put more into them, and as a result, I get more out of them." - C.S. Lewis

[@JesusProtects]

Miyazaki hates LOTR: Weird. Tolkien hates Disney: Based.

[@KingInBlack69]

I mean, Miyazaki makes nice movies but he is well known to be an asshole.

[@gabrielgoes0]

Why does Miyazaki hate LOTR? I wasn't aware of it

[@EC-rd9ys]

Miyazaki sadly is a very cynical man. It wouldn't surprise me that he would dislike Tolkien's wholesome worldview.

[@sr_ryoadm]

Who gives a fck to Miyazaki? Western blowing random japaneses because they are ✨hOnOuR, sAmUrAi, sEnSeI" The opinion of Miyazaki worth less than any director of animation ever lived

[@gabrielgoes0]

@@sr_ryoadm what do you mean randomized japanese lol dude is one of the greatest and most accomplished animators of all time

[@rumrunner8019]

Here's the one million dollar question: *what would Tolkien have thought about Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli?*

[@punkmoose3962]

Honestly woulda probably supported them; art style is detailed, isn't overtly exaggerated, the messages and plotlines throughout are so universal, and anyone of any age can get lasting value out of them. Not to mention their overlapping philosophies concerning nature. Even if Tolkien wasn't interested in watching more than one Ghibli movie, he would probably not have anything bad to say after about it.

[@caesarpizza1338]

I think he’ll enjoy them.Miyazaki seemed have similar philosophy with Tolkien, albeit more Japanese. I watched proco Rosso the other day, I was thinking how there’s not really any true antagonist in it. I mean there’s A-holes, sure. But they turn over a new leaf, which fits with tolkiens Catholicism views.

[@john-gw9iq]

He might like them. Although I think Miyazaki wasn't too big on Tolkien. Isn't he known to not be a fan of Lord of the Rings?

[@randez626]

He would have also disliked it. Why? Bc he dislikes films/ stories that deal with allegories.

[@jackmonaghan8477]

He probably would have appreciated 'Princess Mononoke' considering Miyazaki and Tolkein are very prominent environmentalists.

[@AdamEX1]

Its incredible to think that we are still talking about and discussing a beef before any of us were born between two artists.

[@AmandaDan-jz3zb]

Hello Adam, how are you doing today

[@OzixiThrill]

To be fair, said beef hasn't really lost it's relevancy.

[@Zeithri]

Pft that's nothing. You should see the letter from some guy whose name I forgot who wrote about another guy who was selling shit copper to people some 3000 years ago or so.

[@fartkerson]

How is this incredible? We discuss old beefs in every history class and sunday school around the world. Discussing old beefs is the most common thing that's ever occurred on this planet.

[@svenbruder9977]

I love beef

[@madelinetracy3847]

Wow, I actually agree with Tolkien about Disney. Fairy stories are important, cultural tales which carry within them a delicate braid of values and beliefs from a specific time period. (Children and adults can learn from them- whether you should expose children to uncensored versions of fairy stories is up to the parent’s discretion.) In Tolkien’s eyes, Walt tore that delicate braid into confetti because it was pretty when you threw a lot of it. I’m surprised by how much I agreed with Tolkien, but since Disney’s decline, I’ve seen the company and it’s films a bit more clearly (and/or cynically). Great research and terrific video! Boy, I wish I could listen to a recording of C.S. Lewis and Tolkien discussing their reactions to Disney’s “Snow White”- especially the dwarfs! Dwarves are a culturally significant symbol for folks of certain ancestry. My ancestors believed in them and “elves”! There are people in Norway who still believe in them.

[@cardboardbox5704]

How would Tolkien react if he ever saw "Snow White and the Huntsman"?: kzbin.info/www/bejne/pouWcqx4qNijbqMsi=sPyp5QZ6bGi1Swv8

[@midnightzero3760]

I strongly recommend 'The letters of Tolkien'

[@annien.1727]

😡Walt DIDN'T tore that delicate braid into confetti! He stayed true to his beliefs and love for fairytales! And Disney is NOT declining anytime soon! Disney is making a BIG comeback!

[@madelinetracy3847]

@@annien.1727 Okay, then, if you feel strongly about that, you can lean on Disney stuff all you want, my friend. I’m speaking from my experience. But consider: are you trying to convince me or yourself? If Disney is doing fine, why do you have to get so angry to defend them?

[@Sanman95]

Yeah, Disney changed classic fairytales and gave them Happily Ever After endings but he was the master of his craft: animation. Every animation studio that ever came after him like Pixar, Illumination, DrramWorks and Ghibli have drawn from Walt Disney and his films

[@evandonovan9239]

That was a great quote to pull out from "On Fairy Stories". It's been a long time since I read that, and I honestly didn't understand most of it at the time. Time for me to revisit it. I agree with Tolkien that fairy tales shouldn't be considered primarily to be for children. That said, I appreciate the achievements of Disney in animation and especially in theme park design, which Tolkien didn't have the temperament to appreciate properly. This was a wonderful and thoughtful video, much better produced than the average video essay on KZbin.

[@uzivatel56]

Fairy tales often carry deep mythology. Some are said to be 15 000 years old (and maybe more).

[@LaughingMan44]

" theme park design" oh wow, what a fucking contribution to society, *theme parks*

[@YouCanCallMeReTro]

Theme park design? Really? Lol

[@Vgpl0]

You "appreciate" shiny colors and mascot outfits? I don't think Tolkien would 'appreciate' them. He's not a simpleton.

[@thepinkestpigglet7529]

I don't think enough is said about the theme park aspect. The haunted mansion and pirates of the Caribbean are art.

[@geoffreyrichards6079]

Tolkien was very much an old-school author even in the time period he lived in. Though if he thought Disney’s contemporary works and others were too watered down and safe, he would probably find our modern media to be even worse by comparison. Though my guess is that C.S. Lewis’ initial reaction towards Disney’s dwarfs might’ve softened a bit considering that the dwarves of Narnia weren’t treated too differently than how the film depicted them. That might’ve been one of the reasons why Tolkien ended up not liking the books. Lord knows how he would’ve felt about the Peter Jackson films and their treatment of Gimli, especially the Hobbit trilogy.

[@Turambar3791]

Tolkien,s body probably is by this time spinning in his grave so fast that he could make a nice generator.

[@donyoung7874]

Don't we all think that?

[@АлександрТерехов-ж3й]

Tolkien was simply biased towards animation and cinema, considering them low art

[@geoffreyrichards6079]

@@АлександрТерехов-ж3й Makes me wonder what he thought about the old complaints of written literature ruining oral story telling.

[@VendettaProduction01]

“This seems odd to us today.” Are you kidding? This is happening on “name a social media site” right now.

[@WiseandVegan]

Don't be enslaved by others' delusions, be free: The Connections (2021) [short documentary] 🙏

[@CullodenCowboy]

Children still enjoy stories that go over their heads, and when they get older they can return to them. I read The Hobbit when I was like 10, and I loved it. Did I understand the messages and the complexities of the story? No. But I understood Bilbo’s journey.

[@vasylpark2149]

I completely understand and agree with his take. I am a writer myself, albeit struggling to find an audience, I am also someone who loves, adores, and cherishes fairy tales, legends, and myths from every part of the world. And I am someone who believes the intelligence of children should not be underestimated i see it happen far too often with disney, while it is entertaining it is belittling changes the context of history and legends and dumbs down the stories and the lessons they tell.

[@Elyseon]

I understand some of the changes since fairy tales were often quite dark and disturbing, but Disney did tend to sanitize everything and treat children like idiots.

[@ComeAlongKay]

I don’t really agree I feel like some parts of the original tales are like extremely disgustingly violent and would be beyond disturbing in a movie. Like most of the original stories just are freaking brutal. Little mermaid is like tortured for all time, the Snow White has a child while in a coma basically, it just all seems like a lot.

[@ComeAlongKay]

@@ElyseonI don’t get that sense at all. There are dark elements like extremely dark to some Disney films. Just because Tolkien was a great writer doesn’t mean he was right about everything I don’t think he liked Narnia and Lewis’s work either that much.

[@briesullivan883]

I agree, but some elements of the old fairy tales are too dark.

[@briesullivan883]

@@ComeAlongKay yeah but the Disney versions are nowhere near as dark as the the original.

[@AJ-lk6gg]

I really enjoyed this video. The Disney films and style which Tolkien would have been familiar with in May 1937 were unlikely to have been the early 1920s cartoons (which were fairly obscure and not widely seen), but the Mickey Mouse cartoons and especially the Silly Symphonies series which adpated many fairy tales into technicolor cartoons (images based on these cartoons appeared on a lot of merchandise, including licensed children's books at the time too). The most famous and popular of these short films was "The Three Little Pigs" (1933) which was a massive hit, but other cartoons included 'Babes in the Woods', 'The Pied Piper' and 'The Goddess of Spring'. I can see why Tolkien wouldn't have wanted illustrations like these in his books - they have a very different vibe.

[@negativezero8174]

Imagine what he’d say about Amazon

[@heresyisecstasy]

If he saw rings of power he'd become a terrorist and none of us could have blamed him

[@michaelmartin9022]

​@@heresyisecstasyWell in Britain these days, having a book about Hitler in your living room and a knife in your kitchen drawer makes you a "terrorist", so...

[@ReinoldFZ]

@@michaelmartin9022 I am tempted to travel by boat to Britain and sell copies of Main Kampf and knives. I wonder if my skin color would be a sort of cloak of invisibility 🧐

[@Window4503]

I think Lewis kind of said it in The Great Divorce. There’s a ghost that wants to go to heaven to bring back “real commodities” because the ones in hell aren’t substantial or rare enough. For him, heaven was just the next level of consumption.

[@cyanimation1605]

imagine what he would've thought of a 9-hour adaptation of The Hobbit

[@leavrhovec4992]

What I think people forget is that Disney movies back then weren't actually all sunshine and roses. You got Cinderella who is abused by her stepmother and stepsisters and has to work hard for what she wants, you've got Snow White who is hated by the queen who wants to kill her, yet she still remains kind and virtous. You've got Bambi who loses his mother, but the movie makes it perfectly clear that, although death can be painful and sad, life goes on. And Bambi movie actually did it brilliantly by not even showing Bambi's dead mother. There is only silence of the falling snow as Bambi calls out to his mother and eventually realises she is gone. A lot of people, including Tolkien as far as tgis topic is concerned, seem to miss that you can do mature themes in an animation movie without actually showing graphic violence. I remember how much I cried when Bambi's mother died, yet I didn't see her being shot. There was just a sound of the gun and the deafening silence after. People complaining about Little Mermaid not having the same tragic end as in the books are somehow always the same people who complain about how violent movie have become today and they totally miss the point of Disney's adaptation. I can assure you that Little Mermaid throwing herself off a cliff would be extremely upsetting to adults, let alone a small child. Many people would have issue with it, and, ironically, most of those people would be Tolkien's fellow Catholics who always preach how suicide is a sin etc. They surely wouldn't be happy having their child watch that scene. Which then brings us to the tabboo of suicide and death in general. It is somewhat better today, but back in those days people really avoided explicitly taking about death. And most of those talks children wouldn't actually understand until they are older. Most children start to understand the permanency of death when they are about 7 or older. And most children watching Disney movies are 5, so still a bit too young to understand the full picture, but that's where Disney's subtlety and versatility comes in. He himself said that his art can and should be enjoyed by all audiences, so not only was he catering to children abd what they were able to understand, he was also catering to the adults of the time. Believe it or not, but Disney movies weren't watched and enjoyed only by children. Many adults emerged themselves in these movies full of magic, and since adults were more mature, they could recognise and appreciate the hidden messages in the stories. I think Disney really did a good job of entrancing people of all ages and introducing them to a world of imagination and magic. And I believe that his movies made the original stories more popular, even though they differ in some ways.

[@WoodlandFaerieCrochet]

I agree with Tolkien that children are smart, and that we need to trust them and help them expand their knowledge when it comes to stories like myth and folklore. As someone who has loved Disney and his work for years, I never once thought Disney was treating me or any child like a dumb person. I viewed it as Walt wanted me and audiences to sit back and have fun with the new depictions of these stories. As for the Dwarfs in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, I never once looked at the Dwarfs the way Tolkien views them. I viewed them as funny, but also intelligent and protectors to Snow White. In scenes like the dance scene in the cottage, they were comical and whimsy. In the chase scene, the dwarfs bravely chased after the Queen to defend Snow White’s Honor. They loved her and wanted to protect her from her evil Stepmother. That’s just my experience with Disney.

[@asmith121]

Children aren't smart, they are intelligent. There's a distance difference. They are capable of becoming smarter as they learn more, via the intelligence they are gifted with.

[@michaelmartin9022]

I used to hate when comics set in the future would have somebody going to prison for "300 light years". Or one time a dog got "23 and a bit" bones for running a marathon, and they had to have a caption pointing out that a broken bone was "the bit". It made me spittingly angry in the 90's, but there was nothing I could do about it. Not so today! Gamergate and Comicsgate didn't come out of nowhere...

[@elijahherstal776]

Kids aren't much different than Soldiers. When I was a NCO, I believed in treating my Soldiers like grown men, even deferring to them to see what they thought about a decision I had to make- and treating them as intelligent adults with value in their thoughts. Because of this, I never had issues with them doing something stupid- had smart, well-adjusted, responsible Soldiers that I could count on. I've tried the same approach with kids- talking to them like they're adults (within reason, of course- some topics aren't for children). Amazing, they'll startle me sometimes with how smart they are, and how easy it is to deal with them.

[@TiredSnowBerry]

Was just thinking that. I know Tolkien grew up in a different era which majorly contributed to his opinion, and I do think he makes excellent points, but one thing I definitely disagree with him about is that the classic Disney films were "dumbed down fairy tales to appeal to kids." The mass of adult Disney fans that exists today is more than enough to disprove this, but I don't think it's hard to see just by looking at the films themselves either. For example, classic Cinderella vs live action Cinderella remake. In the remake, I would definitely say the message is dumbed down: the characters literally repeat it several times throughout the film, most of the time pointlessly so. However, the original Cinderella teaches the importance of kindness and perseverance in a more subtle way that both kids and adults can catch through Cinderella's actions and attitude. I also don't think making classic fairy tales less dark is inherently a bad thing; times change, and it's natural to explore different interpretations of classic stories for different audiences, especially as some of the lessons in some of those old tales don't apply the same way today as they once did. Not saying the classic Disney formula is flawless or that this approach never made any mistakes (Disney did kinda butcher the message of Anderson's Little Mermaid by allowing Ariel to live, not that I can really blame them), but I would never say that Disney's classic animations are dumbed down or only for children.

[@Hifuutorian]

​@@michaelmartin9022What are you even talking about dude?

[@BIGJUNK1MILLION]

I wonder how Tolkien would have reacted to animation studios/series that came after his time. Personally, I think he’d love Studio Ghibli in particular and maybe golden age Pixar as well. It’s a shame we’ll never know.

[@goldalien2016]

It's funny that you mention Ghibli, because some of the people who worked on the animated Hobbit movie from 1977 (Which I personally think captured the book pretty well) went on to join studio Ghibli

[@Cinnamousey]

I was just thinking that Tolkien seems like he would be just as hard to please as Miyazaki himself. Though I do have a feeling that they would have other things in common as well.

[@exharkhun5605]

Nah.. I'm afraid he wouldn't. He didn't like enactment as a medium for story telling, he saw it as inherently immersion breaking because you see the acting taking place in front of your eyes. It wasn't so much that he found the written word superior (as an academic he may have done), but In his view a story taking place directly in the head of the reader is the only way to immerse him fully in the fantastical world. (The man clearly hadn't met someone with dyslexia.) He may have liked the very good audio books you have nowadays.

[@Count.Saruman]

I think Tolkien would much prefer Hidetaka Miyazaki's work to Hayao Miyazaki's, actually. Tolkien was known to dislike allegory, and a common theme in his work was to stand up and fight to protect your loved ones, or for a just cause that was worth fighting for. Hayao Miyazaki's anti-war sentiment he'd find to be overwrought. The Fromsoft themes of ancient grandeur, myth-creation, glorious knights and magic steadily fading from the world, however- now that was what Tolkien was all about.

[@Alderak1]

@jonathanbirch2022The complaints Tolkien has in this video don’t even really apply to Disney or Pixar today. Not only do those studios not really do rip-offs of fairly-tales anymore, the films are a lot less childish in the way they are presented than they were in 1938. He might not like their modern work if he was exposed to it, but his expertise as a linguist, historian, and fiction writer is largely irrelevant to Disney movies which no longer rely on retelling fairytales.

[@andrewsutherland133]

My favorite quotes about storytelling "I don't write for children, i write and people say its for children"--maurice sendak "We didn't make the show for kids specifically, we just didn't want to exclude them from our audience"--jeff marsh

[@Vgpl0]

And "not excluding" kids means that you're writing for them specifically, because you have to appeal to the lowest common denominator when you want to include "everyone" so as to leave no one behind, meaning that you have to soft-serve everything if you want to include kids. So those disclaiming statements are pretty oxymoronic and self-disproving.

[@andrewsutherland133]

@@Vgpl0 damn, who ruined your childhood

[@Vgpl0]

@@andrewsutherland133 Damn, who infantilized you? Oh right - Disney.

[@andrewsutherland133]

@@Vgpl0 the Flintstones, the Simpsons, king of the hill, gargoyles, avatar, gravity falls, adventure time, hey Arnold. There are numerous examples of shows kids can watch with mature stories. Rather than infantilize me, Pixar showed me to make mature stories with a fun nature

[@Vgpl0]

@@andrewsutherland133 “There are numerous kid shows that are mature!” Yes, “mature” relative to children. Saying that you find shows that target children as “mature” doesn’t make them mature; it means you are still at a level where you find childish things at your level. Essentially: kid shows are not “mature” to anyone but children. Think about it. Pixar makes children movies. You find them “mature” because of a “theme” - something abstract and utterly irrelevant, which is just an excuse to not face the fact that your mind is still at a level where it thinks material designed for children is complex. Mediums matter - soft-edged, big-eyed, colorful characters, etc., - more than the messaging. Your medium is infantile.

[@TheChrisSig]

"To us in the 21st century this may seem insane..." No, not to all of us. With every year it seems much more apt. The complete atomization of culture, intellect, and even literacy and numeracy has had a pretty severe impact on childhood development. Look at school testing scores, literacy rates, and even the quality of entertainment and storytelling... it's pretty clearly degrading.

[@RoninCatholic]

In the 20s through the 50s, "Mickey Mouse" was slang for "doing the bare minimum to function" especially as regards machine maintenance and repair jobs, comparing the quality of Disney's animations to their competitors Fleischer and Buena Vista. TerryToons were a little less refined than Disney. Warner Bros. made up for a lower animation budget with snappier, quippier writing. Disney has managed through propaganda to be seen as great, but at the time they were seen as mediocre and serviceable.

[@PutYourQuarterUpGaming]

Huh. My parents use that term, so just in my vocab with inferred meaning out of childhood days but that um, explains where they got it from.

[@stregadreamcast3928]

I still hear "Who did this Mickey Mouse job?!" on the odd job site now and then.

[@duhotatoday3277]

To call old Disney frame-by-frame animation "mediocre and serviceable" is one of the dumbеst statements I've ever heard

[@Attmay]

The studio they described is Hanna-Barbera.

[@RoninCatholic]

@@duhotatoday3277 Not when frame by frame animation was *industry standard* , and there were like five other major studios doing what they did, but at higher quality and another five or so widely distributed studios doing what they did, but sloppier, choppier, or cheaper. Disney was literally _the_ middle of the road animation company until the 60s when super cheap TV animation studios and Japanese budget studios started cropping up. Disney wasn't the _high quality_ animation studio until the late 1980s, and dropped off being that in the mid 2000s.

[@artix548]

When I was in pre-school back in 2001 and 2002, I became a huge Bionicle fan, and I appreciate it even more than I did then because it repsected the intelligence of even its youngest fans. I agree with the good professor on this one: children should be introduced to stories that cause them to think, because they are much more capable than we often give them credit for.

[@Zombiesnyder13]

"Evil cannot create anything new. It can only corrupt and ruin what good forces have invented or made." - JRR Tolkien

[@roysutherland9729]

Looking at you, Star Wars.

[@zeromagnum2811]

He was absolutely right about that.

[@lukejones7164]

​@@roysutherland9729 Which Star Wars?

[@DragonKing-te9wy]

@@lukejones7164 Probably the last three, if I had to guess.

[@teawrecks1243]

literally modern disney

[@FuchsiaFire444]

Thank you. I never heard this before. It makes perfect sense. Disney's view of fantasy was on a different level entirely, geared more toward entertainment, humor, and a very lighthearted experience, his focus on morals and values far less a part of his art and purpose. There is no comparison, resonance, or compatibility between Tolkien's depth and realism and Disney's cartoon interpretations. A cartoon has nothing in common with a creator of worlds, the journey of the human spirit, duality and choice, courage, and the reality of parallel dimensions. His "hatred" is more fear his work would be as he said bastardized, belittled, reduced to superficiality, one dimensional meaninglessness, and made soulless.

[@SleepingGroke]

My respect for Tolkien has grown somewhat with this. Another writer and artist whom had said no to Disney was the Finnish-Swedish author Tove Jansson, the creator of Moomins. And Tove Jansson would actually also illustrate one publication of Tolkiens "Lord of the Rings".

[@the13inquisitor59]

I believe I read somewhere it was due to her that Gollum is described the way he is in the modern prints.

[@SleepingGroke]

@@the13inquisitor59 Possibly, Gollum is drawn absolutely massive by Tove.

[@the13inquisitor59]

@@SleepingGroke Yes, instead of a small, skulking creature.

[@TTTristan1]

Part of reading books as a kid is being in wonder over things you don't yet understand, and working to understand them. I don't know the science on kids books/shows for really young children, but seeing my nephew watch youtube kids at 2 years old, I doubt they're doing much good.

[@AmericanImperium1776]

I like Walt Disney the man and old Disney has great classics, but ultimately I’d say Tolkien has been vindicated as time went on.

[@williammongoose3007]

I don't like Walt Disney the man.

[@cameronpearce5943]

As a man he was pretty awful. Theirs a reason so many caricatures of diabolical billionaires are still based off him. He ruined thousands of careers during the red scare out of fear of communism getting in the way of his domination of a capitalist economy

[@CaptainHindsight-xt9yd]

How did time vindicate Tolkien in regards to what he thought about about Walt Disney when Walt Disney died in 1967? Unless you think that Disney already messed up some time between Steamboat Willie and Jungle Book of course.

[@CaptainHindsight-xt9yd]

@@cameronpearce5943 in that case time has proven Walt Disney right.

[@AmericanImperium1776]

@@CaptainHindsight-xt9yd I just mean that Disney has become a greedy and terrible company.

[@lisagulick4144]

When I was young, my father was a hoarder. He would go to the town dump and salvage things; needless to say, our house was not a pretty sight. But one thing he would bring home that always brought me joy was old books, thrown away for unknown reasons by unknown people. One of those books was an ancient, massive volume titled _The Kindergarten._ It was a collection of poems and stories intended to be read to young children. But it was by no means Disney, or even close - in one of the poems, a child is jealous of his new baby sibling and wishes that they would take it away; in another, a rude little girl who never says "please" is carried away by the fairies to live in a dark forest until she learns to be polite! And also in this book were the _original_ versions of a number of the Grimm fairy tales: Cinderella, in which the stepsisters cut off parts of their feet to make them fit into the shoe; Snow White, in which the Prince wanted her dead body in the glass casket to gaze upon forever (ew!), and only ended up with a living bride because one of his servants tripped and dislodged the bite of poisoned apple from her throat; Little One-Eye, Little Two-Eyes, and Little Three-Eyes, about a "normal" girl being treated badly by her weird relatives and finally being rescued by a prince (of course); and Red-Riding Hood, in which _everyone_ gets eaten by the wolf, and the huntsman cuts them all out of the wolf's stomach! Kids had a greater tolerance for gruesome and mean stuff back then, I think,

[@Serai3]

It's surprisingly heartening that Disney turned down the opportunity. That tells me they understood the job and knew they weren't up to it.

[@AmusedCoffee-ym3gb]

They would do it in a heartbeat if they could

[@Serai3]

@@AmusedCoffee-ym3gb Really? Funny, they haven't even tried since then.

[@RealCodreX]

@Serai3 Not profitable enough anymore in todays market.​

[@AmusedCoffee-ym3gb]

@@Serai3 look it up. They tried 4 times so far and were in a bidding war with Amazon.

[@marthademovimaus5140]

Look what they did to Lloyd Alexander's stuff ( Black Cauldron)! Good call, JRR!

[@Attmay]

Jeffrey Katzenberg killed that movie in post-production. There needs to be criminal charges for that.

[@toonblade4231]

Huh. Interesting. Makes me wonder what Tolkein would have thought of Hayao Miyazaki's works, if he were able to see them. The two of them seem to have similar philosophies when it comes to maturity in art, especially when aimed at kid.

[@alexanderjaruk]

Okay, now here's an even better question for you: how do you think Tolkien would have reacted to THIS...? Would he love it, or hate it...? kzbin.info/www/bejne/momQZomJaNBgg6c

[@amicaaranearum]

“It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo, the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end, because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come, and when the sun shines, it will shine out the clearer. “Those were the stories that stayed with you, that _meant_ something - even if you were too small to understand why.”

[@amynazza]

It’s interesting that many scholars look at LOTR as a WW1 allegory and the illustrators of Snow White used their WW1 troop companions as inspiration for the facial expressions and character traits of the dwarves in the animated feature. I saw a comment by the grandchild of one of the “dwarves” state that her grandfather recognized himself immediately and told the family who the real life people who inspired the other 6 dwarves were, and what life in the regiments was like with that group. The 1930s were very difficult in the USA, the depression hit the nation in a way that Europe wasn’t touched by, and the cartoon Snow White inspired hope again in a beat down nation, according to my own grandparents who lived through the Great Depression. In other words, Tolkien’s opinion is not applicable in many ways, because the fairytale Snow White was morphed into what needed at the time, by a different nation and culture than his own.

[@myshkakolbasnaya]

Why are you talking like the Great Depression is something bigger than the two World Wars that Europe went through? 🤔 I get it that Americans were dying of hunger, disease, but wasn't that the case in Europe during two massive wars?

[@amynazza]

Interesting that you drew the conclusion I was comparing the Great Depression to the World Wars. There is no comparison because they were different events. One can say it was hard without inferring it was harder. 🤷‍♀️😆

[@yrantiquebrand]

What the hell is this comment lol.

[@BlueNorth313]

"the depression hit the nation in a way that Europe wasn’t touched by" lol, are you serious? Do you know how badly people suffered in Europe? After WWI people in Germany, for example, were in absolute misery. Inflation was so great that most people couldn't even afford to buy food.

[@BlueNorth313]

@@birdybird712 Really? Do you think the people who start the wars are the common folk? In what world do you live in? The ones who start the wars are the wealthy and privileged, those who'll benefit from them, and those who'll never be in the front lines. Do you think a certain landscape painter was in the front lines? Most people were indeed living in utter misery, and they were propagandized to believe that the solution to their problems was war. Like so many other times, all around the world, people were slowly conditioned into looking at war as a kind of salvation. Anti-semitism isn't widespread today, at all (I think you mean anti-zionism, and that's a completely different thing). Although, actually, since Palestinians are semites, you're right, anti-semitism is rampant.

[@Chemist-ob9uf]

Tolkien really hit the mark, hating the misguided belief that children are incapable of handling mature themes such as Death. Nowadays, there are people who still think that children are incapable of understanding those kinds of things, and those children have parents who can coddle them, and are still unwilling to talk to them for fear of "scaring them".

[@donyoung7874]

Or to even teach them about the real history of our country because it might make some of the kids feel ashamed about themselves, for some reason.

[@elpsykoongro5379]

They must know the reason why memento Mori exists

[@costakeith9048]

@@donyoung7874 Why would they feel ashamed? We conquered this continent, you can't get more noble than conquest.

[@braemtes23]

@@donyoung7874 Or to teach them that what people did in the past has zero to do with them personally and they have nothing of which to be ashamed and or to gain from it since they neither participated in nor suffered from the past.

[@donyoung7874]

@@braemtes23 It could teach them that if those right wing groups weren't trying to keep kids ignorant of our racist past. That reason of discomfort or humiliation was in a number of reports when the Moms For Liberty began their crusade. They threatened to get teachers fired over this.

[@joeschmoe709]

I wasn’t sure I understood what he meant at first, but after reading Prydain and then seeing the black cauldron, I completely agree and I can see how all the maturity and virtue is totally removed

[@dakotamabry1645]

I read the prydain series because of the black cauldron .. It dang near wasn't allowed to be made and bankrupted Disney, it was still one of my favorites - the book series is definitely better and would've loved to see a series adaption

[@joeschmoe709]

It nearly bankrupted them? I didn’t know they invested so much into it. I’m going to check out the production issues

[@chrishilton3626]

@@dakotamabry1645 I think they’re going to make it again because I saw it on a list of future Disney live action films for the future on a pretty reputable because of experience it Usually right about future movies, it’s called movie insider

[@dakotamabry1645]

@joeschmoe709 oh yeah it's known as the movie that nearly killed Disney.

[@chrishilton3626]

@@dakotamabry1645 i’ve heard that they’re doing a live action version of it much darker take

[@chasingthelight8502]

This was a great video! Thank you for talking about this topic. I understand where Tolkien was coming from with his concern of Disney movies doubting the intelligence of children (or dumbing down of story telling). I enjoy both Tolkien and Disney. But I appreciate the immense amount of work and creativity Tolkien put into his work!

[@InkandFantasy]

Thank you so much for watching!!!

[@Wraithninja1]

I’m curious what he would think of Jonathan Pageau’s take on Snow White.

[@sherab2078]

Of course, I didn't know Tolkien personally, and I haven't heard or watched too many interviews with him. I haven't read the letters either. So what I'm going to write is just a very subjective opinion - while a great author, Tolkien was a little bit narrowminded and incapable of appreciating any kind of art or literature that would stray from his personal views. This doesn't mean I don't agree with him on some subjects (though 'classic' Disney productions are not one of them) but Tolkien is in my eyes a little bit like his Gandalf - wise, but also proud and sometimes arrogant.

[@WoodlandFaerieCrochet]

I think Tolkien is very smart. I can see it with The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. I respect is intelligence for scholarly knowledge. I just have a different experience with Disney that doesn’t add up to his opinion of Disney creative process. Disney was a magical man. I love and respect his creativity with Snow White, Winnie the Pooh, etc. I never once thought that Walt was treating me like I was dumb. At the same time, Tolkien is allowed to have his opinion, I was just expressing my thoughts and experiences.

[@Jim-Mc]

He was Platonic and Thomistic in his judgment. He measured everything against the Ideal version, the core substance of that thing. So for instance if something calls itself Snow White but misses the original essence of Snow White he's not going to like it, it's a fraud. In other words the individual experience of something was irrelevant to whether it was good or not. This is more or less how everyone thought before post modernism, btw.

[@DiamondKingStudios]

@@Jim-Mcbased

[@jc441-i3q]

It's possible that he produced so much deep and intricate content that he just didn't have any more capacity to invest his time and focus on other forms of art and literature that he wasn't used to. I'm not comparing myself to him but I often find myself not being able to concentrate on a film or tv show that I promised myself to watch because I just couldn't disconnect my thoughts from unfinished projects.

[@sherab2078]

As I hopefully explained in the original post, this was my very subjective opinion. Personally, I have no problem with enjoying both, Tolkien's work, and Disney's 'classic' movies. They are like apples and oranges - I find both tasty, just in different ways. Being different doesn't make one of them better than the other in an objective way. Hence I think Tolkien had narrower horizons than me in this respect - recognising what is good and what is bad. His approach to Shakespeare is another example. Still, I have my own limits too, and there are definitely fruits I don't like.

[@certinho76]

Seeing what Disney has done to Star Wars and George Lucas's legacy, I can see why Prof. Tolkien felt that way. I completely agree with him.

[@Stitchman3875]

Ah the “fans” hated the prequels too, and they had nothing to do with Disney.

[@anomalotheriataurus8806]

Same Here

[@francoisregis2155]

I hate what Shitney did to Star Wars and I Love the prequels

[@annien.1727]

@@francoisregis2155 Hey, watch your language, pal!😡 Don't you EVER call Disney that bad word!

[@Stitchman3875]

@@francoisregis2155 They all say that they loved the prequels when called out on it. So forgive me for being cynical.

[@theguy8412]

I remember being 7 years old and loathing western "cartoons" and loving anime because it felt to me "deeper", all my life I've always hated the fact that kids get this "dumb" stuff, toys and stuff that seem constrained for no apparent reason, even in thing such as lego which are supposed to be "open" you get a specific set and thats it. As a kid I had 100 times more fun playing with Plasticine than playing with legos, with Plasticine I could actually make small miniatures (low detail) of whatever I wanted and roleplay whatever story I wanted, I was heavily into star wars at the time so I made clone and droid armies, sith and jedi and made up entire war arcs by myself, I was 9 at the time. So how come kids need to be given a toy car and pretend they drive it around? what exactly are you motivating with that? there is 0 brain usage of a child by giving him a toy car and have him pretend to drive it around.

[@J_Isak]

So it was never about "innocence" but profit and exploitation he had a issue with. Valid

[@baltcito263]

This made me think about why I like the Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Great Mouse Detective which are not the type of movies I expect Disney to make anymore. I’m not educated in fairytales but the theme in those films were mature and I appreciate them for going that way.

[@kataevellei415]

Not long after the live-action LOTR trilogy was released, a fan wrote a fic titled, "Walt Disney Presents Lord of the Rings," a pretty vitriolic (and excellently written) take on the Disney renaissance formula. It featured animal sidekicks, Aragorn getting a flashy musical number, and Frodo getting together with Arwen in the end. Unfortunately, it's impossible to find online anymore.

[@GamesbiteRtDL]

I heard that Tolkien didn't like the Narnia Books, which got me into reading in the first place. But only when I found the Silmarillion sitting in my school on a shelf, then it truly began.

[@andrewt9509]

Excellent analysis and useful information. You weighed up the evidence and thought about it. Stands out from quite a lot of the Tolkien stuff on KZbin!

[@InkandFantasy]

thank you!!!

[@andrewt9509]

@@InkandFantasy There really is a lot of good stuff out there, really. But too much is just description, useful in itself, but not always worth the time spent listening (though i wish all of them well). I'll be checking in with your channel regularly.

[@MCastleberry1980]

Funny enough, it seems like Tolkien misunderstood Walt Disney and his approach. Disney famously said "You're dead if you aim only for kids. Adults are only kids grown up, anyway". That philosophy really shined through in the Walt years of Disneyland. He wanted to create something parents and children could both enjoy, and didn't insult their intelligence. Yes, part of that was by playing to the kid in everybody, but he also created things that respected the intelligence of children, just coming from a different angle.

[@Attmay]

A lot of those quotes came years later.

[@noorbohamad5796]

@@Attmaywhose quotes?

[@jonathanbowling2904]

I will say this in defense of disney, that Disney was pioneering animation and the things that work in storytelling with writing don't necessarily work with animation. It's interesting because I think today you could tell the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and the liking of what JRR Tolkien wanted, but that's after 100 years of Animation techniques and film techniques perfected.

[@Unit8200-rl8ev]

Japanese anime shows that you are wrong. Disney really was dumbing down and commercializing his content.

[@jonathanbowling2904]

Japanese Animation did not develop as widely at first the way Disney animation did. Otem Shimokawa, the founder of Anime, began his career doing political cartoons and commercials. This first verified Japanese Short Animation Imokawa Mukuzo Genkanban no Maki(1917), although a great piece of art and History, it is hard to understand the character's feelings because of the subtleties of the character's expressions. Again, it just shows how difficult expression action and emotions through the medium of animation vs live action. This is why Disney animation, and animation in general, would exaggerate expressions and actions because it made it easier to read. @@Unit8200-rl8ev We have the luxury today, with 100 plus years of pioneered animated techniques, technology, and experience to nitpick about animated art in the way the pioneers of animation never had. And Tolkien could only compare his work to 1940s Disney, not 2024. So no, I'm not wrong. I am wise enough to acknowledge the real limitations at the time with technology and techniques. I encourage you to do the same. ;)

[@amazinggrapes3045]

​@@Unit8200-rl8evelaborate or shut up

[@GamerBunny2025]

​@@Unit8200-rl8evwhat anime are you talking about? Ngl, you sound like a weeb... anime came after Disney & was popularized during WWII when Tezuka (the father of manga) serialized Astro-Boy. He admitted that when he was a child, during the war his parents had money & got him Disney movies to watch. He was heavily inspired by the art & animation of Walt Disney. Earlier Japanese animations (if we're just calling all cartoons anime) were very basic like the Dull Sword... which was hardly a pioneer in animation. This isn't to put down the Japanese, because before Disney Americans had cartoons & animation, but they weren't as memorable either. What set Disney and others who followed after him apart is that they gave happy endings to tragedies. They were popularized because of the dark times they came out: war, economic struggles, death & just generally terrible times... Disney & its happy endings were needed to lift people's spirits. Before Disney had his own studio he worked for other studios, so it's fair to say his style was out there before his major success. Like many artists he didn't own his own work, & had to wait years & pay out to get back rights. If Disney capitalized on happiness, fairytales, & fantasy it's because that's what people needed. Modern Disney is terrible & has really forgotten its roots. But it'd just be blatantly ignorant to say anime isn't capitalized on... it's downright commercial. Just go to Japan, anime is more places than Disney is, & all to make a quick buck. I have no disrespect for people capitalizing on cute things, people like cute things. There's a market in that.

[@bezoticallyyours83]

Err american animation has been shitty and cheap for years. It'll probably look like teen titans go, or another bland as hell paw patrol knock off. I doubt we'll ever see the talented likes of older Disney, Rankin/Bass, DiC, Nelvana etc. again.

[@ljss6805]

I truly hope Disney buys the rights to the Silmarillion, because it would piss Tolkien off so much, he'd come back to life just to rail at them and we'd have him back for a bit.

[@masterofvon07]

From all I’ve heard from Amazon trying to purchase those same rights, the Tolkien estate (and surviving family) are already digging in against any more of the rights being bought.

[@spaghettiking7312]

Turns out Tolkien was very ahead of his time.

[@Leon-bc8hm]

It was even in his time.

[@jamesmohab]

Please, tolkien would have hated Renaissance disney, 50's-70's disney, and probably every piece of media/music you enjoy. He wasn't on your side of things.

[@kevinbell5674]

Or just that Disney has been pulling the same shtick sense it's inception.

[@zarrg5611]

​@@jamesmohab This is an important thing to say, People suppose that any writer they like is automatically correct about everything.

[@Dao128]

@@zarrg5611 There is more than enough empirical evidence right now to prove that Tolkien was 100% correct about Disney.

[@johnpavlick7740]

I feel like I have to say some words in Disney’s defense. The risks of creating an animation studio are a lot higher than becoming a best selling author. Disney also had original cartoon characters stolen from him, which made him motivated to succeed if he was going to stay in the industry. So, of course, if he was going to adapt a popular fairytale, he would have wanted to change it to get as wide and audience as possible. But I digress, because later in the Studios life Disney also cut corners To save money and reduce artistic quality.

[@DeclanMBrennan]

Not everything needs to be a blockbuster targeted at the lowest common denominator. Artistic integrity often implies a smaller audience but there is no reason why reasonably priced movies can't be viable in such cases. Imagination is still the best visual effect there is.

[@Videogeek95]

@@DeclanMBrennan "Mommy, I want a hug..." "Alright sweetie, but let's also turn this hug into a lesson..." "I'm not going to Mommy for a Hug anymore..." And that is why Tolkien can rot...

[@groundbird7477]

@@Videogeek95what? what does that mean? wouldn’t a more apt description being going for a hug and asking if something happening, seeing that there could be a reason behind the need of comfort, be a better allegory for Tolkien’s beliefs. The simple, thoughtless, cold hug before continuing on would be more simplified, less complicated or open to conflict or nuance, and would reflect Walt’s view, no?

[@helvete_ingres4717]

@@DeclanMBrennan but the comment you replied to already explained how indy disney or whatever you propose was not viable. 'artistic integrity'..? Disney virtually invented a new art form that was cutting-edge ad vital at its time, Tolkien was a dude who wrote some books in what is essentially educated fanfic of germanic mythology. And let's face it, Tolkien was a deeply conservative person and a new and pioneering art form like animation would not have resonated with him no matter its content, despite the hilarious thread above of coping Ghibli fanboys claiming he was an anime fan at heart

[@DeclanMBrennan]

@@helvete_ingres4717 Of course it's viable. I'm sick of bland comfortable mainstream movies with 100 million budgets taking up all the oxygen in the room. It's ok to admire some of Disney's work but blind adulation is another thing entirely. And in its own way, Disney is also a deeply conservative company that won't produce anything truly surprising or challenging. With ridiculously obese budgets, it can't afford to alienate even a small part of its potential audience.

[@thomasbailey3385]

Tolkien was a philologist - a studier of languages. The reason he insisted on using the spelling "dwarves" instead of "dwarfs" had nothing to do with them being compared to other fairy tale works (though I'm sure it helped the differentiation); it was because it logically made more sense!! For example, "elf" becomes "elves" not "elfs" 🤓

[@SepticFuddy]

A philologist studies texts. A linguist studies languages. There is a lot of overlap, but they are two distinct specialties.

[@thomasbailey3385]

@@SepticFuddy Ohhh, I see!! Thanks for letting me know :))

[@alanpennie8013]

​@@thomasbailey3385 It's a bit like rooves, a non - standard plural of roof, which nevertheless conforms to the standard English rule.

[@dreamguardian8320]

Tolkien seeing the Disney Dwarfs as comedic and insulting versions of his belief in Dwarves is like how we feel about Cartoon Network, when they turned the action Teen Titans into crude and comedic versions of themselves.

[@mousemd]

Thank You As an adult looking back. I saw how people changed the root of the story. My parents got us an encyclopedia set of stories. The end books were Black Beauty and Grimm's Brothers Tales, the other 8 were fairy tales by other authors. I now have a book with some of Grimm's Tales. Very different stories. The book I had as a child, it makes me sick what they did to those stories

[@daffers2345]

I always liked reading the original versions too, even ones like _The Rescuers_ and _The 101 Dalmatians_ ... with all due respect to Disney, they _really_ screwed up a LOT in most of the stories. One of my personal least favorites is "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" where the entire idea of Quasimodo was turned on its head by making him super intelligent, a good singer and all around perfect except for his looks. You want to know how far they went, go read the original _Bambi._ It's ROUGH.

[@rhettorical]

One of the first reviews of The Hobbit, one that Tolkien himself valued, was from a small boy who said (and I'm quoting this from memory): "This book, with the help of maps, needs no illustrations." If I recall correctly, the boy was only about ten years old. I first read that bit of trivia when I was writing a book report on The Hobbit when I was about fourteen, and it gave me pause because even at that age, I felt like pictures always made a book better. It's then that I realized that Tolkien respected the intelligence and imagination of children to create their own pictures and understand literature without illustrations.

[@Drakonus75]

What I'd like to see is a collection of fairytale movies that Disney has already done, but in the style and writing method of Tolkien. I can already imagine the scene at the house of The Dwarves with that personality shift, and you can be certain that those names are just nicknames they gave each other in jest while they really have traditional Dwarven names for if they must introduce themselves formally.

[@Pomoscorzo]

Tolkien's dislike doesn't really make sense. In the original Grimm fairy tale, the dwarfs are just seven dwarfs. They have no individual characteristics, and Disney actually improved them by giving all of them distinct personalities. Also, it is not true that Disney is for children. One of the best parts of Disney movies is that adults can watch them together with their children without getting bored or frustrated, because there stories are simple enough to understand but deep enough for detailed analysis and reasoning if you're up to it. Tolkien's works are only for adults. Nothing wrong with that, but I do believe that his dislike was unfounded.

[@hawgryder13]

It is well documented that the spelling "dwarves" was a mistake by Tolkien. He was, in fact, upset when this was pointed out to him and eventually came up with using the spelling to differentiate his creation from that of others, such as Disney.

[@ScottPowellMusic]

He may have been confusing it with the plural of elf, which is elves

[@generalvikus2138]

Fairy tales of the 19th Century, such as those by Hans Christian Andersen, taught traditional Christian morality. By contrast, Fairy Tales of the 20th Century, which were produced almost exclusively by Disney or so influenced by him that they may as well have been, imparted the morality of the modern American culture of the time, which was only partially Christian and not remotely traditional. From our perspective, Walt Disney's films are the very embodiment of what we call 'old fashioned,' and continued in the same tradition after Disney himself was dead, and so it is easy to forget that there was a large gulf between Hans Christian Andersen and Disney. Likewise, modern woke Disney is far more an embodiment of the contemporary culture which produced it than of the cultures from which the source material (if any) originated. In any case, Tolkien did not like the modern American culture which Disney exemplified. Given his stated opinions we can infer that he disliked Nazism and Communism more, but his letters contain far more complaints about Britain, America, capitalism, imperialism, commercialism, and so forth than about Hitler and Stalin. It is important to remember that although for us Tolkien is, again, the very embodiment of tradition, he should not be identified with the 'old - time' culture in which he lived, which he very clearly disliked. His world - view was almost as alien to his own time as it is to ours.

[@LordSiravant]

He was essentially a 13th century mind forced to live in the 20th century.

[@costakeith9048]

He embodied traditional English culture, which was certainly a minority culture in Britain by the 20th century, but it remains real and authentic British culture to this day; it is aristocratic and not mercantile, it is Catholic (in a pre-Reformation sense, not the post-Trent, Counter-Reformation Church) and not Protestant. Yes, this faction lost power starting with Henry VIII and their perpetual exile to the wilderness was sealed 1688, but this remains the soul of England and always will be, this is the culture that is the heir to both Alfred and William, showing how universal it truly is. It's why Tolkien resonates like he does, he represents the authentic culture of England, not this bastardized monstrosity of modernity that has occupied the nation and oppressed the people these past several centuries.

[@RiseofTaitoShirei]

Cinderella was one of Disney's most mature films. It was far less about the romance and happily ever after and far more about getting out of an abusive situation at home. So while Disney did change things he did keep the core of the original and respect that.

[@archeogeek315]

Yeah right, the original where the step-sister decided to cut part of their feets to feat in to the slipper.

[@demiliomason1565]

​@@archeogeek315 and why the hell would you ever think anyone would want to see that in an animated film for families? Yes things shouldn't be dubbed down too much for kids, but there are also some things kids shouldn't see at certain ages. That and there's a thing called tone deaf.

[@noorbohamad5796]

@@archeogeek315if me preferring wanting to physically stay remain in one piece means I’m “not mature” then so be it

[@archeogeek315]

@@noorbohamad5796 I have no idea what your talking about but reading childrens book is not bad in itself (plus one piece is way more mature than most disney film would ever hope to be). But only searching for safe comfort story will make you numb to what stories can offert.

[@flyingsodwai1382]

Beautiful choice of music! It really captures the spirit of a fantastical mysterious medieval world.

[@carloseduardomachado2154]

I could say this is the kind of rare and valuabe content that turns internet into something a little more worthy. Keep the good job!

[@MidoriMushrooms]

based tolkien when I was a teenager I found out how many of the stories I grew up with were adapted and sanitized and I felt the same dislike. I think he's made a really good point about cultural erasure.

[@jodi2847]

Disney was an artist, a storyteller, a visionary and a businessman. All of these can exist at once, just not in equal measure. He wanted the work to not merely be admired for its artistic merit but enjoyed by American families and kids of all ages. He also needed profits to tun his studio and subsequently his theme park. Animation is COSTLY. Writing a book is free. "Fantasia," as proven, was not paying any bills.

[@lunatickoala]

Fantasia was the most notable film that didn't pay the bills, but any animated feature that wasn't a *massive* success didn't pay the bills. Pinocchio, Bambi, Alice in Wonderland all lost money. Sleeping Beauty lost so much money that it led to a lot of layoffs and for the next feature (101 Dalmatians) they started using xerography to reduce production costs.

[@PoisonelleMisty4311]

There is no evidence to suggest that J.R.R. Tolkien specifically hated Disney. In fact, Tolkien passed away in 1973, years before Disney released its popular film adaptations of "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit." While Disney's adaptations may not have aligned perfectly with Tolkien's original vision, it is not accurate to claim that he hated Disney or their interpretations of his work.