# anti-Disney?



## GuardianRanger (Jun 10, 2004)

There's a breif blurb in the Annotated Hobbit that mentions Tolkien's dislike for Disney. Is there any more to this?

edit: Here's what I'm referencing from The Annotated Hobbit:



> Strangely, Houghton Mifflin suggested commissioning sme additional color illustrations from "good American artists" to accompany Tolkien's black-and-white drawings. Tolkien consented to this in a letter of May 13, 1937, as long as it was possible "to veto anything from or influenced by the Disney studios (for all whose works I have a heartfelt loathing")



This apparently is from Letters, No. 13. The next line reads that A&U convinced him that it would be better if all illustrations were from his hand.

Unfortunately, there's nothing more on Disney.


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## Snaga (Jun 15, 2004)

We can infer from Tolkien's general good taste that he would of course loathe Disney.


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## Barliman Butterbur (Jun 15, 2004)

GuardianRanger said:


> There's a breif blurb in the Annotated Hobbit that mentions Tolkien's dislike for Disney. Is there any more to this?
> 
> edit: Here's what I'm referencing from The Annotated Hobbit:
> 
> ...



There's a bit more. 

From Letter #107:

"...He has sent me some illustrations (of the Trolls and Gollum) which despite certain merits, such as one would expect from a German, are too 'Disnified' for my tastes: Bilbo with a dribbling nose, and Gandalf as a figure of vulgar fun rather than the Odinic wanderer that I think of..."

From Letter #234:

"I am sorry about _The Pied Piper._ I loathe it. God help the children! I would as soon give them crude and vulgar plastic toys. Which of course they will play with, to the ruin of their taste. Terrible presage of the most vulgar elements in Disney."

===============================

So I guess it's pretty obvious: since Tolkien liked his fantasy "real," Disneyism (if I may coin a word) was just too unbearably cutsie-poo for him.

Barley


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## HLGStrider (Jun 16, 2004)

Simply a matter of taste. 


As a sister of a 2-year-old, I actually admire the Disney's of Tolkien's time and wish there were more of that coming out now. . .I can only imagine what Tolkien would have to say about Spounge Bob (Waits for Turin to hit her with his Patrick doll). 

Disney is a playing down to kids. Tolkien didn't believe in it. Disney sugars things up, makes them sweet, and never took itself really seriously. . .But a lot of the pictures were beautiful. I don't know. Tolkien is a man. Men have tastes. This is his taste. No reason to mess with it.


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## GuardianRanger (Jun 24, 2004)

Thanks for the replys.
I haven't read Letters yet, so I didn't know of the references.

And HLGStrider, I wonder what Tolkien would think of companies like Pixar and Dreamworks with their offerings? Toy Story, and Shrek, and Monsters Inc., and Bugs Life, etc. 

A story in Wired Magazine has an interesting article on Pixar...and I quote: "Pixar has out-Disneyed Disney."


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## HLGStrider (Jun 26, 2004)

I like Pixar, personally. . .


but the point is we all know what people mean when they say something is "Too Disney" or Disneyified. Even if we can't put words to it, it brings up sort of squirmy images and feelings that can be a lot like a sugar overload. A little bit of sugar is good, but too much sugar, or disney, and you get a little sick to your stomach.

Everyone has their own saturation point. I think Tolkien might've been more of a salt person.


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## Saucy (Jun 26, 2004)

i dont think that any cartoon form JRR tolkiens writing have ever done any justice *shudders rememebering animated versions*

and i believe his book portray to much reality to be portrayed in disney form, and is far to complex also.

the fact JRR loathed disney is quite understandable, i mean who cant hate a talking mouse


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## GuardianRanger (Jun 26, 2004)

I like Pixar, and Pixar's movies as well. In that same Wired article I mentioned, it said that Disney is making one more 2D movie; I think to come out this summer. After that, the rest will be 3D, more in the lines of Pixar and Dreamworks.

I haven't seen the entire animated movies, so I can not really comment on them.

However, Saucy, if you want to see many of Tolkien's drawings and artwork, I suggest the following two books:

1. _J.R.R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator_ (1995), by Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull.

2. _Pictures by J.R.R. Tolkien_ (1979); revised (1992), edited by Christopher Tolkien

I've seen many samples of Tolkien's work in my reading The Annotated Hobbit, which is where I cited the two works from.


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## pipin (Nov 6, 2004)

the fact JRR loathed disney is quite understandable said:


> very true even walt disney himself hated mice
> 
> 
> personly I hate micky he lacks testastrone


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## Astaldo (Nov 7, 2004)

I don't like Mickey too. He is always the winner in everything the best in everything etc. I personally prefer Scrooge and Donalnd.


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## HLGStrider (Nov 9, 2004)

I'm a Donald fan as well. Of all the little creatures he is the most masculine. Has the most sex-appeal, you know. . .but that is off topic.

I wonder how much Disney Tolkien had actually seen. He always struck me as the type who would go to one cartoon, decide he didn't like it, leave half-way through, and base his decision on that. Very decisive personality who wouldn't have a lot of time for such nonsense.


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## Astaldo (Nov 9, 2004)

I don't believe that Prof. Tolkien was a fan of cartoons. My opinion is that he wanted something more complicated.


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## Starbrow (Dec 3, 2004)

I think Tolkien's dislike of Disney was based on their different approaches to Fairy stories. In Tolkien's essay "On Fairy-Stories", he has a lot to say about how authors have "adapted" the stories for children. In one passage he says, "It is true that the age of childhood-sentiment has produced some delightful books (especially charming, however, to adults) of the fairy kind or near to it; but it has also produced a dreadful undergrowth of stories written or adapted to what was or is conceived to be the measure of children's minds and needs. The old stories are mollified or bowdlerized, instead of being reserved; the imitations are often merely silly, Pigwiggenry without even the intrigue; or patronizing; or (deadliest of all) covertly sniggering, with an eye on the other grown-ups present." Disney's movies were probably too "softened" for his taste. I wonder if he would have liked Shrek and Shrek 2 and their swipes at Disney, and LOTR for that matter. Or would he have been appalled at the sniggering to the adults in the movie. Shrek 2 probably has a way too contemporary feel to be considered a fairy-story.


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## HLGStrider (Dec 8, 2004)

Shrek is a very mocking piece, and I don't think Tolkien would like it. Rather than mature the fairy tales I think it holds them up to ridicule, which is entertaining, but not Tolkienish in my mind.


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## Eledhwen (Dec 8, 2004)

Tolkien: _"The old stories are mollified or bowdlerized, instead of being reserved; the imitations are often merely silly, Pigwiggenry without even the intrigue; or patronizing; or (deadliest of all) covertly sniggering, with an eye on the other grown-ups present._" 

It is almost universal now that feature length cartoons contain hidden jokes for the grown-ups; and I do wonder what JRR Tolkien would have thought of that. Bodily function jokes abound, and the High (kings, both faerie and human) all tend to show a baser side to their characters for the sake of a few laughs. Mercifully, this did not happen in the PJ films, with the character corruption as clowns being limited to Gimli and Pippin.

Tolkien was not anti-cartoon; indeed, the film rights for LotR and The Hobbit were sold in the knowledge that the resulting film would be a cartoon. A read of the Letters that comment on Zimmerman's proposed film of LotR is very revealing about what Tolkien did and did not like (see letters 207 and 210). Among other criticisms, he said "I feel very unhappy about the extreme silliness and incompetence of Z and his complete lack of respect for the original (it seems wilfully wrong without discernible technical reasons at nearly every point)." (letter 207) and "The canons of narrative art in any medium cannot be wholly different; and the failure of poor films is often precisely in exaggeration, and in the intrusion of unwarranted matter owing to not perceiving where the core of the original lies." (letter 210) 

Anyone who knows the original fairy stories on which some early Disneys are based, cannot but be astonished how far from the original stories they go. The original stories were more subtle and often had a tragic ending, which would never do if you want to come out of the cinema with a feelgood factor. I don't think Tolkien would object to Shrek etc., because they are not corruptions of someting else, but the stories are simple and somwhat base at times, so he might not have taken his children to see it, if it were around at the time.

I wonder how much 'Disney' Tokien watched before he came to his conclusion? There's an awful lot of it.


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