Why Tolkien Hated Disney

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

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

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.

I wonder what he would've thought of Don Bluth. He didn't mess around. In 2007, Don Bluth spoke at my art school, Ex'pression College for Digital Arts, 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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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 Youtube.

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

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.

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 😄

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.

He wanted storytelling to remain an artistic property, and not a commercial one. One with impacting stories that didn't shy away from teaching people about reality, but that also showed them MORE than reality had to offer. He taught us how to imagine, by using imagination AS a teaching tool. The only limits to a world really is the depth you put into it, after all. And with that, he created eternal art. I hope he inspires every generation to come by valuing authenticity over digestibility.

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.

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.

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