Moorecock's criticism of the Lord of the Rings and Tolkien's work in general has always felt completely subjective and wrong headed to me. His whole critique pretty much boils down to that Tolkien's work isn't as anti-establishment as modern fantasy should be...which rather than being a damning critique should just be met with a "Well, duh." Tolkien was writing in a post war England that was still picking up the pieces so of course it's going to reflect a "return to how things were" feeling, while Moorecock's Elric stories spring from the cultural revolution of the 60's so again the "stick it to the man" feeling is to be expected but neither feeling is truly better or truer than the other...they're just different, and as the article you posted points out the ending of LotR isn't as idyllic as many portray making the criticism even more hollow. 

With regard to Moorcock's criticism about Tolkien...

From what I've read of the essay in question, it seems that the core of his complaints against Tolkien are rooted in class war, rather than any real critical evaluation of his works. For example, he seems to have a real problem with Tolkien's knowledge of languages and his scholarly adaptation of folklore, dismissing them as the folly of the idle upper-classes (I'm paraphrasing here).

In short, Tolkien was far too educated for Moorcock's tastes -- as if education, scholary pursuits and knowledge of folklore can only be in the possession of the upper-classes. Clearly that's an idiotic, reductionist conclusion, but it also smacks of the strange phenomenon of the working class wanting to keep the working classes stupid. We can't have good, honest working class boys getting above their station, can we? Basically, Moorcock doesn't like Tolkien because he's posh.

He also criticises the anti-technological undercurrents of Tolkien's stories and, what he sees as, a bourgeois love of the bucolic countryside. But as thwhtguardian points out above, Tolkien was writing in a post-World War 1 era that naturally wanted to embrace the rural beauty of traditional British life, after the horrors of the trenches. In addition, Tolkien genuinely loved the English countryside and was very concerned with the post-industrial destruction of that landscape, along with the encroachment on nature by urban sprawl. In this regard, he was way ahead of his time. He's what we would call today an environmentalist. Time and again his works put forward the idea that if you destroy the natural world, there will be consequences. This message is at its most blatant in the march of the Tree Ents against Isengard, and it's a message that is still thoroughly modern in 2019.

Moorcock also complains that LOTRs is just "escapist literature", as if that's a valid criticism. Well, d'oh...of course it's escapist literature: it's called "fantasy" for a reason. It also seems that he's misunderstood the ending of LOTRs because, far from being a retreat back into an old-fashioned, cosy, rural idyll, as he claims, the end of the book is actually a bit of a downer. The underlying theme of the ending LOTRs -- inspired, no doubt, by the events of World War I and II -- is that sometimes, things happen that are so bad, so terrible, that things can never go back to the way they were. Even if the heroes win.

So yeah, I think Moorcock has misunderstood key elements of LOTRs and is basically playing the part of a working class hero, railing against Tolkien, the annoying posh boy. In short, he's talking out of his arse.

Reposting this from the Mego thread in the toy section...



-M

I always pictured it having wings and only had the books as inspiration until just before the Peter Jackson film came out when the animated films were re-released to capitalize on the feature film. In my head(in much the way we saw in Jackson's version)the Barlog's wings were broken in the battle with Gandalf, which is more than plausible.

The question is quite interesting, Confessor, because balrogs don’t fly. Why would they need actual wings?

The one time I drew a balrog, back in 1980 or so and newly introduced to Tolkien’s prose, it didn’t have wings. It rather looked like a poorly drawn black golem exuding tendrils of shadow, with eyes of fire.  

Nowadays, though, I really see a balrog as in Peter Jackson’s film. It’s a powerful rendition.

Good or bad, none of the shows their experience is coming from tell me that they'll have a clue how to capture the unique mood or feel of Tolkien's world, not even fantasy stuff like Stranger Things or Game of Thrones or Toy Story. Also, all very American, it seems. It just tells me they have a lot of experience working in American tv, not particularly a good recommendation for this specific series.