If you don't like the recent commercial depictions of the LotR series… don't watch them? Of course you have the right to criticize and complain about them. But to let their existence "spoil" your enjoyment of the original works seems excessive. The original works were not somehow changed by the creation of new works, and so neither should your ability to enjoy them change.
> If you don't like the recent commercial depictions of the LotR series… don't watch them?
for me they don't "spoil" the original work and I ignore them, but it is, in a way... deeply, cosmically, saddening, to the see the world do a shit job with a thing that you love. It hurts. It feels tragic that the world could be so shitty, in the same way that reading news articles about horrible people does.
The original works were not somehow changed by the creation of new works, and so neither should your ability to enjoy them change.
Our experience of art is necessarily influenced by the world; works don't just pass pristine and unaltered from their creation into our consciousness. They can be both enriched and cheapened by the cultural detritus they and we float through on the way; whether it's the mythology of an artist died beautiful and young, or the commodification of something once felt precious and unique.
As Stephen King said, no adaptation replaces (or ruins, or improves) the original. No matter what they've done to The Stand (multiple times), the original is still there on the bookshelf.
