Loads- it has nothing to do with the films.
However, it must be remembered that it was not a complete, coherent or even finished work. It was more a sort of general background that Tolkien's son cobbled together best he could and released so you could see the kind of way that Tolkien was thinking.
The only truly official and finished storylines are those in the four main books, including the ROTK appendices.
From the Encyclopedia of Arda:
The Silmarillion, which in its own words passes 'from the high and the beautiful to darkness and ruin' actually consists of a corpus of five works, of which the Quenta Silmarillion is the central tale. These are:
Ainulindalë, the tale of the Music of the Ainur and the creation of Arda.
Valaquenta, the tale of the Valar, in which the nature of each of the Powers is described.
Quenta Silmarillion, the longest tale, which gives an account of the history of Arda from its beginnings until the end of the First Age.
Akallabêth, the tale of the Second Age, which concentrates on the history of Númenor until its Downfall.
Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age, which spans the late Second Age and the Third, telling of the forging of the Rings of Power and their history up to the War of the Ring.
Within the context of Tolkien's tales, of course. The Silmarillion was actually written and rewritten over a period of some sixty years by J.R.R. Tolkien, and edited and published posthumously by his son Christopher.
Hm, Tolkien finished several versions of the Silmarillion and this is besides LoTR and the Hobbit practically the only book that Tolkien wanted to be published. He had asked A&U to publish it before he died, but they didnt... so Tolkien really finished it.
Even LoTR itself contains tons and tons of information that is not shown in the movie.
No it won't, such a project is pointless.
And Chris Tolkien makes it VERY clear in the Preface that his father did not finish the work, and reminds us:
"A complete consistency (either within the compass of the Silmarillion itself or between The Silmarillion and other published works of my father's) is not to be looked for..."
It was never a fixed text, never finished, and Chris published what coherent storyline he could find from his father's notes, very much only part of an unfinished- even unfinishable- whole. And this must always be remembered.
This is NOT a story like LOTR. The pacing is all wrong, the concentration on some events ludicrously overblown and on some events ludicrously brief. All of this Chris admits in this preface as he goes to explain exactly what I am saying here.
well i do beleive that tolkien intended for silmarillion to be published although it was far from the state i beleive he would have wanted it to be in. i think as proof of it not even being close to publishable is the existince of unfinished tales. what i would truely love to see is "the red book" and what i mean by that is, someone that can, should combine all of silmarillion, unfinished tales, LOTR's, hobbit all the histories, cronologies, and apendixes into one coherent piece (as much as possible) for instance unfinished tales has a lot more info on turin that easily could be stuck in with what was written in the silmarrilion. theres also short stories that go into farther detail about the fall of gondolin, and though it would be tuff and the author would have to take some liberties it would be an amazing piece.
Unfinished Tales is exactly that, Hypernova- unfinished. Christopher makes no illusions about how its state is even less cohesive than the Silmarillion.
"That The Silmarillion should remain unknown was, for me, out of the question, despite its disordered state, and despite my father's well known if very largely unfulfilled intentions for its trasformation... [but] the narratives in this book (Unfinished Tales) are indeed on an altogether different footing, taken together they constitute no whole, and the book is no more than a collection of writings, disparate in form, intent, finish and date of composition... the narratives are all 'unfinished'... [one section is] a primary strand in the history of Middle-Earth that never received a settled definition, let alone a final written form. The inclusion of the unpublished narrative and sketches of narrative on this subject therefore entails at once the acceptance of a history not as a fixed, independantly existing reality which the author 'reports', but as a growing and shifting conception in his mind. When the author has ceased to publish his works himself, after subjecting them to his own detailed criticism and comparison, the further knowledge of Middle-Earth to be found in his unpublished writings will often conflict with what is already 'known... in the book, I have accepted from the outset that this must be so... I have made no alterations for the sake of consistency with existing works."
So there you go. Interesting as it is, the fact remains that only the stuff published in JRR's lifetime was the actual real deal. If he had lived another decade, who knows?
exactly, i hope you didnt misunderstand my last post. they are very incomplete but i beleive that the stories can be pieced together, and again with certain liberties from the author who compiles it, be turned into what the red book was supposed to be. a lot of purists would probably be very apposed to it, but an individual close to the tolkien family and estate (even a member) could do a pretty good job of it in my opinion (though he or she might receive death threats, lol). piecing together stories and linking them with some of tolkiens notes and letters, plus again liberties by composer would be a great literary work. anything can be achieved by anyone, wether it is the book i am discussing or a silmarillion movie, the only question is in what form and how true to the originals.