Now I would have thought there was a thread on this already but I'll be buggered if I can find any recent.
Amazon have released a proper sized trailer ahead of the eventual release this September.
Now I was a little dismissive at first given some of the teaser pictures, especially of the Elves, but I have to say that was a pretty solid trailer.
The city scapes looked very interesting and I liked how the Dwarves looked. Honestly of all of them, the Hobbits have a truly fascinating look. They don't look quite as pastoral as they do in the Third Age. They look more like bogles or some fey folk of the woods.
The Orcs looked truly grim in the photos although I didn't spot any in the trailer there.
For all the tedious whinging people get up to online, I find it difficult for someone to complain too much. Well, unless you're one of those.
To me, it can't be worse than what Peter Jackson did to the Hobbit. I see a lot of the earlier complaints saying it doesn't look like the Peter Jackson stuff. Which is fine, neither have earlier adaptions. PJ isn't the be all and end all of Tolkein.
For all the tedious whinging people get up to online, I find it difficult for someone to complain too much. Well, unless you're one of those.
As someone who had no interest in this series based on the previous teasers and the cringe "super fans" thing, I feel that had they led with this, a good portion of the tedious whinging would've never materialized.
I'm still pretty skeptical given their response to fan-backlash and I'm sure that this trailer is partly damage control towards that, so I'll be holding off for a good while or using "online" sources to get a look at whether or not they've done a decent adaptation or not.
As someone who had no interest in this series based on the previous teasers and the cringe "super fans" thing, I feel that had they led with this, a good portion of the tedious whinging would've never materialized.
Looking forward to it.
I think to some extent yes, some of the teasers were just pointless. Unfortunately, I think part of that problem was trying a bit too hard to make sure people are talking about it. However, there are a good portion who are really determined to spit and mash keyboards.
Coming to the defense of a heartless multinational corporation and all that, but there is certainly an amount of VFX work in this preview that they would definitely not have finished in time if they had opened with it and wanted to keep with the current schedule, but the woeful state of the VFX industry is a topic all its own.
Overall the trailer looks pretty decent, someone said it looked 'glossy' and I definitely see that, there's a certain soft focus sheen to Amazon studio stuff that I'm not a fan of, but they've nailed the overall aesthetic which despite all the clickbait whining is the first actual hurdle they had, so good for them.
I do think they were a bit dishonest with the talk about 'before there was a sunrise' and showing the two trees, and then going on to show what is clearly Numenor and hobbits and men and everybody interacting with dwarves and so forth. I'm assuming that the shot of the trees (and possibly the narration as well, though that may be awkward trailer dialogue) is part of a flashback sequence, since I really can't see them trying to cram the (extremely metal) Feanor stuff into a series that already features Gil-Galad and Isildur and such.
I'm pretty sure it's going to suck. It'll probably be entertaining as any popcorn flick would be. I'm just not convinced the storytelling here will be worth the hours of my time needed to see it through from beginning to end.
I do think they were a bit dishonest with the talk about 'before there was a sunrise' and showing the two trees, and then going on to show what is clearly Numenor and hobbits and men and everybody interacting with dwarves and so forth. I'm assuming that the shot of the trees (and possibly the narration as well, though that may be awkward trailer dialogue) is part of a flashback sequence, since I really can't see them trying to cram the (extremely metal) Feanor stuff into a series that already features Gil-Galad and Isildur and such.
Yeah, I can't really tell what this is about anymore. I seem to remember the original summary was Numenor, but this narration seems to be about Galadriel's PTSD and an interesting event that just happened before the show starts (always a good sign), the title suggests its about the 3, the 7 and the 9, the images are about Men interacting with everybody that matters, and for no apparent reason there's a D plot involving a feral hobbit migration.
The latter suggests a high level of studio interference (Its Tolkien, you've got to have Hobbits!), or the writers/director are very unfocused and don't have a real story in mind and are just going to flail all over the continent with poorly connected subplots that don't really matter.
For all the tedious whinging people get up to online, I find it difficult for someone to complain too much. Well, unless you're one of those.
As someone who had no interest in this series based on the previous teasers and the cringe "super fans" thing, I feel that had they led with this, a good portion of the tedious whinging would've never materialized.
No, the tedious whinging would've still materialized.
I have to say that's a much better trailer. The Dwarves still look a little comedic but it's shaping up pretty well. The orcs and the Harfoot hobbits are the best looking to my eyes.
Olthannon wrote: My biggest problem with it at the minute is Sauron looking like fething Eminem
Kinda reminded me of a less creepy version of satan from Passion of the Christ. Do we really know if thats him though or some kind of leader of black numenoreans?
Olthannon wrote: My biggest problem with it at the minute is Sauron looking like fething Eminem
Kinda reminded me of a less creepy version of satan from Passion of the Christ. Do we really know if thats him though or some kind of leader of black numenoreans?
Aye it is confirmed to be him. As someone who can pick any form, not sure why they went for that.
The_Real_Chris wrote:I will require all the Dwarves to have proper beards. I have read too much Pratchett to be able to think of a female or male dwarf without a beard!
Yeah this is a gripe alright. I mean why can't lady Dwarves have beards? People complain about there being some black folk in lord of the rings but they should be pouring all that into this terrible oversight.
Well it looks like this is predating anything to do with the hobit and LotR. So this could be the story of how he tricked them all into taking the rings of power. A big strong evil looking guy is going to turn people away from his gifts.
Rogue One, Bumblee, Wonder Woman, Temple of Doom, and Xmen First Class are all very good prequel movies and IMO Revenge of the Sith is cursed but also very good. Halo Wars and Reach are both prequels and very very good games.
Prequels aren't automatically bad.
Yeah this is a gripe alright. I mean why can't lady Dwarves have beards? People complain about there being some black folk in lord of the rings but they should be pouring all that into this terrible oversight.
I will give them a chance, but I am skeptical and will not tolerate any desecration of the source material. They need to at least be faithful to it and not do dumb woke stuff just for the sake of woke stuff.
Strictly speaking, Elrond shouldn't be the doubter that evil is still around. He was one of the wise who did not believe Annatar's lies and was skeptical of what he said.
Olthannon wrote: My biggest problem with it at the minute is Sauron looking like fething Eminem
I actually have zero issue with Sauron being... Sexy. Alluring. Enticing...
Sauron took on a fair form, calling himself Annatar(Lord of Gifts) he claimed to be an emissary of the Valar and offered knowledge to the elves. Gil-galad and Elrond mistrusted him and sent him away, but he found willing ears in Celebrimbor.
Later, he challenges Ar-Pharazon's pride by calling himself King of Men and Lord of the Earth. The Númenóreans launch a great host that was mighty enough to make all of Sauron's servants desert him, and Sauron surrenders without a fight and becomes a prisoner. All while in a fair form of course. But he uses his guile, beauty, and wiliness to rise from a prisoner to the chief advisor of Ar-Pharazon. It was all a trick, made possible with his fair form and fairer tongue.
It is only after the destruction of Númenór, in which Sauron's fair form was destroyed, by Eru that Sauron was no longer able to take a fair form. Mair can reform their bodies even if they are destroyed, but having the physical body slain still causes permanent damage. Gollum notes that Sauron only has 9 fingers when he is tortured by him, even 5000 years after Isildur cut the ring from his hand he cannot regrow the finger he lost. When he was drowned beneath the sea, his spirit took the ring back to Middle Earth, but he could no longer take a fair form again.
Grey Templar wrote: I will give them a chance, but I am skeptical and will not tolerate any desecration of the source material. They need to at least be faithful to it and not do dumb woke stuff just for the sake of woke stuff.
Strictly speaking, Elrond shouldn't be the doubter that evil is still around. He was one of the wise who did not believe Annatar's lies and was skeptical of what he said.
Olthannon wrote: My biggest problem with it at the minute is Sauron looking like fething Eminem
I actually have zero issue with Sauron being... Sexy. Alluring. Enticing...
Sauron took on a fair form, calling himself Annatar(Lord of Gifts) he claimed to be an emissary of the Valar and offered knowledge to the elves. Gil-galad and Elrond mistrusted him and sent him away, but he found willing ears in Celebrimbor.
.
this, Saruon SHOULD look pretty during the 2nd age
Grey Templar wrote: I will give them a chance, but I am skeptical and will not tolerate any desecration of the source material. They need to at least be faithful to it and not do dumb woke stuff just for the sake of woke stuff.
Define "dumb woke stuff", beyond "cast people who aren't white".
Grey Templar wrote: I will give them a chance, but I am skeptical and will not tolerate any desecration of the source material. They need to at least be faithful to it and not do dumb woke stuff just for the sake of woke stuff.
Strictly speaking, Elrond shouldn't be the doubter that evil is still around. He was one of the wise who did not believe Annatar's lies and was skeptical of what he said.
Olthannon wrote: My biggest problem with it at the minute is Sauron looking like fething Eminem
I actually have zero issue with Sauron being... Sexy. Alluring. Enticing...
Sauron took on a fair form, calling himself Annatar(Lord of Gifts) he claimed to be an emissary of the Valar and offered knowledge to the elves. Gil-galad and Elrond mistrusted him and sent him away, but he found willing ears in Celebrimbor.
.
this, Saruon SHOULD look pretty during the 2nd age
Yes, I'm a little worried you pair may have misunderstood what I said. I'm saying Eminem looks like an ugly fether. And thus Sauron looks like an ugly fether. The exact opposite of Annatar
I mean, there are plenty of blond white guys out there, but for me the Eminem comparison has as much to do with the '**** him and **** you too' energy we have in this one shot he's in in the trailer.
That said, Anson Boon has a sort of dual challenge in that depending on the needs of the story he's going to have to pull off self-proclaimed King of the Earth Sauron, prisoner dragged home in chains Sauron, and good friend with secret betrayal plot Sauron - with a possible side order of noble smithing-spirit Sauron, snivelling lackey Sauron, or even 'oh look at me, I'm a spooky Vampire!' Sauron to go with it.
I think it'll be up to the writers to see if they can capture all that range with the character, from interviews it looks like Boon is a reasonably charismatic guy who can definitely pull off the role, as long as the writers don't fall into that trap of having your scheming advisor do nothing but whisper obvious false promises in a sing-songy voice.
Amusingly, the unused version of his fair form from the Jackson movies actually got it down exceptionally well. Not the eminem wannabe.
As for the rest of it, i'm trying to be neutral, but the sliding timeline is what's hacking me off the most. Shoehorning hobbits in just because there must be hobbits because it's lord of the rings.
Grey Templar wrote: I will give them a chance, but I am skeptical and will not tolerate any desecration of the source material. They need to at least be faithful to it and not do dumb woke stuff just for the sake of woke stuff.
Define "dumb woke stuff", beyond "cast people who aren't white".
Female Numenorean soldiers would come to mind, if that's indeed what they are.
As someone who loved LotR (both book and films) and the Hobbit (book only, films were awful) but could never manage to get through the Silmarillion (on the second attempt I made it as far as page 8) I'm actually quite looking forward to this. I get to experience the story that people have told me is supposed to be great without having to wade through tedious lists of names all the time.
StraightSilver wrote: The Eminem looking blonde character everyone is saying is Sauron actually isn't Sauron though.
It's actually a female actress, Bridie Sisson, playing some sort of cult leader.
Sauron hasn't been shown in the trailers yet.
Having done a googly moogly, that definitely seems to be the way. In which case, very interesting. That is the better option, that Sauron simply hasn't been shown/ might be kept secretive until a big ole plot point. As Annatar we know he was a shapeshifter, so perhaps we might never know who he is and instead constantly whispering and sneaking. Which is a good thing.
EDIT: Also I'm sorry but Anson Boon? That simply isn't a real name.
pgmason wrote: As someone who loved LotR (both book and films) and the Hobbit (book only, films were awful) but could never manage to get through the Silmarillion (on the second attempt I made it as far as page 8) I'm actually quite looking forward to this. I get to experience the story that people have told me is supposed to be great without having to wade through tedious lists of names all the time.
The simirilion starts dull, gets real good real fast, then degrades into each chapter beginning with a page or 2 of "x son of y daughter of z who did a with b in the age of c" nonsense.
pgmason wrote: As someone who loved LotR (both book and films) and the Hobbit (book only, films were awful) but could never manage to get through the Silmarillion (on the second attempt I made it as far as page 8) I'm actually quite looking forward to this. I get to experience the story that people have told me is supposed to be great without having to wade through tedious lists of names all the time.
The simirilion starts dull, gets real good real fast, then degrades into each chapter beginning with a page or 2 of "x son of y daughter of z who did a with b in the age of c" nonsense.
And then you get to the Battle of Unnumbered Tears, Mormegil The Black Sword, The Sacking of Gondolin and the story of Beren and Luthien, and oh my.
I'm neither here nor there concerning the trailer. I don't doubt I will watch it and I wouldn't be surprised if it did to a new generation what the movies did to the current gen of tolkien fandom.
ik0ner wrote: I'm neither here nor there concerning the trailer. I don't doubt I will watch it and I wouldn't be surprised if it did to a new generation what the movies did to the current gen of tolkien fandom.
Nah I predict it going the way of GOT.
Amazing books.
Adaptation, by the time it gets to the end all the "fans" the series created don't care about it the minute the last gakky episode is finished or even before then.
Thus resulting in alienating the original fans, and loosing the temporary "new" fans (mostly younger folk) who were only fans because its the "new cool" thing and loose interest because they have attention span of a goldfish.
Like right not if martin dropped the next book in the series i don't think id even bother reading it. let alone spend a penny on anything to do with it.
Recon this will be the new final nail in the coffin for Tolkien's world in much the same way.
At least we have the OG trilogy and all the books and can ignore this abomination.
Like spending 50 mil an episode and then showing pictures of people wearing armor clearly made from foam... jeeezus...
GoT had a crap ending because GRRM doesn’t know how it ends, and two people hired to adapt book had to write stuff, which isn’t really the same task.
Sure they could’ve had more time, as it was offered to them. But man…if GRRM doesn’t know how it ends (hence him not finishing his books), that’s still mostly on him.
Plus there was the whole "We're gonna get a Star War" thing for the showrunners which hilariously didn't happen. And then there was that interview they did which killed off any of the goodwill the early seasons had left. And the many actors saying how awful it was to work for the show.
AduroT wrote:I don’t think GoT died the way it did because the series ended, but because of how Badly it ended.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:GoT had a crap ending because GRRM doesn’t know how it ends, and two people hired to adapt book had to write stuff, which isn’t really the same task.
Sure they could’ve had more time, as it was offered to them. But man…if GRRM doesn’t know how it ends (hence him not finishing his books), that’s still mostly on him.
I appreciate what you guys are saying. We wont know but I think a lot of the fizz came because it ended rather then how it ended. Bit like marvel keeps going with their multiple phases. I thin if they stopped making movies the revenues would drop to reflect that as a lot of people are interested only in the movies and might pick up some side merch but are not really money spending fans. Dunno if that makes sense.
It will be interesting to see how house of dragon does. like, I am aware of it but have no interest in it because have no interest in GOT at all anymore.
I think it will air similar time to ROP if I'm not mistaken.
Will be interesting how these do I guess.
Personally not really in the market for investing that sort of time for something that at first glance appears very cookie cutter holywood show runner bull crap.
pgmason wrote: As someone who loved LotR (both book and films) and the Hobbit (book only, films were awful) but could never manage to get through the Silmarillion (on the second attempt I made it as far as page 8) I'm actually quite looking forward to this. I get to experience the story that people have told me is supposed to be great without having to wade through tedious lists of names all the time.
Gert wrote: Plus there was the whole "We're gonna get a Star War" thing for the showrunners which hilariously didn't happen. And then there was that interview they did which killed off any of the goodwill the early seasons had left. And the many actors saying how awful it was to work for the show.
Oo, what interview? Not sure I have knowledge of that.
Gert wrote: Plus there was the whole "We're gonna get a Star War" thing for the showrunners which hilariously didn't happen. And then there was that interview they did which killed off any of the goodwill the early seasons had left. And the many actors saying how awful it was to work for the show.
Oo, what interview? Not sure I have knowledge of that.
Was that the interview where they were like "haha we don't know what we are doing! We just fell into this job and got it." ?
Grey Templar wrote: I will give them a chance, but I am skeptical and will not tolerate any desecration of the source material. They need to at least be faithful to it and not do dumb woke stuff just for the sake of woke stuff.
Define "dumb woke stuff", beyond "cast people who aren't white".
Inserting poorly veiled modern political/social commentary that does not belong in the setting. Nothing we've been actively shown shows anything like this, but interviews with the creators is concerning. Ar-Pharazon better not be a "totally-not-Trump-lets-make-numenor-great-again" douche. Don't go down that path.
There is nothing wrong with casting non-white people. It becomes wrong if you base the entire identity of a character around them "not being white" or if you cast a specific actor because they were "not-white". Or if you change a character's race just so you can meet some diversity quota. That is lazy and disrespectful to the actor because you are literally reducing them to a caricature solely based on their race. If they actually want Race to be some focal point within the setting, there are good and bad ways to do that. The bad way is to just frame it around white men/elves/dwarves vs colored men/elves/dwarves. It doesn't make sense within the setting and is just a primitive insertion of real-world drama in a way that will just cheapen the story. If you want to actually have this in a way that works, you need to have it in a way that works within the setting, doesn't break the setting, etc...
In the setting of Middle Earth, this means that you frame race related issues NOT along the modern day Earth race, but Middle Earth races. You can have tensions between Elves and the Kings Men Numenoreans. Tensions between Numenoreans and Middle Men(literally any human who is not of Numenorean descent). Tensions between Sylvan and Noldor elves. Tensions between Elves and Dwarves.
These are things you can use as stand-ins for race related plot points, but they shouldn't be reduced on-screen to "I'ma racist, that guy has the wrong skin tone, lets hate him!", that is when it becomes too thinly veiled and breaks the setting.
To use an example that could happen in the show. Numenoreans looking down on Middle Men who have dark skin, but not Middle Men with light skin. That would be setting breaking. A Numenorean supremacist would look down on a Middle Man not because of his skin color, there are many middle men who have fair skin just like Numenoreans do. He would look down on them all because none of them are Dunedain.
TL DR I want a show that tells the story that was written by Tolkein, not some modern day social-political commentary Tolkein fan-fic.
One of the things The Expanse got right was that the characters just were who whey were. There were different in universe cultures, but race/skin color was not really relevant to anything. This new LOTR show seems like it is not going to be as organic, they're pulling in real world socio-political stuff into it, Tolkien would be rolling over in his grave. This show is going to be hot corporate garbage, they're not even trying to hide it.
Grey Templar wrote: I will give them a chance, but I am skeptical and will not tolerate any desecration of the source material. They need to at least be faithful to it and not do dumb woke stuff just for the sake of woke stuff.
Define "dumb woke stuff", beyond "cast people who aren't white".
Inserting poorly veiled modern political/social commentary that does not belong in the setting. Nothing we've been actively shown shows anything like this, but interviews with the creators is concerning. Ar-Pharazon better not be a "totally-not-Trump-lets-make-numenor-great-again" douche. Don't go down that path.
There is nothing wrong with casting non-white people. It becomes wrong if you base the entire identity of a character around them "not being white" or if you cast a specific actor because they were "not-white". Or if you change a character's race just so you can meet some diversity quota. That is lazy and disrespectful to the actor because you are literally reducing them to a caricature solely based on their race. If they actually want Race to be some focal point within the setting, there are good and bad ways to do that. The bad way is to just frame it around white men/elves/dwarves vs colored men/elves/dwarves. It doesn't make sense within the setting and is just a primitive insertion of real-world drama in a way that will just cheapen the story. If you want to actually have this in a way that works, you need to have it in a way that works within the setting, doesn't break the setting, etc...
In the setting of Middle Earth, this means that you frame race related issues NOT along the modern day Earth race, but Middle Earth races. You can have tensions between Elves and the Kings Men Numenoreans. Tensions between Numenoreans and Middle Men(literally any human who is not of Numenorean descent). Tensions between Sylvan and Noldor elves. Tensions between Elves and Dwarves.
These are things you can use as stand-ins for race related plot points, but they shouldn't be reduced on-screen to "I'ma racist, that guy has the wrong skin tone, lets hate him!", that is when it becomes too thinly veiled and breaks the setting.
To use an example that could happen in the show. Numenoreans looking down on Middle Men who have dark skin, but not Middle Men with light skin. That would be setting breaking. A Numenorean supremacist would look down on a Middle Man not because of his skin color, there are many middle men who have fair skin just like Numenoreans do. He would look down on them all because none of them are Dunedain.
TL DR I want a show that tells the story that was written by Tolkein, not some modern day social-political commentary Tolkein fan-fic.
Hit the nail on the head for me. Especially when modern writing from Hollywood on such topics is so hamfisted and poorly implemented, especially for adaptations on existing work, them focusing on "modernizing" their take on Tolkien's works is a huge red flag.
A brief summary is that one of their dads had an in so they got the job with no experience, presented the show as the pilot, and somehow got it greenlit, they deliberately didn't put anyone who wasn't them in the writer's room and refused to hire more writers despite HBO saying they should, and the big one is that at no point did they ever read any feedback from fans ever.
Basically, they had no right to be given the show but got it anyway and used it as a way to get experience while being protected by a corporation.
Inquisitor Gideon wrote: Amusingly, the unused version of his fair form from the Jackson movies actually got it down exceptionally well. Not the eminem wannabe.
As for the rest of it, i'm trying to be neutral, but the sliding timeline is what's hacking me off the most. Shoehorning hobbits in just because there must be hobbits because it's lord of the rings.
Remember this is all based on unpublished works, apocrypha, and such. Tolkien often changed his mind about background and details so it's not like there is a hard and fast timeline, only whatever state it was in when he passed away.
AduroT wrote: Have they done much of anything since?
They were slated to get a Star Wars trilogy, which is why many believe GoT S8 was as rushed and bad as it was, and at the same time said they were going to make an HBO show called "Confederate" where the CSA had "won" the American Civil War and seceded. The latter got a huge negative reaction as it was intended to portray the CSA in the modern day with slavery still legal and was a bad apple from the get-go.
Neither of these materialised because the duo got a Netflix deal for $200m and so far they've made one comedy special.
I know this is not the GOT thread but I think the proposed John Snow show could save the story line.
Just treat it as GOT S9, show how terrible the decisions made at the end of S8 worked out and go from there. After all we were watching for the intrigue, betrayal and 'anyone can die anytime', just go back to that.
The biggest problem with S8 is was the last one. Imagine how pissed we'd all be if it had ended with Joffery as king.
Inquisitor Gideon wrote: Amusingly, the unused version of his fair form from the Jackson movies actually got it down exceptionally well. Not the eminem wannabe.
As for the rest of it, i'm trying to be neutral, but the sliding timeline is what's hacking me off the most. Shoehorning hobbits in just because there must be hobbits because it's lord of the rings.
Remember this is all based on unpublished works, apocrypha, and such. Tolkien often changed his mind about background and details so it's not like there is a hard and fast timeline, only whatever state it was in when he passed away.
There is most certainly a coherent timeline. And Hobbits did not appear in records until early 3rd age, well after the events being detailed in the show.
Inquisitor Gideon wrote: Amusingly, the unused version of his fair form from the Jackson movies actually got it down exceptionally well. Not the eminem wannabe.
As for the rest of it, i'm trying to be neutral, but the sliding timeline is what's hacking me off the most. Shoehorning hobbits in just because there must be hobbits because it's lord of the rings.
Remember this is all based on unpublished works, apocrypha, and such. Tolkien often changed his mind about background and details so it's not like there is a hard and fast timeline, only whatever state it was in when he passed away.
There is most certainly a coherent timeline. And Hobbits did not appear in records until early 3rd age, well after the events being detailed in the show.
True but the reasoning was that the Hobbits are seen as integral to a "Lord of the Rings" story and after discussion with the Tolkein estate, the Harfoots were chosen. They were the earliest known Hobbits. Given that all it says is they were first recorded at X in the Third Age, that's not really anything to stop them. The key point about Hobbits is that they hide away from "The Big People" and obviously they didn't just appear on the date they were recorded. It's hardly a universe destroying move to have them in.
No, but it is pandering in the extreme. Because Lord of the Rings, there must be hobbits. It's so incredibly shallow, it's actually painful. Besides, i can't help but imagine if some new species that's shorter than dwarves appeared, and had something to do with the events of the series, someone would have made a note of it somewhere.
Inquisitor Gideon wrote: Amusingly, the unused version of his fair form from the Jackson movies actually got it down exceptionally well. Not the eminem wannabe.
As for the rest of it, i'm trying to be neutral, but the sliding timeline is what's hacking me off the most. Shoehorning hobbits in just because there must be hobbits because it's lord of the rings.
Remember this is all based on unpublished works, apocrypha, and such. Tolkien often changed his mind about background and details so it's not like there is a hard and fast timeline, only whatever state it was in when he passed away.
There is most certainly a coherent timeline. And Hobbits did not appear in records until early 3rd age, well after the events being detailed in the show.
True but the reasoning was that the Hobbits are seen as integral to a "Lord of the Rings" story and after discussion with the Tolkein estate, the Harfoots were chosen. They were the earliest known Hobbits. Given that all it says is they were first recorded at X in the Third Age, that's not really anything to stop them. The key point about Hobbits is that they hide away from "The Big People" and obviously they didn't just appear on the date they were recorded. It's hardly a universe destroying move to have them in.
It depends on how much of them they have and if they effect major events.
Hobbits do not even appear in the records of Middle Earth prior to mentions of them moving into what would become the Shire in the years after the establishment of Arnor. In the time period of the 2nd Age which is when this series is happening they are basically non-existent, living unnoticed in the corners of the world. Their triviality and not being important is actually what makes them so important during the events of the LotR trilogy.
So really, for the hobbits to work within this show they need to be passive observers and nothing more.
StygianBeach wrote: I have watched many youtube videos criticising Rings of Power on youtube.
I just wish it was not Lord of the Rings, because it looks nice. It just does not look like LotRIMO.
Yeah, if people want to make a fantasy show with your "insert modern social-political BS here" then make your own story and setting. Don't ruin other people's settings just because you can't create something compelling on your own.
This was on that list of suggested articles on Google chrome so I thought I'd have a read.
It's interesting and I like that if nothing else, they are aspirational. Release date is less than a month away now so I'm interested to see how it pans out.
One thing I will say really works in their favour is talking about the sets. A mark of a good show is limited CGI and clearly the absurd amount of money Amazon put into it means that they have a huge budget for the sets.
I went from hopeful to skeptical, now back to cautiously hopeful thanks to the latest trailers. Practical effect Orcs is a good sign. And I like the music. I am sure there will be bits I dislike but there will hopefully be more good than bad.
As for Hobbits, or Harfoots for that matter, I have no problem whatsoever with them existing before history records them. Isn't part of their magic is to generally remain unnoticed?
As for Hobbits, or Harfoots for that matter, I have no problem whatsoever with them existing before history records them. Isn't part of their magic is to generally remain unnoticed?
Yeah, but the issue isn't them existing. The issue is them being on screen at all, and clearly going to be involved in the story. Which is canon breaking. Their "magic" being to be unnoticed is kinda broken if they get noticed.
Hobbits in the 2A should either be totally unseen on-screen OR have some sort of cameo appearance in a *nudge nudge wink wink* bit where we see them scuttling away in the shadows and some actually important character says "I wonder what that was?" and then we see nothing more.
The only way they can really redeem a hobbit storyline is if their story never fully intersects with the main story. Basically, inconsequential side characters who occasionally see stuff the main characters are doing, or have to deal with some consequences. "Oh my, the Big Folk are having a huge battle over there, we better run and hide" type thing. They can at most be disconnected observers of the main events.
The thing with the Hobbits isn't that nobody ever actually noticed them. It's that they are so incredibly uninteresting that there is no reason to record them. They are completely unremarkable. Hobbits could be walking down the road next to men and elf and history would only record the nobles who were there omitting that the Hobbits even existed exactly like the peasant with a horse and cart.
Funny thought. I think Amazon might not want to use the name Hobbit in case it clashes with whoever has the ownership of New Line Cinema (I think it's Warner Bros) because in all official material is harfoot this, and hardfoot that.
Grey Templar wrote: Yeah, if people want to make a fantasy show with your "insert modern social-political BS here" then make your own story and setting.
Whenever I see stuff like this part of me always yearns for historically accurate, warts and all, TV series about one of the many multi ethnic/religious past empires. Of course it would probably get denounced as 'woke' because people can't accept that so much of what we think was conditioned by 19th century Europe and can't imagine the frankly alien mindsets from the past.
Grey Templar wrote: Yeah, if people want to make a fantasy show with your "insert modern social-political BS here" then make your own story and setting.
Whenever I see stuff like this part of me always yearns for historically accurate, warts and all, TV series about one of the many multi ethnic/religious past empires. Of course it would probably get denounced as 'woke' because people can't accept that so much of what we think was conditioned by 19th century Europe and can't imagine the frankly alien mindsets from the past.
The funny part is that I would love to see proper multi-ethnic empires and historical kingdoms but what we usually get are terrible TV series where focus on race swapping established historical figures that were white (Anne Boleyn being black anyone?) and inserting and disproportionately focusing on races that wouldn't be present in any significant number or way (Black vikings in Valhallla). It smacks of cowardice from how they aren't willing to take risks by using real historical settings outside of Europe or North America and instead just resorts to race swapping to gain virtue signal points since they know the typical person's historical knowledge is so garbage that they'd have to actually work to do a good job spotlighting other cultures.
Miguelsan wrote: Funny thought. I think Amazon might not want to use the name Hobbit in case it clashes with whoever has the ownership of New Line Cinema (I think it's Warner Bros) because in all official material is harfoot this, and hardfoot that.
M.
I don't think that is the issue. New Line does not have exclusive right to the term Hobbit as far as I can tell.
They're using Harfoot because they seem under the misconception that they're some sort of proto-hobbit when they're really just one of the 3 overarching clans that all hobbits belong to(Harfoot, Stoors, and Fallowhides). Harfoots are also the most common type of hobbit.
Grey Templar wrote: Yeah, if people want to make a fantasy show with your "insert modern social-political BS here" then make your own story and setting.
Whenever I see stuff like this part of me always yearns for historically accurate, warts and all, TV series about one of the many multi ethnic/religious past empires. Of course it would probably get denounced as 'woke' because people can't accept that so much of what we think was conditioned by 19th century Europe and can't imagine the frankly alien mindsets from the past.
Not by me it wouldn't. If it was done in the proper historical fashion, and not the way it always gets done like Grimskul mentioned with race-swapping and modern social-issue shoehorning just to gain brownie points with whatever group is flavor of the month right now.
Grey Templar wrote: Yeah, if people want to make a fantasy show with your "insert modern social-political BS here" then make your own story and setting.
Whenever I see stuff like this part of me always yearns for historically accurate, warts and all, TV series about one of the many multi ethnic/religious past empires. Of course it would probably get denounced as 'woke' because people can't accept that so much of what we think was conditioned by 19th century Europe and can't imagine the frankly alien mindsets from the past.
What exactly does this have to do with his statement?
The issue with things like The Witcher Netflix series and now The Rings of Power is that corporations are making lazy cash grabs using known and popular franchies and mutilating the original stories and settings in the process. They know that no one will tune in for a series set in an original IP so they inject their messaging into whatever pre-existing franchise they can get their hands on. It's incredibly fething lazy. I don't know why people are defending billion-dollar corporations that are just making cash grabs.
If they really cared about the "woke agenda" they would be willing to sacrifice the bottom line to a greater degree and find women and minority writers to craft original stories and shows, but that wouldn't draw anywhere near the level attention as something with a built-in fanbase.
If they really cared about the "woke agenda" they would be willing to sacrifice the bottom line to a greater degree and find women and minority writers to craft original stories and shows, but that wouldn't draw anywhere near the level attention as something with a built-in fanbase.
Well, the corporations care about it to the extent they can make money from it. Though I think there is also a small, but influential, sect of wokists who want to insert their agendas into existing fandoms specially because they are existing fandoms. They're really just cringy fanfic basement dwellers, the difference is they've gotten someone to throw money at them because their flavor of fanfic is the current flavor of the month. The difference is they're writing woke LotR fanfic instead of Goth Harry Potter teen drama fanfic.
So the Corporations think they can make a quick buck, both from normal corporate "gotta make money with what is popular" and small numbers of influential "true believer" wokists.
Well, the corporations care about it to the extent they can make money from it. Though I think there is also a small, but influential, sect of wokists who want to insert their agendas into existing fandoms specially because they are existing fandoms. They're really just cringy fanfic basement dwellers, the difference is they've gotten someone to throw money at them because their flavor of fanfic is the current flavor of the month. The difference is they're writing woke LotR fanfic instead of Goth Harry Potter teen drama fanfic.
Can't believe I'm doing this but can anyone tell me exactly what it is that is "woke" about this?
The term is a load of nonsense anyway but seriously, what is it that makes it so bad in your eyes?
Gert wrote: Can't believe I'm doing this but can anyone tell me exactly what it is that is "woke" about this?
The term is a load of nonsense anyway but seriously, what is it that makes it so bad in your eyes?
Instead of writing new stories with the characters and plotlines that they want to feature, they co-opt preexisting, typically popular material and bastardize characterizations and plot elements to serve their purpose. It's lazy. It shows a complete lack of artistic integrity.
Lord of the Rings was, by modern standards, a bit racist and sexist. Tolkien had apparently zero interest in writing female characters and barely made use of minorities. The "darker" men are peripheal. Changing this is a lie.
It would be no different than if someone adapted and whitewashed Earthsea. Stop fething with already finished stories. Do something new. Star Trek has been doing this for decades and succeeding.
Gert wrote: Can't believe I'm doing this but can anyone tell me exactly what it is that is "woke" about this?
The term is a load of nonsense anyway but seriously, what is it that makes it so bad in your eyes?
Instead of writing new stories with the characters and plotlines that they want to feature, they co-opt preexisting, typically popular material and bastardize characterizations and plot elements to serve their purpose. It's lazy. It shows a complete lack of artistic integrity.
Lord of the Rings was, by modern standards, a bit racist and sexist. Tolkien had apparently zero interest in writing female characters and barely made use of minorities. The "darker" men are peripheal. Changing this is a lie.
It would be no different than if someone adapted and whitewashed Earthsea. Stop fething with already finished stories. Do something new. Star Trek has been doing this for decades and succeeding.
But we have done this for decades. That is pretty much 50's and 60's Hollywood. Take a story, change everyone to white Americans (plus British baddies), go.
I really only care about changes if the characters sex, ethnicity or nationality is part of the story. Go to an extreme - if Jesus is black (and plenty of North Africans and others knocking around the empire at the time, plenty of black Jews knocking around now), is any of the bibles message changed? If you make all the Dwarves in LotRs female does it change anything? Would anyone notice if it turned out Legolas was a female elf? From memory I think the only character where their sex was key was Éowyn as that is what enabled her to kill the wraith.
Grey Templar wrote: Yeah, if people want to make a fantasy show with your "insert modern social-political BS here" then make your own story and setting.
Whenever I see stuff like this part of me always yearns for historically accurate, warts and all, TV series about one of the many multi ethnic/religious past empires. Of course it would probably get denounced as 'woke' because people can't accept that so much of what we think was conditioned by 19th century Europe and can't imagine the frankly alien mindsets from the past.
The funny part is that I would love to see proper multi-ethnic empires and historical kingdoms but what we usually get are terrible TV series where focus on race swapping established historical figures that were white (Anne Boleyn being black anyone?) and inserting and disproportionately focusing on races that wouldn't be present in any significant number or way (Black vikings in Valhallla). It smacks of cowardice from how they aren't willing to take risks by using real historical settings outside of Europe or North America and instead just resorts to race swapping to gain virtue signal points since they know the typical person's historical knowledge is so garbage that they'd have to actually work to do a good job spotlighting other cultures.
I would be up for a great series set in the Achaemenid Empire! Some clickbait Cyrus title needed though.
trexmeyer wrote: Instead of writing new stories with the characters and plotlines that they want to feature, they co-opt preexisting, typically popular material and bastardize characterizations and plot elements to serve their purpose. It's lazy. It shows a complete lack of artistic integrity.
Adaptations of things have existed since forever. This isn't new. Heck, most new things are adaptations or reimaginings of other stories because art is influenced by other art. The showrunners were pretty explicit that while they believe their interpretation of Tolkien's works is pretty spot on, they also never claimed to be the only correct interpretation.
Lord of the Rings was, by modern standards, a bit racist and sexist. Tolkien had apparently zero interest in writing female characters and barely made use of minorities. The "darker" men are peripheal. Changing this is a lie.
So the "big" thing with LotR being racist is that it is believed by some that Orcs are intended to be a characterisation of non-Europeans. There is one private letter that describes Orcs as: "squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes: in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types." And that's it. There's no other evidence to suggest Tolkien was racist. When he used "dark" and "black" as adjectives he used them in the biblical sense of the Darkness and the Light as representations of Evil and Good respectively, not as a metaphor for how non-Whites were evil or degenerate. In fact, Tolkien was famously anti-racist and was disgusted by the Nazi's racial ideology as well as the anti-German propaganda created by the British Government. If we're talking about the "East=Bad and West=Good" argument then Tolkien himself settled that years ago by saying:
Spoiler:
Auden has asserted that for me 'the North is a sacred direction'. That is not true. The North-west of Europe, where I (and most of my ancestors) have lived, has my affection, as a man's home should. I love its atmosphere, and know more of its histories and languages than I do of other parts; but it is not 'sacred', nor does it exhaust my affections. I do have, for instance, a particular fondness for the Latin language, and among its descendants for Spanish. That is untrue for my story, a mere reading of the synopses should show. The North was the seat of the fortresses of the Devil [ie. Morgoth].
As for sexism, not sure how LotR could be seen as sexist when Eowyn's tale is kind of a big deal. All that being said, "apparently" is not a good basis for an argument.
It would be no different than if someone adapted and whitewashed Earthsea.
Most of the cast for RoP is white. Galadriel, Elrond, Isildur, Gil-Galad, Elendil, Celebrimbor, and a chunk of other characters are all still white. Forgive me if I don't think this is a valid argument to make when there are still very few PoC cast.
Stop with already finished stories. Do something new.
How do you know if are they messing with the stories if you haven't seen the show? Have you seen the scripts? Do you know exactly what it is the writers and showrunners are doing? If you know the exact lines of every single character and the exact story the show will follow would you mind cluing the rest of us in?
Star Trek has been doing this for decades and succeeding.
"Succeeding" isn't the term I would use. I would also like to point out that any time a new ST was introduced, there were people who hated it before it had even been released. TNG especially got a load of press about how it wasn't the OG crew and that some random Shakespearean actor had been cast as the lead. If you cast your mind back to yesteryear, Peter Jackson's LotR films were also heavily hated before and during their release.
Gert wrote: Can't believe I'm doing this but can anyone tell me exactly what it is that is "woke" about this?
The term is a load of nonsense anyway but seriously, what is it that makes it so bad in your eyes?
Nothing they have shown from the show itself, so far, is explicitly woke. They haven't shown much.
What has been woke is the producers in interviews and articles about it saying how they want to modify Tolkein's stories to fit the "modern age" I believe was the word. They've been fixated on having Elves and Dwarves of Color "for the first time!", a concept that would be anathema in Tolkein's world. There is no "people of color" in his world, there is just people. A clear hyper-neoilliberal agenda they are focusing on.
This is concerning because people who get fixated on those things tend to slather and defile everything they touch with this stuff.
Grey Templar wrote: Yeah, if people want to make a fantasy show with your "insert modern social-political BS here" then make your own story and setting.
Whenever I see stuff like this part of me always yearns for historically accurate, warts and all, TV series about one of the many multi ethnic/religious past empires. Of course it would probably get denounced as 'woke' because people can't accept that so much of what we think was conditioned by 19th century Europe and can't imagine the frankly alien mindsets from the past.
The funny part is that I would love to see proper multi-ethnic empires and historical kingdoms but what we usually get are terrible TV series where focus on race swapping established historical figures that were white (Anne Boleyn being black anyone?) and inserting and disproportionately focusing on races that wouldn't be present in any significant number or way (Black vikings in Valhallla). It smacks of cowardice from how they aren't willing to take risks by using real historical settings outside of Europe or North America and instead just resorts to race swapping to gain virtue signal points since they know the typical person's historical knowledge is so garbage that they'd have to actually work to do a good job spotlighting other cultures.
I would be up for a great series set in the Achaemenid Empire! Some clickbait Cyrus title needed though.
Grey Templar wrote: Nothing they have shown from the show itself, so far, is explicitly woke. They haven't shown much.
So there's nothing you can find that fits your nonsense term but it's new so you've got to complain about it anyway. Why am I not surprised?
What has been woke is the producers in interviews and articles about it saying how they want to modify Tolkein's stories to fit the "modern age" I believe was the word. They've been fixated on having Elves and Dwarves of Color "for the first time!", a concept that would be anathema in Tolkein's world. There is no "people of color" in his world, there is just people. A clear hyper-neoilliberal agenda they are focusing on.
This is concerning because people who get fixated on those things tend to slather and defile everything they touch with this stuff.
If there are just people then why is it an issue that there have been PoC cast? If Tolkien didn't make explicit that people were one thing or another, is it not more accurate to have a wider variety of actors instead of just white Americans, Brits, and New Zealanders? And just to be clear, I'm not calling anybody racist because PJ's LotR doesn't have any non-white characters because it isn't.
As for your "hyper-neoliberal agenda", they didn't actually fixate on it until people made it something to fixate on. All that was done was a reveal of cast members then gakheads and scumbags jumped on it, at which point the showrunners said:
"Tolkien is for everyone. His stories are about his fictional races doing their best work when they leave the isolation of their own cultures and come together." Tolkien explores the theme of "people of different ethnicities, backgrounds, and walks of life all coming together for a common cause. For me personally, as a viewer, I would have the expectation that [the series] would reflect the real world, as well as the world as I aspire it to be." The show didn't make a big deal of it, people did when they started flinging gak because they saw brown people.
Can we leave out the ridiculous hyperbole? At most what we are seeing here is a very moderate and centrist agenda driven by market research and concern for profits, there is nothing "hyper" about any of it. Whether or not you like the changes in question they are indisputably minor and incremental.
This is concerning because people who get fixated on those things tend to slather and defile everything they touch with this stuff.
And yet for all the complaints of the right-wing outrage machine over "wokeness" the primary things bringing down movies/shows/etc are the same old flaws that have existed for as long as we have had storytelling: poor pacing, shallow characters, emphasis on spectacle over story depth, etc. It wasn't a Star Wars character having a "feminist" hair color that killed TLJ, it was the complete inability to understand pacing and assemble a coherent story.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Gert wrote: Adaptations of things have existed since forever. This isn't new. Heck, most new things are adaptations or reimaginings of other stories because art is influenced by other art. The showrunners were pretty explicit that while they believe their interpretation of Tolkien's works is pretty spot on, they also never claimed to be the only correct interpretation.
Exactly. If you want a LOTR story that does not deviate at all from the original text then go read Tolkien's books. They're all still there for you to read, nobody is taking them away. But when you have an adaptation it's inevitably going to have changes from the source material, and you may or may not like all of them. None of this is in any way new.
Can we leave out the ridiculous hyperbole? At most what we are seeing here is a very moderate and centrist agenda driven by market research and concern for profits, there is nothing "hyper" about any of it. Whether or not you like the changes in question they are indisputably minor and incremental.
This is concerning because people who get fixated on those things tend to slather and defile everything they touch with this stuff.
And yet for all the complaints of the right-wing outrage machine over "wokeness" the primary things bringing down movies/shows/etc are the same old flaws that have existed for as long as we have had storytelling: poor pacing, shallow characters, emphasis on spectacle over story depth, etc. It wasn't a Star Wars character having a "feminist" hair color that killed TLJ, it was the complete inability to understand pacing and assemble a coherent story.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Gert wrote: Adaptations of things have existed since forever. This isn't new. Heck, most new things are adaptations or reimaginings of other stories because art is influenced by other art. The showrunners were pretty explicit that while they believe their interpretation of Tolkien's works is pretty spot on, they also never claimed to be the only correct interpretation.
Exactly. If you want a LOTR story that does not deviate at all from the original text then go read Tolkien's books. They're all still there for you to read, nobody is taking them away. But when you have an adaptation it's inevitably going to have changes from the source material, and you may or may not like all of them. None of this is in any way new.
I don't see how you're disproving his point? The vast majority of movies or shows that push the message of "diversity" above all else have terrible character development, lackluster pacing and focus on spectacle precisely because they care less about having a coherent and interesting story than basically ticking the boxes of ensuring a specific narrative is showcased, regardless of whether or not its congruent to the existing franchise's lore or storyline. For Star Wars, Finn was completely wasted as a character (despite having a legitimately interesting story of being a child soldier trying to break mental conditioning) and ironically more or less used as the token black guy, hypocritically so since they removed him in their marketing for China. Rey, written in the same vein as many female leads nowadays, doesn't have to struggle to actually succeed her goals, she never loses once to anyone in the trilogy despite not having any formal training, and basically has no flaws besides being "insecure" about her origins, which has no tangible effects in terms of the plot or her development besides her learning to literally steal someone else's identity. When people raise these issues, what's the response? Oh, you hate Rey because she's a strong independent female. Oh, you hate Finn because he's black. They're already starting to say this for She-Hulk and it's mind numbing how many times they use this as a smokescreen to excuse themselves from having to put actual effort into writing characters that aren't one-dimensional.
Not to say this is exclusive to only entertainment with the need to push progressive ideology, but it's pretty clear from the last decade or so of franchise pillaging that things like Star Wars, Star Trek and He-Man have been hollowed out and used as skinsuits rather than continuing the legacy of their established history. Better Call Saul is a fanastic example of how you can do spin off works from an existing franchise where it builds upon the world that was established and is actually able to flesh out a side character in BB into a fully realized character with an amazing cast, where I would say Kim is the definitive example of how you write an strong female character that isn't just "better" than their male counterpart in everyway. There's also no hamfisted attempt to incorporate modern sensibilities, it just focuses on the dynamics and relationships of the cast and it really sets up perfectly into how BB starts that will make this show ageless for years to come.
Also, saying "Oh, you still have the old material, stop being a whiner and ignore the new stuff" is kind of hard to do when the new things often retroactively spit on the original lore and deconstruct or demonize past characters/heros. Look at what happened to Luke, Han and Leia in the sequel trilogy. Picard was rendered to a shallow shell of his formal self. He-Man in his most recent show from Kevin Smith was bait-and-switched and also thrown under the bus.
I'm pretty sure you'd vocalize your concern and distaste too if all of a sudden they started porting the equivalent of anti-vaxxers into Middle Earth during a plague or having a clearly Trump caricature in Numenor as one of the people working with Sauron before their fall into Black Numenoreans. Unless you want to put everything from the modern lens into our escapist franchises.
Grimskul wrote: The vast majority of movies or shows that push the message of "diversity" above all else have terrible character development, lackluster pacing and focus on spectacle precisely because they care less about having a coherent and interesting story than basically ticking the boxes of ensuring a specific narrative is showcased, regardless of whether or not its congruent to the existing franchise's lore or storyline.
The vast majority of movies or shows that push the message of "diversity" above all else have terrible character development, lackluster pacing and focus on spectacle precisely because they care less about having a coherent and interesting story than basically ticking the boxes of ensuring a specific narrative is showcased, regardless of whether or not its congruent to the existing franchise's lore or storyline.
That's my point that you're missing, these "extremist woke leftist hyper-neoiliberalist" movies and shows are failing for the same reason that countless other movies and shows fail. There are plenty of movies and shows with straight white male protagonists doing traditional hero things that fail because they're a CGI demo reel with painfully bad pacing, plot holes everywhere, and all the character depth of a puddle. But because their failures aren't ideologically useful nobody remembers Generic Summer Action Movie #37 once it leaves theaters and is replaced by Generic Summer Action Movie #38. Sturgeon's Law remains constant regardless of ideological content.
When people raise these issues, what's the response?
"You're right, that character really did have some problems."
I have almost never seen people responding to legitimate criticism of characters/stories/etc with "BUT UR RACIST". I'm sure it has happened because people say stupid stuff all the time, but most of the time when things like "you hate Finn because he's black" it's a response to people who very clearly are objecting to the character's race.
Also, saying "Oh, you still have the old material, stop being a whiner and ignore the new stuff" is kind of hard to do when the new things often retroactively spit on the original lore and deconstruct or demonize past characters/heros. Look at what happened to Luke, Han and Leia in the sequel trilogy. Picard was rendered to a shallow shell of his formal self. He-Man in his most recent show from Kevin Smith was bait-and-switched and also thrown under the bus.
Why is it hard to do? I think the Star Wars sequels suck and so I don't watch them. I saw them once and that was enough. Outside of watching clips of the hyperspace ramming scene (because, however stupid it is from a lore point of view it's a beautiful shot) I think the only time I've touched any of them was to capture screenshots for a meme. The Mandalorian was good, I'll probably watch it again. Boba Fett sucked, I probably won't ever bother with it again. The old EU is all non-canon anyway but the Rogue Squadron books are still a fun read. The fact that Disney did some stupid things with the OT characters means about as much to me as some random fanfiction author's Luke/Han/Yoda porn story. It exists, I'll give my (negative) opinion on it if the subject comes up, but the original works are still there to enjoy.
I'm pretty sure you'd vocalize your concern and distaste too if all of a sudden they started porting the equivalent of anti-vaxxers into Middle Earth during a plague or having a clearly Trump caricature in Numenor as one of the people working with Sauron before their fall into Black Numenoreans. Unless you want to put everything from the modern lens into our escapist franchises.
Sure. I would think that's stupid (and way beyond adding a couple of non-white characters) and have no interest in it. I'd probably watch gleefully as Bezos loses a bunch of money and is embarrassed by the failure, because that donkey-cave deserves it. But I'd dismiss it as well-funded fanfiction and go read the original books if I want a better LOTR story.
If they really cared about the "woke agenda" they would be willing to sacrifice the bottom line to a greater degree and find women and minority writers to craft original stories and shows, but that wouldn't draw anywhere near the level attention as something with a built-in fanbase.
That's because they don't actually care about minority representation as anything other than a tool to claim western popular culture in the name of their ideology. It's them making claims on previous works in order to further that ideology.
Tolkien is an outlier, in that he is really the only person from so far back who still maintains such a massive presence in modern popular culture. Sure, people know his contemporaries like c.s.lewis, but they are minor league compared to Tolkien. And him being from a period where moral and cultural values differ vastly from the moral vacuousness that exists today, and add to that that Tolkien hearkens even further back to the medieval history of North western Europe and it's values in his work, make it too reactionary to stand unmolested.
He is their top prize, and he must be claimed, but they can't just outright denounce and reclaim it like they did with Lovecraft, who's views were extreme even for his time. More subtlety is required due to Tolkien's huge presence.
It's there down to the smallest levels. The 'representation' and race insertions are just the most obvious. Ask yourself why all the armour in the promos is gold scale type armour and not polished steel plate...
queen_annes_revenge wrote: That's because they don't actually care about minority representation as anything other than a tool. The actual goal here is to claim popular culture in the name of their ideology. It's them making claims on previous works in order to further that ideology. Tolkien happens to be the top prize, due to the fact that he's really the only person from such a period, and with such reactionary material that still manages to be incredibly popular in the modern era. That can't be allowed to stand unmolested, and were witnessing that claiming first hand here.
Yes, the company owned by a conservative billionaire donkey-cave who would sacrifice his own firstborn son for 1% more shareholder value is clearly motivated by left-wing ideological concerns and the destruction of traditional culture. Seriously, do you bother thinking about what you're writing or do you just parrot right-wing talking points regardless of the subject?
Bezos is part of the elite. There is nothing right wing about him, or the shareholder capital you use as evidence for it, for some odd reason... And no, If you read my edit, you'll see I actually think deeply about everything, unlike your reply, which is literally a cut and paste response that can be seen below virtually every non progressive comment on the internet.
Edit: fine, I'll leave it at what I said previously. Amazon and Bezos want money, nothing more. They are making a LOTR series for the sole reason that the LOTR trilogy made almost $3 billion in profit without even counting merchandise sales, and even the mediocre Hobbit movies made another $3 billion.
FFS, that new Game of Thrones series was somehow greenlit, produced, and premiers tomorrow despite GRRM never finishing ASOIAF and the last 2-3 seasons of GoT sucking something fierce. The final season of GoT was so bad that it killed off the fandom to an unparalled degree. Yet, despite this, House of the Dragon is rolling out.
Why? There is zero risk with franchises once you get them off the ground. You have to be consistently unbelievably awful to truly kill one off. There hasn't been a good Terminator movie since T2 and the last several have all drawn in some semblance of audience despite becoming progressively worse.
The new Star Trek films were mediocre to bad, but they made money and generated enough interest for Discovery, Picard, and Lower Decks to be made.
Somehow The Fast and the Furious series has continued going and spawned at least one spinoff.
All franchises ultimately turn into cash grabs and they are dominating the market. The last original piece of media I can think of that was actually good would be something like Coco or True Detective. I'm not sure if Disney really counts because they almost always draw an audience. I can't imagine something like Babylon 5 or The X-Files actually being greenlit, produced and surviving more than 1-2 seasons today.
Film franchises carry on if they make money and if they don't make money - they don't. The movie / TV buisness is a business....
Some people may not like long running series like Fast and Furious, Resident Evil, Underworld etc - but they made a ton of money - because people enjoy/enjoyed them.
Lord of the Rings films made huge amounts of money so a TV show or new film was likely - Game of Thrones was nearly destroyed by the final series but still achieved vast viewing figures - and they likely think the potential audiance is still there - I will be watching to see how it goes based on the trailer even though I would have prefered to see the initial invasion and conquest.
The growing amount of streaming services mean that there is a need for a equally large number AND variety of shows to fill their schedules and hence we have a vast array of different shows being produced - its a golden age.
Mrs. GG and I watched the first two episodes this morning. I think I liked them more than she did but we both very much enjoyed them and were left wanting more.
Were they perfect? No. But considerably better than I was expecting. Far better than the trailers led me to believe it would be.
The writing was tight. The casting better than I expected. It is more subtle in its political tones than Game of Thrones but it has hints of a sharper edge of politics than Jackson's LOTR. Ambition, arrogance and bigotry look to be core plot points but not quite as exaggerated as in GoT.
I am finding myself liking most of the characters more than I expected. There were a couple of plot points that I found annoying and the decision to compress so much history into such a short time is frustrating but they are doing a much better job of making “cliff notes” or “short hand” of Tolkien Middle Earth history than I expected.
More of my first impressions, spoiler free, on my blog…
Grey Templar wrote: This is concerning because people who get fixated on those things tend to slather and defile everything they touch with this stuff.
And yet for all the complaints of the right-wing outrage machine over "wokeness" the primary things bringing down movies/shows/etc are the same old flaws that have existed for as long as we have had storytelling: poor pacing, shallow characters, emphasis on spectacle over story depth, etc. It wasn't a Star Wars character having a "feminist" hair color that killed TLJ, it was the complete inability to understand pacing and assemble a coherent story.
While this is true, the new part is that when you POINT OUT those same old flaws such as poor pacing, shallow characters, etc. in the new material, you get called racist, sexist, etc. etc. etc. for not liking their 'new and unique in the history of all mankind story featuring a strong female/minority/LGBT character'.
As if characters like Ellen Ripley, Axel Foley, and Victor/Victoria Grant didn't predate their badly written fanfic by DECADES....
When people raise these issues, what's the response?
"You're right, that character really did have some problems."
I have almost never seen people responding to legitimate criticism of characters/stories/etc with "BUT UR RACIST". I'm sure it has happened because people say stupid stuff all the time, but most of the time when things like "you hate Finn because he's black" it's a response to people who very clearly are objecting to the character's race.
Did you seriously manage to miss the entire backlash against The Last Jedi... and then KK and RJ lashing out at 'toxic' fans being 'racist' and 'misogynist'? Not just the ones who genuinely WERE toxic, misogynist, and racist, ALL the fans who criticized the movie for ANY reason. For a good year if you were a Star Wars fan you couldn't get away from it.
If you did manage to miss it, more power to you. You're probably better off for not caring about Star Wars, Star Trek, MCU, or any other franchise at this point. I know I am.
I can't wait until we get more Barrel fighting! And I want Legolas to magically appear as well. Then we should have a hot young dwarf/illuvatar sex scene. Finally we need to see a dragon get killed when Legolas does a back flip off the tower of Angmar and beheads it with a dagger.
You may be asking now, beheads the tower or the dragon? My answer: YES.
Just look at this wardrobe effort...
This looks like pure fan fic generic fantasy made by a comicon cosplayer..
Apparently this is some character who is not even part of the lore..
I'm so glad I cancelled my amazon. The more screen shot etc. that come through my feeds the more im content with my choice to never watch his pile of gunk or give the company producing it any more money.
While there are some cosplayers who could produce gear like that, you're looking at probably to the top 5% or so of them - it is definitely well above the average cosplayer you might see at a Comic Con or similar event.
You do seem to have quite a hate boner going on for something you're not even giving a sliver of a chance to.
I have to admit the first two episodes were better than expected. I'm not keen at all on the portrayal of Galadriel, but on the other hand I really enjoyed Elrond a lot more that I had thought, which kind of made up for it.
Once I had made peace with the fact that it's less of an adaptation and more of a fanfic, it was really fun to watch and I'm looking forward to ep. 3.
Dysartes wrote: While there are some cosplayers who could produce gear like that, you're looking at probably to the top 5% or so of them - it is definitely well above the average cosplayer you might see at a Comic Con or similar event.
You do seem to have quite a hate boner going on for something you're not even giving a sliver of a chance to.
I agree with you Dysartes. The armor in that photo looks on par with the Weta Workshop pieces from the Jackson LOTR. I dislike the ceremonial plate armor Galadriel and her company wears in the second episode. I was not keen on their maille in episode 1 but the full plate in episode 2 looked poorly made in comparison to the maille in episode 1 and the scale in the above mentioned photo.
Watched it last night, it was really good, they've really put their best foot foreward.
Dripping with money, of course; money everywhere, but every cent is being put to work here with great production value in every shot.
More importantly, the direction behind it is ambitious, cinematography, acting, the music, all of this is movie tier, and barring some major misstep by either party this thing is going to go toe-to-toe with House of the Dragon the way LotR and Harry Potter did in the aughts. Star Wars is going to have to step up their TV game, for sure.
I especially appreciated the dialogue: Tolkien would write his characters speaking in a very structured way, and the show maintains that in the words while still having the characters speak with energy as if they were real people in the space and it works very well. It's especially noticeable with the dwarves and hobbits who manage to be quippy or boisterous without needing to fall into anachronistic modern dialogue like the Jackson films would.
Content wise:
Spoiler:
-Mostly elf action these first two episodes, principal characters being put up on the board.
-The show's set firmly in the first quarter of the Second Age, meaning save for some neccesary exposition on how we got here, there will be very little actual lore to base it off of, a few pages pages in the Silmarillion summarizing centuries worth of events. My fear that they were going to shuffle things around chronologically to show the trees thousands of years later than when they existed was unfounded.
-Many of the elven actors have mondo chins and it's going to take some getting used to - but I wouldn't bash any one character's casting.
-The dwarves were especially great, seeing Moria as a proper thriving Dwarf Fortress (complete with waterfalls to improve dwarven moods and tank your FPS) made me smile.
-Durin and Eldrond's interactions were also quite nice, and the idea that an elf will not talk to a friend for 20 years and not even think anything's weird about that while the dwarf in turn would take it as a seroius personal insult that would poison elf/dwarf relations for years without any of the elves noticing is tropey as all hell, but absolutely perfect.
-The hobbits are hobbits, they're called something else but they're hobbits. Here they're a nomadic people that live further out east, I expect they'll be our 'feet on the ground' for when disaster comes - most likely fleeing west to found the Shire.
-The tall spooky man who they meet may be a Maiar, come to earth in the Second Age instead of the Third Age - while this seems to be the most direct contradiction of established canon, its not one I particularly mind. If it turns out to be an origin story for Gandalf and his affection for hobbits I won't mind at all.
-They've pulled a little trickery with Galadriel here, the timelines match up with her being alive during the age of the trees, and she was part of the Noldor host that travelled over the ice to reach Middle Earth. She had a number of brothers who died in Middle Earth, but the one I think they're showing as her primary motivation is Finrod, who is notably the only Noldor that was permitted to return to life after leaving Valinor - if she had returned then he probably would have been there waiting for her. -Likewise, no Celeborn in sight - at this point in the timeline she'll at least have met him, but I suspect their relationship will become a plot point for her arc as well.
Well, they weren't as bad as I was expecting. However, they have butchered some major background lore already (Finrods death, how going to Valinor works). And not even for any plot gains, they just changed some stuff for no real reason.
Spoiler:
I kinda like how the Elves seem to have been suspicious of the Haradrim and have been keeping an eye on them.
I like the Dwarves, though I think the slight between Durin and Elrond at the start was a little oddly structured. A contrived bit of unnecessary drama. We could have just had some normal happy stuff and bravado based rock breaking match without some petulant banishment nonsense. Durin should have given the elevator talk BEFORE they had the contest, it would have made it seem less odd. This is making me really question the story telling ability of the writers. They're not good at structuring stuff. Once it was all explained it was ok, but as it played out it was strange.
Likewise, they are kinda hamfisting Galadrial. They need her to end up shipwrecked in the ocean. So instead of something sensible, like she is sailing to the southlands or something to look for Sauron and her ship sinks in a storm, they heavily contradict the core of Tolkein's work and have Gilgalad give her the "gift" of returning to Valinor and she has a last minute decision to swim back to Middle Earth. So they've made returning to Valinor totally different, but also completely changed something about Galadrial. And for absolutely no reason, they could have achieved the same goal(her being shipwrecked and finding Halbrand) without violating the lore. Yet they chose to violate the lore.
Some good news is that the stranger is almost certainly Gandalf and not Sauron as I had feared. I suppose they could still pull a fast one, but that would be just disastrous storytelling.
One technical complaint: Sometimes characters will talk EXTREMELY quietly. Even with sound turned all the way up I had to put on subtitles to tell what was said sometimes. The voice audio was too quiet.
Also nothing about this show is really all that interesting.
Sure is slow though. Really slow. Drearily slow.
Galadriel's story line takes her as far away from Middle Earth as one can literally travel and then makes her swim back. Her entire story is basically is going to be one side-quest after another to keep her away from the main story. Makes me wonder why they bothered putting her in other than marketing her as a strong-independent-woman-who-don't-need-no-man (or Elf, in this case).
Which just makes me wonder: Where the feth is Celeborn? His and Galadriel's daughter marries Elrond, yet the dude's no where to be seen. Is this a rights thing? Do they literally not have the rights to Galadriel's other half?
Anyway, some of the plotlines have promise. Let's hope they get a move on...
Which just makes me wonder: Where the feth is Celeborn? His and Galadriel's daughter marries Elrond, yet the dude's no where to be seen. Is this a rights thing? Do they literally not have the rights to Galadriel's other half?
This worries me greatly. They're almost trying to setup Elrond and Galadrial for each other. But at this stage in the lore Elrond should have already married her daughter.
They can't possibly not have the rights, we know they have the LotR and the appendices in the RotK. That is all they have. This is pretty much the only place Celeborn exists, he barely exists in the Silmarillion other than "he's Galadrial's husband".
It's possible they could introduce them later, maybe have Elrond meet Celebrian at a later date and they get married over the course of this show. Though having 2 episodes without showing Galadrial's family would be odd. They could at least have had some of Galadrial's motivation be protecting her family.
First episode is being digested. Now, for clarity, I’ve never read any Lord of The Rings.
No. Put your pitchfork down for now.
I confirm that, as it means I’m a fairly Average Pleb coming to it. Pretty much all I know of LOTR is from the films, the Hobbit films, and the GW games (hence I’m pretty sure Gil Galad is notably hard, including besting a Balrog single handed). But that’s it.
Got to admit, I found some of the casting jarring, but only because in my head Galdriel is Cate Blanchett etc.
I’m enjoying it. Production values are frankly incredible. Harfoots are interesting, and the elf-centric POV makes sense to me, given their long lives.
Initial battle scene was….well I dunno. It felt a bit anaemic (second time this week I’ve used that word), with lots of jostling but not much hacks/slashy. Whilst not terribly cinematic, I do wonder if it’s perhaps more realistic than everybody was Kung Fu fighting.
Taking a break before E2, to enjoy the new Beavis & Butthead, on account it’s been a long week of being smart and stuff, so my brain deserves a proper flush.
I watched the first episode this morning, off and on because my dog was being a mess. Will have to give it a proper focused watch after work.
I feel like the Cave Troll fight in Fellowship was a solid 5 minutes, while this Ice Troll fight was an at most 30 second "I out leveled this boss 15 levels ago" RPG fight. It also seemed like none of the NPC elves bit the bullet despite getting trounced by the troll?
The Harfoots are just corny and I don't think I'll enjoy their presence unless that wolf shows up with friends.
Elven kids being mean to each other was weird.
Some great visuals in this show for sure. They deserve praise for that, imo.
Got to the part where Galadriel was given a reward for finding nothing and marched off to work!
I didn't particularly hate what I watched, to be honest.
-The dwarves were especially great, seeing Moria as a proper thriving Dwarf Fortress (complete with waterfalls to improve dwarven moods and tank your FPS) made me smile.
I bow in respect.
M.
Edit: Galadriel Gold medal in open sea swimming in Middle Earth Second Age Olympics.
Watched first episode - it was ok - quite watchable
pros
It looks good
Its Galadriel
I did not hate the harfoots as much I thought I would but I would rather they were not in at all.
The unpleasant Elf Children bit was wierd as was the forshadowing of her brothers death by him - who she then says have never known death.....
The Ice Troll fight was not bad but not great - bit too much Galadriel is the only one who can fight considering they are all veterans AND Elves - needed more minons for them to kill stylishly
Also IIRC the Elves lost very badly until the gods came down and sorted out Morgorth as one of their own - would have been nice to see Shelob's mum with the trees as well
Also I thought Elves were not bothered by the cold?
I think Elrond marries Galadriels daughter or granddaughter so friendship is interesting
I would bet the change in lore and lack of Celeborn is due to a rights issue. The show has the rights to the LOTR appendices, but NOT to the Silmarillion. Everything in the show has to be based on extrapolations from the appendices, and likely has to be changed not to include material strictly mentioned in the Silmarillion.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: I would bet the change in lore and lack of Celeborn is due to a rights issue. The show has the rights to the LOTR appendices, but NOT to the Silmarillion. Everything in the show has to be based on extrapolations from the appendices, and likely has to be changed not to include material strictly mentioned in the Silmarillion.
I haven't read the appendices, but I definitely have read the Silmarillion.
Spoiler:
But so far we have Feanor referenced by name, Morgoth, the Silmarils, Aule is invoked a bunch by the dwarves, and of course, Celebrimbor. Are any of those not mentioned in the appencidies?
I liked the Elven children being cruel. Kids are often cruel and empathy sometimes needs to be learned. Even for Elves. Even Tolkien Elvens. Haughty, arrogant, war fighting Tolkien Elves. I like excellent but less than perfect Elves.
That said… Galadriel's company and exploits in the North was some of the worst parts of the show for me so far. I did not like the characterization of her undermining, whining minion. I did not like the lack of apparent bonding between warriors. The otherwise fairly tight writing seemed way off in this part. The decision company to abandon their venture despite having found a troll and proving the fortress was actually there, despite Galadriel so handily slaying the Troll just rang hollow. I liked that she had a least a little assist from the whiner but where was the display of Elven archery that could have fit in there to at least weaken the Troll so it looked like the efforts of a greater team?
I think the scene would have played much better had they found a talking enemy to capture and then interrogate. Have it be a proper tough “end boss fight” before the talking prisoner is captured. Have Galadriel and a respected and respectful XO/NCO/mentor type disagree about them finally finishing the last forces of Morgoth and/or Sauron. Have some fatalities among the company to help establish a sense of enough is enough, even Elven endurance can only take so much and reason suggests the fight is well and truly over. It would not need to extend the sequence overlong if you linger less on the exterior scenes. Yes, we get it… it is very cold. And you get a more meaty fight scene in to establish for new fans that combat is deadly but (re-establish for old fans) that veteran Elves are truly epic warriors. Even better if a likable character is killed in that fight. Everyone expects Galadriel to live but make the life of all the new characters at risk right off the bat to raise the stakes.
I thought the scenes with Prince Durin and Elrond were brilliant as written. They had me wondering what was going on and that actually felt cool when I finally figured out where they were going with it. I would not think 20 Years was that long to a Dwarf but ok, I still liked the disconnect caused by the culturally different senses of time.
It would have been nice for the Dwarven women to have more facial hair.
I like the Harfoots much more than I expected.
Can the Stranger really be Gandalf? I am not sure how I feel about that. But at least it was well written and shot so far. I really do not want him to turn out to be Sauron.
I was a lot more familiar with the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings compared to anything 1st and 2nd Age so I suppose I am a lot more tolerant of breaks with canon lore.
To be fair I really did not expect to be able to get Hugo Weaving and Cate Blanchett out of my mind and thought they should have stayed away from Elrond and Galadriel but the actors have been doing a decent job of pulling it off. I have a lot of respect for that given they have had to change my mind on something I did not really want my mind changed on. Gil-Galad has not quite worked for me yet but I am going to try to give the actor more time to convince me.
From the trailers I thought Arondir was going to be a Legolas clone but I am glad I was wrong.
For some reason I really do not like Theo but maybe that is because I am not supposed to?
I do not know the 1st and 2nd Age anywhere as well as the 3rd so I am less aware of lore breaking plot points…. But the more I think about the two episodes we saw today the more excited I am about how well Amazon has done.
This series so far is nothing like the disappointing, to me anyway, series that Wheel of Time or Shannara Chronicles were. This show has Academy Award level acting, screenwriting, soundtrack, special effects and costuming.
It has the potential to be far, far better than Jackson's Hobbit was. Maybe not Jackson LOTR good but pretty darned good.
But to be realistic, Game of Thrones started off strong as well and it ended… badly.
PS: No, I have not seen the GoT prequel series yet.
I have almost never seen people responding to legitimate criticism of characters/stories/etc with "BUT UR RACIST". I'm sure it has happened because people say stupid stuff all the time, but most of the time when things like "you hate Finn because he's black" it's a response to people who very clearly are objecting to the character's race.
Utter bs. The Force Awakens had not been out for a day and every single gak trying to defend it was already screaming how everyone that didn't like it were only mean people hating women.
Like you'd have people bring up everything they didn't like about the movie, from the ripping off of a New Hope, to not having a jedi order, to the weak characters, weak villains and so on, and one of those things would be that they thought the characters were weak which oh no, included Rey and those defending that movie would pile on each other to scream about that one thing.
The only real push back people get for pointing out these movies are gak is name calling. There is no other response from people trying to defend it. It's never about defending the movies, it's always about making up gak about what the critics are and what they think.
StaevinTheAeldari wrote: Utter bs. The Force Awakens had not been out for a day and every single gak trying to defend it was already screaming how everyone that didn't like it were only mean people hating women.
Like you'd have people bring up everything they didn't like about the movie, from the ripping off of a New Hope, to not having a jedi order, to the weak characters, weak villains and so on, and one of those things would be that they thought the characters were weak which oh no, included Rey and those defending that movie would pile on each other to scream about that one thing.
The only real push back people get for pointing out these movies are gak is name calling. There is no other response from people trying to defend it. It's never about defending the movies, it's always about making up gak about what the critics are and what they think.
Sorry, but that is revisionist history. There was lots of reasonable discussion about the points of valid criticism with the sequels and the only time "you're racist/sexist/etc" came up was when the vocal minority of the right-wing outrage machine was in fact complaining about non-white characters, female characters, etc, and Disney being "woke" instead of giving them proper Traditional Heroes. Maybe occasionally there was some miscommunication because people are more aggressive online than they are in the real world and people who were tired of dealing with the outrage machine were a bit hasty in responding to someone who actually had nothing to do with those complaints but that wasn't any kind of standard practice. The majority of the time when people raised complaints about things like pacing, needing to read EU books for the plot to make sense, etc, fans of the movie defended it on its merits and did not respond with "UR SEXIST".
As a demonstration of this go look at some of the other threads in this forum. There have been multiple threads arguing over various sequel-related things and all of them have been focused on legitimate criticism and defense, this supposed name calling is not happening.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Argive wrote: Just look at this wardrobe effort...
This looks like pure fan fic generic fantasy made by a comicon cosplayer..
Um, what? What cons are you going to where that is the standard for cosplay? That's a perfectly reasonable piece of professional-quality work, especially for video purposes where you won't be freezing a single frame and blowing it up to poster size to study every detail. And when you call it "generic fantasy" you should keep in mind the fact that Tolkien pretty much defined "generic fantasy" as a genre, so even things that are perfectly accurate to every single word Tolkien ever wrote will look like "generic fantasy".
Apparently this is some character who is not even part of the lore..
Well yes, that's what happens when you have an adaptation. Characters are changed, characters are removed, characters are added. If you want strict adherence to exactly the words of the original text and nothing more then go read the original book.
Watched the first episode just now. Thoroughly enjoyed it. I thought the lad who played Elrond was much better than I thought he would be. Excellent cinematography, noticed some shots with Galadriel which were deliberate nods to the lotr trilogy. Arondir is a great character, the Green Man armour that the watchers wear is very cool. I'm interested to see the way they bring Khamûl to life and how he eventually becomes one of the Nine.
I think where they really triumphed is with the Hobbits. That is a great envisioning of Tolkein's work. They are the bogles that were such a part of our folklore. These are the creatures that Tolkein took when creating Hobbits.
Interested to see how they progress with it. A great start so far.
As a generic fantasy show, it's okay. Certainly better than the Witcher and Wheel of Time.
As an adaptation of Tolkien's writing, it's a paper thin shell wrought in stilted dialogue and pointless, sweeping changes to clearly established canon. If you thought Gimli, the comic relief and Tauriel were bad, you won't believe what a billion dollars can buy.
Personal pet peeve - none of the elves look or behave like elves, except Arondir, who's wasted on an awful, out of place racial tension subplot right out of the Witcher.
Watched 2 episodes, it is very pretty... as in, it makes everyother show look cheap.
The bad Irish accent of the Harfoots is quite comical, and about half an episode away from one of them blurting out 'top of the morning to ya!' followed by 'to be sure, to be sure'.
Story seems quite dull/generic so far... (big evil baddie, who wants to destroy the world, because they are evil) are plotting from the shadows. Meanwhile a band of plucky heroes find their journey brings them together to fight the big bad evil.
Sound is guilty of the incressing modern trend of quite whispering, followed suddenly by loud blasting music.
At least it is pretty, that so far seems to be the main strength of the show.
After two episodes, it gets a "meh' from me so far.
It's pretty to look at, but utter garbage as any form of adaptation. The hell was that "knife ears" scene?? Did somebody play dragon age before writing this?
And when you call it "generic fantasy" you should keep in mind the fact that Tolkien pretty much defined "generic fantasy" as a genre, so even things that are perfectly accurate to every single word Tolkien ever wrote will look like "generic fantasy".
Yeah, as the other grandparent to the entire genre (the other side has more murder and half-naked barbarians), it is bizarrely weird to see a Tolkien derived work as 'generic.'
Of course it is! People have been iterating these exact concepts over and over and over again for longer than anyone on this board has been alive. Groundbreaking was never an option on the table! Bands of plucky heroes thwarting dark lords is entirely the point.
His Master's Voice wrote:out of place racial tension subplot right out of the Witcher.
Yeah. There definitely wasn't any racial tension in Lord of the Rings or the Hobbit. Its so off brand. Boromir, Gimli, Thorin Oakenshield and company... They were all in for elves and such.
Nothing in the Silmarillion either. None of those tales revolved around racial tension. No one sent men off to die to prove their worth, or kidnapped anyone or had elaborate revenge schemes or anything.
In the hobbit, no. Thorin and company went qute happily to Rivendell to chat with Elrond and such. Thranduil was acting more against intruders to his realm over them being dwarves. Also it was actually Thranduil calling for the peaceful approach concerning Erebor and Bard was the one calling for blood. It's a situation the movie actually ending up giving more depth too amusingly enough.
And it was mostly just Legolas and Gimli for the most part and not for overly long. Due to that whole ancient, minor situation of royalty murder over shiny rocks.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: I would bet the change in lore and lack of Celeborn is due to a rights issue. The show has the rights to the LOTR appendices, but NOT to the Silmarillion. Everything in the show has to be based on extrapolations from the appendices, and likely has to be changed not to include material strictly mentioned in the Silmarillion.
As I said, Celeborn is basically a footnote in the Silmarillion. The vast majority of his "on-screen" appearances is in the appendices, and even then his most important characteristic is he is her husband and father of Celebrian. So they're leaving him and Celebrian out because they are choosing to, not because they don't have the rights. If anything, Celeborn and Celebrian would be good for the showrunners to include precisely because they are so minor in terms of what is actually written about them. They're mostly blank slates, unlike Galadrial.
The appendices mention a lot of stuff also mentioned in the Silmarillion, so those other things making appearances is not out of what they have the rights to.
It was very good, if you don't compare it to the Lord of the Rings. And that is no bad thing. I don't think we'll ever see another production attempt to match that level of authenticity and immersion for their cast- it was something truly amazing.
This one really, really, suffers from bad armor. Spooky treeface leather for when we're keeping bad humans in line? Cardboard plate for elves? Very, very weak. Fortunately, young Galadriel is selling the cold hatred of the elves very well. I'm here for her vengeance quest.
I don't know what purpose the hobbits serve, but the hobo look and muttering about trying to be wise is great fun. It's Trailer Park Shire.
StaevinTheAeldari wrote: Utter bs. The Force Awakens had not been out for a day and every single gak trying to defend it was already screaming how everyone that didn't like it were only mean people hating women.
I was called all kinds of things for not liking the purple-haired lady hyperspace ramming another ship, or thinking she was a stupid character to even create because her personality was just a carbon copy of General Leia.
StaevinTheAeldari wrote: Utter bs. The Force Awakens had not been out for a day and every single gak trying to defend it was already screaming how everyone that didn't like it were only mean people hating women.
I was called all kinds of things for not liking the purple-haired lady hyperspace ramming another ship, or thinking she was a stupid character to even create because her personality was just a carbon copy of General Leia.
So... you were called out for hating the woman because you... hated the woman (sorry, 'not liked'), and not the story element of the hyper space ram? It was clearly the character's fault, not the writers, right?
The thing with criticism is directing it to the right place. That whole thing was a writing problem. It has nothing to do with the actress, 'woman' or even 'purple.' There's no reason to even mention those aspects when it comes to valid criticism.
StaevinTheAeldari wrote: Utter bs. The Force Awakens had not been out for a day and every single gak trying to defend it was already screaming how everyone that didn't like it were only mean people hating women.
I was called all kinds of things for not liking the purple-haired lady hyperspace ramming another ship, or thinking she was a stupid character to even create because her personality was just a carbon copy of General Leia.
So... you were called out for hating the woman because you... hated the woman (sorry, 'not liked'), and not the story element of the hyper space ram? It was clearly the character's fault, not the writers, right?
The thing with criticism is directing it to the right place. That whole thing was a writing problem. It has nothing to do with the actress, 'woman' or even 'purple.' There's no reason to even mention those aspects when it comes to valid criticism.
Except he didn't criticize her for being a woman. He criticized her on plot grounds. Disliking a character's personality is valid critique. Disliking the actions a character takes is valid critique. Disliking the costume/visual of a character is valid critique, this includes hair color or anything else because those are within the control of the studio.
He only mentioned those characteristics to identify the character, not to slander the actress. But of course actors should not be immune to criticism on their performances. If they do a bad job, they deserve to get called out.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: I would bet the change in lore and lack of Celeborn is due to a rights issue. The show has the rights to the LOTR appendices, but NOT to the Silmarillion. Everything in the show has to be based on extrapolations from the appendices, and likely has to be changed not to include material strictly mentioned in the Silmarillion.
As I said, Celeborn is basically a footnote in the Silmarillion. The vast majority of his "on-screen" appearances is in the appendices, and even then his most important characteristic is he is her husband and father of Celebrian. So they're leaving him and Celebrian out because they are choosing to, not because they don't have the rights. If anything, Celeborn and Celebrian would be good for the showrunners to include precisely because they are so minor in terms of what is actually written about them. They're mostly blank slates, unlike Galadrial.
The appendices mention a lot of stuff also mentioned in the Silmarillion, so those other things making appearances is not out of what they have the rights to.
I stand corrected.
It’s been a long time since I read either, but wasn’t Celeborn the ship builder? I’d love to see some of his work.
StaevinTheAeldari wrote: Utter bs. The Force Awakens had not been out for a day and every single gak trying to defend it was already screaming how everyone that didn't like it were only mean people hating women.
I was called all kinds of things for not liking the purple-haired lady hyperspace ramming another ship, or thinking she was a stupid character to even create because her personality was just a carbon copy of General Leia.
That’s weird. I vocally hated on The Force Awakens while most of you all still loved it, and I hated the hyperramming BS that broke the setting, and no one ever called me racist or misogynistic.
Am I the only one who remembers an absolute deluge of 'dindu nuffin' and 'kangs' memes infesting every corner of the internet immediately after John Boyega appeared in the first seconds of the first trailer?
Whether or not I am - can we save the Star Wars discussion for the Star Wars thread? This evergreen whining about it kills every thread it touches.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: I would bet the change in lore and lack of Celeborn is due to a rights issue. The show has the rights to the LOTR appendices, but NOT to the Silmarillion. Everything in the show has to be based on extrapolations from the appendices, and likely has to be changed not to include material strictly mentioned in the Silmarillion.
As I said, Celeborn is basically a footnote in the Silmarillion. The vast majority of his "on-screen" appearances is in the appendices, and even then his most important characteristic is he is her husband and father of Celebrian. So they're leaving him and Celebrian out because they are choosing to, not because they don't have the rights. If anything, Celeborn and Celebrian would be good for the showrunners to include precisely because they are so minor in terms of what is actually written about them. They're mostly blank slates, unlike Galadrial.
The appendices mention a lot of stuff also mentioned in the Silmarillion, so those other things making appearances is not out of what they have the rights to.
I stand corrected.
It’s been a long time since I read either, but wasn’t Celeborn the ship builder? I’d love to see some of his work.
That would be Cirdan the Shipwright. Though I can't fault you for confusion. Lots of elves with names that start with C.
Cirdan should make an appearance as he was one of the original ring bearers of the Elven Rings. He also has claim to the title of oldest living Elf in Arda, certainly in Middle Earth. He is possibly one of the 144 first elves to awaken, if not he was one of the first elven children ever born. Also, the only Elf ever described as having a BEARD!
Depending on which ratio of Tree Years to Sun Years you use(either 10-1 or 144-1), Cirdan is either 11k years old OR 62-71k years old. Tolkein changed his mind a couple times on what the exact ratio for Years of the Sun and Years of the Trees were. 144-1 is I believe the more accepted ratio.
StaevinTheAeldari wrote: Utter bs. The Force Awakens had not been out for a day and every single gak trying to defend it was already screaming how everyone that didn't like it were only mean people hating women.
Like you'd have people bring up everything they didn't like about the movie, from the ripping off of a New Hope, to not having a jedi order, to the weak characters, weak villains and so on, and one of those things would be that they thought the characters were weak which oh no, included Rey and those defending that movie would pile on each other to scream about that one thing.
The only real push back people get for pointing out these movies are gak is name calling. There is no other response from people trying to defend it. It's never about defending the movies, it's always about making up gak about what the critics are and what they think.
Sorry, but that is revisionist history.
Once you said this, you lost any hope I had of continuing a civilized conversation. I was THERE, I was in the thick of it, this IS WHAT HAPPENED. If anyone is revising what happened, it's you.
Best to end this now and move on, because there's nothing more either of us have to say to each other. So... bye guys, I'm out of this thread.
Vulcan wrote: Once you said this, you lost any hope I had of continuing a civilized conversation. I was THERE, I was in the thick of it, this IS WHAT HAPPENED. If anyone is revising what happened, it's you.
I was also there. I was extremely critical of the sequels as soon as they were released and very direct in explaining why they sucked. And I can't remember even a single time where I was accused of racism/sexism/etc for making that criticism. Nor do I even remember seeing those accusations being made against anyone who wasn't saying things like "Rey sucks because a woman could never beat a man in a fight" or "Finn is Disney being woke with a black character". I'm sure it happened, simply because there are enough stupid people on the internet that you can find pretty much any bad argument being made if you look hard enough, but it was in no way a regular event.
Finished the first episode, it was...just okay. I feel like i'd like this a lot more if it was either a new fantasy setting entirely or just not LOTR. It just feels too modern, the hairstyles in many cases look like something i'd see in present day. I just don't like short haired elves, doesn't work for me. On a scenic environment level the show looks pretty great.
But i'm just not convinced the story they're trying to tell here is going to be worth my time. In contrast, I felt much stronger towards the new House of the Dragon show. Though tbh I may have a preference for more gritty and grounded stuff whether it's fantasy or sci fi. I did prefer The Expanse over ST Discovery for example...buuut then again, even The Orville was better than Discovery.
After watching 2 episodes I will not continue the series. It was bad even compared to Witcher. And even Wheel of Time, where I did not care about majority of the main crew, had at least 2 characters I liked. Sorry Elrond, you are not enough to save it for me.
Galadriel - I like her portrayal, she does work for me a younger version. The whole sea bit was a bit odd and i really hope she is not going to be just another "love affair across races" - they have that with Elronds heritage and the Elf and the human girl......I assume she is about to be picked up by Numenor.
Elrond - I like alot
The Stranger - looks and acts like a damaged Gandalf....quite interesting - I guess they needed a reason for not-hobbits.
StaevinTheAeldari wrote: Utter bs. The Force Awakens had not been out for a day and every single gak trying to defend it was already screaming how everyone that didn't like it were only mean people hating women.
Like you'd have people bring up everything they didn't like about the movie, from the ripping off of a New Hope, to not having a jedi order, to the weak characters, weak villains and so on, and one of those things would be that they thought the characters were weak which oh no, included Rey and those defending that movie would pile on each other to scream about that one thing.
The only real push back people get for pointing out these movies are gak is name calling. There is no other response from people trying to defend it. It's never about defending the movies, it's always about making up gak about what the critics are and what they think.
Sorry, but that is revisionist history.
Once you said this, you lost any hope I had of continuing a civilized conversation. I was THERE, I was in the thick of it, this IS WHAT HAPPENED. If anyone is revising what happened, it's you.
While im sure you were discussing the new SW stuff at the time, the intrrnets a big place. So are you sure you were both in the same place/discussions?
Which just makes me wonder: Where the feth is Celeborn? His and Galadriel's daughter marries Elrond, yet the dude's no where to be seen. Is this a rights thing? Do they literally not have the rights to Galadriel's other half?
This worries me greatly. They're almost trying to setup Elrond and Galadrial for each other. But at this stage in the lore Elrond should have already married her daughter.
They can't possibly not have the rights, we know they have the LotR and the appendices in the RotK. That is all they have. This is pretty much the only place Celeborn exists, he barely exists in the Silmarillion other than "he's Galadrial's husband".
It's possible they could introduce them later, maybe have Elrond meet Celebrian at a later date and they get married over the course of this show. Though having 2 episodes without showing Galadrial's family would be odd. They could at least have had some of Galadrial's motivation be protecting her family.
Checking the RotK appendix, Elrond marries In year 100 of the third age. As the rings of power were forged in the first half of the second age, still plenty of time to go.
Which just makes me wonder: Where the feth is Celeborn? His and Galadriel's daughter marries Elrond, yet the dude's no where to be seen. Is this a rights thing? Do they literally not have the rights to Galadriel's other half?
This worries me greatly. They're almost trying to setup Elrond and Galadrial for each other. But at this stage in the lore Elrond should have already married her daughter.
They can't possibly not have the rights, we know they have the LotR and the appendices in the RotK. That is all they have. This is pretty much the only place Celeborn exists, he barely exists in the Silmarillion other than "he's Galadrial's husband".
It's possible they could introduce them later, maybe have Elrond meet Celebrian at a later date and they get married over the course of this show. Though having 2 episodes without showing Galadrial's family would be odd. They could at least have had some of Galadrial's motivation be protecting her family.
Checking the RotK appendix, Elrond marries In year 100 of the third age. As the rings of power were forged in the first half of the second age, still plenty of time to go.
Ah interesting - it would be somewhat odd for Eldrond to have a relationship with her and then marry her daughter.....but then if you have people who live for thousands of years I guess stranger things happen.
I think its more likely though that they have her with the shipwrecked human guy.as apparently all the other elves don't like her.......
Ah interesting - it would be somewhat odd for Eldrond to have a relationship with her and then marry her daughter.....but then if you have people who live for thousands of years I guess stranger things happen.
If you're a fan of WB Yeats don't read his biography, and especially not the bits about Maud Gonne and her daughter. It'll seriously put you off him. Well, that and the crypto-fascist leanings at the end of his life, but hey.
As an ex-teenage Tolkien fan, and someone who's into his fifth decade of loving the books, the first two episodes have been brilliant - actors and acting are amazing, the premise and scope of the show, the look and fee including costumes and CGl, the bits they inevitably have to chop and change to accommodate the much less information-dense screen medium being palatable, all of them hit just the right note. They even got a similar-looking actor to play Gil-Galad!
If you'd told me any time between 1980 and 2020 or so that I'd be watching the Two Trees and the city of Tirion in a TV show, I wouldn't have believed you.
It's a pity that they couldn't get the rights and stick to the actual lore though, especially considering the vast budget behind it.
I wonder to what degree their lack of rights to the Silmarillion caused all those incongruencies in the first episodes. It seems like they had to squeeze well established characters in completely different roles and alter their relationships to get their plot going.
BertBert wrote: It's a pity that they couldn't get the rights and stick to the actual lore though, especially considering the vast budget behind it.
I wonder to what degree their lack of rights to the Silmarillion caused all those incongruencies in the first episodes. It seems like they had to squeeze well established characters in completely different roles and alter their relationships to get their plot going.
I think anyone who thinks this is labouring under a misapprehension somewhat.
This show may end up costing a billion dollars to make. All three Jackson films didn't cost anything like that much. Consequently the implications of failure are stunning, even Bezos may notice a sum like that going down the drain.
They need to ensure the show has as broad an appeal as possible, and that means going after the cinematic audience and more, not the hardcore fans of the books.
The idea that they wouldn't have changed any number of things regardless of access to other material to make it easier to understand, visually more impressive or just more palatable to a modern, widespread audience is a flawed one IMO.
Perhaps access to more of Tolkien's work would have changed what and how things were altered, but I guarantee you that things would have deviated just as much in different areas to suit the show's objectives. The best that can be done is to hope for no more barrel chases.
You might be thinking of the shipwright Celebrimbor.
Given that Celebron is from Eregion and they show that off in episode 2, he's probably on the way and he and Elrond will meet.
The Shipwright is Cirdan I believe. Celebrimbor is the Smith (of the Rings) unless I am mistaken. Rumor has it Stephen Colbert may play Cirdan in season 2.
You might be thinking of the shipwright Celebrimbor.
Given that Celebron is from Eregion and they show that off in episode 2, he's probably on the way and he and Elrond will meet.
The Shipwright is Cirdan I believe. Celebrimbor is the Smith (of the Rings) unless I am mistaken. Rumor has it Stephen Colbert may play Cirdan in season 2.
I wonder to what degree their lack of rights to the Silmarillion caused all those incongruencies in the first episodes.
What they did to Galadriel's character, they did because they could, not because they had to. Same with the rest of the "reimagining" they seem to be doing.
Like the whole "going to Valinor as a reward" thing. They didn't need the rights to the Silimarillion to NOT put that crap in.
I do think the scope of the licence will make them want to push Third Age events into the show. If you've seen what's currently available, you can probably guess which ones.
They need to ensure the show has as broad an appeal as possible, and that means going after the cinematic audience and more, not the hardcore fans of the books.
The issue is those are not opposing things. A true to the lore show would have had just as much appeal to the overall audience and not been unpalatable to the hardcore fans. The changes they've made are not drawing additional viewership, but it is driving some away.
They need to ensure the show has as broad an appeal as possible, and that means going after the cinematic audience and more, not the hardcore fans of the books.
The issue is those are not opposing things. A true to the lore show would have had just as much appeal to the overall audience and not been unpalatable to the hardcore fans. The changes they've made are not drawing additional viewership, but it is driving some away.
Yeah, I never got that argument. LoTR got its start from having great world building based upon Tolkien's knowledge of mythology and a solid story with a well developed roster of characters. It feels like a very weak argument to say that to move away from that would somehow make it better, especially when they're setting this up as a prequel with existing characters that people know from the movies, so it's not like they're even trying to enter an unknown space of LoTR to carve their own story. If you try to appeal to everyone, you end up pleasing nobody.
I am utterly shocked that I like this show. Everything about the marketing prepared me to hate it. And the first 20 or so minutes of the first episode seemed to confirm that I would indeed hate it.
I thought the opening scene with Child Galadriel was horrendously written for any number of reasons. Then the “First Age in a nutshell” montage was totally underwhelming (the kindest way I can put it), especially in contrast to Galadriel’s prologue in PJ’s trilogy. Next, the sequence of Galadriel going to icy ends of Middle-earth hunting for Sauron somehow managed to be boring and incoherent.
The episode started to win me over with the introduction of the Harfoots. And then the introduction of Arondir’s subplot drew me in even more deeply. These two elements were the components I anticipated hating the most — imagine my astonishment when this turned out to be the most interesting and well-executed content! Finally, Galadriel’s subplot was rehabilitated by her scenes with Elrond (which still suffered from some pretty dreadful dialogue) and especially the fascinating idea that Gil-Galad’s reward had the flavor of rebuke and exile.
From start to finish, I LOVED the second episode. The
Spoiler:
orc scene
was executed flawlessly. The scenes with Elrond and Durin were revelatory and fascinating. Galadriel is by far and away my favorite character but Nori and Arondir are not that far behind. I cannot wait to see the next episode. My only criticism is I don’t care for what appear to be intentional misdirections regarding the Stranger.
They need to ensure the show has as broad an appeal as possible, and that means going after the cinematic audience and more, not the hardcore fans of the books.
The issue is those are not opposing things. A true to the lore show would have had just as much appeal to the overall audience and not been unpalatable to the hardcore fans. The changes they've made are not drawing additional viewership, but it is driving some away.
Yeah, I never got that argument. LoTR got its start from having great world building based upon Tolkien's knowledge of mythology and a solid story with a well developed roster of characters. It feels like a very weak argument to say that to move away from that would somehow make it better, especially when they're setting this up as a prequel with existing characters that people know from the movies, so it's not like they're even trying to enter an unknown space of LoTR to carve their own story. If you try to appeal to everyone, you end up pleasing nobody.
I dunno, maybe I'm jaded? I've seen good movies that are terrible adaptations (the Shining, off the top of my head), I've seen good movies that have completely disregarded their own lore (Terminator 2), and I certainly remember book fans swearing that Jackson was a hack and his movies wouldn't make their budget back because they were upset by some lore breaking scene here or terrible action hero line there.
I see the argument that it's not faithful to the lore when it otherwise could have been - and we can probably agree on that point in a couple of instances, but for now we don't really know how much any of those changes are going to matter in the upcoming narrative, we might come out the other end of this thinking there's no other way they could have done it. More importantly though, I've never really considered Tolkien lore as a 'set in stone' kind of thing. I was always under the impression that he was operating under this kind of meta narrative about all these books having been translated by him from manuscripts written in elvish by Frodo, Bilbo and whomever else?
All that said though, we need to wait and see. They're bragging about the number of unique viewers on the first day, it's a marketing gimmick I'm not fond of but if they can retain it that would bode well for the show's future. For my part, I've shown it to a couple of friends from my Pathfinder group who aren't Tolkien fans, and it went over pretty well with them. They had a number of questions about the broader setting that I filled in with half-remembered Tolkien lore (which I'm pretty sure I got wrong plenty of times since I haven't read the Silmarillion since High School and my main refresher on its stuff is from Blind Guardian! ) and seem to be on board with it.
They need to ensure the show has as broad an appeal as possible, and that means going after the cinematic audience and more, not the hardcore fans of the books.
The issue is those are not opposing things. A true to the lore show would have had just as much appeal to the overall audience and not been unpalatable to the hardcore fans. The changes they've made are not drawing additional viewership, but it is driving some away.
Sorry, no. Not for Tolkien at least. Tolkien deserves all the plaudits for the creation and world building, but his actual writing is dry, meandering, often self indulgent and verbose. I dread to think what a "faithful" LOTR trilogy would have looked like, assuming it ever made it to screens and didn't just collapse under the strain during production.
I'm not knocking anyone for liking the books, but for modern screen audiences there's a necessity to take a different approach. If fidelity to the books is important to you, you either acknowledge that going in or you end up disappointed. Even if you don't agree with the where and how of the changes, somebody somewhere has found it necessary for creative or practical reasons, and those reasons are unlikely to be all that closely aligned to that of a hardcore fan.
When people raise these issues, what's the response?
"You're right, that character really did have some problems."
I have almost never seen people responding to legitimate criticism of characters/stories/etc with "BUT UR RACIST". I'm sure it has happened because people say stupid stuff all the time, but most of the time when things like "you hate Finn because he's black" it's a response to people who very clearly are objecting to the character's race.
Did you seriously manage to miss the entire backlash against The Last Jedi... and then KK and RJ lashing out at 'toxic' fans being 'racist' and 'misogynist'? Not just the ones who genuinely WERE toxic, misogynist, and racist, ALL the fans who criticized the movie for ANY reason. For a good year if you were a Star Wars fan you couldn't get away from it.
If you did manage to miss it, more power to you. You're probably better off for not caring about Star Wars, Star Trek, MCU, or any other franchise at this point. I know I am.
You can criticize a film without being a toxic racist, but when literally HALF of the criticisms for The Last Jedi were toxic and racist comments, it warrants calling them out.
There was a study on how much fan backlash there actually was over The Last Jedi. While that study was misreported quite a bit, it turns out that about 33% of Star Wars fans disliked The Last Jedi for legitimate reasons while the other two thirds liked it. But there was another group that weren't Star Wars fans but they were big fans of racism and sexism, and they outnumbered the Star Wars fans complaining about The Last Jedi.
Now, a third of Star Wars fans do get really loud on the internet, but Ewan McGregor was 100% right in calling people who sent racist messages to an actress are absolutely not Star Wars fans.
They need to ensure the show has as broad an appeal as possible, and that means going after the cinematic audience and more, not the hardcore fans of the books.
The issue is those are not opposing things. A true to the lore show would have had just as much appeal to the overall audience and not been unpalatable to the hardcore fans. The changes they've made are not drawing additional viewership, but it is driving some away.
Sorry, no. Not for Tolkien at least. Tolkien deserves all the plaudits for the creation and world building, but his actual writing is dry, meandering, often self indulgent and verbose. I dread to think what a "faithful" LOTR trilogy would have looked like, assuming it ever made it to screens and didn't just collapse under the strain during production.
I'm not knocking anyone for liking the books, but for modern screen audiences there's a necessity to take a different approach. If fidelity to the books is important to you, you either acknowledge that going in or you end up disappointed. Even if you don't agree with the where and how of the changes, somebody somewhere has found it necessary for creative or practical reasons, and those reasons are unlikely to be all that closely aligned to that of a hardcore fan.
Thing is a lot of the verbose is descriptive and visual so when you bring it into a cinema medium that huge description can be summarised with a few seconds of screen time. Granted if you want to do some of the scenes justice you have to dedicate more than a few seconds and some scenes would be an exercise in a lot of work to show (models and CGI and all). That said a lot of the bulk can be cut out just by the medium of cinema. The real issue is trying to make the story fit into cinema timeframes. Fellowship of the Ring covers quite a long period of time compared to the rest of the books and moves at a slower, steadier if more quaint pace. It's almost a mini-adventure in itself until you hit what many consider the "main" adventure starting out from Bree.
Similar to how the main adventure happens and then they all come back to the Scouring of the Shire. Which again is a mini-adventure and event in its own right. With its own heroes and battles and evil lord and everything.
Squishing it into just 3 films was a major feat in itself and many respect that in doing so they had to cut and change things here and there. The actual story is longer than 3 films
They need to ensure the show has as broad an appeal as possible, and that means going after the cinematic audience and more, not the hardcore fans of the books.
The issue is those are not opposing things. A true to the lore show would have had just as much appeal to the overall audience and not been unpalatable to the hardcore fans. The changes they've made are not drawing additional viewership, but it is driving some away.
Sorry, no. Not for Tolkien at least. Tolkien deserves all the plaudits for the creation and world building, but his actual writing is dry, meandering, often self indulgent and verbose. I dread to think what a "faithful" LOTR trilogy would have looked like, assuming it ever made it to screens and didn't just collapse under the strain during production.
I'm not knocking anyone for liking the books, but for modern screen audiences there's a necessity to take a different approach. If fidelity to the books is important to you, you either acknowledge that going in or you end up disappointed. Even if you don't agree with the where and how of the changes, somebody somewhere has found it necessary for creative or practical reasons, and those reasons are unlikely to be all that closely aligned to that of a hardcore fan.
There are a few problems with adhering to the lore absolutely in this adaptation:
1- Tolkien's notes weren't even an outline for a reasonable novel. Tolkien's timeline is bonkers stupid for storytelling fiction. Hundreds of years pass between events- often the same immortal characters are present for the next event that happens a century later (and of course they haven't changed in the mean time). Clearly you can do that really well.
2- Tolkien made sh*t up as he went along. He fiddled around and never had a finished version. Ultimately only the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit were canonical in his lifetime (and he did a little George Lucasing). The rest of it is pieced together from notes that sometimes conflict with one another and often with barebones detailing.
3- He does sometimes do some really self indulgent things that undermine his storytelling.
- My assessment of this show so far is that it is quite good. There are a few things that bother me- the biggest is that I think Elrond is moving around the world quite fast, and I think they should at least show him on a horse travelling between cities and the like. For all the talk about Elves and Dwarves hating one another, Elrond has always been pretty okay with the dwarves (both in the books and films).
Sorry, no. Not for Tolkien at least. Tolkien deserves all the plaudits for the creation and world building, but his actual writing is dry, meandering, often self indulgent and verbose. I dread to think what a "faithful" LOTR trilogy would have looked like, assuming it ever made it to screens and didn't just collapse under the strain during production.
I'm not knocking anyone for liking the books, but for modern screen audiences there's a necessity to take a different approach. If fidelity to the books is important to you, you either acknowledge that going in or you end up disappointed. Even if you don't agree with the where and how of the changes, somebody somewhere has found it necessary for creative or practical reasons, and those reasons are unlikely to be all that closely aligned to that of a hardcore fan.
It's a good thing no one expects direction and cinematography to imitate "dry, meandering, often self indulgent and verbose" prose.
An adaptation to a different narrative language lives and dies by its adherence to the theme and tone of the source material. When a supposed co-protagonist of the story acts in a manner befitting an orc, you know no one on the writing team gives half a damn about the fundamentals of Tolkien's work. And that's giving them credit and assuming they aren't simply incompetent, which I find just as likely.
They need to ensure the show has as broad an appeal as possible, and that means going after the cinematic audience and more, not the hardcore fans of the books.
The issue is those are not opposing things. A true to the lore show would have had just as much appeal to the overall audience and not been unpalatable to the hardcore fans. The changes they've made are not drawing additional viewership, but it is driving some away.
Sorry, no. Not for Tolkien at least. Tolkien deserves all the plaudits for the creation and world building, but his actual writing is dry, meandering, often self indulgent and verbose. I dread to think what a "faithful" LOTR trilogy would have looked like, assuming it ever made it to screens and didn't just collapse under the strain during production.
I'm not knocking anyone for liking the books, but for modern screen audiences there's a necessity to take a different approach. If fidelity to the books is important to you, you either acknowledge that going in or you end up disappointed. Even if you don't agree with the where and how of the changes, somebody somewhere has found it necessary for creative or practical reasons, and those reasons are unlikely to be all that closely aligned to that of a hardcore fan.
There are a few problems with adhering to the lore absolutely in this adaptation:
1- Tolkien's notes weren't even an outline for a reasonable novel. Tolkien's timeline is bonkers stupid for storytelling fiction. Hundreds of years pass between events- often the same immortal characters are present for the next event that happens a century later (and of course they haven't changed in the mean time). Clearly you can do that really well.
2- Tolkien made sh*t up as he went along. He fiddled around and never had a finished version. Ultimately only the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit were canonical in his lifetime (and he did a little George Lucasing). The rest of it is pieced together from notes that sometimes conflict with one another and often with barebones detailing.
3- He does sometimes do some really self indulgent things that undermine his storytelling.
- My assessment of this show so far is that it is quite good. There are a few things that bother me- the biggest is that I think Elrond is moving around the world quite fast, and I think they should at least show him on a horse travelling between cities and the like. For all the talk about Elves and Dwarves hating one another, Elrond has always been pretty okay with the dwarves (both in the books and films).
This is absolutely true. The reason he started writing the Hobbit down is because when he was telling it to his kids as a bedtime story, details kept changing and they kept calling him on it.
There's a saying that an adaptation can be beautiful or faithful, but never both. There are parts of the Fellowship that never saw the screen, and for good reason. Imagine trying to keep anything like a serious or epic tone when you have to spend a week with Tom Bombadillo, or hear all about both sides of the Buckland hobbit/Shire hobbit rivalry. And the songs! Andy Serkis does a great job with it, but the audio version is difficult to listen to at times. Sam and Gollum both have tons of musical numbers. I definitely regret the loss of detail of the magical barrow blades the hobbits carried and their role in slaying the Witch King, but an extra 30 minutes of Tom Bombadil singing about his yellow boots would not be worth it.
You know, the horse thing is a really good call- we did not see much mounted movement in Rings of Power.
I think Tom is one of the few parts that's both a shame to lose and yet also something that would be insanely difficult to film just right. To capture his whimsical nature without having him appear like a fool. Especially, dare I say it, for the Hollywood film machine that I think tends to overplay such elements into the really foolish
I have been bothered about movement - we know they move around and it takes some time but I have never seen the need to show it on screen. When people said about it in Game of Thrones I shrugged - as long as they don't say a time it took or have a time limit.
On the other hand the "Run to the wall and fetch Dany" scene in the dire last season was laughably bad, mainly because there was a time frame involved
This was one of things I liked about the Wheel of Time series - it was not the tedious travelogue that put me off the books.
I agree on the point about horses and sense of movement/time/scale. That has definitely been something that seems to be relying too much on just the broad, sweeping background landscape shots and maps. Which is fine, in that it is better than nothing, but it lacks the attention to detail with things like showing what is entailed with Elrond and Celebrimbor visiting Khazad-Dum. And so far the ocean based travel has also been problematic in regards to expressing distances and time.
It could be argued I suppose that they are aiming for a sense of grand mythological storytelling over detail focused simulation but I‘d like more details to help suspend my disbelief.
I can not say exactly why but the prologue scene of all the Elven helmets just piled up into a great heap struck me as rather “non-Elven” in tone but that is purely my own take on Elves I suppose.
By the command of Morgoth the Orcs with great labour gathered all the bodies of those who had fallen in the great battle, and all their harness and weapons, and piled them in a great mound in the midst of Anfauglith; and it was like a hill that could be seen from afar. Haudh-en-Ndengin the Elves named it, the Hill of Slain, and Haudh-en-Nirnaeth, the Hill of Tears. But grass came there and grew again long and green upon that hill, alone in all the desert that Morgoth made; and no creature of Morgoth trod thereafter upon the earth beneath which the swords of the Eldar and the Edain crumbled into rust.
Is how it's described in the Silmarillion. I took that scene to be not the Elves having done that themselves, but rather dealing with the aftermath and Galadriel placing the helm is not saying the Elves made it, simply she is adding it to that pile almost in recognition of the destruction wrought upon them.
That cannot be the Hill of Tears, as I believe that only features in Silmarillion.
It might be an attempt at referencing it, while dodging the licencing issues, but the way it's presented doesn't evoke anything important about the Hill of Tears, so I think that's just general big-battle-many-dead visual key.
I agree it doesn't mesh particularly well with elvish culture.
By the command of Morgoth the Orcs with great labour gathered all the bodies of those who had fallen in the great battle, and all their harness and weapons, and piled them in a great mound in the midst of Anfauglith; and it was like a hill that could be seen from afar. Haudh-en-Ndengin the Elves named it, the Hill of Slain, and Haudh-en-Nirnaeth, the Hill of Tears. But grass came there and grew again long and green upon that hill, alone in all the desert that Morgoth made; and no creature of Morgoth trod thereafter upon the earth beneath which the swords of the Eldar and the Edain crumbled into rust.
Is how it's described in the Silmarillion. I took that scene to be not the Elves having done that themselves, but rather dealing with the aftermath and Galadriel placing the helm is not saying the Elves made it, simply she is adding it to that pile almost in recognition of the destruction wrought upon them.
I have to admit that I have not read the Silmarillion but with that quote now that scene makes a lot more sense to me. Thanks for that. For me at least, the more I learn about Tolkien and his lore the better the show is doing as it challenges some of my incorrect preconceived notions of Tolkien and Middle Earth.
Edit: Even if it is not the Hill of Tears now I can see the scene happening as Olthannon suggests possible. And that is why I continue to participate in these online discussions even when so many other comments are somewhat… disheartening. I am all for constructive criticism but the negativity around this show, as with several other big IPs is a bit exhausting.
It's a good thing no one expects direction and cinematography to imitate "dry, meandering, often self indulgent and verbose" prose.
An adaptation to a different narrative language lives and dies by its adherence to the theme and tone of the source material.
No it doesn't, it lives or dies by its reception by its audience. Sometimes divergence will kill a property, other times it'll be what makes it. Adaptations are precisely that, adapted, and it's probably a score draw between those that have succeeded by sticking closely to the source and those that have taken their own path.
It's a good thing no one expects direction and cinematography to imitate "dry, meandering, often self indulgent and verbose" prose.
An adaptation to a different narrative language lives and dies by its adherence to the theme and tone of the source material.
No it doesn't, it lives or dies by its reception by its audience. Sometimes divergence will kill a property, other times it'll be what makes it. Adaptations are precisely that, adapted, and it's probably a score draw between those that have succeeded by sticking closely to the source and those that have taken their own path.
A big part of that can also be how well the source material is known before the film comes out. Heck a lot of films have books behind them directly or indirectly and yet many times the film is the first instance where a person encounters the material. So the film gets to be the first impression and, many times, the source book isn't even all that heavily marketed. Actually in many cases it seems to be a REALLY bad deal for an author because their book is almost never mentioned at times. You don't see the film edition in the gift shop; you don't see the book pushed hard by book shops or a set of them sold with your film tickets or anything.
Sometimes there is, eg Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings; but many times there's just nothing to even tell you there's a book
Most of the adaptations that are better than the books they’re based on succeed because they diverge so much from the book. Look at Die Hard and The Princess Bride. The Godfather works as a movie because it cuts out about 60% of the book (some of which ends up in The Godfather 2), including most of the schlock.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Most of the adaptations that are better than the books they’re based on succeed because they diverge so much from the book. Look at Die Hard and The Princess Bride. The Godfather works as a movie because it cuts out about 60% of the book (some of which ends up in The Godfather 2), including most of the schlock.
Stephen King allegedly hated the Shining and its lack of topiary monsters. Michael Ende sued over Neverending Story (though admittedly that book spends the first half setting up an idealistic fantasy concept only to tear it down brutally in the second half - and they only adapted the first half...)
There is also the “Why” behind why they diverge. A lot of things in the LotR movies bugged me, especially in the Two Towers and the whole Faramir/Osgilliath bits. But I could understand what the needed to do for the flow of the story and the difference between movie setting/pacing and a book’s.
But a lot of the changes in the Hobbit movies seemed to be done just to click off Hollywood lists. Despite there being no need, and butchering the source material.
Just watched the first episode last night with my wife and son. We all liked it quite a bit.
Expecting these sort of TV shows to live up to an earlier standard, previous nostalgia or literary accuracy is generally a losing proposition. Far better I think, to realistically calibrate one's expectations. So, I'm approaching this series in roughly the same way I approach all Star Wars programs and film. That is to say, "As long as it's better than the Prequel Trilogy I'm just happy to spend time in the SW universe."
In the case of Middle Earth content, I enjoyed the Hobbit and LOTR Trilogy books and my wife and I are major fans of the first 3 films, but I am not knowledgeable about the rest of the lore. Thus, as long as it's better than those miserable Hobbit Movies, I'm just happy to be back in Middle earth. If the rest of the series is like the first episode, this will certainly deliver that level of quality and I'm very much looking forward to it.
Nevelon wrote: There is also the “Why” behind why they diverge. A lot of things in the LotR movies bugged me, especially in the Two Towers and the whole Faramir/Osgilliath bits. But I could understand what the needed to do for the flow of the story and the difference between movie setting/pacing and a book’s.
But a lot of the changes in the Hobbit movies seemed to be done just to click off Hollywood lists. Despite there being no need, and butchering the source material.
Honestly LotR and Hobbit are almost a perfect case study of how too and how not too diverge. Lord of hte Rings diverged, but most accepted the divergence to get it to fit into just 3 films. Furthermore they captured the feel and aesthetics of the setting wonderfully. Sure its only one interpretation but they did really well at it.
Hobbit had big shoes to fill, but so many of the changes felt worthless, pointless or needless. It felt far more like the hollywood suits got their hands on it. Token love romance, check; token comic; token this token that etc... Everything felt "by the book make a film" rather than capturing the charm of the original material.
I do agree sometimes when they diverge so fully from the source material it works. Because then even fans of the original can sometimes put aside their love for the original. Then again I think that might only work when the source material is either so heavily used there are loads of options in the market (eg Robin Hood) or where no one really knows the source material.
Take the adaptation of Discworld Nights Watch* by BB3 that basically kept the names and a few other details and messed everything else up. You might argue it didn't diverge enough, but I'd argue its an example of where the divergence was just pointless changes and harmful changes - heck they kill off the troll for purely economic reasons (he was too expensive to keep animating).
*which is rare in that the author's daughter publicly disowned it before its release. Whereas most who take legal action or public action tend to wait until after something is released.
Azreal13 wrote: No it doesn't, it lives or dies by its reception by its audience.
The product does. Plenty of adaptations are commercially successful. Some are even critically acclaimed. Neither makes a difference in whether they are good adaptations.
But you're not arguing for quality, you're arguing for accuracy, and my point is that the two are not only unconnected, that they can often be diametrically oppositional.
There is no instance where a faithful adaptation can be a detriment to the final effort. The moment you start asking yourself, "how do I change the fundamental qualities that has made this piece of media culturally relevant" is the moment you're either excising the reason for the adaptation, or you've come to the realisation you've selected something with no actual value to begin with.
I'd argue that "faithful" and "accurate" is flirting dangerously with baseless semantics, but taking even what I think your intent is, you're essentially just restating your argument, and my counter points remain the same.
There is no instance where a faithful adaptation can be a detriment to the final effort. The moment you start asking yourself, "how do I change the fundamental qualities that has made this piece of media culturally relevant" is the moment you're either excising the reason for the adaptation, or you've come to the realisation you've selected something with no actual value to begin with.
Go read the books Die Hard and The Orincess Bride are based on before stating there’s no instance where a faithful adaptation would be a detriment. Would The Godfather have been just as culturally impactful if the film spent 15 minutes on Sonny’s mistress, her vaginal defect, and her affair with the surgeon who fixes it?
Come on, man. Lots of adaptations are made by people who see the potential in part of a book or the premise of a book rather than the actuality of the book.
His Master's Voice wrote: No, it very much is the topic at hand when you're conflating commercial viability and quality of the adaptation effort.
I don't care how much money Amazon makes on this show. I only care they don't get Tolkien.
You mean they don't get your personal interpretation of Tolkien. 'One true adaptation to rule them all' is functionally nonsense. That's like arguing that ever single run of Richard III that's ever been staged should be exactly the same. Of course its going to reflect the director, actors and culture of each place and time (among other things).
Go read the books Die Hard and The Princess Bride are based on before stating there’s no instance where a faithful adaptation would be a detriment.
Exactly this. The princess bride film would've suffered a lot from the novel's framing device. No one needed to sit through the author's 'jokes' about how his son is fat and stupid and how much he regrets not cheating on his wife. Still to this day don't know if that was an attempt at a funny narrative device or if he was 100% serious.
I don’t think the book was really meant to be ha ha funny so much as jaded, bitter funny. The whole point of the story within the story was to mock the idea of true love and traditional romance. The book is making fun of what the movie plays straight.
There is no instance where a faithful adaptation can be a detriment to the final effort. The moment you start asking yourself, "how do I change the fundamental qualities that has made this piece of media culturally relevant" is the moment you're either excising the reason for the adaptation, or you've come to the realisation you've selected something with no actual value to begin with.
Then why bother with an adaptation? If the best adaptation is the one that stays closest to the original work then no adaptation will ever be better than just reprinting the original text.
They need to ensure the show has as broad an appeal as possible, and that means going after the cinematic audience and more, not the hardcore fans of the books.
The issue is those are not opposing things. A true to the lore show would have had just as much appeal to the overall audience and not been unpalatable to the hardcore fans. The changes they've made are not drawing additional viewership, but it is driving some away.
Sorry, no. Not for Tolkien at least. Tolkien deserves all the plaudits for the creation and world building, but his actual writing is dry, meandering, often self indulgent and verbose. I dread to think what a "faithful" LOTR trilogy would have looked like, assuming it ever made it to screens and didn't just collapse under the strain during production.
I'm not knocking anyone for liking the books, but for modern screen audiences there's a necessity to take a different approach. If fidelity to the books is important to you, you either acknowledge that going in or you end up disappointed. Even if you don't agree with the where and how of the changes, somebody somewhere has found it necessary for creative or practical reasons, and those reasons are unlikely to be all that closely aligned to that of a hardcore fan.
Dry writing makes the best cinema, because it usually contains the best details that can be transitioned to screen.
Tolkein's dialogue is not dry in the least, it is beautiful, his constant descriptions of characters, their clothing, their food, etc... is. But all the dry stuff gets taken care of by cinema being a visual medium.
You're also incorrectly assuming that you have to completely change something to get rid of it being dry and verbose. That is incorrect. You can update some outdated dialogue to a modern equivalent if you need to make it more understandable for an audience, but you can do that without changing the actual substance of the dialogue.
You don't have to offend the hardcore fan to make something accessible to someone being exposed for the first time. There is a difference between slight cosmetic changes to make something more understandable and wholesale changing the substance of the original material. If you have to completely change something "to make it more palatable for the modern audience", then you are utterly incompetent as a screen writer and shouldn't be involved in this. You should have just written your own story unrelated to Tolkein.
Don't be the person who says "I want to make a Chocolate cake", proceed to swap the chocolate in the recipe for ground coffee, and then tell everyone who eats the cake that it is a chocolate cake. If you want to make a coffee cake, make a coffee cake.
And since the material they are drawing on for this time period is entirely written in a "historical document" medium, they aren't beholden to specific dialogue. They just have to not have the characters act like something other than who they are as established in the LOTR. That's about as easy of an adaptation as you could do. The only way you can mess up is if you are deliberately trying to be disrespectful.
So, just to clarify, what exactly is the adaptation issue? Are we talking about changes that matter, or just changes to minor characters that most viewers have never even heard of?
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Go read the books Die Hard and The Orincess Bride are based on before stating there’s no instance where a faithful adaptation would be a detriment. Would The Godfather have been just as culturally impactful if the film spent 15 minutes on Sonny’s mistress, her vaginal defect, and her affair with the surgeon who fixes it?
Come on, man. Lots of adaptations are made by people who see the potential in part of a book or the premise of a book rather than the actuality of the book.
And this here, is the difference between faithfulness and accuracy. Or do you consider Sonny's mistress' vaginal defects the reason The Godfather resonated with the audiences and prompted a cinematic adaptation?
All this talk of adaptation is missing a big point: The Rings of Power isn’t an adaptation.
There is a pre-existing setting. There are some pre-existing characters. Most importantly, there are pre-existing themes. But there is no pre-existing discrete artistic product (e.g., a story) that is being adapted from one medium to another. Amazon is working from an area of Tolkien’s efforts that can be best described as notes or sketches. There is no coherent “thing” to which the show’s creators can adhere or from which they can diverge. They are necessarily making it up as they go.
And I think that is the real controversy: can anyone who is not J.R.R. Tolkien (or his son Christopher acting “in personam patri”) credibly make content about Middle-earth? And that raises another question: is Middle-earth content limited in its relevance by the singular artistic vision of Tolkien? Put it another way, is Middle-earth just a vehicle for articulating Tolkien’s idiosyncratic perspective or (like Greek mythology, for example) does Middle-earth have relevance beyond its creator, its own autonomous meaning?
The producers of TRoP decided that Galadriel should be one of the main characters. No doubt, this is primarily practical given few viewers will have heard of any other character besides her and Elrond. Nonetheless, it’s a good choice. As to her biography prior to the Third Age, Tolkien established relatively little apart from her motivation for leaving Valinor. Galadriel was not content in the Blessed Realm and wanted to rule lands of her own. In other words, she was willing to trade paradise for something seemingly inferior-to-paradise. Her decision generates irony and tension because it’s not clear whether she is right or wrong, wise or foolish, pure or corrupted. It’s something she still struggles with thousands upon thousands of years later when we, along with the Fellowship, meet her in Lothlorien. Confronted by the temptation of the Ring, she finally comes to a conclusion: “I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.”
Crucially, Galadriel’s motives run parallel to Sauron’s. Unlike the latter, she ultimately realizes that, while one can forge things of beauty and power in Middle-earth, they are all doomed to fade and egotistically struggling against this reality at any cost is the path of Evil — even if one begins with superficially good intent. Now, the producers of TRoP understand this underlying theme of Tolkien’s work and so, when depicting Galadriel long before her passing the test of the Ring, they create a new motive for her: to avenge her brother’s death and complete his own vow by killing Sauron. She is obsessed with this to the point of accepting death (throwing herself into the sea) rather than returning to Valinor leaving the deed undone. It’s the same fundamental tension Tolkien established, concerning seemingly noble motives ironically leading to evil.
TRoP “adapts” the character of Galadriel (in a broad, sloppy sense of the word) but it isn’t itself an adaptation of a pre-existing story about Galadriel. TRoP evokes the themes Tolkien articulated partially through her character to create resonances with this new story and the separate, pre-existing materials. The new, original story therefore, precisely speaking, faithfully incorporates rather than adapts Tolkien’s themes and work. This in turn demonstrates that Tolkien’s work does indeed have value beyond merely appreciating it or even translating it into other forms.
Olthannon wrote: I'm not sure anyone wants to see an adaption of that
Tell the class how you came to this conclusion.
Manchu wrote: It’s the same fundamental tension Tolkien established, concerning seemingly noble motives ironically leading to evil.
Except Galadriel's motivations are not noble. She's specifically driven by the pursuit of power, a trait universally associated with evil and ultimate downfall in Tokien's writing.
I'll give you that revenge is a theme in Tolkien's writing as well. One also universally associated with failure and death. It's possible renouncing that motivation for opposing Sauron is where the parallel to the resolution of original Galadriel's story will happen.
I've not really posted in this thread much because frankly, I have disagreed with a lot of the opinions presented in regards to the show. I've not really had the time or extra brain function to discuss it in great detail but I think Manchu has done a better job of articulating it than I.
What I will add is that Peter Jackon's work, even the esteemed lotr trilogy, is no better than this. Still very watchable and certainly an interesting adaption of the books, but not perfect. A lot was missed out and I don't think the criticisms of the amazon prime show can work if one is to defend Jackson for the same things. A lot of criticism was levelled at his adaption, particularly by Christopher Tolkein.
Given that one of my old colleagues who is a professor of literature and Tolkein expert was a consultant for the show, I'd argue they have just as much of an understanding of Tolkein as you might like.
I would find it a difficult hill to defend if my main argument was changing characters and lore when Tolkein himself did so freely when it suited him. 2 episodes in out of a 5 series show and it's an interesting thought to shut oneself off from it completely that early on. The first 40 minutes of Jackon's Fellowship movie doesn't exactly hold up to the books either and that's meant to be a true adaption.
When you consider it like that, the question then becomes, what is it that you really don't like about the Rings of Power?
Olthannon wrote: I'm not sure anyone wants to see an adaption of that
Tell the class how you came to this conclusion.
Okay class, let's review. The dictionary definition of the word "interpenetrate" from my understanding is
to penetrate fully, mutually or reciprocally. Or to otherwise pervade something. Another is to suffuse something equally by melding two things.
Now on the one hand, you penetrating Tolkein is amusing, hence why it's one of those double entendre. The word "penetration" gives the whole image a scientific atmosphere which suggests a medical slant to your evening with Tolkein. The other way of looking at it is you see yourself as equally bringing your interpretation of Tolkein's work on par with him. Which is equally funny, although not as crude.
Thus an adaption of either event would be something unappealing to the average viewer.
How was that? Does that sum it up enough or..?
If you of course meant simply "interpretation" rather than "interpenertration", I'd argue it still stands, I don't think many people would want to watch how your adaption.
You say "they don't get Tolkein" but a lot of people would argue they do.
Olthannon wrote: Now on the one hand, you penetrating Tolkein is amusing (...)
Well, there's certainly something amusing about you pointing out my spelling mistakes.
In truth, I don't disagree that a tonally and thematically faithful adaptation of Tolkien's writing would likely be less popular than something that has been adjusted for modern audiences, pardon my French.
Well, there's certainly something amusing about you pointing out my spelling mistakes.
In truth, I don't disagree that a tonally and thematically faithful adaptation of Tolkien's writing would likely be less popular than something that has been adjusted for modern audiences, pardon my French.
Not simply the spelling mistake no, that was merely a jest. Funny? Perhaps only to me. Perhaps if you hadn't doubled down with the whole "tell the class" schtick, it could have been left as such.
Now as to the next bit. I disagree. A tonally and thematically faithful adaption of Tolkein is certainly possible and it is to my eyes that this show, while not perfect, is doing a good job so far. The presentation of the setting and the imagery is thematically and tonally faithful to how Tolkein writes. In that regard, it's no different to other "adaptions".
The "adjusted for modern audiences now", that confuses me a touch, how do you mean?
Olthannon wrote: The "adjusted for modern audiences now", that confuses me a touch, how do you mean?
I generally associate "adjusted for modern audiences" with the idea that the audience doesn't have either the patience or the mental capacity to process complex or taxing elements.
Which is, in fairness, often times true, but in recent years this reasonable idea has been pushed to the point where a major brand showrunner talks about making the cinematic equivalent of a TikTok collage as if it's the most natural thing ever.
I wanted to check that "adjusted for modern audiences" wasn't code for "I don't like those actors being black".
Would you believe that one of the biggest complaints about HBO's Band of Brothers was that it was difficult to pick out characters because they all looked similar in their uniforms and helmets? That was back in 2001.
With the best will in the world, it's difficult to keep track of various characters in Tolkein. It's a balancing act. Unfortunately yes, people are unbelievable stupid. Fantasy has become reasonably popular and thus there's money to be made. You have to aim lower to make sure you get the the most audience viewership.
Like I say, time will tell, but I have enjoyed it so far.
Instead of quoting your reply post, I’ll just say this: an accurate adaptation of the novel Die Hard is based upon would be a later Steven Seagal movie. An accurate Princess Bride would be a miserable screed against love and romance. The Godfather book is a trashy airport thriller with one or two solid plot threads, and Sonny’s mistress gets a surprising amount of story.
Accuracy to details or theme or tone would ruin those films.
Olthannon wrote: I wanted to check that "adjusted for modern audiences" wasn't code for "I don't like those actors being black".
Yeah, because if you just ask why would non human races (especially subterranean like dwarves) have the same racial diversity as humans then you are a racist. I wonder how all those black actors feel when they are casted there just because the showrunners need to meet the quota of black people in their productions.
Olthannon wrote: I wanted to check that "adjusted for modern audiences" wasn't code for "I don't like those actors being black".
Yeah, because if you just ask why would non human races (especially subterranean like dwarves) have the same racial diversity as humans then you are a racist. I wonder how all those black actors feel when they are casted there just because the showrunners need to meet the quota of black people in their productions.
Or they got cast because they are good actors and they fit the part.
Look, hiring quotas suck, but they were/are necessary until things normalize. In hollywood they have begun to normalize, but they haven't normalized yet. There is still plenty of white washing. And until the general populace just shuts the feth up about it it's going to keep getting crammed down everyones throats until it's just the expectation that the norm is casting a good actor for the right part. It is as, if not more, racist to assume they only got the part because their skin color met a quota instead of their acting ability.
And the "racial diversity" of entirely fictional "races" is utter nonsense.
In the meantime you should read Charles Darwins On The Origin Of Species and realize the incredible diversity of even a group of Finches on a single island. How "racially diverse" Dwarves are is a fething stupid ass thing for anyone to throw a hissy fit over.
His Master's Voice wrote: Except Galadriel's motivations are not noble. She's specifically driven by the pursuit of power, a trait universally associated with evil and ultimate downfall in Tokien's writing.
This seems aimed at Galadriel in the Silmarillion, who left Valinor to establish and rule her own realms in Middle-earth. Galadriel in TRoP seems less concerned with explicit power in this regard.
I think Tolkien would not consider establishing a realm to rule the same thing as seeking power for the simple reason that Tolkien’s entire legendarium and indeed his own personal religious faith are founded on a divine Creator, the Summum Bonum, who establishes Creation. The act of creation is borne not from the will to dominate but rather out of gratuitous love. As His creatures, Valar and Maiar and Elves and Men all have a similar capacity for what Tolkien called “subcreation” borne out of a similar love — but, unlike their Creator, their motives are susceptible to corruption. That is where the (evil) will to dominate comes from; a twisted form of the (good) will to create.
In TRoP, Galadriel’s motive is less about establishing Elven realms in Middle-earth and more about killing Sauron. While there are some pretty credible justifications for killing Sauron (not least of all for the safety of Elven realms), it is debatable whether Galadriel wants to kill Sauron for any such reasons as opposed to simply hurting someone who hurt her. So we get the same moral-metaphysical logic in TRoP that Tolkien laid down as a foundation for his work overall: evil is a deformation, warping, and twisting of good rather than a lack of good or a co-equal, opposing force.
Olthannon wrote: I wanted to check that "adjusted for modern audiences" wasn't code for "I don't like those actors being black".
Yeah, because if you just ask why would non human races (especially subterranean like dwarves) have the same racial diversity as humans then you are a racist. I wonder how all those black actors feel when they are casted there just because the showrunners need to meet the quota of black people in their productions.
Or they got cast because they are good actors and they fit the part.
Look, hiring quotas suck, but they were/are necessary until things normalize. In hollywood they have begun to normalize, but they haven't normalized yet. There is still plenty of white washing. And until the general populace just shuts the feth up about it it's going to keep getting crammed down everyones throats until it's just the expectation that the norm is casting a good actor for the right part. It is as, if not more, racist to assume they only got the part because their skin color met a quota instead of their acting ability.
And the "racial diversity" of entirely fictional "races" is utter nonsense.
1) Casting actors because they are good is what should be always done. No arguing there.
2) Making quotas based on a color of skin is racist. No matter what direction it goes. Just check the comments of the showrunners of House of the Dragon. Basically they said that the reason why House Valaryon is made of black people was that they do not want to have a show with just a bunch of white people. So it is not ok being white, and black people are treated as tokens. Pure racism there.
3) Racial diversity in fictional races is a nonsense but only if we insert our own species' rules there. Why would they follow the same biological rules as we have, and therefore look like we are? But because the quota idiocy, now every fictional fantasy race need to look like our species or be accused of racism.
Olthannon wrote: I wanted to check that "adjusted for modern audiences" wasn't code for "I don't like those actors being black".
Yeah, because if you just ask why would non human races (especially subterranean like dwarves) have the same racial diversity as humans then you are a racist. I wonder how all those black actors feel when they are casted there just because the showrunners need to meet the quota of black people in their productions.
Why would they not? There's no "scientific" reason why they can't be. Tolkein himself described the Harfoots as brown/ dark skinned. Samwise Gamgee is described as brown by Tolkein and he is an Harfoot. Elves aren't all described as fair skinned. Tolkein based Numenor on the Byzantine empire.
So actually, yes. I think it is racist to whinge about the fact that these actors have different coloured skin. Just because you want your Fantasy to be white doesn't mean it is.
As for your little "ohhh what must those blackfolk think about being typecast" bollocks.
Ask them. I'm sure they'll be only to happy to respond.
Olthannon wrote: I wanted to check that "adjusted for modern audiences" wasn't code for "I don't like those actors being black".
Yeah, because if you just ask why would non human races (especially subterranean like dwarves) have the same racial diversity as humans then you are a racist. I wonder how all those black actors feel when they are casted there just because the showrunners need to meet the quota of black people in their productions.
Why would they not? There's no "scientific" reason why they can't be. Tolkein himself described the Harfoots and brown/ dark skinned. Samwise Gamgee is described as brown by Tolkein and he is an Harfoot. Elves aren't all described as fair skinned. Tolkein based Numenor on the Byzantine empire.
So actually, yes. I think it is racist to whinge about the fact that these actors have different coloured skin. Just because you want your Fantasy to be white doesn't mean it is.
As for your little "ohhh what must those blackfolk think about being typecast" bollocks.
Ask them. I'm sure they'll be only to happy to respond.
So you already are sure that I want my fantasy to be all white? Ok, you got me. One more white supremacist discovered
If by ''accurately adapting'' you mean manipulating then yes, he was. It is a proof of what I wrote earlier - one just need to ask the ''wrong'' question to be accused of being a racist.
TRoP was marketed along the lines of “our priority was diverse casting.” To me, that implies that the producers wanted X or X% non-white actors prior to any auditioning. That amounts to a quota. We could endlessly debate whether that is appropriate or not.
But then we would not be talking about the show.
The question as to the show is this: does diverse casting help or hinder the show, or neither or both? I’ll address this with reference to two actors/characters, Sophia Nomvete as Disa and Ismael Cruz Cordoza as Arondir.
So far, I have not perceived Nomvete’s race affecting her portrayal of Disa. In Middle-earth, there are no “white” or “black” people; rather, the relevant racial categories are Elf, Dwarf, Human, and Hobbit. Nomvete is not portraying a black woman; she is portraying a dwarven woman. Disa’s accent, mannerisms, point of view, and clothing/jewelry/hairstyle all come together as a credible portrayal of a dwarven woman. As far as I can see, the race of the actress is a neutral element. Perhaps Nomvete’s race informs her performance of Disa but if so then it is invisible to me.
Regarding Cordoza as Arondir, it is more complicated because his plot line involves an in-setting interracial relationship. Again, “black” and “white” as racial categories have no meaning in Middle-earth. By “interracial” we mean a relationship between a human woman and elven man. Cordoza is a black Peurto Rican, someone of “mixed race” in real-world terms. The character he plays, Arondir, is not (i.e., Arondir is descended from Elves only) so far as we know. Perhaps Cordoza’s race did factor into casting him as Arondir. Maybe the decision makers believed Cordoza’s racial and cultural background gives him insight into playing a character navigating interracial tension. Maybe the decision makers believed Cordoza’s appearance might facilitate the audience in comparing/contrasting real-world racial tension with racial tension in Middle-earth. I don’t know but, unlike with the role of Disa, the role of Arondir is directly dealing with in-setting racial issues.
Olthannon wrote: I wanted to check that "adjusted for modern audiences" wasn't code for "I don't like those actors being black".
Yeah, because if you just ask why would non human races (especially subterranean like dwarves) have the same racial diversity as humans then you are a racist. I wonder how all those black actors feel when they are casted there just because the showrunners need to meet the quota of black people in their productions.
Why would they not? There's no "scientific" reason why they can't be. Tolkein himself described the Harfoots as brown/ dark skinned. Samwise Gamgee is described as brown by Tolkein and he is an Harfoot. Elves aren't all described as fair skinned. Tolkein based Numenor on the Byzantine empire.
So actually, yes. I think it is racist to whinge about the fact that these actors have different coloured skin. Just because you want your Fantasy to be white doesn't mean it is.
As for your little "ohhh what must those blackfolk think about being typecast" bollocks.
Ask them. I'm sure they'll be only to happy to respond.
They were described as "swarthy", which is defined as more olive skinned or heavily tanned. So more of a Greek or Italian complexion.
Manchu wrote: This seems aimed at Galadriel in the Silmarillion, who left Valinor to establish and rule her own realms in Middle-earth. Galadriel in TRoP seems less concerned with explicit power in this regard.
Well yes, they're very different characters. By this point in time, book Galadriel have witnessed the entirety of the struggle against Morgoth, the near apocalyptic War of Wrath, have met and married Celeborn, borne a child, became a ruler of her own realm. By contrast, show Galadriel comes across as a much younger character, more a foot soldier than the the niece of Feanor in status, more brash, more callous. They don't really overlap in any meaningful way.
Manchu wrote: I think Tolkien would not consider establishing a realm to rule the same thing as seeking power
I agree. Tolkien had plenty of rulers who governed for the good of the land, not as a form self edification. However, Galadriel's reaction to the Ring makes me believe her ambition was in fact power for the sake of power. She clearly recognizes Sauron's fault in herself.
If by ''accurately adapting'' you mean manipulating then yes, he was. It is a proof of what I wrote earlier - one just need to ask the ''wrong'' question to be accused of being a racist.
It’s a call back to earlier in the thread. It’s also a comment on the accidental subtext of your posts that you seem to be unaware of.
Manchu wrote: TRoP was marketed along the lines of “our priority was diverse casting.” To me, that implies that the producers wanted X or X% non-white actors prior to any auditioning. That amounts to a quota. We could endlessly debate whether that is appropriate or not.
We've had this discussion before it was deleted by Mods before and nobody could come up with anything to support the statement that the diverse cast was one of the primary marketing tactics.
It was the case that the showrunners responded to racist attacks on the cast, but they did not make it a big deal in the first place or at least nobody has been able to provide evidence that they did.
Do you have such evidence?
If by ''accurately adapting'' you mean manipulating then yes, he was. It is a proof of what I wrote earlier - one just need to ask the ''wrong'' question to be accused of being a racist.
It’s a call back to earlier in the thread. It’s also a comment on the accidental subtext of your posts that you seem to be unaware of.
Explain then both (to what it is a call back, and what hidden subtext I am unaware of) please.
They were described as "swarthy", which is defined as more olive skinned or heavily tanned. So more of a Greek or Italian complexion.
Harfoots you mean? Having been re-reading the whole Tolkein smorgasbord in preparation for the show, I have several lines right in front of me.
“The Harfoots were browner of skin, smaller, and shorter, and they were beardless and bootless… The Stoors were broader, heavier in build; their feet and hands were larger… The Fallohides were fairer of skin and also of hair, and they were taller and slimmer than the others.” "The Harfoots had much to do with the Dwarves, they were the most normal and representative variety of Hobbit and the most numerous.
From the prologue of Fellowship.
Now, although I'm paraphrasing there for ease, that is certainly the gist as I've typed it down. Certainly a bit past swarthy. I'm swarthy. People have no issue with the portrayal of the Haradrim as non-white and the description is the same. If someone was described as having brown skin, I'd assume they weren't white. If you are so genuinely desperate to say that isn't good enough. Then I can't help you there I'm afraid. But certainly not "swarthy".
His Master's Voice wrote:
Manchu wrote: This seems aimed at Galadriel in the Silmarillion, who left Valinor to establish and rule her own realms in Middle-earth. Galadriel in TRoP seems less concerned with explicit power in this regard.
Well yes, they're very different characters. By this point in time, book Galadriel have witnessed the entirety of the struggle against Morgoth, the near apocalyptic War of Wrath, have met and married Celeborn, borne a child, became a ruler of her own realm. By contrast, show Galadriel comes across as a much younger character, more a foot soldier than the the niece of Feanor in status, more brash, more callous. They don't really overlap in any meaningful way.
My assumption here is that because they can't dwell too much on the First Age, this has been changed up to give Galadriel a more clear character arc. So we will watch how she transforms from this brash and younger Elf into the ruler of her own realm. I definitely understand why this has been criticised, but I understand the necessity behind doing so. For a long running television show, a character has to progress.
Manchu wrote:TRoP was marketed along the lines of “our priority was diverse casting.” To me, that implies that the producers wanted X or X% non-white actors prior to any auditioning. That amounts to a quota. We could endlessly debate whether that is appropriate or not.
That’s a statement, not a quota.
The difference between “we’re going to gender swap and race swap so many characters, for diversity”, and having a truly open casting call.
So no “Galadriel needs a tall, lithe blonde woman with knockers of a certain preferred size”, but “Galadriel, actress required”.
And I’m still yet to see any evidence the folk cast were cast because of an intrinsic characteristic, and not because of their talent.
Now. If someone perhaps has access to a genuine casting call for the show? I might well be proven entirely wrong, and as ever would be happy to be so.
But until then, can people please stop inventing things to clutch their pearls over?
Manchu wrote: Regarding Cordoza as Arondir, it is more complicated because his plot line involves an in-setting interracial relationship. Again, “black” and “white” as racial categories have no meaning in Middle-earth. By “interracial” we mean a relationship between a human woman and elven man. Cordoza is a black Peurto Rican, someone of “mixed race” in real-world terms. The character he plays, Arondir, is not (i.e., Arondir is descended from Elves only) so far as we know. Perhaps Cordoza’s race did factor into casting him as Arondir. Maybe the decision makers believed Cordoza’s racial and cultural background gives him insight into playing a character navigating interracial tension. Maybe the decision makers believed Cordoza’s appearance might facilitate the audience in comparing/contrasting real-world racial tension with racial tension in Middle-earth. I don’t know but, unlike with the role of Disa, the role of Arondir is directly dealing with in-setting racial issues.
To add to this: while there may or may not have been behind the scenes factors in choosing a particular actor for the role the on-camera racial elements are all perfectly in line with Tolkien's original work. It's an interracial relationship but it's made very clear that it is because it is a relationship between Men and Elves, entirely unrelated to the real-world races of the people playing those characters. It's even said explicitly by Arondir white companions that he is one of them, and they're confused that he would want to have a relationship with a Man instead of his own people.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
His Master's Voice wrote: Well yes, they're very different characters. By this point in time, book Galadriel have witnessed the entirety of the struggle against Morgoth, the near apocalyptic War of Wrath, have met and married Celeborn, borne a child, became a ruler of her own realm. By contrast, show Galadriel comes across as a much younger character, more a foot soldier than the the niece of Feanor in status, more brash, more callous. They don't really overlap in any meaningful way.
Of course when you're an immortal elf growing up takes longer. Elrond is also presented as a young and ambitious but inexperienced character. Is it a change from some of the precise details of the original story notes Tolkien wrote? Possibly. But does it make sense in the context of the show, especially given their legal inability to include certain material? Yes.
Lindsey Weber, Executive Producer wrote:It felt only natural to us that an adaptation of Tolkien’s work would reflect what the world actually looks like.
I’ll note, you’re arguing with the wrong guy if you think I’m against casting non-whites in TRoP (as per the rest of my post that you quoted). But when the show’s executive producer comments that Middle-earth should “reflect what the world actually looks like” it is clear that she is talking about real-world race rather than automobiles, cell phones, and mega corporations. To me, it’s anything but “natural” that the fictional setting of Middle-earth should “reflect what the world actually looks like” in racial terms (for one thing, which part of the world?). But I also don’t mind that Amazon cast non-white actors in TRoP and, setting aside issues that are external to the show itself, I think there are some arguments that doing so may actually enhance certain story elements.
It’s a statement of intent that can only be actioned by some version, however soft, of a quota; e.g., “we need to cast some non-white actors” isn’t a specific number but it means, apart from all other qualities, the process has to result in some non-white casting.
I don’t think it is worthwhile to quibble on and on about this issue. The point of my post was to move the discussion forward to something meaningful: To what extent, if at all, does the race of an actor cast in TRoP impact the show itself, in terms of its aesthetics and themes and characterization.
From what I have seen in the first two episodes, the general answer seems to be “no impact” with a possible exception for Arondir, where the actor’s racial background may actually enhance the show.
His Master's Voice wrote: By this point in time, book Galadriel have witnessed the entirety of the struggle against Morgoth, the near apocalyptic War of Wrath, have met and married Celeborn, borne a child, became a ruler of her own realm.
It’s good to point this out because it is almost the entirety of what we know about Galadriel during the First and Second Ages from Tolkien’s work — and these biographical notes taken in part or in whole do not constitute a story. This is to my point that TRoP is not an adaptation, there being nothing available to adapt, and it is rather entirely original material that references existing elements of Tolkien’s work. If Galadriel is going to be a major protagonist of TRoP then she will have to be substantively different from the character in the Silmarillion. How then can she nonetheless still be recognizably Galadriel? It comes down to the TRoP producers articulating through her character in TRoP the same kinds of themes Tolkien articulated through her character in his work. So, like Tolkien, they present her as a kind of parallel to Sauron. Specifically, she is a character who could go down the same path as Sauron did, and for similar reasons. She’s in danger of becoming Evil despite being motivated, at the outset, by a will to do Good.
Aecus Decimus wrote: It's even said explicitly by Arondir white companions that he is one of them, and they're confused that he would want to have a relationship with a Man instead of his own people.
Yes indeed; they go so far as to explicitly say it has only happened TWICE. Now, they don’t mention who they’re talking about but fans in the audience will know they’re talking about truly extraordinary people who are at this point revered heroes: Beren and Luthien as well as Tuor and Idril, Earendil’s parents. (And fans will know that it happens at least one more time in the future, with Aragorn and Arwen.) So the implication here is less that Elves consider Men racially inferior and more that such pairings are bound up with the gravest of dooms and correspondingly rare.
This also ties in with what is so far one of TRoP’s most fascinating themes, namely that the different races of Middle-earth have intrinsic difficulty relating to each other as a result of their widely divergent experiences of time itself. It’s not just that, for example, Elves and Dwarves find each others’ cultural values strange; it’s that their very capacity to experience their lives is inherently different, giving rise to substantially different cultures. So deep misunderstandings can arise between good friends across racial lines, e.g., Elrond and Durin. Given this, an interracial relationship seems at best to be a tragedy-in-the-making, something that can only be justified by the very greatest of destinies.
Olthannon wrote: I wanted to check that "adjusted for modern audiences" wasn't code for "I don't like those actors being black".
Yeah, because if you just ask why would non human races (especially subterranean like dwarves) have the same racial diversity as humans then you are a racist. I wonder how all those black actors feel when they are casted there just because the showrunners need to meet the quota of black people in their productions.
Or they got cast because they are good actors and they fit the part.
Look, hiring quotas suck, but they were/are necessary until things normalize. In hollywood they have begun to normalize, but they haven't normalized yet. There is still plenty of white washing. And until the general populace just shuts the feth up about it it's going to keep getting crammed down everyones throats until it's just the expectation that the norm is casting a good actor for the right part. It is as, if not more, racist to assume they only got the part because their skin color met a quota instead of their acting ability.
And the "racial diversity" of entirely fictional "races" is utter nonsense.
1) Casting actors because they are good is what should be always done. No arguing there. 2) Making quotas based on a color of skin is racist. No matter what direction it goes. Just check the comments of the showrunners of House of the Dragon. Basically they said that the reason why House Valaryon is made of black people was that they do not want to have a show with just a bunch of white people. So it is not ok being white, and black people are treated as tokens. Pure racism there.
No it's not. 1) They didn't say it wasn't okay to be white. They said they wanted diversity. Pursing diversity is not the same thing as being exclusionary. 2) The back people were not being treated as Token's. They have prominent roles that being acted well by good actors. Just casting directors are making a conscious effort to create a level playing field does not mean white people are being somehow disparaged or that POC are being given token roles.
3) Racial diversity in fictional races is a nonsense but only if we insert our own species' rules there. Why would they follow the same biological rules as we have, and therefore look like we are? But because the quota idiocy, now every fictional fantasy race need to look like our species or be accused of racism.
They already look like our species. Elves are humans with pointy ears. Dwarves are humans that are short. Halflings are also short humans but with furry feet. We are not discussing radically different species here. And if the elves showed up with orange skin and the dwarves showed up with Grey skin that "purists" would be all upset about how the fantasy races didn't look anything like how Tolken described them. As long as they are human like being played by humans there is zero reason not to use human actors to play them.
Got a problem with tolken making his races look too human? Go dig up his corpse and tell him how you feel.
If by ''accurately adapting'' you mean manipulating then yes, he was. It is a proof of what I wrote earlier - one just need to ask the ''wrong'' question to be accused of being a racist.
If your "question" is, "I bet all those black actors were just cast to fill a quota." then yes. Racist.
Voss wrote: Yeah. There definitely wasn't any racial tension in Lord of the Rings or the Hobbit.
Presented in the manner this show does it? No, there absolutely was not.
nope, nothing at all.
One thing to keep in mind is that the humans we've seen thus far are NOT the Numenorians, they're the other men who, pretty much all served Morgoth the elves are BASICLY an occupying force to them
TBF I do not think that you can really get into the animosity towards "forced" diversity casting without going too political for DakkaDakka. The root causes for resentment have not been addressed in this thread or on this forum ever...so far as I know and it is not as simple as "the complainers are racist."
trexmeyer wrote: TBF I do not think that you can really get into the animosity towards "forced" diversity casting without going too political for DakkaDakka. The root causes for resentment have not been addressed in this thread or on this forum ever...so far as I know and it is not as simple as "the complainers are racist."
If it's not racism then what is it? Are the producers lowering their standards to get a member of a particular minority into the cast at all costs, even if they suck at acting? Nope. So far the non-white actors have done just fine, and certainly no worse than the white actors. Are they mixing in real-world racial issues where they don't belong? Nope. To the extent that race matters at all it's only in the ways that are well established in Tolkien's original works: Men vs. Elves vs. Dwarves. So tell me, where exactly is this resentment coming from? How has "forced diversity" harmed the complainers in any meaningful way, other than having to suffer the horror of seeing non-white characters in a popular show?
trexmeyer wrote: TBF I do not think that you can really get into the animosity towards "forced" diversity casting without going too political for DakkaDakka. The root causes for resentment have not been addressed in this thread or on this forum ever...so far as I know and it is not as simple as "the complainers are racist."
If it's not racism then what is it? Are the producers lowering their standards to get a member of a particular minority into the cast at all costs, even if they suck at acting? Nope. So far the non-white actors have done just fine, and certainly no worse than the white actors. Are they mixing in real-world racial issues where they don't belong? Nope. To the extent that race matters at all it's only in the ways that are well established in Tolkien's original works: Men vs. Elves vs. Dwarves. So tell me, where exactly is this resentment coming from? How has "forced diversity" harmed the complainers in any meaningful way, other than having to suffer the horror of seeing non-white characters in a popular show?
(Spoiler: it's all about racism.)
Tolkien wrote LotR to provide his country with a new mythology heavily inspired by Scandinavian and Germanic mythology. The casting is not true to the source material. It is not complicated.
Edit: I don't see how it's any different than saying that there shouldn't be any white actors or characters cast in Mulan or Aladdin or other non-European story.
trexmeyer wrote: Tolkien wrote LotR to provide his country with a new mythology heavily inspired by Scandinavian and Germanic mythology. The casting is not true to the source material. It is not complicated.
Could you post the canon sources where Tolkien states that his stories have only Scandanavian/Germanic people in the world? Is this something Tolkien himself said, or is this a case of you assuming that "inspired by" means "does not deviate at all from"?
Also, why does this change upset you so much more than all of the other changes that have been made?
Edit: I don't see how it's any different than saying that there shouldn't be any white actors or characters cast in Mulan or Aladdin or other non-European story.
You do know that Middle Earth is a fictional world, right? And that Aladdin and Mulan are set in the real world? And if you want to complain that the show goes beyond a European setting then shouldn't you also be upset about the existence of elves, dwarves, and hobbits, given the fact that none of those things existed in the real Europe?
I was not aware that the real world had flying carpets and djinn and magic and strangely intelligent monkeys and talking dragons and ancestor spirits that actually help out their descendants.
trexmeyer wrote: I was not aware that the real world had flying carpets and djinn and magic and strangely intelligent monkeys and talking dragons and ancestor spirits that actually help out their descendants.
Set in the real world, not real events. Mulan is a retelling of a specific Chinese story about to a (supposed) actual person and the Disney movie is still set in China even if it is an "alternate history" China where certain Chinese mythological elements are real creatures and not mere stories. It is absolutely appropriate that it would not have non-Chinese actors or characters who would not have existed in 4th-6th century China. Rings of Power and Tolkien's original works, on the other hand, are set in an entirely fictional world which does not exist in reality. Middle Earth and the stories set in it may borrow some elements from Scandinavian/Germanic mythology but it is inspiration, nothing more. The stories are not set there, nor do they exclusively borrow from those cultures.
But, once more:
Could you post the canon sources where Tolkien states that his stories have only Scandinavian/Germanic people in the world? Is this something Tolkien himself said, or is this a case of you assuming that "inspired by" means "does not deviate at all from"?
Also, why does this change upset you so much more than all of the other changes that have been made?
trexmeyer wrote: TBF I do not think that you can really get into the animosity towards "forced" diversity casting without going too political for DakkaDakka. The root causes for resentment have not been addressed in this thread or on this forum ever...so far as I know and it is not as simple as "the complainers are racist."
If it's not racism then what is it? Are the producers lowering their standards to get a member of a particular minority into the cast at all costs, even if they suck at acting? Nope. So far the non-white actors have done just fine, and certainly no worse than the white actors. Are they mixing in real-world racial issues where they don't belong? Nope. To the extent that race matters at all it's only in the ways that are well established in Tolkien's original works: Men vs. Elves vs. Dwarves. So tell me, where exactly is this resentment coming from? How has "forced diversity" harmed the complainers in any meaningful way, other than having to suffer the horror of seeing non-white characters in a popular show?
(Spoiler: it's all about racism.)
Tolkien wrote LotR to provide his country with a new mythology heavily inspired by Scandinavian and Germanic mythology. The casting is not true to the source material. It is not complicated.
Edit: I don't see how it's any different than saying that there shouldn't be any white actors or characters cast in Mulan or Aladdin or other non-European story.
The difference is a history of White Washing. Things don't instantly snap into perfect place where the only casting done is by merit. If Asian, Black, Middle Eastern, First Nation actors were not constantly passed over for white actors since the invention of cinema there wouldn't be anything to complain about. But since they have been the pendulum needs to swing the other way, and they need to fight for opportunity and representation. Eventually the pendulum should settle in the middle and none of it should really matter unless it's something where it inherently does. We ain't there yet. And ensuring that the minorities get their fair share in the meantime is just them getting their dues.
trexmeyer wrote: TBF I do not think that you can really get into the animosity towards "forced" diversity casting without going too political for DakkaDakka. The root causes for resentment have not been addressed in this thread or on this forum ever...so far as I know and it is not as simple as "the complainers are racist."
If it's not racism then what is it? Are the producers lowering their standards to get a member of a particular minority into the cast at all costs, even if they suck at acting? Nope. So far the non-white actors have done just fine, and certainly no worse than the white actors. Are they mixing in real-world racial issues where they don't belong? Nope. To the extent that race matters at all it's only in the ways that are well established in Tolkien's original works: Men vs. Elves vs. Dwarves. So tell me, where exactly is this resentment coming from? How has "forced diversity" harmed the complainers in any meaningful way, other than having to suffer the horror of seeing non-white characters in a popular show?
(Spoiler: it's all about racism.)
Tolkien wrote LotR to provide his country with a new mythology heavily inspired by Scandinavian and Germanic mythology. The casting is not true to the source material. It is not complicated.
Edit: I don't see how it's any different than saying that there shouldn't be any white actors or characters cast in Mulan or Aladdin or other non-European story.
The difference is a history of White Washing. Things don't instantly snap into perfect place where the only casting done is by merit. If Asian, Black, Middle Eastern, First Nation actors were not constantly passed over for white actors since the invention of cinema there wouldn't be anything to complain about. But since they have been the pendulum needs to swing the other way, and they need to fight for opportunity and representation. Eventually the pendulum should settle in the middle and none of it should really matter unless it's something where it inherently does. We ain't there yet. And ensuring that the minorities get their fair share in the meantime is just them getting their dues.
Ah, yes. Nothing like some affirmative action like hiring people based on race because the sins of the father are being passed onto the son. I never get this logic that somehow discriminating against white people makes up for discrimination against minorities in the past. Two wrongs don't make a right, and doing it so blatantly only ensures further marginalization for people to go towards extremism and actual "systemic racism" that you ironically are supposed to be against. Oh, you say "we ain't there yet" but who gets to decide that? When you set up fundamentally discriminatory practices framed within the context of "we know better than you", it's not something that's just going to go away when people profit from it and it's unsurprising that people are sick of it and frankly insulting to minorities like myself that we need (typically self-righteous white) people to give us handouts because we're seen as so inferior to white actors. It's the exact same thing they've been doing with diversity hires in university where even people in the sciences are being forced to follow EDI requirements to even get funding for grants.
Grimskul wrote: I never get this logic that somehow discriminating against white people makes up for discrimination against minorities in the past.
It doesn't, but that's not the point of it. The purpose is to counter the demonstrated fact* that discrimination against non-white people, against women, etc, still happens and will continue to happen without active efforts to overcome that bias. Removing the unfair advantage that white people/men/etc have is not discrimination against them, it's simply attempting to return to a level playing field where the best-qualified candidate gets the job. And in the context of Rings of Power I don't think anyone can make a credible argument that even if diversity was a factor in casting decisions the result was unfair towards white actors, or that the non-white actors that were hired are not qualified for the job or have given poor performances.
*For example, if you submit an identical resume under a white-sounding name and a non-white-sounding name the one the companies assume is a white person will get better results.
Please point us to any evidence at all that anyone in The Rings of Power was cast solely because of their ethnic background.
No….no….that’s your opinion. Put it down. Evidence. We want evidence of active discrimination against white persons reading for a role, and then losing out purely because the person that did get it wasn’t white.
Because that is what all the increasingly bizarre rants boil down, isn’t it? If you insist folk were cast purely because They’re Not White, and not that roles went to the best audition, then prove it.
Don’t worry. I’m not going to flip-flop to then “now prove it makes a blind bit of difference at all”. I just want proof to support your claim.
Anecdotes are not proof of that. A statement they’re keen on diverse casting is not proof of that. The actors and actresses saying “as a black person, I was thrilled to be cast” is not evidence of that. Evidence. They. Only. Got. The. Role. Because. They’re. Not. White. It’s that simple and straight forward.
Yes. In addition to what Mad Doc Grotsnik pointed out there's this:
Grimskul wrote: it's unsurprising that people are sick of it and frankly insulting to minorities like myself that we need (typically self-righteous white) people to give us handouts because we're seen as so inferior to white actors.
Yes, I did. And I don’t see anyone claiming that actors were cast solely because of their race, nor have you demonstrated it. Rather, I’ve read people saying that race factored into casting, which seems incontrovertible. As someone demanding evidence to back a specific claim, you ought to be willing to meet the same burden. Your task is much easier, too, considering the entirety of the record is limited to these few pages before us.
trexmeyer wrote: Tolkien wrote LotR to provide his country with a new mythology heavily inspired by Scandinavian and Germanic mythology. The casting is not true to the source material.
This is a good point to raise. Many critics argue that Tolkien wanted to create a mythology for the English. But, assuming they’re correct, does it therefore follow that anyone portraying a character in this mythology should look English, circa 5th century? Mythology doesn’t need to be “historically accurate,” after all — but it does need to reflect the identity of the people to whom it is relevant. Perhaps this mythology has surpassed Tolkien’s original intent (as theorized by certain critics) and become a mythology not merely for the English but for the English-speaking world.
Aside from already diverging from the source material, that scene has nothing in common with the show's clumsy attempts at inserting phrenology into Middle Earth.
Tension between cultures in Tolkien's writing was always a result of real or perceived betrayal of trust or universal values. When an elf distrusts a dwarf, it is because of Nauglamir. When a dwarf distrusts an elf, it is because of Fall of Erebor. When an elf distrusts a man, it is because of those men who fell under the shadow of Morgoth. And when an man distrust an elf, it is because of the same shadow's lies.
None of it has anything to do with the shape of one's ears.
Manchu wrote: Yes, I did. And I don’t see anyone claiming that actors were cast solely because of their race, nor have you demonstrated it. Rather, I’ve read people saying that race factored into casting, which seems incontrovertible.
You may have missed it but I gave you a quote of someone doing exactly that.
Many critics argue that Tolkien wanted to create a mythology for the English.
Is this really a reasonable theory? I can't think of any plausible scenario where LOTR gets accepted as a genuine English mythology. A popular novel, sure, even one with widespread cultural influence. But mythology? Zero chance.
Aside from already diverging from the source material, that scene has nothing in common with the show's clumsy attempts at inserting phrenology into Middle Earth.
Tension between cultures in Tolkien's writing was always a result of real or perceived betrayal of trust or universal values. When an elf distrusts a dwarf, it is because of Nauglamir. When a dwarf distrusts an elf, it is because of Fall of Erebor. When an elf distrusts a man, it is because of those men fell under the shadow of Morgoth. And when an man distrust an elf, it is because of the same shadow's lies.
None of it has anything to do with the shape of one's ears.
So a dwarf in the movie yelling "never trust an elf" with no reason given is assumed to be referring to the Fall of Erebor even though nothing about that is ever said, but in the show we can't make the same assumption?
(And let's not forget that the show even explicitly gives reasons for a lack of trust, in the humans fighting on the side of evil and the elves being smug donkey-caves watching over them as a result.)
The “knife ears” line made me cringe hard, considering it is stolen from Dragon Age — a much less revered, more generic, sillier setting than Middle-earth.
But in two episodes TRoP does a MUCH better job of explaining the racial tensions between Elves and Dwarves and Men than PJ’s LotR trilogy ever did. Not by having a Man call an Elf “knife ears” (again, that was lame) but rather by showing how the way each race experience time inherently creates deep misunderstandings. Durin says he lives a lifetime in what Elrond considers “only” twenty years. For the Elves watching over Tirharad, the War of the Jewels is within living memory. For the Men there, it is so deep in the past that they barely connect to their ancestors who served the Enemy.
It's also the reason why he used the original Norse legends/mythology as a huge background and building block for Middle Earth. Further its also why he did such extensive world building.
Prior to his writing most stories were just stories. They had a little internal world building, but they weren't really extensive. Lord of the Rings and Middle Earth was vast. Yes it was unfinished, yes much exists as notes and scribbles that shifted and changed and some existed purely as stories told to his children.
But in the end his work was extensive.
Honestly I'd say he probably failed at creating a mythology for the English. However he succeeded in creating a mythology and foundation for fantasy for the world. A foundation that contributed in a big way toward the explosion of fantasy as a concept so that today we've world settings that go even further. Lord of the Rings gave us Old World and Warhammer; Dungeons and Dragons; Starwars and more. It made us see fantasy as something we could explore and go deeper with. Be it from the original author or from our own creations based upon that (look at Cuthulu Mythos)
Sure many have now copied his ideas and concepts of world buliding and indeed many are hoping others do likewise with different mythological backgrounds around the world.
Do you not understand the difference between using ear shape as a racial slur and ear shape being the reason for hatred? It's a cringe-worthy line for anyone who remembers the DA games but it's hardly "clumsy attempts at inserting phrenology into Middle Earth".
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: So…….nobody is saying anyone was cast because of their race….except they were….but no one is claiming that, except when they do? Yeah?
”Only.” You specified ONLY. I have not read anyone make that claim ITT. Instead, I have read people claim that race was considered in casting — which is obviously true because the show’s executive producer directly explained that the show was cast to achieve racial diversity (her words, to “reflect what the world actually looks like”).
Aecus Decimus wrote: Do you not understand the difference between using ear shape as a racial slur and ear shape being the reason for hatred?
Do you not understand that for knife ears to become a racial slur in the first place, those ears would have to be viewed though the same lens that made people measure skulls with callipers?
His Master's Voice wrote: Do you not understand that for knife ears to become a racial slur in the first place, those ears would have to be viewed though the same lens that made people measure skulls with callipers?
Um, no, they just have to be a visible feature that elves have and men don't. There is no reason a racial slur has to be based on the assumption that the feature in question causes anything.
Aecus Decimus wrote: Is this really a reasonable theory? I can't think of any plausible scenario where LOTR gets accepted as a genuine English mythology. A popular novel, sure, even one with widespread cultural influence. But mythology? Zero chance.
Certainly, critics have made a bigger deal of it that Tolkien himself ever seemed to. But I also don’t think you should take the theory too literally. The idea is, the Norman Conquest blotted out Anglo-Saxon culture in significant ways and Tolkien creatively “recovered” the literary spirit of the lost material.
As I mentioned above, I think Tolkien’s impact in “mythological” terms has far exceeded his purported intentions and achieved a cultural impact not only on the English but the entire English-speaking world. It’s a mythology not only for English people but for all sorts of people across various ethnicities, races, even religions (or lack thereof). So I don’t think this “reconstructed English mythology” point can help too much in arguing that only whites should be cast for Middle-earth acting roles.
Ah, yes. Nothing like some affirmative action like hiring people based on race because the sins of the father are being passed onto the son. I never get this logic that somehow discriminating against white people makes up for discrimination against minorities in the past. Two wrongs don't make a right, and doing it so blatantly only ensures further marginalization for people to go towards extremism and actual "systemic racism" that you ironically are supposed to be against. Oh, you say "we ain't there yet" but who gets to decide that? When you set up fundamentally discriminatory practices framed within the context of "we know better than you", it's not something that's just going to go away when people profit from it and it's unsurprising that people are sick of it and frankly insulting to minorities like myself that we need (typically self-righteous white) people to give us handouts because we're seen as so inferior to white actors. It's the exact same thing they've been doing with diversity hires in university where even people in the sciences are being forced to follow EDI requirements to even get funding for grants.
His Master's Voice wrote: those ears would have to be viewed though the same lens that made people measure skulls with callipers
That’s a really interesting and intelligent point — I think you’re right, that line about “knife ears” is relying on the way racism developed in the real world. That’s also the way it was used in Dragon Age. This really gets to the deeper reason that line is so bad; it seems completely alien to the setting of Middle-earth. In other regards, TRoP shows us how racism would develop differently in Middle-earth than it has in the real world but this line about “knife ears” is not at all organic to the setting and therefore feels wrong.
Aecus Decimus wrote: There is no reason a racial slur has to be based on the assumption that the feature in question causes anything.
But it is always based on the premise that the physical difference make the other inferior. Which was very much a part of most phrenological "theories".
”Only.” You specified ONLY. I have not read anyone make that claim ITT. Instead, I have read people claim that race was considered in casting — which is obviously true because the show’s executive producer directly explained that the show was cast to achieve racial diversity (her words, to “reflect what the world actually looks like”).
Exactly. The original context of my post was, that anyone who says anything about forcing our world's racial diversity into fantasy races will be accused of being a racist.
Manchu wrote: Certainly, critics have made a bigger deal of it that Tolkien himself ever seemed to. But I also don’t think you should take the theory too literally. The idea is, the Norman Conquest blotted out Anglo-Saxon culture in significant ways and Tolkien creatively “recovered” the literary spirit of the lost material.
As I mentioned above, I think Tolkien’s impact in “mythological” terms has far exceeded his purported intentions and achieved a cultural impact not only on the English but the entire English-speaking world. It’s a mythology not only for English people but for all sorts of people across various ethnicities, races, even religions (or lack thereof). So I don’t think this “reconstructed English mythology” point can help too much in arguing that only whites should be cast for Middle-earth acting roles.
That's kind of what I was getting at. If you don't take the theory literally (and you shouldn't, because it isn't plausible) then there's no reason to believe that it means anything more than that Tolkien was inspired by the idea and mere inspiration doesn't mean an absolute rule that Middle Earth must be mythological England and nothing else.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Shadow Walker wrote: Exactly. The original context of my post was, that anyone who says anything about forcing our world's racial diversity into fantasy races will be accused of being a racist.
Well yes, because the root of that complaint is inevitably racism. There is no reason that Middle Earth shouldn't have racial diversity and let's be honest here, the vast majority of the time someone is complaining about it it's because they're a racist who hates seeing non-white characters in "their" fiction.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
His Master's Voice wrote: But it is always based on the premise that the physical difference make the other inferior. Which was very much a part of most phrenological "theories".
Um, what? No, that is not true at all. Referring to a clearly visible distinguishing feature does not imply any kind of causal argument.
Aecus Decimus wrote: mere inspiration doesn't mean an absolute rule that Middle Earth must be mythological England and nothing else
Agreed, especially because even if it was the case that Tolkien’s only or primary intent was to create an English mythology (which is, again, just a theory anyhow) the actual reception of his work goes well beyond that goal.
I think it’s worth pointing out that Tolkien was devoutly religious and considered his work to be fundamentally Catholic. Unlike the theory about English mythology, he made this point explicitly himself. But it’s abundantly clear that his work has been received by people of many different faiths or none. It’s nor more “just for Catholics” than it is “just for English”.
Aecus Decimus wrote: Is this really a reasonable theory? I can't think of any plausible scenario where LOTR gets accepted as a genuine English mythology. A popular novel, sure, even one with widespread cultural influence. But mythology? Zero chance.
Certainly, critics have made a bigger deal of it that Tolkien himself ever seemed to. But I also don’t think you should take the theory too literally. The idea is, the Norman Conquest blotted out Anglo-Saxon culture in significant ways and Tolkien creatively “recovered” the literary spirit of the lost material.
As I mentioned above, I think Tolkien’s impact in “mythological” terms has far exceeded his purported intentions and achieved a cultural impact not only on the English but the entire English-speaking world. It’s a mythology not only for English people but for all sorts of people across various ethnicities, races, even religions (or lack thereof). So I don’t think this “reconstructed English mythology” point can help too much in arguing that only whites should be cast for Middle-earth acting roles.
Just to add to Manchu's point about the mythology here and some of what's been said.
As an archaeologist and someone who heavily studies Prehistory and the Early Medieval period. The term "Anglo-Saxon" although it has since been co-opted by neo-nazi groups online, does not mean White.
The fact that Tolkein's work has been used by these people to promote the idea of an all white fantasy, is brought up entirely of their mythology of the past which simply didn't exist.
Given that there is a notable shift in Tolkein's writing between the Hobbit and LoTR, I find he was far more aware of that post-war. Certainly in his attitudes to Dwarves.
Historically, there were plenty of non-white people living in Britain. So although people love to think of the past based on their own nationalist identity, it simply does not work like that. Tolkein at heart was a scholar and understood how history worked. That's how the Hobbit came into being after all, bringing Beowulf into life in a way that hadn't been truly done before. An ever-changing story based on the sources and knowledge that we have and our own interpretation based on better understanding.
And again, based on Tolkein's own descriptions of characters, there's zero reason not to have non-white people in the show.
I really don't care what petty reason you have for arguing the toss about that, because it will always be refutable.
Having non-white actors does not exclude white actors.
Aecus Decimus wrote: Referring to a clearly visible distinguishing feature does not imply any kind of causal argument.
Real-world racism is totally superficial, considering we’re all human, and generally real-world racial slurs therefore reference external physical differences. But racial tensions between Elves and Men in Middle-earth are not based on physical appearance, so it’s misaligned that the slur the writers came up with (well, stole from Dragon Age) references that. It would make more sense for Men to use a slur that references, from the perspective of Men, the Elves’ inability to forgive and forget the past — but that would be a lot harder to write, and maybe the point the writers really wanted to go for was making racism in Middle-earth relatable to the audience by framing it as real-world racism. In Middle-earth, it would probably be really racially loaded for an Elf to describe a Man as “forgetful” but that is hard to get across to the audience.
Aecus Decimus wrote: Referring to a clearly visible distinguishing feature does not imply any kind of causal argument.
Real-world racism is totally superficial, considering we’re all human, and generally real-world racial slurs therefore reference external physical differences. But racial tensions between Elves and Men in Middle-earth are not based on physical appearance, so it’s misaligned that the slur the writers came up with (well, stole from Dragon Age) references that. It would make more sense for Men to use a slur that references, from the perspective of Men, the Elves’ inability to forgive and forget the past — but that would be a lot harder to write, and maybe the point the writers really wanted to go for was making racism in Middle-earth relatable to the audience by framing it as real-world racism. In Middle-earth, it would probably be really racially loaded for an Elf to describe a Man as “forgetful” but that is hard to get across to the audience.
I agree that the knife ears thing was awful and jarring. But I can presume the decision was made to make it unsubtle as possible, to make sure everyone watching was aware.
Yes, I totally forgive the terrible “knife ears” line given the larger context is explained that the real tension is the Elves don’t distinguish these Men living today from their ancestors who served Morgoth thousands of years previously — which is pretty fething racist!
Manchu wrote: In Middle-earth, it would probably be really racially loaded for an Elf to describe a Man as “forgetful” but that is hard to get across to the audience.
Which raises a point: the characters aren't speaking modern English. They're speaking the languages of Middle Earth, translated for a real-world audience. So you could argue that they are referencing something like the elves judging them for the sins of their ancestors but the unfamiliar word is translated to something the audience is more likely to understand. They aren't literally saying "knife ears" in their language, but that's the best English translation for the concept of an anti-elf slur.
Or maybe they're just not operating on that higher level. A well-educated elf with thousands of years of wisdom might go for something like "forgetful" with every bit of connotation that it doesn't have in English, but the character making the comment is obviously living in poverty and ignorance (likely enforced by the elves). Going for the superficial appearance attack is the easy one, the one that even an uneducated peasant farmer with no knowledge of history beyond "grandpa did some bad stuff" can understand.
Shadow Walker wrote: Exactly. The original context of my post was, that anyone who says anything about forcing our world's racial diversity into fantasy races will be accused of being a racist.
Well yes, because the root of that complaint is inevitably racism. There is no reason that Middle Earth shouldn't have racial diversity and let's be honest here, the vast majority of the time someone is complaining about it it's because they're a racist who hates seeing non-white characters in "their" fiction.
It was not about the Middle Earth only but generally about fantasy races in movies/shows. My whole point was, how ridiculous is to force our world's racial diversity to fantasy races just because white people guilt for wrongdoings of their past. I am sick of being accused of some hidden motives (like racism or whatever) just because I am being white, and therefore I am artificially limited of what I can say. Give me the valid in world/universe reasons why suddenly a particular fantasy race shows diversity that mimics ours, and I would have no problem with it. Just as I have no problems with House Valaryon in HotD being black, because it can be fully and plausibly explained with in world logic (like them being a sailor, non dragon raider, house that would/could mix with other people due to their voyages etc.). But I have a problem when this show creators say that the reason was that they do not want a show with a bunch of white people. The racism works in both ways. You cannot solve past injustice while creating the new one.
I think your translation point is interesting but it lets the writers off the hook too easily. I know they’re capable of better than “knife ears”!
As to “knife ears” coming from a simpleton’s perspective, the problem there is that the simpleton wouldn’t think to call out the ears because the ears aren’t the problem. It’d be like a Man calling an Elf “fancy cloak”; while the Elves do indeed have better-made clothes than these villagers, that’s not what the villagers resent about them.
Shadow Walker wrote: Give me the valid in world/universe reasons why suddenly a particular fantasy race shows diversity that mimics ours, and I would have no problem with it.
Give me the valid in-universe reason why it shouldn't.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Manchu wrote: I think your translation point is interesting but it lets the writers off the hook too easily. I know they’re capable of better than “knife ears”!
Maybe. But is the objection because it's a bad line in isolation, or because we're in the minority of viewers that have played a bunch of Dragon Age and strongly associate it with that setting? For me it feels like more of the second, it's cringe-worthy because it's such a blatant ripoff but I don't know that I'd feel the same way if I'd never heard it before.
As to “knife ears” coming from a simpleton’s perspective, the problem there is that the simpleton wouldn’t think to call out the ears because the ears aren’t the problem. It’d be like a Man calling an Elf “fancy cloak”; while the Elves do indeed have better-made clothes than these villagers, that’s not what the villagers resent about them.
There are plenty of real-world racial slurs that work that way. Skin color is the popular choice for many of them, not because it is somehow causal or central to the hatred, but because it's the most visible sign of difference. It's as simple as "they've got pointy ears, we don't", and much easier to turn into a one or two word insult than the actual sources of resentment.
Shadow Walker wrote: Give me the valid in world/universe reasons why suddenly a particular fantasy race shows diversity that mimics ours, and I would have no problem with it.
Give me the valid in-universe reason why it shouldn't.
I ''love'' that kind of responses. Have it anyway. Firstly, was it created like that by the particular author the movie/show is based on, or is that just (insert all the reasons the showrunners already said)? Secondly, is those races' biology identical/very close with ours (so for example, is their evolution solving the problems with a too much sun, using the same mechanics as ours? Any of this is enough to me but when you are trying to force it (insert all the reasons...) then it feels forced not natural.
Manchu wrote: I definitely think recognizing it from Dragon Age is what made me cringe the hardest, I’ll give you that!
Thinking on it, what really makes it jump out as inappropriate is that in the Dragon Age context "knife ear" is always said with contempt by the oppressor. The humans have won, elves are the defeated underclass living in poverty in the worst part of the city, and the tone of voice is always like a white plantation owner talking to one of his black slaves and making it very clear just how sub-human the slave is. And after hearing it so many times in the game that tone is inseparable from the words. But in RoP the elves are the oppressor and the person saying "knife ear" is the defeated peasant. So it's jarring to hear that implicit tone in a place where it's completely inappropriate. But I don't think someone who wasn't familiar with Dragon Age would have that same connotation on the words and have it stand out as much.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Shadow Walker wrote: Firstly, was it created like that by the particular author the movie/show is based on, or is that just (insert all the reasons the showrunners already said)?
Good question. I asked earlier for canon examples or statements by Tolkien that all of the inhabitants of Middle Earth are white, and that real-world racial diversity is not present. Do you have any of those, or merely your own imagination's images of what Middle Earth looks like?
Secondly, is those races' biology identical/very close with ours (so for example, is their evolution solving the problems with a too much sun, using the same mechanics as ours? Any of this is enough to me but when you are trying to force it (insert all the reasons...) then it feels forced not natural.
Do you ask the same question about why elves have pointy ears, or why all dwarves have beards?
Good question. I asked earlier for canon examples or statements by Tolkien that all of the inhabitants of Middle Earth are white, and that real-world racial diversity is not present. Do you have any of those, or merely your own imagination's images of what Middle Earth looks like?
So using your own method: are there any canon examples of racial diversity mimicking ours or is this your/showrunners own imagination?
Do you ask the same question about why elves have pointy ears, or why all dwarves have beards?
Why should I ask this in the context of our discussion? How is it relevant? They were created like this by the author. When you suddenly wanted to make dwarves 2 metre hight or elves having 1 metre hight just because you do not want to offend both big and small people (being offended in our world because of their hight) then it would be even slightly comparable.
Shadow Walker wrote: So using your own method: are there any canon examples of racial diversity mimicking ours or is this your/showrunners own imagination?
I don't have to provide anything. You're the one objecting to it as a contradiction of Tolkien's work. If neither of us can provide any canon sources then we're left with the conclusion that Tolkien himself is silent on the issue and the RoP interpretation is as valid as any other.
Why should I ask this in the context of our discussion? How is it relevant? They were created like this by the author. When you suddenly wanted to make dwarves 2 metre hight or elves having 1 metre hight just because you do not want to offend both big and small people (being offended in our world because of their hight) then it would be even slightly comparable.
Now you're moving the goalposts. Tall dwarves would be a contradiction of Tolkien's work because he explicitly says they aren't tall. No such canon statement exists about skin color, you had to make the argument that it would be unrealistic for races in Middle Earth to have different skin colors because they didn't follow the real-world evolutionary history. And if you're going to be upset about black elves being bad for evolutionary reasons I'd better see your defense of why all dwarves would evolve to have beards.
I have not played Dragon Age… the only time I have heard the slur “knife ears” said was at Drachenfest (a big larp in Germany). I found it then, as I also found in the show, a poor slur. But then I also see Elves as much more than Humans with pointy ears. Galadriel trying to hide her ears on the raft seemed ridiculous to me because if nothing else her other than Human beauty and grace, let alone her Elven made clothing and dagger would give her away as non-Human. Her “other than Humanly graceful fighting” displayed against the Troll would be difficult to mask even if she was trying to appear clumsy.
Many of my thoughts on the racial aspects of this discussion have been better articulated by Olthannon and in general I agree with him.
As an American of Irish/Welsh/Croatian descent the idea of Tolkien only writing a Nordic/Scandavian/Anglo-Saxon mythology for the English rather… insulting/foolish/misguided. It is a complex set of emotions that the idea evokes in me. And the idea that a number of people seem to think “White European Male culture ”is being ignored/stolen/corrupted by this show evokes a similarly complex set of emotions however it really illustrates a core cultural divide in our contemporary society. A divide also present in Tolkien‘s lifetime and I can not but wonder how he would have taken to this discussion.
I must admit that I expected this show to suffer the same kinds of flaws I have seen in Star Trek Discovery, Picard, Wheel of Time, and the last few Star Wars movies. I was prepared to be disappointed by this show so maybe I went in with low expectations and I am just happy that so far it seems to be doing much better than I expected. I have seen a number of people say that the show is fine as generic Fantasy but it needs to do much better to be worthy of Tolkien. Of course it does! What writers can expect to be elevated to the level of Tolkien? Perhaps some folks are expecting a bit too much but I suppose the showrunners set themselves up for this by wanting to tackle a story of Galadriel. “A” story of Galadriel. Not “THE” story of Galadriel. Not even Tolkien was set on what was “THE” story of Galadriel.
In a way it reminds me of Mad Max and creator of Mad Max said the movies were stories of the myth of Mad Max so of course they were inconsistent or even contradictory and without a clear timeline. This frustrated me at first but I have come to accept it. I suppose I will need to do the same here, as even Tolkien has different backstories for Galadriel depending on where you look.
And the inclusion of the Harfoots so far seems better than Lucas and his decision to add Ewoks to Return of the Jedi.
EDIT: I will also add it makes me incredibly sad that real world racial conflict makes this thread spend more time on skin color of actors than the use of plate armor instead of scale and maille armor.
I don't have to provide anything. You're the one objecting to it as a contradiction of Tolkien's work. If neither of us can provide any canon sources then we're left with the conclusion that Tolkien himself is silent on the issue and the RoP interpretation is as valid as any other.
Which means the only reason they are there is just because the showrunners wanted it because their particular world view.
Now you're moving the goalposts. Tall dwarves would be a contradiction of Tolkien's work because he explicitly says they aren't tall. No such canon statement exists about skin color, you had to make the argument that it would be unrealistic for races in Middle Earth to have different skin colors because they didn't follow the real-world evolutionary history. And if you're going to be upset about black elves being bad for evolutionary reasons I'd better see your defense of why all dwarves would evolve to have beards.
I never said it would be unrealistic to have racial diversity as ours but wanted the reasons why it would be the same. Are there any in world reasons telling that their biology is the same or not? If their biology differs than what is a reason they look like us. No problem with whatever color elves etc. are, but be it more than that ''our world is made of various shades of skin so all fantasy races need to reflect this or the show will be attacked for being racistic''.
Ah, the beard thing is what bothers me the most. Why, oh why wasn't Disa given a proper, massive beard? I'm here for stout hirsute androgyny, to balance the tall, smooth, elven androgyny.
Actually... the elves aren't that androgynous either in this version. They really didn't go for lean, pretty dudes this time.
Which means the only reason they are there is just because the showrunners wanted it because their particular world view.
Hey ‘member where it was claimed no-one had claimed folk were cast simply because they’re not white and I was told nobody had made such a claim then I demonstrated they had?
I ‘member.
And there you go again.
Again, please provide evidence anyone cast in The Rings of Power isn’t there on merit, but melanin.
Hey ‘member where it was claimed no-one had claimed folk were cast simply because they’re not white and I was told nobody had made such a claim then I demonstrated they had?
I ‘member.
And there you go again.
Again, please provide evidence anyone cast in The Rings of Power isn’t there on merit, but melanin.
I’ll wait.
@Manchu had already answered you - the creators stated that they wanted the racial diversity there.
I don’t think Middle-earth should “reflect what the world actually looks like” — for example, should Amazon’s goal be that 18% of Middle-earthers are portrayed by Han Chinese?
To me, the better way to put it is that real-world racial categories have no meaning in Middle-earth. Disa is portrayed by a black actress BUT Disa is NOT a black dwarf. There aren’t black Dwarves and white Dwarves; there are just Dwarves. In the real world, white people have many different skin tones; black people have many different skin tones; etc, etc. There is no reason that, in Middle-earth, Dwarves would not have many different skin tones — and there is also no reason why those skin tones would particularly matter to them. Same goes for Elves, Men, and Hobbits.
There are two separate issues:
- in Middle-earth, real-world race is meaningless
- in the real-world, the producers have a goal of casting some non-white actors
The second issue exists because of real-world concerns, which have virtually nothing to do with Middle-earth. There’s no point in arguing over whether or not there are non-white people in Middle-earth considering that there are no white people in Middle-earth, either; these categories have nothing to do with Middle-earth.
So leaving that aside, the remaining question is whether one thinks it is appropriate to have a goal of employing X or X% non-whites. I don’t think we’re going to make any headway on that issue ITT.
Which means the only reason they are there is just because the showrunners wanted it because their particular world view.
Hey ‘member where it was claimed no-one had claimed folk were cast simply because they’re not white and I was told nobody had made such a claim then I demonstrated they had?
I ‘member.
And there you go again.
Again, please provide evidence anyone cast in The Rings of Power isn’t there on merit, but melanin.
I’ll wait.
100% totally agree - who is not pulling their weight as an actor? All are stellar. While I can see many of the parts are going to be one race color, as Tolkien envisioned, I see no issue with any part being given to any color actor on their acting merit. I think it might be short-sighted to insist every single person be anglo-caucasian simply because the source material was assumed (and probably written) to be that way. We are a long time past all of that today.
Edit: And, sorry, I like my fantasy version of dwarven women without beards, whether Tolkien envisioned them way or not.
Aecus Decimus wrote: mere inspiration doesn't mean an absolute rule that Middle Earth must be mythological England and nothing else
Agreed, especially because even if it was the case that Tolkien’s only or primary intent was to create an English mythology (which is, again, just a theory anyhow) the actual reception of his work goes well beyond that goal.
I think it’s worth pointing out that Tolkien was devoutly religious and considered his work to be fundamentally Catholic. Unlike the theory about English mythology, he made this point explicitly himself. But it’s abundantly clear that his work has been received by people of many different faiths or none. It’s nor more “just for Catholics” than it is “just for English”.
I want to hammer Manchu's point a bit more.
If anyone has any interests to "how Tolkien became Tolkien", I'd recommend this book:
A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War: How J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis Rediscovered Faith, Friendship, and Heroism in the Cataclysm of 1914-1918
The author here really makes that point that Tolkien's Middle Earth is really about man's place in the world, with a religious context, in a subtle manner. If you know your religion, especially Catholicism, you'd easily be able to pick out religious references/allegories throughout his works.
Aecus Decimus wrote: mere inspiration doesn't mean an absolute rule that Middle Earth must be mythological England and nothing else
Agreed, especially because even if it was the case that Tolkien’s only or primary intent was to create an English mythology (which is, again, just a theory anyhow) the actual reception of his work goes well beyond that goal.
I think it’s worth pointing out that Tolkien was devoutly religious and considered his work to be fundamentally Catholic. Unlike the theory about English mythology, he made this point explicitly himself. But it’s abundantly clear that his work has been received by people of many different faiths or none. It’s nor more “just for Catholics” than it is “just for English”.
I want to hammer Manchu's point a bit more.
If anyone has any interests to "how Tolkien became Tolkien", I'd recommend this book: A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War: How J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis Rediscovered Faith, Friendship, and Heroism in the Cataclysm of 1914-1918
The author here really makes that point that Tolkien's Middle Earth is really about man's place in the world, with a religious context, in a subtle manner. If you know your religion, especially Catholicism, you'd easily be able to pick out religious references/allegories throughout his works.
Which is nice in a scholarly kind of way, but also The Author Is Dead. Both literally and figuratively. Frankly, any religious intent they had doesn't matter. Or any intent for that matter. If thats what YOU want to get out of the work then thats great. And others taking something completely different out of the work is equally valid. Tolkien's intent does not survive the distribution and consumption of the work.
The Death of the Author is a form of literary analysis. It is not some divine rule for interpretation bestowed upon us from the heavens. His intent may not matter to you but does that not mean that it did not matter to him or does not matter to others.
A better "set in stone rule" would be that adaptations without the direct oversight of the original author cease to be the work of said author. Disney's Star Wars is not Lucas' Star Wars. Roddenberry's Star Trek is not modern Star Trek or even any Star Trek after ST:TPM. This is where the divide occurs. Some fans regard the new work as equivalent to the original. Others simply want more of the original and reject the new interpretations. In the case of LOTR even a well-regarded adaptation such as Jackson's LOTR films deviated heavily from the source material but was significantly less divisive because it was perceived as being a "love letter" to the original work whereas The Rings of Power is an adaptation that draws far more heavily from modern culture.
Ultimately this discussion is pointless...no adaptation is ever really true to the original author's work. This is not necessarily a bad thing but claiming that The Rings of Power is somehow true to Tolkien's vision or intent is frankly absurd.
My ultimate criticism is of modern media capatalizing off of existing IPs because they have a built-in fanbase and some degree of guaranteed success while claiming that their product is somehow true to the original author's intent when said author or creator is dead or otherwise not remotely involved.
I guess this will not be to everyones taste but it made me laugh
That aside, what is the deal with Amazon delaying viewers reviews of TROP? Do they really think it will help the show? Do they really think that every review judging the show as bad is written by some troll/nazi/insert the usual nonsense explanation?
Let's not start wheeling in YouTube's famously gakky takes, that's not going to bring people's tempers down and I'd like for this thread not to get closed.
Grumpy Gnome wrote: I will also add it makes me incredibly sad that real world racial conflict makes this thread spend more time on skin color of actors than the use of plate armor instead of scale and maille armor.
This. Middle-earth is a mythological realm, all the peoples of the world springing out of it after they were placed there by Iluvatar. If some are black then they are because God made them so, and that is what they are. I'd prefer that to the show claiming they are explicitly Taleri or Vanyar.
So let's talk about the armour instead. Everywhere I look it's people complaining about the stuff they wear on the boat - and I'm not convinced that's not like, really old or ceremonial or something. The plate in the flashbacks looked fine, and the chainmail in the north sequence, with the stars woven in I thought looked really good!
I did not mind the plate, specifically because it seemed ceremonial.
I was more bothered by the Green Man armour. It felt like someone had leftovers from a different fantasy show, which is not likely given the budget. Just a really weird design choice for what should be practical combat gear.
All this talk about minorities, but nobody is appreciating the quality writing that tells us that rocks sink because they look downwards, while boats float because they look upwards; but then how do you know which way is up if the light from the sun/tree reflects off the water. That's the less we should all learn, because the immortal elf who doesn't have a word for death won't be here forever.
...wha..?
Captain Joystick wrote: Let's not start wheeling in YouTube's famously gakky takes, that's not going to bring people's tempers down and I'd like for this thread not to get closed.
Grumpy Gnome wrote: I will also add it makes me incredibly sad that real world racial conflict makes this thread spend more time on skin color of actors than the use of plate armor instead of scale and maille armor.
This. Middle-earth is a mythological realm, all the peoples of the world springing out of it after they were placed there by Iluvatar. If some are black then they are because God made them so, and that is what they are. I'd prefer that to the show claiming they are explicitly Taleri or Vanyar.
So let's talk about the armour instead. Everywhere I look it's people complaining about the stuff they wear on the boat - and I'm not convinced that's not like, really old or ceremonial or something. The plate in the flashbacks looked fine, and the chainmail in the north sequence, with the stars woven in I thought looked really good!
I seem to recall reading various folks online talking about the Elves having armor like “the scales of fish” and Dwarves inventing maille. No mention of plate beyond perhaps vambraces? But I may be misremembering. It was a hot topic a few times over on the Lead Adventure Forum and forms part of the foundation of the Dark Ages aesthetics that several Tolkien fans have created.
Doing a bit of quick research on the plate armor, her “ceremonial armor” does not look as bad in the still as I remember… perhaps it was something with how it looked as it was being removed. It looked too much like a prop. Now, if the showrunners are going to sell me on Elven plate, the second photo does a better job. And that was the thing with Jackson. His vision of Gondor armor and Uruk-Hai armor was very different from mine…. but he sold it to me by looking cool enough for me to give him a pass on them.
I would not be keen to wear maille in Arctic cold.. but if I did, having cool looking stars in the armor is a nice touch. ⭐️
Edit: I did not mind the Green Man leather leaf amor. I was not particularly keen on it but nor did it bother me. It is not what I would have chosen but it was better than how the Wheel of Time showrunners decided to design the costuming for the Whitecloaks. I know, I know… low bar and all that.
And I like Elves that can have long hair to have long hair. But I am not precious about it. I can as easily except a bearded Cirdan as a short haired, dark skinned Arondir. Elves do not need to be clones. I was a bit irked that Prince Durin's wife (sadly I forget her name just now) did not have facial hair but then I saw she had a bit. I wish they had gone for more. I like the idea of beards for male and female Dwarves, moustaches for the males. Of course this would put a bit of a spin how how Jackson did the looks of the Dwarves in the Hobbit.
Shadow Walker wrote: That aside, what is the deal with Amazon delaying viewers reviews of TROP? Do they really think it will help the show? Do they really think that every review judging the show as bad is written by some troll/nazi/insert the usual nonsense explanation?
Yes, they accurately think the majority of one-star reviews are by racists and/or trolls and are not a valid assessment of the show's quality. Do you dispute that the show is being review bombed like that?
(And please keep in mind that a one-star review means you believe this show is among the worst ever created, not merely flawed or not to your specific taste.)
Gitzbitah wrote: ...I definitely regret the loss of detail of the magical barrow blades the hobbits carried and their role in slaying the Witch King, but an extra 30 minutes of Tom Bombadil singing about his yellow boots would not be worth it.
I do not regret that loss. Mostly because it was kind of bad storytelling to have extreme coincidences that solve the heroes' problems, and that's all that really is.
They just randomly find those daggers for no reason and take them with them for equally no reason and only after killing the Witch King of Angmar is it revealed that this hobbit has been carrying around a dagger created with the magic power to wound the Witch King of Angmar specifically- AND it undermines the more interesting gaes story (the Macbeth style prophesy) of how the Witch King is defeated.
That everything sort of hinged on that innocuous moment reminds me of the story of how the little red droid that malfunctioned in A New Hope was force sensitive and was able to see into the future and know that if he malfunctioned at this exact moment it would lead to the downfall of the Empire. And it FEELS like a retcon (because Tolkien didn't revise as much as he should have).
with already finished stories. Do something new. 
