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Post by johnnypt on Oct 6, 2022 0:29:48 GMT -5
The look of the show is definitely a fair criticism. Sometimes it looks breath taking, other times it looks like the Friends set. That’s what happens when you make a TV show, it doesn’t always get a movie look.
Just like I have the Hart of Dixie standard on how a show deals with race and things along those lines, the woke scale has a definite lodestone:And Just Like That. The level of a show’s wokeness needs to be measured compared to that. With Rings of Power, if AJLT is 10, I’d put the show itself between .5 and a 1. Other than a stress on women protagonists, I haven’t seen all that much of it in the show itself. The marketing campaign however I’d put in the 8-9 range. It stressed so many things that aren’t actually in the show. That’s the thing that put a bad taste in a lot of people’s mouths.
They just announced Season 2 has begun shooting and will be staying in London for the most part. Something tells me they’re trying to bring the costs under control. It also may help in getting some big name actors on the show without having to travel all the way to New Zealand.
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Post by moonlightshadow on Oct 6, 2022 8:31:38 GMT -5
Having not seen anything other than the trailers the thing that bothers me most regarding the so-called "wokeness" of the show is that they apparently randomly cast coloured people for various roles instead of creating more roles for black and asian actors in a smart, thoughtful and logical manner.
Middle-earth has plenty of space for people of all kinds of ethnicity to evolve. Even a mediocre screenwriter should find it easy to create some heroic characters from those southern and eastern regions into the story.
Instead they apparently chose to have randomly black elves, dwarves, harfoots and men among the people of Middle-earth. That is so stupid that the "suspension of disbelieve" just doesn't work anymore for me. (For the same reason I stopped watching "The Wheel of Time" after one episode). I just don't understand WHY they did this? Is it an american thing? I'm german and every single person I talked to about this found the multi-coloured casts of TWOT and TROP ridiculous. If I point this out in american forums I'm usually quickly called a racist and that's another thing I don't understand. I'm not a racist and the people I talked to about this aren't racists either. I HATE racism in any form. I absolutely have NOTHING against having coloured or asian heroes in movies and TV series, some of my favourite movies have black heroes, but their skin colour has to make SENSE.
Having randomly black elves and dwarves in Middle-earth makes no sense, having a black viking queen (in "Vikings: Valhalla") makes no sense.
If you absolutely have to bring people of different races into each and every story do it in a reasonable and believable way. Better yet, between all the diverse shows create some stories with only white, only black or only asian characters (or only men or only women) if the story calls for it.
Why not film Ursula K. Le Guin's "Earthsea" novels or Carles Saunders' "Imaro" novels. They could use almost exclusively black actors and I would love that.
This "every story has to include every race, gender and sexual orientation" attitude is killing creativity and makes all the shows so boring and predictable.
Coming back to "The Rings of Power" I absolutely plan to watch at least a few episodes, I just haven't gotten around to it yet. I fear that, being a lifelong Tolkien fan, I will be very disappointed.
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Post by robp on Oct 6, 2022 9:18:23 GMT -5
Having not seen anything other than the trailers the thing that bothers me most regarding the so-called "wokeness" of the show is that they apparently randomly cast coloured people for various roles instead of creating more roles for black and asian actors in a smart, thoughtful and logical manner. Instead they apparently chose to have randomly black elves, dwarves, harfoots and men among the people of Middle-earth. "They were shorter and smaller than the other breeds, browner of skin, had no beards, and did not wear any footwear; Their hands and feet were neat and nimble. They liked highlands and hillsides, and lived in holes they called smials, a habit which they long preserved. They were accustomed to settle in one place longer" - Tolkien Tolkien only ever describes one elf as having specifically white skin, though he uses "far" and "pale" for others: "As Maeglin grew to full stature he resembled in face and form rather his kindred of the Noldor […] He was tall and black-haired; his eyes were dark, yet bright and keen as the eyes of the Noldor, and his skin was white." We know he based Numenor on Ancient Egypt. The dwarves are hardly given any physical description at all, and no skin colours are ever mentioned for any of their tribes afaik. TBH there are far larger issues of lore that bother me, such as the mithril / elves fading, or how Mount Doom suddenly pops up in the way it does. Having said that, I'm enjoying RoP more than HotD so far, I find it more engaging.
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Post by johnnypt on Oct 6, 2022 9:19:11 GMT -5
It's very frustrating. When you're doing an ancient/medieval type story, there were peoples who set themselves apart because of their similarities, there were tribes and other communal organizations, and it's OK to show them as such! I actually don't outwardly mind the Harfoots being all kinds of different types, but I didn't see the absolute necessity for it either. Cast the best actors for the roles and leave it at that. The whole John Boyega Star Wars situation, he probably WAS the best actor for that role in that film. Then they wanted to create this whole other story, then it got lost in the shuffle and race may or may not have had something to do with it. They created that problem for themselves. On House of the Dragon, they tried to have it make sense as one group of people. I guess it also helped set them apart instead of being two sets of incestuous albinos running around.
I think it probably does stem from America since we're a heterogenous society of all types of people. The thing is now there's a strain of thought that if it wasn't like this back then, it was absolutely wrong and evil and we have to correct it, when sometimes it just WAS. We know of the instances where it definitely wasn't voluntary and I don't see anyone really sticking up for that.
This whole push has done the series a disservice because thus far, it's NOT concentrating on that at all. There's a lot of Tolkien in there (there's also some iify things but that's expected) and it certainly can be enjoyed on that level. Frankly the people who wanted to concentrate on this aspect of it (and on some level She Hulk for that matter) should actually be disappointed.
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Post by moonlightshadow on Oct 6, 2022 11:32:53 GMT -5
robp, you have a point. Casting Numenoreans with actors of middle-eastern descent would have been a cool idea.
Making ALL Harfoots darker skinned would have been acceptable for me too (since we don't know much about them from Tolkien's books anyway).
What I (and many others) find ridiculous is that all these cultures in the series are mixed races, as if Middle-earth would have the same racial mix than a US mega-city in the 21st century. That's completely nuts but maybe americans think differently about it because it reflects their daily life.
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Post by johnnypt on Oct 6, 2022 12:57:08 GMT -5
robp, you have a point. Casting Numenoreans with actors of middle-eastern descent would have been a cool idea. Making ALL Harfoots darker skinned would have been acceptable for me too (since we don't know much about them from Tolkien's books anyway). What I (and many others) find ridiculous is that all these cultures in the series are mixed races, as if Middle-earth would have the same racial mix than a US mega-city in the 21st century. That's completely nuts but maybe americans think differently about it because it reflects their daily life. The problem would be flooding the Numenoreans would be insensitive at that point. We're in a time when Friends, one of the most popular TV shows for over 20 years, is seen as practically racist and stereotypical of the gay community when back then it was groundbreaking! And Ross dated everything under the sun, didn't matter what race, what country, hey he even married a lesbian!
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Post by Von K on Oct 6, 2022 18:28:35 GMT -5
This article is from June 16th 2021:
Tarantino's perspective on the broader picture, from an interview in May/June of 2021 I believe:
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Post by johnnypt on Oct 6, 2022 18:34:37 GMT -5
Quentin summed it up well. They're also starting to learn another lesson: Ideology costs us money.
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Post by Von K on Oct 6, 2022 20:21:00 GMT -5
Thanks for the update and recap johnnypt. Like the Dylan ref!
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Post by crimsonblade on Oct 6, 2022 21:14:35 GMT -5
This article is from June 16th 2021: Tarantino's perspective on the broader picture, from an interview in May/June of 2021 I believe: I wonder how much Jennifer Salke is behind this and how much is by committee by their board of directors. Whatever the case, thank Crom Conan got out of that mess. Just a shame we lost Ryan Condal as the show runner.
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Post by hyrkanian on Oct 7, 2022 6:33:22 GMT -5
Instead they apparently chose to have randomly black elves, dwarves, harfoots and men among the people of Middle-earth. That is so stupid that the "suspension of disbelieve" just doesn't work anymore for me. (For the same reason I stopped watching "The Wheel of Time" after one episode). I just don't understand WHY they did this? Is it an american thing? Tarantino's perspective on the broader picture, from an interview in May/June of 2021 I believe: + 1
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Post by bonesaw on Oct 7, 2022 6:53:45 GMT -5
For the record, the dumpster fire that is the new Star Wars movies actors were also selected first and foremost by race before any of the script was even written. Then, when yoy look at the final product, it isn't a coincidence that zero white males were depicted in a positive way, or prowess and virility. I haven't watched any of the new LOTR, but read detailed synopsizes. Then, I read about a scene where some human workers were complaining about being replaced by elves. Literally saying, "Elves will not replace us!" Then I saw the screencap. The Nazi-looking salute not a coincidence. Neither is it a coincidence that you don't see any "diversity" in this scene either. Very calculated to the last detail to ensure this mimics a Trump rally. It is, yet again, another stone thrown on the mountain meant to normalize hatred toward white conservatives (especially white conservative men). Sorry for my two cents here, but from what I have read, this show is complete shit. Dick dribbles. Anal warts. It offers nothing to fans. Nothing to new people. They would have been better off spinning Troll 2 into a mini series. And what's worse is that Tolkien's family sold his soul this. I think I am going to throw all of his works that I own into the rubbish bin. If they don't care, why should I?
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Post by johnnypt on Oct 7, 2022 9:00:00 GMT -5
For the record, the dumpster fire that is the new Star Wars movies actors were also selected first and foremost by race before any of the script was even written. Then, when yoy look at the final product, it isn't a coincidence that zero white males were depicted in a positive way, or prowess and virility. I haven't watched any of the new LOTR, but read detailed synopsizes. Then, I read about a scene where some human workers were complaining about being replaced by elves. Literally saying, "Elves will not replace us!" Then I saw the screencap. The Nazi-looking salute not a coincidence. Neither is it a coincidence that you don't see any "diversity" in this scene either. Very calculated to the last detail to ensure this mimics a Trump rally. It is, yet again, another stone thrown on the mountain meant to normalize hatred toward white conservatives (especially white conservative men). Sorry for my two cents here, but from what I have read, this show is complete shit. Dick dribbles. Anal warts. It offers nothing to fans. Nothing to new people. They would have been better off spinning Troll 2 into a mini series. And what's worse is that Tolkien's family sold his soul this. I think I am going to throw all of his works that I own into the rubbish bin. If they don't care, why should I? To be fair in seven episodes, this is the only scene where it overtly approaches any modern commentary. It's clunky, totally unsubtle...and over in 45 seconds, never to be referred to again. Like I said, I almost think this was the bone they threw to the mob to placate them. This was in an episode devoted to explorations of Judeo-Christian faith, so it's like a distraction. They're happy they attack Trump/MAGA for less than a minute while the whole rest of the episode talks about having faith in things greater than themselves and to not abandon the old ways so quickly because it leads to trouble. I doubt it was that calculated in the writers minds, but it worked out that way. The problem with tossing it in is it gives critics the material they were worried about showing up. The behind the scenes approach of playing up the diversity over practically everything else has done the series an enormous disservice. Thankfully it has not been the focus of the show. Hell, my approach to the Silmarillion would drive Tolkien purists nuts because I'd have one in each of the three great tales where they're really only in Beren & Lutihen, then have them come together again at the end to have them disposed as it happened. Like Lincoln said, don't always believe everything you see on the internet.
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Post by bonesaw on Oct 7, 2022 11:07:13 GMT -5
As someone who is directly in the thick of this garbage where I work and live, it is impossible for me not to carry around extreme resentment against this kind of thing. I don't care if it was only 45 seconds. I can't relate to giving this show or any other form of media that contains the same anti-white propaganda the time of day.
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Post by Jason Aiken on Oct 7, 2022 14:07:59 GMT -5
The show is not anti-white that I've seen, but it is certainly "woke."
But let's focus on the new episode that came out today and less on character's ethnicities, etc...
I still need to watch it, should be interesting given the events of last week's episode.
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