Lord of the Rings TV Series Purchased by Amazon

[Adamas102]

The problem is with the writers and producers, who far too often tend to think that diversity = quality, and that if they just write/cast diverse enough, that's a substitute for good writing/casting in and of itself.

Soooo, you think good writers just decide to phone it in when casting (a completely different production group) makes their casting choices? Even though much of the writing usually comes well before casting? Seems like a stretch…

Even ignoring that little detail, this is in the context of fantasy races which have no connection to our real world races. The character of Arondil is a Sylvanas elf, just like Tauriel. Whether he’s played by a black Englishman, white New Zealander, or (in this case) a Puerto Rican doesn’t really have any bearing on how he’s written. He’s just an elf.

The only example that really comes to mind is the Ghostbusters movie that tried to bank on its cast ad libbing through the movie without a decent script, but at the same time comedians like Will Ferrell and Zack Galifianakis have had their fair share of movies bomb by doing the same. Lazy writers are just lazy regardless of what gender/race they’re writing for.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Soooo, you think good writers just decide to phone it in when casting (a completely different production group) makes their casting choices? Even though much of the writing usually comes well before casting? Seems like a stretch…

Given the amount of times this sort of thing has come up in threads about various shows it’s pretty clear that some people think that having X minority cast for a roll means that role only exist because they wanted a minority not because they could have been a good actor who just so happens to fit.

Pretty much only the white actors can get by on skill while the minority’s are only there so “people can’t call it back without being labeled racist” or “to fit a quota”.

[Biomega]

Soooo, you think good writers just decide to phone it in when casting (a completely different production group) makes their casting choices?

No I don't. I never said as much or suggested anything of the kind.

Even though much of the writing usually comes well before casting? Seems like a stretch…

It seems like a stretch because you decided to go from what I said - "writers and producers" - to just "writers".

Even ignoring that little detail, this is in the context of fantasy races which have no connection to our real world races. The character of Arondil is a Sylvanas elf, just like Tauriel. Whether he’s played by a black Englishman, white New Zealander, or (in this case) a Puerto Rican doesn’t really have any bearing on how he’s written. He’s just an elf.

And that's nothing CLOSE to what I'm talking about.

To use your example, they would take the character Arondil, do a shoddy job writing the story he's involved in, then cast a Puerto Rican and deflect any criticism about the WRITING with a misdirect about the CASTING; or, conversely, critics would use the casting to justify criticism about the writing. Neither is acceptable, because they're both category errors. Writing can (and should) be criticized, and casting can (and should) be criticized, but one does not substitute for the other in either the positive or the negative.

[rogoth]

Given the amount of times this sort of thing has come up in threads about various shows it’s pretty clear that some people think that having X minority cast for a roll means that role only exist because they wanted a minority not because they could have been a good actor who just so happens to fit.

Pretty much only the white actors can get by on skill while the minority’s are only there so “people can’t call it back without being labeled racist” or “to fit a quota”.

except Amazon HAS A POLICY EXPLICITLY DETAILING IT'S MANDATORY TO HAVE A CERTAIN PERCENTAGE MINORITY GROUPS CAST REGARDLESS OF WHETHER THEY FIT THE NARRATIVE OR NOT, and out of the entire 'main' cast of people, not one of them has any major acting credits to their name, they are either completely unknown, or they have had bit parts as extras/small indie projects, i would genuinely be surprised if any of them were better quality than some of the people were reported to have auditioned for these roles when they were doing the acting cast calls back in 2018, but please, tell me how all of these actors are somehow amazing at their job without having much or any prior experience?

[Adamas102]

No I don't. I never said as much or suggested anything of the kind.

I mean, you kinda did by suggesting that there is at least a not-insignificant number of writers and producers who consider diversity to be a substitute for good writing.

"writers and producers, who far too often tend to think that diversity = quality, and that if they just write/cast diverse enough, that's a substitute for good writing/casting in and of itself."

Not specifically for this show, but just in general. Writing good movies/shows isn't easy to begin with (and even great shows can have poorly written scenes/episodes) so even just making the suggestion that a poorly written script can be directly linked to people just phoning it in because of diverse casting choices just reeks of scapegoating minorities.

It seems like a stretch because you decided to go from what I said - "writers and producers" - to just "writers".

Yeah, there is sometimes overlap between the roles, but the whole thing still just seems super convoluted (bordering on conspiracy theory). Outside of having a singular producer who also does the bulk of the writing and is known to be fully in control of the casting process, the suggestion is that a team of professionals who generally handle different parts of the production simply decides to dump millions of dollars into work they know is shoddy just because they apparently believe that the skin color of their actors will make up for it. It's just kinda silly to think that's how movies/shows get made on a regular basis.

And that's nothing CLOSE to what I'm talking about.

To use your example, they would take the character Arondil, do a shoddy job writing the story he's involved in, then cast a Puerto Rican and deflect any criticism about the WRITING with a misdirect about the CASTING; or, conversely, critics would use the casting to justify criticism about the writing. Neither is acceptable, because they're both category errors. Writing can (and should) be criticized, and casting can (and should) be criticized, but one does not substitute for the other in either the positive or the negative.

Again it leans on the super convoluted idea of the creators all agreeing behind closed doors "we did a bad job writing this, we KNOW we did a bad job writing it, we aren't going to fix it, instead we'll just put pressure on casting to cover it up by hiring a minority". Even the worst directors and writers think they're hot shit, so why does bad writing have to be anything but just bad writing? The only deflecting that is obvious is people trying to blame all the stuff they don't like on the dreaded "diversity agenda".

[Lorgar Aurelian]

except Amazon HAS A POLICY EXPLICITLY DETAILING IT'S MANDATORY TO HAVE A CERTAIN PERCENTAGE MINORITY GROUPS CAST REGARDLESS OF WHETHER THEY FIT THE NARRATIVE OR NOT, and out of the entire 'main' cast of people, not one of them has any major acting credits to their name, they are either completely unknown, or they have had bit parts as extras/small indie projects, i would genuinely be surprised if any of them were better quality than some of the people were reported to have auditioned for these roles when they were doing the acting cast calls back in 2018, but please, tell me how all of these actors are somehow amazing at their job without having much or any prior experience?

Don't know about amazon's policy's, don't care. I'm talking in a general sense which is why I said various shows and not just ring of power or amazon shows.

as to actors not being any good at there jobs if they don't have any major acting credits all I can say is that it's an incredibly ignorant stance to have given how many actors go from nobody's/indie's/extras to being big names regularly

[rogoth]

The show isn't going to flop because of any of the crap that people in this thread have been bitching about (casting minorities, action oriented focus on Galadriel, condensed timeline, haircuts, interviews with the showrunners, etc). Believe it or not, the vast majority of people who are going to check out this show aren't coming in with some preconceived notion of how the appendices at the back of the book the probably didn't read should be adapted. They're going to see that the tone and aesthetics match the popular movies that they watched and that there's a recognizable character that bridges things together.

Even if they made the show 100% true to every detail in the source material, it could still flop if things like plot, pacing, acting, and writing make it a boring slog. These are the things that make or break shows. Not dark skinned hobbits and female warriors. If the story is well told with understandable character motivations and arcs, good pacing, clear stakes, captivating plot and action, then it doesn't matter how many people cry about "not MY Galadriel", it's going to do just fine. If it lacks the fundamental principles that make for a good narrative (something that Tolkien didn't leave behind for this part of his work), then it may well fail.

since it's been well established you're an apologist for this type of bullshit media propaganda, here's some data for you:

as of writing this the newest trailer video they released on the main prime video youtube channel has 11M total views, out of that, only 76k people 'liked' the video, even if you account for margins of error that is some of the worst 'positive audience engagement' figures for a major company in the history of youtube and thanks to youtube wanting to shield their big corp brethren by disabling the dislike counter from view, the addon that helps to give a rough estimate based on multiple metrics for measuring data shows a dislike value far in excess of quadruple the 'likes' counter, and even ignoring the 10's of thousands of comments just slating the video and/or meme'ing the video, nobody wants this product outside of you and the rest of the minority singing their praises, even looking at the heavily censored original 'teaser' video from months ago, which is now sitting at just under 31M total views, has a 'like' counter of 129k, based on this data alone, it shows the trend that the people who actually want this project and who are looking forward to it are in the absolute minority, and that in fact the majority of people don't care about it, don't want it, and would prefer if it simply didn't exist, but i'm sure you're going to twist these words of mine like you have done now multiple times to me and seem to do with reckless abandon to anybody else who criticises you and/or this project.

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Don't know about amazon's policy's, don't care. I'm talking in a general sense which is why I said various shows and not just ring of power or amazon shows.

as to actors not being any good at there jobs if they don't have any major acting credits all I can say is that it's an incredibly ignorant stance to have given how many actors go from nobody's/indie's/extras to being big names regularly

those actors are usually the ones who are part of a project that also contains main A-list actors who are cast as the main characters and the unknown/indie actor comes in as a pseudo main character and does a good enough job to set themselves off onto a trajectory of superstardom, not a single movie/tv show that has cast EVERY main character as an unknown/indie actor has ever done well to my knowledge, if you can provide an example i'll happily go and watch it to make my own mind up on it but i don't know of a single big budget production where the main cast are all unknown nobodies or bit part actors with barely any major roles to their names.

and the whole point regarding the miscasting of the dwarven race and elven race is to highlight that the policy Amazon has in place which mandates hiring minority representatives regardless of whether they are fit for the role means that it's likely other production firms have the same or a similar policy, and Amazon faced immense backlash at the time when this policy was made public as it was something that was never meant to be public knowledge.

you can dislike and argue with my or anyone else's opinions on things, but you can't dismiss facts and as long as these moronic mandated diversity policies exist, there is always going to be problems with projects and how they are perceived.

[VMSmith]

Believe it or not, the vast majority of people who are going to check out this show aren't coming in with some preconceived notion

This may well be true, but you do realize that it is a tacit admission that the show is NOT being made for fans of Tolkien's work ... y'know, the people who have some preconceived notion about the material? And, therefore, those people are perfectly within the realm of reasonableness allowed to complain about the fact that the show plays extremely fast and loose with the material that they would prefer to see it adhere to?

Given the amount of times this sort of thing has come up in threads about various shows it’s pretty clear that some people think that having X minority cast for a roll means that role only exist because they wanted a minority not because they could have been a good actor who just so happens to fit.

I've been reading these threads for quite awhile and have not seen this happen even once.

What people have complained about is when X minority is cast for a role that calls for a non-minority actor, which has been admitted by Hollywood execs and people within these threads to be the actual goal. It's been admitted that they don't always cast for acting ability and specifically choose minority actors on occasion simply to fulfill a diversity quota.

I have not seen anyone complain that there are black or brown people in movies or TV shows, otherwise. Please point to me one review of West Side Story that complains that it has too many Latin actors in it.

Maybe you think a black dwarf is brave casting, but many people can see that it's simply pushing an agenda in what is ostensibly a form of entertainment. But if this show included a black Haradrim who saves the day at some point and becomes a valued ally (eta I forgot the Hradrim did not exist until later, as they were descended from the Numenoreans, so this could not really happen anyway. If we care about lore at all.)

[s_bushido]

except Amazon HAS A POLICY EXPLICITLY DETAILING IT'S MANDATORY TO HAVE A CERTAIN PERCENTAGE MINORITY GROUPS CAST REGARDLESS OF WHETHER THEY FIT THE NARRATIVE OR NOT

Good lord.

Who gives a shit.

Even if that were true, the only way it could possibly impact the quality of the production is if you believe minorities are inherently inferior.

out of the entire 'main' cast of people, not one of them has any major acting credits to their name, they are either completely unknown, or they have had bit parts as extras/small indie projects

Which, following on from the above, is only a problem for the minorities right? Like...how many people even heard Morfydd Clark's name before she was cast in this? I saw Saint Maud a couple years ago, but that movie was miles away from what could be expected out of a LotR production.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

those actors are usually the ones who are part of a project that also contains main A-list actors who are cast as the main characters and the unknown/indie actor comes in as a pseudo main character and does a good enough job to set themselves off onto a trajectory of superstardom, not a single movie/tv show that has cast EVERY main character as an unknown/indie actor has ever done well to my knowledge, if you can provide an example i'll happily go and watch it to make my own mind up on it but i don't know of a single big budget production where the main cast are all unknown nobodies or bit part actors with barely any major roles to their names.

I see your moving the goal post from the actors not being “amazing at their job without having much or any prior experience” to “ big budget production where the main cast are all unknown nobodies or bit part actors with barely any major roles to their names.”.

But Either way, I’d suggest you go watch A New Hope, there really is no better example given marks fords and Carrie’s previous experience and what followed it.

[Adamas102]

except Amazon HAS A POLICY EXPLICITLY DETAILING IT'S MANDATORY TO HAVE A CERTAIN PERCENTAGE MINORITY GROUPS CAST REGARDLESS OF WHETHER THEY FIT THE NARRATIVE OR NOT, and out of the entire 'main' cast of people, not one of them has any major acting credits to their name, they are either completely unknown, or they have had bit parts as extras/small indie projects, i would genuinely be surprised if any of them were better quality than some of the people were reported to have auditioned for these roles when they were doing the acting cast calls back in 2018, but please, tell me how all of these actors are somehow amazing at their job without having much or any prior experience?

Really just grasping at straws here, huh?

Some of those main actors on the show have more experience than a third of the Fellowship actors had combined. Orlando Bloom and Billy Boyd had only done minor roles in like 2-3 movies before being cast in Fellowship, while for Dominic Monaghan it was his first movie casting ever. Elijah Wood had recognition as a child actor, but Fellowship was the turning point for his career as an adult, and Sean Astin was mostly just known for movies like Goonies and Rudy in the 80's and early 90's. Viggo Mortensen was a pretty unknown actor, playing mostly supporting roles until his big break as Aragorn. Ian McKellen's most recognizable acting credit for general audiences came the year before Fellowship when he was cast as Magneto. Sean Bean was probably the most recognizable of the group, though outside of Britons who were familiar with the Sharpe series he was mostly just recognizable as having played a villain in a Bond movie. Karl Urban and Andy Serkis were also complete unknowns at the time and look at them now.

The idea that you need a large portion of your cast to have "major acting credits" is total idiocy. And worst of all, the idea that minority actors who are cast in roles that used to be predominately given to white actors are "unfit" to act in such roles is pure, unabashed racism. There are no elves, dwarves, or hobbits in real life, but according to you they can/should only be played by white actors? That it would be inconceivable for a black man to portray a noble elf so surely anyone they hired to do so would be a total failure is essentially what you're saying. It has nothing to do with narrative, and everything to do with your idea that only white people (doesn't matter whether they're British, Australian, Americans) can read the lines and act the part of a Tolkien elf.

[VMSmith]

Even if that were true, the only way it could possibly impact the quality of the production is if you believe minorities are inherently inferior.

So, by the logic you state here, hiring only white people in the past did not impact the quality of anything. More qualified minorities were never overlooked simply because they are minorities. There was nothing wrong with only hiring white people because they were always the most qualified ... unless you believe white people are inherently inferior?

That's bunk logic, and you know it, and it's why your statement is bunk, as well.

If there is a quota for a certain type of people, regardless of what quality you choose to discriminate by, then people who are not of that certain type will be passed over despite being more qualified. Because you are not looking at qualifications, you are looking to fill a quota. It's wrong when we only want to cast white people at the expense of minorites and it's wrong when we only want to cast minorities at the expense of white people.

But I have come to learn, through this forum, that there is a goodly number of people who do indeed seek to disadvantage white people to "make up" for the oppression of the past. They have stated exactly that.

[s_bushido]

So, by the logic you state here, hiring only white people in the past did not impact the quality of anything. More qualified minorities were never overlooked simply because they are minorities. There was nothing wrong with only hiring white people because they were always the most qualified ... unless you believe white people are inherently inferior?

That's bunk logic, and you know it, and it's why your statement is bunk, as well.

Of course it's bunk. Because it has fuck-all to do with what I said.

[VMSmith]

I see your moving the goal post from the actors not being “amazing at their job without having much or any prior experience” to “ big budget production where the main cast are all unknown nobodies or bit part actors with barely any major roles to their names.”.

But Either way, I’d suggest you go watch A New Hope, there really is no better example given marks fords and Carrie’s previous experience and what followed it.

You're right, there were absolutely no well-known actors in the main cast of ANH. Except for Alec Guinness. And Peter Cushing.

Studios do cast "nobodies" all the time, but usually pair them with "somebodies" if they want to get butts in seats. Guinness and Cushing gave Star Wars an air of legitimacy that sci-fi rarely was granted in that era.

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Of course it's bunk. Because it has fuck-all to do with what I said.

Your assertion was that if one thinks mandating a certain percentage of minorities in casting can impact film quality then it can only be because one thinks that minorities are inherently inferior. Your assertion is untrue because first you presume others thoughts. But also because mandating anything most definitely can impact quality because at some point you may have to sacrifice quality to meet the mandate.

[Adamas102]

This may well be true, but you do realize that it is a tacit admission that the show is NOT being made for fans of Tolkien's work ... y'know, the people who have some preconceived notion about the material? And, therefore, those people are perfectly within the realm of reasonableness allowed to complain about the fact that the show plays extremely fast and loose with the material that they would prefer to see it adhere to?

It's not really an either or thing. Not every fan of LotR enjoyed the movies, and not every fan of the Hobbit hated that movie trilogy. The idea that a show can only be made for EITHER fans of the source material OR general audiences is a fallacy. The "fans" in question (the posters complaining in this thread) tend to be strict purists that claim every single detail is important whether it has to do with dates or skin color. Not every fan of the books and/or movies is going to be hung up on things like that, and people who aren't super familiar with the source material are CERTAINLY not going to care.

And it's not that people aren't allowed to complain, but not all opinions or complaints hold the same validity. There can certainly be good arguments made for what needs to change in order to adapt a written work to the screen. Something like condensing the timeline could have good arguments for and against, but so far all I've seen is "they're changing the timeline, Tolkien is rolling in his grave". For instance, several pages back I pointed out how ridiculous it would be to maintain the timeline outlined in the appendices just for the forging of the rings (300 years between when Sauron seduces the smiths of Eregion to when they learn how to forge the rings, 10 more years for them to forge the rings, 10 years more for Sauron to forge the One Ring, and then 33 years before the Elves and Sauron go to war). You can't maintain an interesting and cohesive narrative to tell that story while keeping those dates as is. It's the same with many of the other series of events in the Second Age; it would either be relegate everything to prologue like lore dumps with no actual story, or focus on one tiny (and by itself uninteresting) piece of the century spanning story.

No one addresses things like that, though. No one that is against the show (in this thread at least) has pointed out why any of these changes are actually bad for telling a story based on the world that Tolkien LOOSELY created, just that they're bad because they don't adhere strictly to the written word (which isn't a good enough argument when adapting a story from one medium to another).

[Lorgar Aurelian]

You're right, there were absolutely no well-known actors in the main cast of ANH. Except for Alec Guinness. And Peter Cushing.

Studios do cast "nobodies" all the time, but usually pair them with "somebodies" if they want to get butts in seats. Guinness and Cushing gave Star Wars an air of legitimacy that sci-fi rarely was granted in that era.

Peter Cushing was not part of the ‘main’ cast, he was a side character who had like two or three scenes with under 6m of screen time.

Alec Guinness As Obiwan obviously had much more of a roll but if we’re going to pretend his star power is what pushed ANH’S success or that he was a A-list actor at the time we might as well say the sky is red.

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I've been reading these threads for quite awhile and have not seen this happen even once.

Go read through the Obiwan thread about Reva, there you even had people admitting that her acting fit a sith role but that she still shouldn’t have been cast because she also fell into a “angry black woman” stereotype.

[Adamas102]

So, by the logic you state here, hiring only white people in the past did not impact the quality of anything. More qualified minorities were never overlooked simply because they are minorities. There was nothing wrong with only hiring white people because they were always the most qualified ... unless you believe white people are inherently inferior?

No one is saying that white actors are inferior. No one is saying that white actors can't play dwarves, elves, or hobbits. However, some posters here are very clearly suggesting that minorities can't play dwarves, elves, or hobbits. That any minority actor who is hired to do so is an inferior casting choice. The implication seems to be that only white people can accurately portray diminutive, bearded mountain dwellers, or noble, elegant, immortal humanoids with pointy ears. If a Puerto Rican attempted to read the same lines and act the part they would ruin the entire narrative simply because of the color of their skin, and there are apparently no Puerto Ricans with the acting ability to pull it off.

[rogoth]

No one is saying that white actors are inferior. No one is saying that white actors can't play dwarves, elves, or hobbits. However, some posters here are very clearly suggesting that minorities can't play dwarves, elves, or hobbits. That any minority actor who is hired to do so is an inferior casting choice. The implication seems to be that only white people can accurately portray diminutive, bearded mountain dwellers, or noble, elegant, immortal humanoids with pointy ears. If a Puerto Rican attempted to read the same lines and act the part they would ruin the entire narrative simply because of the color of their skin, and there are apparently no Puerto Ricans with the acting ability to pull it off.

not in middle earth they can't, because the author, J.R.R Tolkein, wrote his works and these races specifically to be representative of English/British peoples, and NONE of those people were of colour or were asian, meaning that by the definition of the author and his works, all of the people of these fictional races he created had explicitly defined appearances, traits, and histories, but you and the minority group of people who are actually defending this shitshow of a production dislike this and as such have on multiple occasions now pulled the 'racism' card as your main bulwark of defence because you have no actual point besides that, and just to be absolutely crystal clear about something, the made up character for this show 'arondir', the 'black elf', his character is described in all related media as being a silvan elf, which doesn't make any fucking sense because during the second age, the Sindar reconnected with their silvan brethren and the silvan elves all but ceased to be in terms of a society, not to mention that the language they all spoke died out and sindarin was the new de facto language of all silvan elves, so not only should he not be 'black' from a lore standpoint regarding elves of middle earth in general as not a single elf in any of the written works of tolkein ever ventured east or south enough where evolution would have allowed them to become darker skinned, but the writers are so incompetent they made up a new character (which is whatever) but they tried to shoehorn him into a faction of elves that during the second age functionally didn't exist anymore, so please go on about how anybody can be anything when everything that is written contradicts that notion and that we should all be praising how 'strong' and 'brave' these writers and production staff are for casting a black guy in a role he has no business being in regardless of whether he is a brilliant actor or not.

[Lady Atia]

except Amazon HAS A POLICY EXPLICITLY DETAILING IT'S MANDATORY TO HAVE A CERTAIN PERCENTAGE MINORITY GROUPS CAST REGARDLESS OF WHETHER THEY FIT THE NARRATIVE OR NOT, and out of the entire 'main' cast of people, not one of them has any major acting credits to their name, they are either completely unknown, or they have had bit parts as extras/small indie projects, i would genuinely be surprised if any of them were better quality than some of the people were reported to have auditioned for these roles when they were doing the acting cast calls back in 2018, but please, tell me how all of these actors are somehow amazing at their job without having much or any prior experience?

Some of the best actors from LotR, Star Wars or Marvel movies were basically no-names before their roles and they did a great job. No clue what "any prior experience" has to do with that lol. I actually prefer to see new faces because "big star actors" just feel like they play themselves and destroy immersion.

[MCMLXXXII]

Some of the best actors from LotR, Star Wars or Marvel movies were basically no-names before their roles and they did a great job. No clue what "any prior experience" has to do with that lol. I actually prefer to see new faces because "big star actors" just feel like they play themselves and destroy immersion.

What about GoT. Most actors were also unknown actors, with the exception of, there he is again, Sean Bean.