Lord of the Rings TV Series Purchased by Amazon

[bledgor]

I just saw this and thought it was pretty funny

The one redeeming quality of the rings of powers, the memes it is quickly spawning.

[rogoth]

I'm sorry, "most people"? And by "unsuitable" you just mean "not the right skin color" and nothing else?

the overwhelming majority of people based on all forms of engagement metrics used to gather data on how well or how poorly something is received online yes.

ALL casting that is unsuitable, regardless of race/colour/creed, they have cast a guy who looks overweight and nowhere near the kind of 'tall dark and handsome' stereotype for Gil-Galad, the last high king of the Noldor, and from what little they have released regarding his plot points they are trying to paint him as some kind of inept ruler, when the reality of it is he was possibly the greatest high king the Noldor ever had, so in my eyes his casting is 'unsuitable', the casting of the black dwarf and elf has been well explained at this point so i'm not even gonna bother wasting my time repeating it again nor waste your time having to read it again, you have the utterly shambolic casting of a guy who is supposed to be the great celebrimbor?, because they haven't actually said what the fuck their story is supposed to be about, i find half the casting for the main cast of characters to be 'unsuitable', based on the established lore of the characters in the books, so no, it has nothing to do directly with what colour their skin is.

[Biomega]

the overwhelming majority of people based on all forms of engagement metrics used to gather data on how well or how poorly something is received online yes.

I'd like some data on that, please.

so in my eyes his casting is 'unsuitable'

Right. I think I got it now, thanks.

[Adamas102]

I'd like some data on that, please.

I'm sure you won't get it. As for the Amazon Diversity policy, it's publicly available. rogoth has been called out for lying about it before but he keeps on pushing it (never actually linking it himself because actually reading it would invalidate the idea he keeps pushing about Amazon MANDATING the show to cast 30% minorities).

You were right before that the 30% goal (50% by 2024) doesn't apply to actors, just above-the-line roles (directors, writers, and producers). It's also not a blanket policy for every project since it's aimed at series and movies where main cast include roles from underrepresented communities (so the point would be avoiding a show about Latina women where all the above-the-line roles are taken up by men). And when not possible they just have to hire an outside consultant of that underrepresented group.

As for casting they have no such quotas and note that "story comes first" and the inclusion policy should "not compromise the authenticity of the narrative". It also series that focus on a particular racial/ethnic group are exempt. The main part about casting concerns authentic portrayals so that roles are cast with actors who match up with things like gender, nationality, race, sexual orientation, and disability. There's also a goal for including 1-3 characters of underrepresented groups in order to avoid invisibility in entertainment, and the minimum aspirational goal is 60% white people and 40% minorities. None of these are mandates and are always noted as "when possible", "where the story allows", and "where it doesn't compromise the authenticity of the story".

So yeah, like all diversity and inclusion policies in place at large corporations the goal is always to hire people who are qualified. Diversity and inclusion policies are about aspirational goals, not mandates, and the aim is just to open things up (when possible) to communities that in the past were underrepresented either deliberately or due to unconscious bias.

[Super Kami Dende]

Good lord, every new interview and article about this Show shows more and more how absolute trash it is going to be.

How People are even looking forward to this astounds me to no end. Though there doesn't seem to be a shortage of mental illness these days.

[s_bushido]

How People are even looking forward to this astounds me to no end. Though there doesn't seem to be a shortage of mental illness these days.

The hell is that even supposed to mean? "People who like things that I don't are mentally ill?" Fuck off with that shit.

[rogoth]

I'm sure you won't get it. As for the Amazon Diversity policy, it's publicly available. rogoth has been called out for lying about it before but he keeps on pushing it (never actually linking it himself because actually reading it would invalidate the idea he keeps pushing about Amazon MANDATING the show to cast 30% minorities).

You were right before that the 30% goal (50% by 2024) doesn't apply to actors, just above-the-line roles (directors, writers, and producers). It's also not a blanket policy for every project since it's aimed at series and movies where main cast include roles from underrepresented communities (so the point would be avoiding a show about Latina women where all the above-the-line roles are taken up by men). And when not possible they just have to hire an outside consultant of that underrepresented group.

As for casting they have no such quotas and note that "story comes first" and the inclusion policy should "not compromise the authenticity of the narrative". It also series that focus on a particular racial/ethnic group are exempt. The main part about casting concerns authentic portrayals so that roles are cast with actors who match up with things like gender, nationality, race, sexual orientation, and disability. There's also a goal for including 1-3 characters of underrepresented groups in order to avoid invisibility in entertainment, and the minimum aspirational goal is 60% white people and 40% minorities. None of these are mandates and are always noted as "when possible", "where the story allows", and "where it doesn't compromise the authenticity of the story".

So yeah, like all diversity and inclusion policies in place at large corporations the goal is always to hire people who are qualified. Diversity and inclusion policies are about aspirational goals, not mandates, and the aim is just to open things up (when possible) to communities that in the past were underrepresented either deliberately or due to unconscious bias.

taken directly from the 'publicly available diversity policy':

To reduce invisibility in entertainment, and where the story allows, we aim to include one character from each of the following categories for speaking roles of any size, and at minimum 50% of the total of these should be women: (1) lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or gender non-conforming / non-binary; (2) person with a disability; and (3) three regionally underrepresented racial/ethnic/cultural groups (e.g. in the US, three of the following: Black, Latinx, Indigenous, Middle Eastern/North African, or Asian / Pacific Islander or Multi-Racial). A single character can fulfill one or more of these identities.

meaning that this show, because it's a US based production is mandated to have AT LEAST and AT MINIMUM a 50% 'diversity quota' as per the policy, where in anything i have said in this thread am i wrong about this mandated policy?, please quote me and point it out, i fucking dare you, you abject stain of a human being, you won't because you can't, because it doesn't exist, but then again that doesn't stop you from acting like a high and mighty prick of epic proportions standing on your imaginary moral high ground.

another excerpt from the moronic 'inclusion policy':

Amazon Studios is committed to authentic portrayals. It is our intention, whenever possible, to cast actors in a role whose identity aligns with the identity of the character they will be playing (by gender, gender identity, nationality, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, and disability) and in particular when the character is a member of an underrepresented group/identity.

meaning that the casting of these 'diversity hires' was done not only as part of their mandated quota, but also done maliciously from the showrunners and on purpose for these main cast roles that should not have a single black person anywhere near them based on the established lore of the works, but again you dislike that point so you ignore it or you twist words to make it seem like your moral grandstanding is in the right and anybody who disagrees with your woke brigade defense tactics are racists, you have even gone so far as to say that multiple times now defaming anybody who doesn't see things the way you do.

finally:

The story comes first. The Inclusion Policy recommends casting characters from all backgrounds, as long as it does not compromise the authenticity of the narrative. For example, when a movie or series focuses on a particular racial/ethnic group, or is set in a homogenous context or location, it will be exempted from the requirements to diversify casting.

that means these showrunners PURPOSELY chose these diversity hires as main characters to push their social/gender/race political messaging, as has been stated myriad times in this thread by others complaining about how everything shown so far about this project SCREAMS 'woke' and 'the message', instead of faithful recreation of the original works.

and yet here you are with the gall and audacity to claim you know PRECISELY what Tolkein would want as mentioned in your previous bullshit posts, you also take the stance that because something isn't stated explicitly in the texts that amazon have rights to, therefore 'it doesn't matter hur dur', try again cunticus maximus, that strawman doesn't work.

you appear to have had such an indoctrination into this moronic way of thinking and believing that i genuinely pity you, i pity your family for the sorry excuse you are, because even when told you're in an absolute minority, you don't believe it and think you're actually speaking for a large group of people when in fact 'your people' are such a small number, it's comical you think you have a voice here.

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The hell is that even supposed to mean? "People who like things that I don't are mentally ill?" Fuck off with that shit.

under the dictionary definition of insanity, EVERYONE who has looked forward to every failed woke project that has released in the last 5-10 years would be classified as such, thereby having 'mental illness' but again good job putting words into that persons mouth, you interpreted it that way, that's not what was said, take your faux outrage somewhere else.

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Good lord, every new interview and article about this Show shows more and more how absolute trash it is going to be.

How People are even looking forward to this astounds me to no end. Though there doesn't seem to be a shortage of mental illness these days.

don't worry, the woke brigade and their followers (of which there seem to be a fair few in these forums), will somehow find a way to make this dross seem like it's actually good, despite the sheer volume of overwhelming negative engagement statistics for this shit.

[Askyl]

This thread is the best thing since therapists. I can just read everyones unneccecery hate here and realize my life is quite damn good!

As a life time Tolkien fan, I look forward to this show so much.

[rogoth]

I'd like some data on that, please.


Right. I think I got it now, thanks.

the industry standard for likes to views engagement on youtube is 4%, the original teaser trailer that was released back in February sits currently at 31M views with 129k likes, meaning that the engagement for this specific video sits at a staggering ~0.05%, that is one of the lowest engagement figures that has been seen on any major release in the last decade, among some of the lowest in the history of youtube, and using the addon to show a dislike counter that has a small error range (and not counting the millions of dislikes and comments that were censored by Amazon on this specific video) currently sits at 1.9M, which using the same view metric shows approximately the 'correct' engagement metrics meaning that assuming the margin of error, this is somewhat accurate.

if you look at the same data points for the newest 'trailer' video released at SDCC they released in july, that video sits at a view total of 11.3M with a likes total of 80k that's an engagement value of ~0.6%, so better than the initial trailer but SIGNIFICANTLY below the industry standard and down in with the worst rated projects on the platform.

the 'main teaser trailer' released in early july has a views total of ~11.9M with a like count of 76k, which is the same engagement value as the original release trailer of ~0.05%, again showing that this project is doomed to fail before it even starts.

every other video released by Prime Video in the playlist for this project has a similar engagement metric, and that's just using the youtube metrics of engagement, if you look at the twitter metrics of engagement it's even worse for the project, with every major announcement made over there getting 'ratio'd' as per the urban dictionary definition of engagement on twitter, with only a small handful of pieces about LOTR in general and not specifically the rings of power getting any kind of positive engagement at the time of release.

if you want to do any further reading on the topic i suggest you look at things when they were released and look at engagement stats over time, because for this project things have just gotten worse since they initially announced this back in february.

[Adamas102]

taken directly from the 'publicly available diversity policy':

To reduce invisibility in entertainment, and where the story allows, we aim to include one character from each of the following categories for speaking roles of any size, and at minimum 50% of the total of these should be women: (1) lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or gender non-conforming / non-binary; (2) person with a disability; and (3) three regionally underrepresented racial/ethnic/cultural groups (e.g. in the US, three of the following: Black, Latinx, Indigenous, Middle Eastern/North African, or Asian / Pacific Islander or Multi-Racial). A single character can fulfill one or more of these identities.

meaning that this show, because it's a US based production is mandated to have AT LEAST and AT MINIMUM a 50% 'diversity quota' as per the policy, where in anything i have said in this thread am i wrong about this mandated policy?, please quote me and point it out, i fucking dare you, you abject stain of a human being, you won't because you can't, because it doesn't exist, but then again that doesn't stop you from acting like a high and mighty prick of epic proportions standing on your imaginary moral high ground.

Try reading that again since it's clearly a misunderstanding on your part. The policy is to TRY to include one of each of the three groups (they're numbered 1-3), and 50% of THAT total should be women (so 1-2 women). AND categories 1, 2, and 3 can be covered by a single character. This section, which again isn't a mandate, is to include at most 3 characters, and also comes with the caveat "where the story allows".

This is also about characters (and therefor the setting, not the location of the production) so 3 doesn’t even apply since Middle-earth is a fictional setting.

Amazon Studios is committed to authentic portrayals. It is our intention, whenever possible, to cast actors in a role whose identity aligns with the identity of the character they will be playing (by gender, gender identity, nationality, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, and disability) and in particular when the character is a member of an underrepresented group/identity.

meaning that the casting of these 'diversity hires' was done not only as part of their mandated quota, but also done maliciously from the showrunners and on purpose for these main cast roles that should not have a single black person anywhere near them based on the established lore of the works, but again you dislike that point so you ignore it or you twist words to make it seem like your moral grandstanding is in the right and anybody who disagrees with your woke brigade defense tactics are racists, you have even gone so far as to say that multiple times now defaming anybody who doesn't see things the way you do.

The only part of this section that has any bearing on the show in question are "gender, sexual orientation, and disability". Race, ethnicity, and nationality aren't really factors since there aren't any Numenoreans, elves, dwarves, hobbits, or orcs in real life. Regardless of what you THINK the skin color of these characters should be or what you THINK the "established lore" is, if it isn't mentioned in the source material that Amazon is using then they are not beholden to whatever your opinion. And still, no mandates (at this point I really question whether you understand what the word means). The showrunners are simply not limiting itself where limits aren't imposed.

finally:

The story comes first. The Inclusion Policy recommends casting characters from all backgrounds, as long as it does not compromise the authenticity of the narrative. For example, when a movie or series focuses on a particular racial/ethnic group, or is set in a homogenous context or location, it will be exempted from the requirements to diversify casting.

that means these showrunners PURPOSELY chose these diversity hires as main characters to push their social/gender/race political messaging, as has been stated myriad times in this thread by others complaining about how everything shown so far about this project SCREAMS 'woke' and 'the message', instead of faithful recreation of the original works.

Did you have a point here other than going on another idiotic "woke" rant?

and yet here you are with the gall and audacity to claim you know PRECISELY what Tolkein would want as mentioned in your previous bullshit posts, you also take the stance that because something isn't stated explicitly in the texts that amazon have rights to, therefore 'it doesn't matter hur dur', try again cunticus maximus, that strawman doesn't work.

you appear to have had such an indoctrination into this moronic way of thinking and believing that i genuinely pity you, i pity your family for the sorry excuse you are, because even when told you're in an absolute minority, you don't believe it and think you're actually speaking for a large group of people when in fact 'your people' are such a small number, it's comical you think you have a voice here.

Hahahaha, wow. It has been pretty obvious from the get go that you're little more than a bratty, immature, incompetent child. What's funny is in most cases I'm not even interpreting Tolkien's words, I'm literally copy/pasting them into my posts since they speak for themselves. Meanwhile little shitstains like you just can't stop whining and whining about Amazon policies and what YOU think Tolkien ACTUALLY wanted. Trust me, you don't have the mental capacity to understand a man like Tolkien. Shit, given how poorly your reading of the diversity policy was, I doubt you even managed to make it through the books themselves. Even worse, you seem to think your pity and opinions are anything other than worthless. You can go ahead and crawl back into your hole now.

[Nask]

under the dictionary definition of insanity, EVERYONE who has looked forward to every failed woke project that has released in the last 5-10 years would be classified as such, thereby having 'mental illness' but again good job putting words into that persons mouth, you interpreted it that way, that's not what was said, take your faux outrage somewhere else..

These rants of yours are mentally ill. Literally by the amount of your spiel, you have mental problems.

[rogoth]

Try reading that again since it's clearly a misunderstanding on your part. The policy is to TRY to include one of each of the three groups (they're numbered 1-3), and 50% of THAT total should be women (so 1-2 women). AND categories 1, 2, and 3 can be covered by a single character. This section, which again isn't a mandate, is to include at most 3 characters, and also comes with the caveat "where the story allows".



The only part of this section that has any bearing on the show in question are "gender, sexual orientation, and disability". Race, ethnicity, and nationality aren't really factors since there aren't any Numenoreans, elves, dwarves, hobbits, or orcs in real life. Regardless of what you THINK the skin color of these characters should be or what you THINK the "established lore" is, if it isn't mentioned in the source material that Amazon is using then they are not beholden to whatever your opinion. And still, no mandates (at this point I really question whether you understand what the word means). The showrunners are simply not limiting itself where limits aren't imposed.



Did you have a point here other than going on another idiotic "woke" rant?



Hahahaha, wow. It has been pretty obvious from the get go that you're little more than a bratty, immature, incompetent child. What's funny is in most cases I'm not even interpreting Tolkien's words, I'm literally copy/pasting them into my posts since they speak for themselves. Meanwhile little shitstains like you just can't stop whining and whining about Amazon policies and what YOU think Tolkien ACTUALLY wanted. Trust me, you don't have the mental capacity to understand a man like Tolkien. Even worse, you seem to think your pity and opinions are anything other than worthless. You can go ahead and crawl back into your hole now.

1) no, it's far from any misunderstanding on my part, the policy states that 50% of the total cast for speaking roles should be from ANY of the 3 groups listed, with a single person able to count for multiple, hence the fabrication of this black dwarf princess who never existed in any of the works of Tolkein, but keep telling me how i'm misinterpreting something which is very clear and obvious, and all you're doing is twisting the words to make it seem like you're in the right when you're far from it.

2) thanks to the producer who leaked this policy forcing Amazon to publish a public version of it we know that this policy is in fact a mandate, and is enforced by internal staff who track these things, but yeah, it can't possibly be true just because it uses very specific verbiage to allow for plausible deniability, ok, good joke.

3) it's clear to see your indoctrination has blinded you to the point being made, using your own severely flawed and fucked up logic, there doesn't exist any of the fantasy races imagined by Tolkein in the real world we live in, so why the fuck aren't the entire cast CGI, since they don't actually exist how can a regular human being play the part properly?, why even bother casting normal human beings to play any of the elves/dwarves surely they should have known this and created the characters using CGI.

4) so your arguement is because they lack the legal rights to the work where it is stated, they should just ignore it outright and rewrite what's established because legally they can't reference that work?, is that your entire defence here?, because if so then that's so fucking weak it's pathetic.

5) i made my point, you understood my point, and reinforced my point for me, so thank you for that.

6) and yet i have been given an award as part of the team of people i work with for being pillars of our local community, as well as a high functioning member of society as an adult for over 15 years now, but you keep coming at me with these moronic insults, i'm sure it makes your points seem remotely plausible.

7) except you are, and have done at every turn, you have quoted a miniscule portion of text, then injected your own opinion alongside it trying to pass it off as fact, when called out on by others you get defensive and start twisting things to deflect from that, and when the full piece of text is linked and the full context is shown you just flat out ignore that person and pretend like it doesn't exist, so yeah, i'm the childish one here /eye roll.

8) i have an IQ score of between 118-127 depending on scoring metrics used which on most standardised tests ranks at 10-15 points below 'genius' since you're an american i expect you to not even break triple digits, furthermore, i read the lord of the rings trilogy as a young teenager as part of my school curriculum, again you being an american have no concept of this, as well as the silmarillion in my later teen years, i understood the majority of what i was reading and it wasn't until later in my life thanks to some life experience that i fully understood every concept therein, all this before the advent of social media and the wider internet as it's known today, but yeah, i lack the mental capacity alright, i have likely forgotten more in the last 10 years than you will ever learn in your pitiful life, so try again.

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These rants of yours are mentally ill. Literally by the amount of your spiel, you have mental problems.

yes i do, i have chronic depression thanks to my previous job, any other jab you want to take at me or is that it?

i would love to know what you edited out of your comment because i only just caught the comment before i clicked respond.

[Nask]

yes i do, i have chronic depression thanks to my previous job, any other jab you want to take at me or is that it?

i would love to know what you edited out of your comment because i only just caught the comment before i clicked respond.

Get help and stop browsing internet forums for "fights", and I just fixed typo in the post.

[Rennadrel]

Maybe I just wasn't paying attention earlier, but I think the current trend started with Ghostbusters (2016). The people who got the ball rolling were the same ones pointing out the stupid shit Anita Sarkeesian was saying...and now they've all just come full circle to saying the same stupid shit, just from the other side of the political aisle. Only it's much much worse because it's an actual cornerstone of American conservatism. It's just the Satanic Panic all over again.

Ghostbusters 2016 sucked because the writing was terrible and the humor was unfunny and forced rather than just flowing naturally. Even the original cast wouldn't have been able to make that script work. At some point, people like you who keep shilling that movie just need to take the L because it's not even worthy of putting alongside the original films, even if the sequel was terrible. The fact that Afterlife was a more faithful adaptation because it respected the original films and characters while it also didn't try to be like the original films and instead tried to be something different.

I don't really have a problem with adaptations using diverse casts, but the common thread among many of them is that the writing just isn't very good, or it is awful. Birds of Prey flopped because the writing was terrible too. It seems like the people most disconnected from reality and what the viewers will enjoy are the paid critics and access media. That is often reflected in user scores of films, shows and even video games. If you are producing a show or movie for access media or a small group of people rather than the general audience of even existing fans of a franchise, you are setting yourself up for failure.

[Gumble]

The hell is that even supposed to mean? "People who like things that I don't are mentally ill?" Fuck off with that shit.

I don't think you're mentally ill (any more so than anyone else), but I do think most of the people saying they are going to watch this show in this thread are lying. It looks to be boring and poorly written, so it will probably get watchers for the first 1-3 episodes then fall off really hard.

And truly, the irony of "if you don't like what I like you're *insert word here*"...... isn't that basically 95% of this thread?


As far as diversity in shows and movies like this, I'm all for it if its done for the right reasons. If the person being cast or hired is simply the best for the role, then I don't particularly care what they are. If they are hired for anything other than talent..... I care, and disapprove.

Its the difference between equality and equity. Equality should always be the goal, but if you use equity you will never get there.

[Sorshen]

This will be so goofy, lol.

[Rennadrel]

I don't think you're mentally ill (any more so than anyone else), but I do think most of the people saying they are going to watch this show in this thread are lying. It looks to be boring and poorly written, so it will probably get watchers for the first 1-3 episodes then fall off really hard.

And truly, the irony of "if you don't like what I like you're *insert word here*"...... isn't that basically 95% of this thread?


As far as diversity in shows and movies like this, I'm all for it if its done for the right reasons. If the person being cast or hired is simply the best for the role, then I don't particularly care what they are. If they are hired for anything other than talent..... I care, and disapprove.

Its the difference between equality and equity. Equality should always be the goal, but if you use equity you will never get there.

The funniest part about the casting is that there's literally nobody of note in the cast. Like, there's no big A list stars to speak of. It's an even harder sell when you have a bunch of literal nobodies for a main cast. Even the WoT show has a couple of bigger name actors like Rosamund Pike and Danniel Henney.

[Rennadrel]

Why would anyone lie about watching some TV show?

I'll absolutely watch it. If it ends up being shit, it ends up being shit. If it ends up being a fun watch, then I've enjoyed myself. Where is the issue?

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This is only an issue if you need recognisable name to actually watch and enjoy something lol

And maybe its just the Brit in me, but Lenny Henry is of plenty note to me.

I'm just saying that it's easier to attract an audience with a cast with a few recognizable faces. Sure, a lot of shows manage to build good actors that nobody is really familiar with, but that is done with good writing. And well, I have little faith in the writing of this show at this point.

[Biomega]

the industry standard for likes to views engagement on youtube is 4%, the original teaser trailer that was released back in February sits currently at 31M views with 129k likes, meaning that the engagement for this specific video sits at a staggering ~0.05%, that is one of the lowest engagement figures that has been seen on any major release in the last decade

But that's not what we were talking about earlier.

You said:

i used that language specifically with the context of this show where the people they have hired as diversity hires are by most people seen as unsuitable for the roles they are playing

the overwhelming majority of people based on all forms of engagement metrics used to gather data on how well or how poorly something is received online yes.

I'm not doubting that the overall reaction to the trailer hasn't been great. But that isn't the same thing as claiming that it's BECAUSE of actors "unsuitable for the roles they are playing" like you did when you replied to me.

You are seeing people's negative reaction to the trailer, and then concluding from that "most people think these actors aren't suitable for their roles". Which is not a logical conclusion, not backed by data, and not in evidence in any other way either.

It's pure conjecture on your part. And, well, kinda racist conjecture at that. Which is what I suspected from the start, hence me pressing you for details - you see people are complaining, and automatically make it about race. THAT is the problem here.

[bledgor]

Oh man, just saw the leaked Galadriel sword fu scene, what the fuck is this. Like unless I am watching some Kung fu hustle type movie I never want to see someone get flung/jump off a sword in my fantasy, it looks bad.