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.
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.
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.
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.
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. 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.
Last edited by Adamas102; 2022-08-14 at 07:59 AM.
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.
- - - Updated - - -
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.
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.
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.
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.
But that's not what we were talking about earlier.
You said:
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.
I dont agree that diversity should be a goal. I'm a strong believer of hiring who is best suited for a position based on nothing but merrits. In the case of movies and tv however a merrit could be being a colour because - and i really mean this strongly - only because it makes sense for the character/story/setting/whatever.
Having diversity as a standard not only doesnt make sense because of demography reasons it also doesnt make sense because it literally means not the best qualified gets picked.
The point i am trying to get across is that the persons colour and gender dont matter to me as long as it makes sense for the movie - but it matters to me if its being shoved down my throat as a political agenda - because thats not why i go watch movies.
Now there is a small segment of people out there who simply think they can respond to this with calling me a racist or a bigot(which i am not at all) and not having to argue at all - UnifiedDivide is a perfect example of this - but i'l have an open mind towards anyone who wants to argue it with me.
Reverse sexism/racism is not a solution to racism/sexism.
I really hope those clips will be cut (Cut content is often used for trailers because of changes later on in prod). For 1b in budget it has no excuse to look like that.
https://www.reddit.com/r/LOTR_on_Pri...an_commercial/
The dude holding the sword doesn't even look like he throws her. Or maybe they are just so strong and good it looks that effortless?
To me it looks like an gymnast assistant where they mostly just follow the movement incase something goes wrong.
there's so much wrong with this shot...if the rest of the show will have this kind of quality to their coreography at least I know it will be entertaining, for the wrong reasons.
Error 404 - Signature not found
Those are not mutually exclusive. You're assuming that merit can not only always be measured objectively, but that it also always distills down to one option.
That's just not the case. If it WAS as easy as "let's just look who's best qualified and take that person", we wouldn't have any problems. But we do, because you reach a point in the hiring (or casting) process where you cannot just go "well one candidate has score 45 and the other candidate has score 46, so we'll go with the 46 one" and all the candidates you have available are objectively qualified; and then it becomes very SUBJECTIVE who you hire, and experience has shown that somehow magically mysteriously white people tend to get hired significantly more EXCEPT when you set it up in a way that conceals racial traits, when suddenly that doesn't happen anymore (to everyone's shock and surprise).
And with acting it's the same thing. At some point someone goes "yeah this person is just, you know, the BEST FIT" and it's not down to them evaluating objective metrics. And to more shock and surprise it's somehow the black guys who get to be drug dealers and the white guys who get to be investment bankers and nobody knows why and how and it's all very mysterious.
"Just hire based on merit" is an IDEAL that I also subscribe to (I've said so in an earlier post, too), but it's a UTOPIAN ideal. We should strive to get there, and we should do our utmost to approach that goal, but in PRACTICE there's things that we need to compromise on in order to make things more equitable in the long run even if they're less equitable in the short term.
The crux here lies in the "it makes sense for the character/story/setting" part, because that's where the reasons need to come in. Are there GOOD REASONS for casting a particular skin color? If so, I'm 100% fine with doing that. That's why Black Panther is black and Atticus Finch is white, and changing that would affect the stories they're in on a level that would be difficult to justify. However, for the vast majority of stories, that is not the case - there skin color is just a cosmetic detail of no plot relevance, and can be freely changed without affecting the narrative in any substantial way. Just as things like hair color, eye color, height, etc. are changed all the time and nobody ever gives a shit (except that one guy who keeps complaining Hermione's dress was pink and not blue because it's the internet and there's always that guy).
And I do mean GOOD REASONS are needed to fix traits like skin color. A lot of the time, we hear a variation of three things:
1. "It's not like that in the original" - that's a circular argument saying you can't change it because it is what it is and if you changed it, then it wouldn't be
2. "It just doesn't feel right" - that's just plain ol' garden-variety racism
3. "It's not how we've done this in the past, so why change it" - that's an argument from tradition, which is a bit weird when the tradition we're trying to change is that certain people have been discriminated against because of their skin color
None of these are good reasons, in any way, shape, or form. But there CAN BE good reasons.
That's the fallacy, though. You're implying that picking someone for their skin color ALSO means picking someone less qualified. Which is neither self-evident nor logical, and is, by the way, doubly ironic because that's precisely what can happen when white people get jobs/roles/etc. because of their skin, too. It's just somehow swept under the rug there as though white people were always also the most qualified.
But as I said earlier, 100% merit based choice is an ideal, not a practical reality; and often it's an illusion to begin with.
And the trick is to focus on that last part as well as the first part, and be VERY thorough about it.
But to be clear, that wasn't really what I was talking about when I said "diversity is a goal in and of itself". It's not saying diversity is more important than certain other things, it's saying that you don't need justification for being diverse other than that being diverse is already a justification. It's not the final word, it's not a trump card that obviates other factors by default, it's just that you do not need to ask "but why do we NEED non-white people anyway?".
Last edited by Biomega; 2022-08-14 at 04:57 PM.
Interesting discussion of what constitutes "Tolkenian" which actually brings up some good points.
However, the bigger issue is that ultimately, the Tolkien estate is not Tolkien the man and as time goes on they will have differing views on what is "Tolkienian".
Simon Tolkien already has had strong opinions on this.
And unfortunately what may actually likely wind up happening is that as time goes on you will get exactly what Tolkien did not want. There will be all kinds of various and sundry shows, books, movies, comics, cartoons, etc claiming to be Tolkien but not lining up with each other, let alone the writing of Tolkien himself.
Just like it is quite possible, but not likely that someone at some point may try to reboot the LOTR movies.......