Lord of the Rings TV Series Purchased by Amazon

[eschatological]

i love Blade, i'm a massive wesley snipes fan, i think he's a phenomenal actor and he made that character his own, i love SLJ and the myriad films he has been a part of from pulp fiction to django unchained to marvel stuff to 'the banker' and other films that were just phenomenal, i really liked 'the help' and was happy to see octavia spencer get her well deserved oscar award, and while i would happily keep listing people who are not white who i thoroughly enjoy watching media about, i hope this is enough to make my point, and i pray you have the grey matter faculties necessary to understand the point being made and aren't just another of those who flies off the handle with faux outrage.

It's interesting who you picked out here - two black men who've had widespread success by playing tropes of black men, usually criminal or foul-mouthed or angry. Samuel L Jackson famously is known for saying "motherfucker." Even when he's playing a computer programmer in Jurassic Park, he's foul-mouthed and angry. These are the roles where black men are widely accepted.

And then "The Help," jesus. This is a movie reviled by black people for quite literally whitewashing post-slavery black servitude in the Deep South, and casting a sympathetic light on the white women who deigned to finally come to the recognition that their help were people too. You might as well have said you thought Green Book was a great movie about black people too. Or Bagger Vance.

The point is, the push towards a "character just being a character" involves having black characters just being non-tropey, normal representations in every day films. It involves the normalization of seeing black people and women in a medium. If that feels forced, to you, it's because you've been conditioned to think only white people should be in movies, at least in any relevant, "normal" role. Ironically, SLJ plays a character, Nick Fury, who was white in the comics for like 30 years. Apparently that's okay because the source material with him as a black man from another alternate universe came out a few years prior to his appearance in the MCU - but why wasn't that woke pandering, to go with that version of Nick Fury? Surely there's an iconic, surly old white man who could have played the previous version? Would it have been okay if the comics with a Nick Fury who looked like SLJ were published AFTER he appeared in the MCU? You can't simply say "pick the best actor" because there comes a point where people are all on the same tier of quality, and you simply have to make a decision about what you want. Morgan Freeman's character, "Red", in the Shawshank Redemption, was written as a white, Irish Catholic guy with red hair by Stephen King, hence the nickname "Red." Surely there was a white actor who could pull off that role. But Morgan Freeman was just as good (and probably better) than what King imagined, which he has admitted, and it's one of the most iconic films ever. In another SK adaptation, Idris Elba was cast to play Roland the Gunslinger, another white character written by King. There was a lot of stuff wrong with The Dark Tower, but the quality of Idris Elba wasn't one of them. Is that a case where they should just go with the best actor available? Because Idris is quite literally at the top of the acting world. Or would you say, "nah, take a possible 'worse' white actor just to keep the character white"? I'm betting you'd say the latter.

Michael B. Jordan gets a lot of credit from weird nerds in saying he'd not want to play a black Kal'el version of Superman - that there were black Kryptonians and he could play a Superman based on them if they wanted to develop it. That no one has developed it is pretty telling - black Kryptonians don't pull any weight, either in the comics or on film. They don't have the name/cache of Superman. I thought it would be interesting to put such a treatment on film. Same exact story as Kal'el - but he's a black Kryptonian, as is Jor'el etc. Suddenly, his upbringing, even him being adopted, takes on a much different tone. And yeah, if you like the saccharine sweet story of Superman, that still exists for you in Smallville, and literally every other Superman story ever. But that tonal shift, that story of a black man being raised by white farmers in the 50s/60s/70s hell even now in 2022.....would be an interesting (and important) story to tell. It would probably make Smallville and the Kents much bigger and more important characters. And considering what the story of Superman is - that he's a good man in spite of his powers - it would be fascinating to see how that would happen if he grew up black in rural Kansas.

But I guess that'd be woke pandering to you instead of, yanno, an interesting story to tell.

[rogoth]

1. Take it up with Tolkien himself who rewrote Galadriel into an Amazon, pupil to ALL the Valar making her on par with the great lore-masters and warriors of the Eldar. Tolkien was well into revising Galadriel into the most powerful and skilled being in Middle Earth but died before expanding her stories in the Second Age. Depicting her as a warrior leader in the show is not only acceptable, but more than likely what Tolkien would have done.

2. Your reasonings and mentality have been crystal clear from the start, you just don’t like being called out on your bullshit.

3. Tolkien said nothing of the sort. In fact, he was fully in board with the adaptations of his works being molded by the hands of the writers and artists who came after him. The “source material” was a work that was constantly undergoing revisions. Nor is there any evidence to suggest that Tolkien would have had any issue with an elf being played onscreen by a non-white actor. This is PURELY racist conjecture coming from the scumbags like yourself who refer to most minority castings as “diversity hires”.

4. It’s really not that hard to google the definition. It seems you’re only aware of the term in the more recent context of the far Right trying to turn it into a pejorative to toss around whenever they’re called out for being racist, sexist, etc.
By definition, “woke” just means aware of prejudice and discrimination. It is a bit telling that people like yourself who only use it as an insult don’t even know where the term came from…

5. You’re talking about the Spielberg directed movie of 2021 that holds a higher than 90% approval rating from both critics and audiences, an A rating from audiences on Cinemascore, and was nominated for multiple Academy Awards (including best picture) as well as a litany of other accolades? That one? Yeah, I don’t think this is going to kill future productions of West Side Story.

6. You must be living in a weird alternate reality if you think Captain Marvel did poorly financially, critically, or based on audience appeal. Both CinemaScore and PostTrack (far more legitimate audience gauging polls when RottenTomatoes gets review bombed by pathetic incels) showed audience reactions were overwhelmingly positive. I don’t know what you’re referencing about Feige doing damage control but if it has anything to do with the Brie Larsen/internet incel “drama” then it has little to do with the movie itself and it’s unambiguous success.

7. Dude, if you haven’t even seen most of the Star Wars movies then shut your mouth and avoid looking like an idiot when referring to it as having been destroyed by too much woke (despite the fact that the franchise continues to be extremely popular and profitable).

8. It did pretty well coming off the heels of the first Suicide Squad with generally positive reviews from critics and audiences. It didn’t do well financially, but it was better regarded that a lot of other DCU movies and those franchises/characters continue chugging along as well.

9. So another example about you talking out your ass about movies/franchises you know little about. I’ll reiterate what I said before (having watched all the Terminator movies), the franchise has been a disappointment since T2 and not because of any sort of made up diversity initiatives.

10. It’s pretty clear at this point that you really have no idea what you’re talking about and just parrot the alt right/incel talking points you’ve heard online about diversity, being woke, etc. There was nothing pedantic about my first response to you calling out the fact that diversity and warrior women (including Galadriel) are a part of Tolkien’s universe. These are facts that you’re simply oblivious to.

1) so you now speak for Tolkein himself, you are his conduit from beyond the grave, you know his inner most thoughts and know exactly how he wanted his works to be made and interpreted post mortem? i like how you genuinely believe what you're saying is fact and that nobody anywhere has any right to question you because you in your infinite wisdom know exactly how things should be based on your wording here?, get your head out of your ass for more than 5 minutes and smell some fresh air, i think you have been living in your own delusion too long.

2) if there was anything to call out, i would agree with you, but so far all you have done is 'ha gottem' with the old 'if you disagree with this then you're a racist cunt' trope, which not only is a piss take of epic proportions, as it's a non arguement to begin with, but it actually just shows how little of a point you have to make and must resort to these base and very plain to see 'points'.

3) yes, he was fully on board with his works being adapted, no, he was not on board with them being taken by someone and 'moulded by the hands of the writers', he made it explicitly clear that if his works were not adapted as he wrote them then he would act upon that, as stated in his letter to the director and staff of the first project that looked to adapt his work, but again, keep hiding behind your little strawman and using your flawed opinion-turned-flawed logic as your main arguement point.

4) i'm assuming since you brought politics into the equation you're an American, because apparently it's all 'you people' are interested in and have made such a divisive topic it's turned into a 'us vs them' debacle, for your information and just so there's no confusion, i'm not American, and in terms of political alignment, using your fucked up scale of things i would fall in the 'centrist left' category, so once again, making an assumption about me and making yourself look like an ass, but keep it going, it's keeping me entertained at least.

5) yes, the same spielberg production that refused to put english subtitles when the characters spoke in spanish because they 'didn't want the power of English to overshadow the production', or the lead actress going on a media campaign criticising anybody in the US who didn't speak spanish fluently as a second language and calling all non spanish speaking Americans 'lazy', that 2021 west side story production, yes, you are correct, the one and the same, and frankly, i have never heard of this 'cinemascore' you mention before now, so i would have no idea how they would represent it when the places i looked at briefly showed the complete opposite, so obviously using different metrics for 'success'.

6) i never said it did poorly financially, i said if you remove the pre sale figures and only use the post release data, the almost vertical decline in revenue as a result of the tirade brie larson went on during the media tour along with other issues surrounding the film caused it to be the worst performing and most damaging film in the resurgent MCU era of films, but again you seem to dislike context as it doesn't mesh with what you're trying to peddle so you ignore it at best and twist what's been said to suit your needs at worst, and no, i'm not talking about the incident of brie larsen saying to 'white men' to stay away, i'm talking about other things she did during the media tour and afterwards when she made her stupid youtube channel.

7) i have seen the original trilogy, it's one of the few good things my dad did for me and made me watch them, i watched episode 3 on dvd as it was a present like i have stated, i also watched the first of this new trilogy as i was like everyone else curious to know what it was gonna be all about, i genuinely couldn't care about a spin off series for every tom, dick and harry who was a potential character of the main franchise, why is the backstory of obi wan important to me in the context of the movies? SPOILER: it isn't, it's just a nice extra if i'm interested in that sot of thing, same goes for the whole boba fett show, so again, the films themselves while they made money, they have permanently tarnished the reputation and i'm perfectly capable of reading reviews from multiple sources, finding the common denominator and putting the pieces together to come up with my own conclusion based on that, clearly you're unable to do so without consuming the content whole and spewing out some ridiculous trash about how it's the best thing ever or so it would seem.

8) when your franchises are sitting at a 2/10 for approval rating and you release a product that hits a 3, that's not success, that's just mediocre and barely worth writing home about, but i guess DC were so desperate they took a win where they could, and just in case it's unclear, most movie studios use financials as the PRIMARY metric for success, making this example i gave, as a result of the general woke sentiment surrounding it, a catastrophic failure, and as mentioned if not for covid and the amount of money needed to maintain the companies involved would have seen the previously greenlit project of a sequel either put on indefinite hiatus or cancelled, based on everything i read at the time, so again, you have no counter point to this it's just 'i liked it and it was a decent DC project so it wasn't all that bad right?'

9) again, i don't need to see every single piece of media to make a judgement about it, thanks to a few decades of life experience and consuming so much media in that time frame i can make and educated guess at how things will turn out, and so far i have only been wrong on a handful of occasions, which i think is a pretty damn good 'hit rate', and if that bothers you so much, then that's on you, nothing i can do to help you with your specific insecurity regarding that issue, i suggest seeking professional help if this becomes a trend.

10) see point 4 for an explanation as to why you're not only wrong, but again falling back on the old and tired 'ha gottem' playbook of comebacks, you have no point, you think you're so high and mighty and think that your utterly childish and basic 'arguements' make you look clever, when in reality it's just the same shit spewed ad nauseum by anyone defending the woke bullshit that has ruined franchises over and over and over again, it's fine if you want to be an apologist for this type of bullshit, but at least admit it to yourself and others so everyone knows where you stand, and here's a free piece of education for you, i used the words 'diversity hire' because that's EXACTLY what the producer who leaked the policy when he left the employ of Amazon called it, that's what they used to distinguish between the 'real' actors and the ones brought in to make sure they got their quota met, it's got nothing to whatsoever to do with my own personal feelings on the matter, nor is it a term i would personally use as i find the whole thing a racist mess and should be abolished in every job market, but again i can't wait to see what response you give as to why i'm somehow wrong and how you're right, do entertain me further with your tired and well used retorts.

[Adamas102]

A black person can totally play a elf, but you still got to respect the source material. Story tellers could develop a new clan of elves who have darker skin or use whiteface. I really do not care either way.

How is having a person of color playing an elf “disrespectful” to the source material? Where did Tolkien say that film adaptations must adhere to a specific set of rules which included white-only elves?

There are a lot of things that make Tolkien elves special within that world. Things that set them apart from other beings in Middle Earth. Their origins, history, powers, etc. How is any of that diminished by having a some of them having a darker complexion?

[Stormwolf64]

How is having a person of color playing an elf “disrespectful” to the source material? Where did Tolkien say that film adaptations must adhere to a specific set of rules which included white-only elves?

There are a lot of things that make Tolkien elves special within that world. Things that set them apart from other beings in Middle Earth. Their origins, history, powers, etc. How is any of that diminished by having a some of them having a darker complexion?

It is what it is. We have a foot to stand on, you're grasping at straws.

[rogoth]

It's interesting who you picked out here - two black men who've had widespread success by playing tropes of black men, usually criminal or foul-mouthed or angry. Samuel L Jackson famously is known for saying "motherfucker." Even when he's playing a computer programmer in Jurassic Park, he's foul-mouthed and angry. These are the roles where black men are widely accepted.

And then "The Help," jesus. This is a movie reviled by black people for quite literally whitewashing post-slavery black servitude in the Deep South, and casting a sympathetic light on the white women who deigned to finally come to the recognition that their help were people too. You might as well have said you thought Green Book was a great movie about black people too. Or Bagger Vance.

The point is, the push towards a "character just being a character" involves having black characters just being non-tropey, normal representations in every day films. It involves the normalization of seeing black people and women in a medium. If that feels forced, to you, it's because you've been conditioned to think only white people should be in movies, at least in any relevant, "normal" role. Ironically, SLJ plays a character, Nick Fury, who was white in the comics for like 30 years. Apparently that's okay because the source material with him as a black man from another alternate universe came out a few years prior to his appearance in the MCU - but why wasn't that woke pandering, to go with that version of Nick Fury? Surely there's an iconic, surly old white man who could have played the previous version? Would it have been okay if the comics with a Nick Fury who looked like SLJ were published AFTER he appeared in the MCU? You can't simply say "pick the best actor" because there comes a point where people are all on the same tier of quality, and you simply have to make a decision about what you want. Morgan Freeman's character, "Red", in the Shawshank Redemption, was written as a white, Irish Catholic guy with red hair by Stephen King, hence the nickname "Red." Surely there was a white actor who could pull off that role. But Morgan Freeman was just as good (and probably better) than what King imagined, which he has admitted, and it's one of the most iconic films ever. In another SK adaptation, Idris Elba was cast to play Roland the Gunslinger, another white character written by King. There was a lot of stuff wrong with The Dark Tower, but the quality of Idris Elba wasn't one of them. Is that a case where they should just go with the best actor available? Because Idris is quite literally at the top of the acting world. Or would you say, "nah, take a possible 'worse' white actor just to keep the character white"? I'm betting you'd say the latter.

Michael B. Jordan gets a lot of credit from weird nerds in saying he'd not want to play a black Kal'el version of Superman - that there were black Kryptonians and he could play a Superman based on them if they wanted to develop it. That no one has developed it is pretty telling - black Kryptonians don't pull any weight, either in the comics or on film. They don't have the name/cache of Superman. I thought it would be interesting to put such a treatment on film. Same exact story as Kal'el - but he's a black Kryptonian, as is Jor'el etc. Suddenly, his upbringing, even him being adopted, takes on a much different tone. And yeah, if you like the saccharine sweet story of Superman, that still exists for you in Smallville, and literally every other Superman story ever. But that tonal shift, that story of a black man being raised by white farmers in the 50s/60s/70s hell even now in 2022.....would be an interesting (and important) story to tell. It would probably make Smallville and the Kents much bigger and more important characters. And considering what the story of Superman is - that he's a good man in spite of his powers - it would be fascinating to see how that would happen if he grew up black in rural Kansas.

But I guess that'd be woke pandering to you instead of, yanno, an interesting story to tell.

your initial arguement was people not taking black people seriously, at least that's how i interpreted it, so correct me if i'm wrong here, and i didn't list SLJ because of what you said, i listed him because i genuinely like him as an actor, i like him as a person outside of acting, i like that he likes some of the same stuff i do, i like that he is able to play such a mixed bag of characters and play them all extremely well, i wasn't aware that the actor in question needed to be playing a character so specific as to be historically accurate and in the perfect context, i'm fully aware of the issues surrounding 'the help', i brought that up because, again, based on my interpretation of your initial point, i assumed you would be outraged if they cast white actors in the roles of the help and just black faced them after the fact?, and i felt that within the scope of the story being told the actress in question did a phenomenal job and was worthy of her award.

to answer your questions, nobody really cared about the nick fury change because it's well within the marvel universe that a multiverse exists, and the specific 'earth' being focused on for the entire story being told within the MCU arcs is from this specific perspective, nobody cares because it's accepted that anybody can be anything in the multiverse and it has limitless possibilities, so everyone is happy with it, i don't know how or why this is hard to understand, and frankly i couldn't care less about the character, the nick fury i watched on screen was written well enough, and the actor behind the character is so good at his craft that i can't see anybody else in his role, again i can't see how this is a bad thing but you seem to want to make it such.

as to your comment about shawshank redemption, i'm fully aware of the origins of that character, i even liked the little quip in the movie when he says 'maybe it's cos i'm irish', i chuckled at that, but also, the fact that morgan freeman was the best for the job i'm very happy about, not only is he a phenomenal actor himself, my favourite film of his being Seven, that's exactly how casting should be done, it didn't detract from the story for me that he was a black guy, and again it's a role he took and made his own, which in my eyes is a great thing.

i read the harry potter books as a kid as they were released, the first film wouldn't be released for at least 4 years after the release of the first book, and based purely on the cover illustration and the description given in the books, when i first saw daniel radcliffe in the first movie, his physical appearance to me was harry potter, based on my imagination conjuring up an image he was perfect, why is this important, because over the years when i have either read or seen media in one form and there's a movie counterpart, i like to see who the cast are and how do they look compared to what my imagination has pictured them as, and in the recent man of steel movie, having lawrence fishburne cast as perry white (a white guy with the literal word white as his surname in all related media) i loved him as the character, he took it, and shattered my image of that character, or another example, i grew up watching the marvel animated tv shows of the 90's, and the kingpin character was always some hulking great white guy, but he never looked right to me, and while the particular film 'daredevil' starring 'missed acting school' himself as the main character, to me, michael clarke duncan epitomised the kingpin for me, he was the perfect fit in my eyes, and it's just a shame that the movie he was in was such a flop.

and as to your final point, as with marvels multiverse, i genuinely couldn't care less if they wanted to do an alternate krypton with a race of beings who were all black, if it's written well it doesn't bother me, it bothers me when it's obviously shoehorned in for the sake of pushing something, whether that be 'the message' or some other agenda of whoever the showrunners are, which currently everything being showcased in relation to this dumpster fire waiting to happen from amazon is everything i despise, it's got all the woke boxes ticked off, it's got all the diversity bingo done, and they even have mixed race, mixed race inception with a black elf, falling in love with a single mother who is a human white woman, just to go for that extra diversity spice.

i hope this helps illustrate my point otherwise i don't know what to tell you.

[Adamas102]

1) so you now speak for Tolkein himself, you are his conduit from beyond the grave, you know his inner most thoughts and know exactly how he wanted his works to be made and interpreted post mortem? i like how you genuinely believe what you're saying is fact and that nobody anywhere has any right to question you because you in your infinite wisdom know exactly how things should be based on your wording here?, get your head out of your ass for more than 5 minutes and smell some fresh air, i think you have been living in your own delusion too long.

2) if there was anything to call out, i would agree with you, but so far all you have done is 'ha gottem' with the old 'if you disagree with this then you're a racist cunt' trope, which not only is a piss take of epic proportions, as it's a non arguement to begin with, but it actually just shows how little of a point you have to make and must resort to these base and very plain to see 'points'.

3) yes, he was fully on board with his works being adapted, no, he was not on board with them being taken by someone and 'moulded by the hands of the writers', he made it explicitly clear that if his works were not adapted as he wrote them then he would act upon that, as stated in his letter to the director and staff of the first project that looked to adapt his work, but again, keep hiding behind your little strawman and using your flawed opinion-turned-flawed logic as your main arguement point.

4) i'm assuming since you brought politics into the equation you're an American, because apparently it's all 'you people' are interested in and have made such a divisive topic it's turned into a 'us vs them' debacle, for your information and just so there's no confusion, i'm not American, and in terms of political alignment, using your fucked up scale of things i would fall in the 'centrist left' category, so once again, making an assumption about me and making yourself look like an ass, but keep it going, it's keeping me entertained at least.

5) yes, the same spielberg production that refused to put english subtitles when the characters spoke in spanish because they 'didn't want the power of English to overshadow the production', or the lead actress going on a media campaign criticising anybody in the US who didn't speak spanish fluently as a second language and calling all non spanish speaking Americans 'lazy', that 2021 west side story production, yes, you are correct, the one and the same, and frankly, i have never heard of this 'cinemascore' you mention before now, so i would have no idea how they would represent it when the places i looked at briefly showed the complete opposite, so obviously using different metrics for 'success'.

6) i never said it did poorly financially, i said if you remove the pre sale figures and only use the post release data, the almost vertical decline in revenue as a result of the tirade brie larson went on during the media tour along with other issues surrounding the film caused it to be the worst performing and most damaging film in the resurgent MCU era of films, but again you seem to dislike context as it doesn't mesh with what you're trying to peddle so you ignore it at best and twist what's been said to suit your needs at worst, and no, i'm not talking about the incident of brie larsen saying to 'white men' to stay away, i'm talking about other things she did during the media tour and afterwards when she made her stupid youtube channel.

7) i have seen the original trilogy, it's one of the few good things my dad did for me and made me watch them, i watched episode 3 on dvd as it was a present like i have stated, i also watched the first of this new trilogy as i was like everyone else curious to know what it was gonna be all about, i genuinely couldn't care about a spin off series for every tom, dick and harry who was a potential character of the main franchise, why is the backstory of obi wan important to me in the context of the movies? SPOILER: it isn't, it's just a nice extra if i'm interested in that sot of thing, same goes for the whole boba fett show, so again, the films themselves while they made money, they have permanently tarnished the reputation and i'm perfectly capable of reading reviews from multiple sources, finding the common denominator and putting the pieces together to come up with my own conclusion based on that, clearly you're unable to do so without consuming the content whole and spewing out some ridiculous trash about how it's the best thing ever or so it would seem.

8) when your franchises are sitting at a 2/10 for approval rating and you release a product that hits a 3, that's not success, that's just mediocre and barely worth writing home about, but i guess DC were so desperate they took a win where they could, and just in case it's unclear, most movie studios use financials as the PRIMARY metric for success, making this example i gave, as a result of the general woke sentiment surrounding it, a catastrophic failure, and as mentioned if not for covid and the amount of money needed to maintain the companies involved would have seen the previously greenlit project of a sequel either put on indefinite hiatus or cancelled, based on everything i read at the time, so again, you have no counter point to this it's just 'i liked it and it was a decent DC project so it wasn't all that bad right?'

9) again, i don't need to see every single piece of media to make a judgement about it, thanks to a few decades of life experience and consuming so much media in that time frame i can make and educated guess at how things will turn out, and so far i have only been wrong on a handful of occasions, which i think is a pretty damn good 'hit rate', and if that bothers you so much, then that's on you, nothing i can do to help you with your specific insecurity regarding that issue, i suggest seeking professional help if this becomes a trend.

10) see point 4 for an explanation as to why you're not only wrong, but again falling back on the old and tired 'ha gottem' playbook of comebacks, you have no point, you think you're so high and mighty and think that your utterly childish and basic 'arguements' make you look clever, when in reality it's just the same shit spewed ad nauseum by anyone defending the woke bullshit that has ruined franchises over and over and over again, it's fine if you want to be an apologist for this type of bullshit, but at least admit it to yourself and others so everyone knows where you stand, and here's a free piece of education for you, i used the words 'diversity hire' because that's EXACTLY what the producer who leaked the policy when he left the employ of Amazon called it, that's what they used to distinguish between the 'real' actors and the ones brought in to make sure they got their quota met, it's got nothing to whatsoever to do with my own personal feelings on the matter, nor is it a term i would personally use as i find the whole thing a racist mess and should be abolished in every job market, but again i can't wait to see what response you give as to why i'm somehow wrong and how you're right, do entertain me further with your tired and well used retorts.

1. It’s not my opinion. You’re railing against Tolkien’s own words, not mine. Tolkien was rewriting Galadriel as a warrior. Get over it.

2. Yeah, sure. Having each of your ridiculous, unfounded points addressed and debunked is just “got’em” responses.

3. So nothing to backup the claim that Tolkien insisted that elves be portrayed as white-only.

4. I see you’re still incapable of doing even the slightest amount of research. I don’t care where you’re from, you’re using the term as it was bastardized by the American far right. Educate yourself.

5. Ok, so CinemaScore is a market research company that polls actual people after they’ve watched the movie and is one of the leaders in box office forecasting and gauging audience appeal. Tell us again what your sources are for “I saw different on the internet”. You really have no leg to stand on for this one. It was an award winning film that scored highly with critics and audiences alike.

6. So most of the people who really wanted to see it couldn’t wait and front-loaded it’s $1.2billion box office return. You really have to do some mental gymnastics to claim this movie harmed the franchise, especially when the next one (which came out less than 2 months after Captain Marvel) became the highest grossing movie of all time.

7. Another “I read about it online”. Judging by the far right dog whistle terms you bandy about (“woke” as a pejorative, gender politics, diversity hires, etc), I’m not going to put much weight on your random internet sources.
Tag on the straw man that I “consume these products whole and call them the best thing ever”. The sequels and the prequels have been shit compared to the originals. Not because of any “woke” or diversity shit you read about online, but because they had shitty plots and shitty character arcs.

8. I didn’t particularly enjoy the movie, but unlike you I can actually make informed criticism rather than just relying on whatever bullshit YouTubers make up your mind for you. And considering critical reviews, BoP brought the DCEU average up quite a bit given how poorly Snyder’s films and the first Suicide Squad did (certainly better than being a 3 compared to 2’s).

9. You’re 0 for 10 here, buddy. The opinions you’ve formulated by just regurgitating random shit you read online are laughable.

10. The running theme here seems to be that you find random (usually wrong) crap on the internet and use it to inform your opinions on things you’re totally ignorant about. What garbage website did you stumble upon when you googled “movies ruined by woke politics”?

[rogoth]

1. It’s not my opinion. You’re railing against Tolkien’s own words, not mine. Tolkien was rewriting Galadriel as a warrior. Get over it.

2. Yeah, sure. Having each of your ridiculous, unfounded points addressed and debunked is just “got’em” responses.

3. So nothing to backup the claim that Tolkien insisted that elves be portrayed as white-only.

4. I see you’re still incapable of doing even the slightest amount of research. I don’t care where you’re from, you’re using the term as it was bastardized by the American far right. Educate yourself.

5. Ok, so CinemaScore is a market research company that polls actual people after they’ve watched the movie and is one of the leaders in box office forecasting and gauging audience appeal. Tell us again what your sources are for “I saw different on the internet”. You really have no leg to stand on for this one. It was an award winning film that scored highly with critics and audiences alike.

6. So most of the people who really wanted to see it couldn’t wait and front-loaded it’s $1.2billion box office return. You really have to do some mental gymnastics to claim this movie harmed the franchise, especially when the next one (which came out less than 2 months after Captain Marvel) became the highest grossing movie of all time.

7. Another “I read about it online”. Judging by the far right dog whistle terms you bandy about (“woke” as a pejorative, gender politics, diversity hires, etc), I’m not going to put much weight on your random internet sources.
Tag on the straw man that I “consume these products whole and call them the best thing ever”. The sequels and the prequels have been shit compared to the originals. Not because of any “woke” or diversity shit you read about online, but because they had shitty plots and shitty character arcs.

8. I didn’t particularly enjoy the movie, but unlike you I can actually make informed criticism rather than just relying on whatever bullshit YouTubers make up your mind for you. And considering critical reviews, BoP brought the DCEU average up quite a bit given how poorly Snyder’s films and the first Suicide Squad did (certainly better than being a 3 compared to 2’s).

9. You’re 0 for 10 here, buddy. The opinions you’ve formulated by just regurgitating random shit you read online are laughable.

10. The running theme here seems to be that you find random (usually wrong) crap on the internet and use it to inform your opinions on things you’re totally ignorant about. What garbage website did you stumble upon when you googled “movies ruined by woke politics”?

1) the way you worded your response, the general structure of it was framed in such a way that you were speaking for Tolkein and that nothing i could say would ever be correct because you know better, and yes, he was in the process of rewriting many characters, he never finished and as such they are just footnotes and not actual canon or officially part of the established lore, but again keep harping on this one, it really makes you seem all knowledgeable.

2) it is when all you have said are 'ha gottem' trope responses, you have yet to provide anything that amounts to 'calling out', all you have done is try to frame your opinions as facts, you devolved this into name calling me first, so i responded in kind, and then you thought that i was even part of the same continent as you, i have no clue what i ca nsay to someone like you who is obviously so indoctrinated into certain ways of thinking and acting that i could even hope to compete with that.

3) i feel like the DIRECT QUOTE from his letter regarding the first initial project of adaptation spelled that out pretty well, or were you looking for the EXACT FUCKING WORDING 'must be all white or no dice' from Tolkein?, because that exact wording and phrasing doesn't exist, for starters he was far more eloquent with his sentence structure than i could ever hope to be, and finally, due to the time period he lived in, it was considered default that all actors would be white unless expressly stated otherwise, but again, that context doesn't mesh with your strawman arguement does it?

4) why, pray tell would i 'educate myself' on American conservative far right politics when i A) don't live even on the same continent and as such have no say in the matter, and B) do not and never will agree with the archaic bullshit that, that entails, furthermore, why am i as a non American bound by your moronic labelling, if that's how you interpret things, that's EXCLUSIVELY ON YOU, you're the one who interpreted things wrongly and pushed forward an incorrect conclusion based on your biases.

5) upon further reading CinemaScore is exclusive a US based company, and has existed since the late 70's with minimal sway over any real public opinion, and again, i'm gonna keep hammering this home, why would i as a non American know or care about something that until the advent of the wider internet only serviced and was available in the US?, just because you're exposed to something and know about you think everybody else is?, what kind of prepubescent fucked up logic is this?

6) yes, a lot of people came off the wave the the avengers saga and were riding the hype train of a new marvel movie, with presale tickets at the time being some of the highest levels ever seen, and then a near vertical drop off after opening weekend until it plateaued off and hit an equilibrium point, i would link a graph but i don't think based on your other responses you have the faculties necessary to read it nevermind understand what is written.

7) i haven't read anything 'online' for a very long time, i tend to read things in newspapers, magazines, or i watch TV shows regarding movie reviews from multiple sources to get a general spectrum of data and collate it all to determine if i should waste my time on something or not, but thanks again for making yet another assumption about me and being a million miles wide of even remotely close, it genuinely feels like i'm talking to somebody who has never known life without twitter/instagram/tiktok, because so far everything you're saying is regurgitated whatever the buzzword is for current generation people spew out.

8) until very recently i never really looked at youtube for anything unless i was specifically searching for something i needed and was looking up a guide for or similar, so again i refer to point 7 in that you have made yet another moronic assumption about me and would you look at that, a swing and a miss.

9) i refer to previous points explaining why this response is not just wrong, it is laughably wrong, and just shows how badly you want to try and hit with these assumptions you're making of me and failing at every turn.

10) again, incorrect, and yet i love the fact that this latest 'ha gottem' retort is even worse than the last lot, i don't need to look up websites for that sort of thing, i have a perfectly good memory and i'm capable of recalling things that happened at the time, if you want to have further reading, feel free to look things up yourself, but i know you won't because you're too lazy and too stuck up your own ass to even consider that you're wrong, you have made it abundantly clear now that not only have no actual point to make, you're relying exclusively on the 'ha gottem' playbook as exhibited by the multiple responses now that are the exact same thing being said just using different words each time, i have said my piece, if you're unable to understand then i can't help you, i suggest a professional, because you clearly need more schooling as you lack basic fundamentals of reading comprehension and i think you could easily benefit from taking some time out from your environment because you have only demonstrated so far you're complete inability to form a cohesive arguement with any substance that isn't just trying to stand on an imaginary moral high ground shouting down guilt trips and other things from the playbook you're indoctrinated into.

[NotBigzo]

and yet you continue to not disprove or even talk about all the points me and several others have made, because you know we are right. You want to say the show can still be good, that is something you can argue, I won't agree with that given what we have been shown. You can't however say with everything we have been given basically being against what Tolkien wrote/not in what Tolkien wrote that it is accurate/faithful/a good adaptation. To do so is to shill, as it isn't true.



What? We know things aren't accurate, we have been given that information mate. It isn't an insult to prove a show isn't being accurate/faithful to the source, especially when they deviate SO FAR from what Tolkien created. Again people aren't asking for a 100% 1 to 1 adaptation, I at least just want something at 80-90%, something close that takes few liberties (which LoTR did).

When half the cast is brand new to the story, when you condense thousands of years down into a much shorter spawn, when characters do things they never did in the books (all things we know factually) it has already proven you aren't even close to accurate.

People don't insult everything that comes along, they just insult the work that is an insult to the person who created them (see Rafe I mean Wheel of time). People shouldn't just be happy they are given something, you should only celebrate it if it is good, like the Dredd film.

Honestly, I just wouldn't bother.

Tolkein's universe is about to get fucked by people who are too creatively bankrupt to create their shit, so they instead are going to shit on someone elses' shit.

Simps are gonna simp for it. It is what it is.

[Xath]

Michael B. Jordan gets a lot of credit from weird nerds in saying he'd not want to play a black Kal'el version of Superman - that there were black Kryptonians and he could play a Superman based on them if they wanted to develop it. That no one has developed it is pretty telling - black Kryptonians don't pull any weight, either in the comics or on film. They don't have the name/cache of Superman. I thought it would be interesting to put such a treatment on film. Same exact story as Kal'el - but he's a black Kryptonian, as is Jor'el etc. Suddenly, his upbringing, even him being adopted, takes on a much different tone. And yeah, if you like the saccharine sweet story of Superman, that still exists for you in Smallville, and literally every other Superman story ever. But that tonal shift, that story of a black man being raised by white farmers in the 50s/60s/70s hell even now in 2022.....would be an interesting (and important) story to tell. It would probably make Smallville and the Kents much bigger and more important characters. And considering what the story of Superman is - that he's a good man in spite of his powers - it would be fascinating to see how that would happen if he grew up black in rural Kansas.

But I guess that'd be woke pandering to you instead of, yanno, an interesting story to tell.

Uh yeah that would be in the same level as make Peter Parker black instead of you know having a Miles Morales movie which guess what Into the Spiderverse largely is and you know the Miles Morales video game as well. Michael B. Jordan unlike you has first hand experience with what happens when characters are race bended with FF4 tanking to hell and back because guess what the people who want to racebend characters instead of making new ones don't actually go see movies. So yes making the movie of Calvin Ellis who is honestly much more interesting than Kal-El has been basically ever would be awesome especially considering he was largely based on Barrack and is the President of the US on Earth-23. Just making Clark black would be a great way to tank the movie though. Comic book nerds do tend to be rather sticklers for following the comics; I realize you don't care about that.

[MCMLXXXII]

. Comic book nerds do tend to be rather sticklers for following the comics; I realize you don't care about that.

That's not hurting Marvel now, is it?

[Adamas102]

/snip.

So many words, and no substance to be found. You’ve written how many paragraphs in response to me now and in none of your posts do you ever reference whatever garbage source convinced you that these movies that you never even watched are terrible because of “wokeness”.

You’re still objectively wrong in your understanding of what the term “woke” even means, where it came from, and why your usage derives specifically from American political propaganda (something that would easily be cleared up with a simple google search).

When it comes to portraying Galadriel as a warrior you’ll dismiss what Tolkien wrote in his letter, but when it comes to casting elves it’s all about the unsaid expectations. “It was considered default at the time that all actors were white” is just about the worst excuse I’ve heard so far. You also going to argue that adaptations of Shakespeare’s works should have most of the female characters portrayed by men in wigs and Othello by a white man in blackface because “that was considered default at the time”? No, outside of historical dramas where race might actually mean something, there is no good reason to adhere to racially motivated exclusivity of olden times (especially in a fantasy setting where races are distinct in various other ways that have nothing to do with skin color).

You reference his scathing review of an unmade LotR adaptation, but fail to see the difference between the cohesive narratives Tolkien fleshed out (The Hobbit and LotR) compared to the rest which was only roughly sketched out. Much of Tolkien’s apprehension about adaptations also came from the fact that fairytales (something he based much of his works on) were undergoing a shift into more amusing tales geared towards children. Neither of these apply to this show, though. The seriousness with which the characters and story matter is handled would be something Tolkien would at least appreciate, and the show isn’t adapting one of his completed narratives.

“I would draw some of the great tales in fullness, and leave many only placed in the scheme, and sketched. The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama.”

The Lord of the Rings is one of the great tales that he drew “in fullness”. Outside the Hobbit, the rest was left to the “scope of other minds and hands”.

- - - Updated - - -

Michael B. Jordan unlike you has first hand experience with what happens when characters are race bended with FF4 tanking to hell and back because guess what the people who want to racebend characters instead of making new ones don't actually go see movies.

What the fuck are you talking about? F4 (2015) tanked because it had a dull, nonsensical plot, a drab, boring aesthetic, and multiple inconsistencies due to reshoots. It had nothing to do with Michael B. Jordan’s casting. The film would have still been shit no matter who was cast as Johnny Storm, but sure go ahead and pin it all on that .

To further the point, Michael B. Jordan also played a black version of John Clark in Without Remorse last year (a character previously played by Willem Dafoe and Liev Schreiber). I could go on and on about how that movie was a piss poor adaptation of the source material, but Clark being black didn’t harm the story in the least bit.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Uh yeah that would be in the same level as make Peter Parker black instead of you know having a Miles Morales movie which guess what Into the Spiderverse largely is and you know the Miles Morales video game as well. Michael B. Jordan unlike you has first hand experience with what happens when characters are race bended with FF4 tanking to hell and back because guess what the people who want to racebend characters instead of making new ones don't actually go see movies.

The idea that FF4 failed because they changed johnnys race is so fantastically stupid after we have had aura man and the new bat man do incredibly well when they also did the same, not to mention marvels movies doing it constantly.

The mass audience doesn’t give a crap if aqua man is Hawaii cat woman is black or Johnny storm is black all they care about is a movie being well written well acted and well shot.

[Orby]

The idea that FF4 failed because they changed johnnys race is so fantastically stupid after we have had aura man and the new bat man do incredibly well when they also did the same, not to mention marvels movies doing it constantly.

The mass audience doesn’t give a crap if aqua man is Hawaii cat woman is black or Johnny storm is black all they care about is a movie being well written well acted and well shot.

The only washing I don't like is the washing of the book covers of Lord of the Rings to the Rings of Power posters, which make no damn sense to the story being told, as well as the horrible Amazon sticker stuck on the book.

Netflix does that too. like they release these lovely designed book covers for the Witcher books and they have that horrible Netflix sticker engraved into the book. Ruined!

[Biomega]

Tolkein's universe is about to get fucked by people who are too creatively bankrupt to create their shit, so they instead are going to shit on someone elses' shit.

Common misconception.

It's not about lack of creativity. It's about FUNDING.

Imagine you're someone who wants to spend $40m on a film project. What do you go with? 1. a project based on an IP that has had multi-billion dollar films and sold millions of books and more millions of other franchise products to an established fanbase of millions of people. OR 2. a project based on an IP that some writer has newly come up with but that they promise REAL hard is going to be good, trust me.

[Dhrizzle]

1) it's hard to really describe as the magic system of middle earth isn't formulaic like almost every major fantasy franchise in existence today, you can't just take element A + element B and get element C, that's not how it works, in some instances it's very literal, in some cases it's extremely nuanced, for example the black speech of mordor is a total bastardisation of the elven language quenya, and as such was taken by sauron, and twisted like all things evil does it cannot create anew but corrupt and destroy that which was made by good, and when spoken in earshot of elves causes them physical distress and pain, the only word i could really come up with to describe how galadriel exists is 'magecraft' in that she uses the same kinds of techniques as others able to harness the magical power of middle earth where words have real power and can do extraordinary things, as well as using artefacts and objects of great power such as her mirror which is unique in all of middle earth, she can peer into the minds of those she encounters and speaks to them through this medium, she sows doubt and despair in foes through this kind of technique, honestly it's difficult to really describe properly due to the nuance of the whole thing.

That doesn't sound like magic the way the elves use it, in fact it sounds like "the deceits of the enemy." Intent is an important distinction when the races use "magic" and what you are describing is wilful deceit or even attempts to dominate other minds (one of the worst sins in Tolkien's world.) I don't think there are any examples of Elves using "battle-magic" in this way and a Mirror of Seeing doesn't sound useful in a fight either.

When elves fight they fight, their weapons and armour may have been made with mystical properites (as the making of items is a proper way for the fea to work through the hroa, though items of power can take something from the maker) but elven warriors use those items to hit things.

2) "I do earnestly hope that in the assignment of actual speeches to the characters they will be represented as i have presented them: in style and sentiment. I should resent perversion of the characters." -JRR Tolkein, this is a direct quote from the letter in question that you're trying to refer to, to translate for modern times:

'if you don't have the characters of your adaptation use the text i have written for them in my books, you will be hearing from my lawyers'

aka 'STRICTLY LOYAL TO THE SOURCE MATERIAL', he was very clear that if it wasn't as he wrote it, he would not be a happy bunny lets put it that way, i would hardly call that 'not blocking it from being made' as at that time i would expect the author likely held a lot more sway over a project and if they said 'do it as i say or else' then studios likely would bend to the request unlike now where the woke brigade is hellbent on appealing to a minority audience in the hope of scoring brownie points for how many politically correct boxes they can check off the bingo card.

obviously only Tolkein himself and those closest to him were privy to those kinds of conversations about potential projects and how they should be made, in his view, but based on what has been said historically it's a strong bet that if he were able to see this mess from beyond the grave he would likely be saying some very choice things and condemning it in every language of man.

If you're going to actually quote the letter it seems odd to leave out important parts and invent a different meaning of your own.

"I have at last finished my commentary on the Story-line. Its length and detail will, I hope, give evidence of my interest in the matter. Some at least of the things that I have said or suggested may be acceptable, even useful, or at least interesting... I earnestly hope that someone will take the trouble to read it.

If Z and other do so, they may be irritated or aggrieved by the tone of many of my criticisms. If so, I am sorry (though not surprised)."

Hardly a threat of legal action is it?

[bledgor]

I still can't believe they paid a billion dollars for the rights/cost of production for the series, and they left it in the hands of 2 newbie, blows my mind every time I think about it.

[Dhrizzle]

I still can't believe they paid a billion dollars for the rights/cost of production for the series, and they left it in the hands of 2 newbie, blows my mind every time I think about it.

Apparently Bezos is a big fan and wanted to hire people based on passion more then experience.

[Syegfryed]

i saw the trailer and to me it will look more like the hobbit movies crap, full of good effects, cgi and production(while i ahve some doubts about figurine), but bad and full of nonsenses overall

[Frontenac]

Couldn't one say the same thing about those people who push the series without any knowledge of it beyond what those who aren't in favor of it have?

I haven't seen anyone "pushing" the series here. What I've seen are people saying: "This looks promising. Let's wait and see if it's any good."

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

I haven't seen anyone "pushing" the series here. What I've seen are people saying: "This looks promising. Let's wait and see if it's any good."

These people have a very binary view of things. They don't have any room for "Let's wait and see". They have decided in advance that it's an unholy travesty and if you don't agree...you are raping Tolkien's Corpse.