I find it amusing when certain people complain about to few works of a certain genre to be aimed at women, certain people of colour (Asians, especially Japanese are doing quite well for themselves and are seeing Anime charakters as Japanese, not Western) and so on.
Just a suggestion: Maybe more women and people of colour should start writing fantasy novels that become so successful among their peers but also among other groups, even if to a lesser degree, that they will be made into movies...
Self-publishing nowadays is easier then ever. Not just for games but also for (e)books.
It's not like new white male authors will get their works published by companies automatically and without any questions asked.
Was there a big market for fantasy novels when Tolkien wrote it? How hard was it for him to get it published? Was it an instant success or did it slowly build up a fan base over time?
Last edited by Terracresta; 2022-08-10 at 07:30 AM.
Sure, if a movie is fundamentally bad casting choices will do little to redeem it. If the audience knows nothing of the source material then sure, they (probably) won't care.
But the geeks will. And you can always make a bad thing worse by alienating the hardcore fans. And you certainly can't expect the passionate to stay quiet when they're discontent.
My point is that wanting an actor of a certain race to play a preestablished fictional character isn't racism, it's a wish or even a demand for the creators to be faithful to the original vision. Going against this signals a lack of respect or knowledge or both by whoever was in charge of casting at best and the entire creative and executive team of a project at worst.
Especially since this only ever seems to go in one direction. I'm sure if someone decided to cast a white actor for the characters of Blade or Spawn or Morpheus there would be article upon article lamenting the "suppression" and "erasure" of marginalized communities from the public eye. And while I think that point and narrative is a bunch of bollocks, I would agree with the fact that it's bad to make these changes. Not because I hate seeing white people on TV but because I don't like any race swaps or sudden diversity in preestablished characters or settings. This is why people are mad about "diverse" Hobbits, Elves and Dwarves.
And it's not even the Jackson movies that established these races, it was Tolkien himself. He described exactly how and where these races looked and lived.
So if the showrunners of Rings of Power want to claim that the show is merely inspired by Tolkiens works and take creative freedoms they can't also claim that they absolutely respect them and that this is something Tolkien himself would've written. They certainly can't expect the Tolkien fanatics to be enthusiastic.
And this lack of care and respect for what is almost a religion to a lot of folks is mirrored by the extensive use of bad-looking CGI, the cheap props and the actors most of which have described themselves as "activists" in interviews and who have vowed publicly to bring their activism to the screen.
Last edited by Krawu; 2022-08-10 at 07:56 AM.
I don't think I've seen anyone say that stories with white characters can't be popular with diverse audiences. I certainly haven't said it. Nor have I said that all stories NEED to have increased diversity. This kinda just seems like you've been tilting at windmills this whole time.
What most people are arguing against in this thread is the idea that this particular story NEEDS to NOT have any diversity of skin tone.
Amazon's diversity policy, which they updated and released last year, is public and very easy to track down. The 30% diversity line, which has been misrepresented by posters like rogoth several times, has nothing to do with casting and is specifically about director, producer, writer roles and is NOT a mandate. The part that's specifically about actors is what I mentioned, that the aim is to have actors match the roles that they are cast in in terms of gender, nationality, ethnicity, disability, and so on. Again, these are goals, not mandates (there really is a difference).
Again, it's not about diversity being NEEDED. It's about these stories not NEEDING to be as all-white despite that being what some people expect.
What do you mean this isn't Tolkien? It's his words, his dates, his descriptions (or lack thereof). Just because you don't like the implications doesn't mean it isn't true.
The idea that the people of Middle-earth are meant to be directly modeled off medieval Europeans is completely fictitious. Tolkien certainly never made the comparisons you're claiming. When asked about the clothing of the peoples of Middle-earth he said "I do not know the detail of clothing. I visualize with great clarity and detail scenery and 'natural' objects, but not artefacts." If he had intended the peoples of Middle-earth to strongly resemble the Goths, or Vikings, or Saxons, or Welsh, he would certainly have known what they would have worn. The only examples he gave were for the Rohirrim ("The Rohirrim were not 'mediaeval', in our sense. The styles of the Bayeux Tapestry (made in England) fit them well enough") and the Numenorians ("The Númenóreans of Gondor were proud, peculiar, and archaic, and I think are best pictured in (say) Egyptian terms. In many ways they resembled 'Egyptians'"). "Fit well enough" and "best pictured in" are certainly not how one would firmly ground those groups of people to a historical analogue.
If you think Tolkien thought it important to keep a fictional version of ancient Europe white then you should look up his thoughts on Nordicism. "Not Nordic, please! A word I personally dislike; it is associated, though of French origin, with racialist theories. Geographically Northern is usually better. But examination will show that even this is inapplicable (geographically or spiritually) to 'Middle-earth."
"Auden has asserted that for me 'the North is a sacred direction'. That is not true. The North-west of Europe, where I (and most of my ancestors) have lived, has my affection, as a man's home should. I love its atmosphere, and know more of its histories and languages than I do of other pans; but it is not 'sacred'"
You also have your geography of NW Middle-earth wrong, since Tolkien referenced at least a couple times that the portion of Middle-earth where the action of his stories took place would correspond with a continent that stretched from England all the way across to Turkey. So no, it's not just Northern Europe. "The action of the story takes place in the North-west of 'Middle-earth', equivalent in latitude to the coastlands of Europe and the north shores of the Mediterranean. But this is not a purely 'Nordic' area in any sense. If Hobbiton and Rivendell are taken (as intended) to be at about the latitude of Oxford, then Minas Tirith, 600 miles south, is at about the latitude of Florence. The Mouths of Anduin and the ancient city of Pelargir are at about the latitude of ancient Troy."
The last part to touch on is your confusion between myth and history. Myth isn't "alternate history", it's more like "alternate prehistory". The stories that people made up to explain the time before everything they knew existed. Tolkien understood this, which is why he deliberately set his legendarium in the Neolithic era (6,000-16,000 years ago), which means if you really care to base his characters on the people of ancient Europe then we're talking about a Europe before pale skin.
- - - Updated - - -Originally Posted by JRR Tolkien, Letter to Rhona Baere, 1958
Not quite true. While Tolkien went into great detail about the history, languages, and scenery of the world, his descriptions of the peoples and cultures are pretty light.
The skin color of the dwarves was never stated, and as far as hobbits go the only mention of skin tone was in relation to the Harfoots mentioned in the prologue of LotR ("browner of skin" than other hobbits). With no baseline for either of these groups there's really no reason why they can't be represented by the whole range of human skin colors.
As for elves, the descriptions of fair skin were brought up only in relation to named elves. As such most people assume that ALL elves were thus fair of skin, but again they're never described as such as a whole. Another way of looking at it would be why would Tolkien feel the need to point out the fair skin of each elf character he introduced if it was simply a common trait across the entire race?
While Tolkien admitted that there is some murky space between whether elves are actually human or not (given that the two "races" could produce offspring together), given their origins, longevity, and fantastical powers it's also pretty common to consider them entirely non-hum and as such they don't have to adhere to the biological factors that delineate human skin tones. It's not beyond reason that there could be elves with darker skin tones, groups or individuals that Tolkien simply didn't describe in full. As far as I know the skin color of the silvan elves is never referenced so if you can break away from the fallacy that elvish skin must work the exact same way as human skin then having more skin tone variety there works just fine.
Last edited by Adamas102; 2022-08-10 at 09:02 AM.
Agreeed, and it is even good, I would watch it.
I do suspect, the reason why many of these moves are bad is because they seem more focused on the messaging and politics than investing time in actually writing a good script.
Equally they throw more money and preparation into CGI and post production - while failing to seriously vet the writing of a good script - some of these companies literally give people a day to write a script for a movie.
I mean this is the most important aspect of a movie, and it's just considered meh, you can do it in a wook or a few days - and hey wonder why it sucks.
Most of these shows today don't suck because they are diverse, they suck because they are terrible - and we suspect the reason tehya re terrible is because activists are writing them to insert their messages rather than these studios either hiring actually good writers/creators or giving them the correct time they need to do it well. Instead all they seem to care about is virtue signallig. Now this may just be the marketing doing it's job overly well - giving us this impression, however, at the end of the day, if the movie or show sucks, it sucks.
I don't get how they can just ghost Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Phillipa Boynes when they are the people you want on your team.
I also think they're rushing this to get to the parts that they think the people REALLY want to see.
I mean, why not take our time with series one? Why rush to Ar Pharazon and Tar Miriel? I understand that these two are important regarding the downfall of Numenor but what about the rise of Numenor? the Guild of Ventures? The building of Umbar? Meetings the natives from Harad?
I get it, because I'd like to put faces to names for some of those Kings Men Numenoreans and show their fall from grace after Numenor's sinking - but there's no need to rush it like this. On top of the virture signalling, the last thing the Tolkien fanbase needs is for the Second age to be rushed like this. Tell as fuller story as you can, not bits.
I'm so worried about what they're going to do with the Witch King of Angmar, Khamul and the other Nazgul as they've hinted as seeing their back stories. What is going to happen to them, prior to becoming wraiths? I actually dread the thought.
Except you're jumping the gun by assuming your hangups are the main reason they are failing, rather than defaulting to a more reasonable explanation that the overall production was just poorly justified or made overall.
Like, does the virtue signalling actually take priority in any of the examples brought up here? Did Airbender and GITS really fail because of virtue signalling? I don't think so at all. Neither did Dragonball Evolution fail because of having a white actor lead. There would have been just as many problems with the movie if they'd cast an Asian actor as the lead, let's get this completely out there.
These are all cases of bad shows being bad, bad movies being bad. There are plenty of series where diversity happens where it did not in the original, and the series were good because they were good. Battlestar Galactica comes to mind as an example. Even as far back as 10 years ago, people were criticizing making one of the leads a female, and people had major hangups over Starbuck's casting. Those issues don't even matter today in retrospect and no one gives credence to those former hangups.
Last edited by Triceron; 2022-08-10 at 03:50 PM.
As far as looking at the scripts, I didn't hear anything about legalities as they were originally hoping that either Fran or Phillipa would be part of the script writing.
(I can't remember which one, but I did hear they wanted one of them to join the script writing team and who wouldn't want them? Phillipa managed to write the whole introduction to the FotR and condensed a large ton of work to a few minutes of seriously amazing script work.)
- - - Updated - - -
The virtue stuff is the least of my issues, but it isn't helping.
My main issue is that the project seems rushed. We're talking about the Second age - not, the immediate build up to Numenor's fall.
What about the first King of Numeanor who is Elrond's brother? The Guild of Venturers who came later? Numeanor establishing connections with the Haradrim and building Umbar? Starting with what seems to be, Ar Pharazon and Tar Miriel - it's like so much lore has been glossed over.
Those events that I have mentioned are so important to what we know in the Third Age. I also don't need to see Durin's Bane in a story revolving around the Second Age as we know he didn't make his appearance until well into the Third Age.
My question is how much of the Second Age are we actually getting, because I'm seeing a hell of a lot of Third Age stuff, which I was expecting - but not on this level, at this time.
The answer should be absolutely clear at this point on - The Amazon show has no authorial connection to the original lore (as in, it does not officially continue or expand on its canon) and the showrunners are creating an ORIGINAL fiction that is merely based on/inspired by the work in the books. They're taking material from the appendices and doing their own thing with it.
It's very clear that what we have with Rings of Power is a non-canonical look at a fictional 2nd Age setting that would be no different from the fictional Middle Earth we explore in Shadows of Mordor or the LOTR Tabletop games. These are all non-canonical takes on expanding the universe, and otherwise have nothing to do with either the PJ movies or the novels.
I'm not sure why people are still hungup on this being canonical at all. It isn't, and frankly aside from some PR remarks by the producers to make the show sound authentic; everything we know about the show's story is completely new to the entire series. Everything.
Despite what the hardcore fans actually think, this show isn't made for hardcore Tolkien fans. It's aimed at a much broader, casual audience. It's leaning on its creative liberties more than retaining any level of authenticity. And I'm not putting forth any criticism here either way - I reserve that judgement for when the show arrives; I'm merely pointing out the factual what-we-know about this series, and disarming the expectations around this show somehow being the be-all end-all translation of the 2nd Age from the novels. What this will be is an Amazon Original TV series based on the Lord of the Rings property, that's all.
Last edited by Triceron; 2022-08-10 at 04:30 PM.
This is very difficult to properly assess.
I agree that bad writing tends to make for bad shows, whether it has a "message" or not; and good writing tends to make for good shows, whether it has a "message" or not. But how do we tell when writing turns out bad BECAUSE of a message? It's not like we didn't have terrible writing in the past. And it's not like we don't have shows in the present day without "messages" that are nevertheless written piss-poorly.
In fact, one might argue that good writing is and always has been the exception. Perhaps it's just the nature of "message"-driven productions that makes them stand out more - simply because it adds a distinguishing feature that increases their visibility - and that creates the IMPRESSION that we now have more bad shows without that actually being the case. I don't have any concrete numbers, and I wouldn't even know how to get any. So I can't say one way or the other.
The only thing I CAN do is rile against bad writing, and in that I don't really care if there's a message, agenda, or whatever else at play. The writing is all I'm looking at: is the final product good or not? The rest is mostly ancillary to that.
What I absolutely cannot stand, though, is people who use things like diversity IN DEFENSE OF bad writing. I'm all for diversity, both in casting and in production. I applaud anyone who tries to break up the crusty paradigms of old. But that doesn't trump quality. If you write a shit movie, having a diverse cast may be laudable but it's still a shit movie - and no amount of diversity can make a shit movie NOT a shit movie. To claim it would is not only dishonest on a fundamental level, it's also doing a disservice to the aim of normalizing diversity.
Last edited by Biomega; 2022-08-10 at 04:35 PM.
See that's a shame, because this could have been another making of Middle Earth, like it was at the start of the century.
I understand that their were certain details that the Tolkien estate have laws over and that creators can't use certain things, but still - so much that could have been used.
Now, don't get me wrong - I really do want to put faces on-screen, to names of the Black Numenoreans - like Ar Pharazon and the man who would be the Witch King. Tolkien spent an equal amount of time on his villains and what I will say, is that the show seems to be doing that as well...but I didn't want it to come this quick.
To be fair, that's how it is in a lot of fandoms.
Whether we're talking about Tolkien or Star Wars or Warcraft, there's always going to be contention between fan expectations on what the true 'Canon' really is. And the authors and creators can seek to create new stories and new material to elaborate on said canon, but the fans are always going to be fickle on being satisfied by what 'hits' and 'misses'.
Like with Star Wars, we have a canonical 7-8-9 sequel trilogy, and a completely non-canonical anime series with Star Wars Visions. And to be fair, as fans, we all get to choose what we enjoy and what we don't. Regardless of whether the sequel trilogy is canon or not, regardless of whether Star Wars Visions anime is canonical or not, it's better that we have it and have something to enjoy rather than not have it at all and be left wishing. And that's how I see this.
If this Rings of Power series isn't gonna be canonical, it doesn't mean there never will be a canonical adaptation of the series. We just might have to wait X decades until some corporation or entrepreneurial individual decides to take a crack at it.
But to be frank, without the liscence to the Silmarillion (Which the Tolkien estate seems to be extra protective of and has never given movie rights away for), there's no real chance of ever getting an authentic 2nd Age TV series out there. Most of the material that explores the history of Middle Earth is not going to be found in the appendices alone.
Yeah but what's the point?
That's like saying the Star Wars sequel trilogy shouldn't have been branded with 'Star Wars' because Lucas didn't write it. That isn't gonna happen because the whole point of these movies being made is for their brand recognition. The reason this even exists is because of the brand. Amazon isn't paying for the source material, they're paying for the strength of the brand and its draw power to Amazon Prime.
All I ever wanted was the truth. Remember those words as you read the ones that follow. I never set out to topple my father's kingdom of lies from a sense of misplaced pride. I never wanted to bleed the species to its marrow, reaving half the galaxy clean of human life in this bitter crusade. I never desired any of this, though I know the reasons for which it must be done. But all I ever wanted was the truth.
All I ever wanted was the truth. Remember those words as you read the ones that follow. I never set out to topple my father's kingdom of lies from a sense of misplaced pride. I never wanted to bleed the species to its marrow, reaving half the galaxy clean of human life in this bitter crusade. I never desired any of this, though I know the reasons for which it must be done. But all I ever wanted was the truth.