And here is Tolkien himself speaking on his intent:
I especially like when he talks about Middle Earth not being any representation of anything real but just "a different imagination", and that of course neither time nor space nor culture would make any sort of 'real-world' sense applied to Middle Earth.
But sure, it has to be all white people because reasons. Mmmmm-hmmmmm.
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.
You also know their role in the overall world as well then. People are picking up on when changes are made solely to pander and it's the mark of a shit product. Useful idoits then defend the product blindly because they are told its morally correct to. The product then fails as the pandering trash it always was and those same idoits spout off " you couldn't of known!!!".
I could end up eating crow but given how they are hiding the plot I'm willing to bet this will go over as well as the wheel of time and the new Ghostbusters.
As much as I personally dislike the WoT show, it WAS just greenlit for season 3 before we even got season 2... Which would suggest that it goes over well with SOMEONE, even if it's not me (or you, apparently).
I'll reserve my judgement for this show for when I actually get to watch some of it. I do wish I had the time of my life I wasted on 3 eps of WoT back, but that's the price you pay if you want to see for yourself, I guess. So I'll donate at least some of my time to this show, too, to find out what we've got.
The irony of this bullshit, of course, is that those who are convinced it will be a failure because there are filthy brown and black people in it are the same ones who show up in comments sections of youtube videos mindlessly regurgitating the same exact comments they heard from [insert online culture war outrage-monger]. The projection is spectacular.
I have prime for shipping already so I will likely take a peek but my hype level is between ep 2 of wot and ep 2 of halo.
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Yes that is the mindless defense of it... the moment plot and source material takes a back seat the production has already given its death rattle.
Lol no.
There is no “picking up on when changes are made solely to pander” people just screech that they are always pandering at any thing like this even if there is no source material to change like with recent examples Obiwan and Prey.
Also absolutely love that people are still harping on about ghost busters 6 years later and completely ignoring that we have far more analogous comparisons with things like the Witcher which didn’t have any problems being a hit even though it did the exact same things.
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.
Witcher snd Ghostbusters did not do the same things. At all. I don't think this is comparable considering both handle diversity and representation' in very different ways.
The only way I see Witcher being comparable to that Ghostbusters is if Geralt was genderswapped and given Jasker's personality and Yennefer became a strikingly handsome dude with the intellect of a bicycle.
In fairness Christopher Tolkien did say that stuff like that ruined the trilogy (or "eviscerated the story" as he phrased it.)
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Licensing is complicated. The Fall of Numenor is mentioned in the appendices so they can use that in the series, they can use other published works as reference for that event. On top of that the Tolkien Estate can grant them permission to use anything on a case-by-case basis which is probably how we got that shot of Melkor poised to destroy the Two Trees.
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It's honestly impressive that you can quote parts of the policy and then lie about what it says.
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On the bright side a reboot of the LotR movies might do the books justice and get all the characters right.
Who did the movies get wrong? I can take a guess, like Aragorn is the standout I think, I know Aragorn felt very different than the books, I'd go out on a limb say Faramir too. Also maybe Glorfindel will get his appropriate spot.
I do feel for the most part a lot of the character were quite faithful to the books, there are nit pick slight changes like Frodo and Sam and maybe the ents, but none that do massive harm to the books.
Last edited by Orby; 2022-08-15 at 10:44 AM.
I love Warcraft, I dislike WoW
Unsubbed since January 2021, now a Warcraft fan from a distance
Denethor was done a little dirty. His character wasn't actually changed that much, it's just that we never got to see him before his descent into despair, for which Sauron was partly to blame due to the visions that Sauron fed to him through the palantir.
Eowyn came across way too sappy in the film compared to how she is in the books.
Gimli, Merry and Pippin all became comic relief.
Oh shit forgot about Denethor.
I was gonna mention Merry and Pippin but in the books they had little personality, Gimli yea I agree they made him a bit of a bumbling fool at times. Eowyn I can believe too. :P
Its been like a while since I read the books, I've read LotR like only 3 times since I was a kid :P
I love Warcraft, I dislike WoW
Unsubbed since January 2021, now a Warcraft fan from a distance
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.
Middle Earth isn't all 'white people' to begin with. The problem is the main characters of the books and much of the extended lore are based on the northern and western peoples of Middle Earth, who were based on European mythology, history and culture. Which again, if you watch the video he said specifically a lot of the names are based on Norse, Welsh, Finnish and other European cultures. So what you really mean is the main heroes and characters of the books were "all white" people, which apparently causes problems for some folks.
You also obviously missed the whole first minute and a half where he said specifically that his story cannot fit into real world time, yet here we are with Amazon trying to "modernize" it. That fundamentally contradicts everything the man literally said, which means this argument is purely about people making up whatever they want and putting it into Tolkien vs actually caring about the lore.
Last edited by InfiniteCharger; 2022-08-15 at 01:55 PM.
Yes middle earth isn’t all white and given Tolkien not describing skin tones of some of the races and directly referencing South Africa there is no reason to stick to a solely white cast.
But of course Your also absolutely right he did say the story can’t fit into the real world so we should really only cast real elfs hobbits and dwarfs to not contradict his own words and stick to the lore.
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.