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Comment by mistrial9 | Hacker News Reader

Isn't "brigading" and "review bombing" just pure spin? What if thousands of viewers do care enough to write reviews? worried about your "investment" ?

zero sympathy here; Tolkien reader; not watching this media at all.. zero

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I've read LOTR many times as well the Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, Tolkien's letters, etc. I really recommend trying out this show. It gets the heart of Tolkien if not the exact details.

Too many people that should be fans will not watch it or will dismiss it immediately because they have a fixed idea of what it might be and cannot abide a show that deviates one iota.

The people that are claiming it is a mess because some elves have short hair are one example.

In my opinion, it gets anything but the heart of Tolkien. Some details are attempted to be kept similar to LOTR movies, but much of the themes and ideas of the legendarium are not here.

So have I and I don't recommend it to any Tolkien fan because nothing about Rings of Power actually feels like something out of Tolkiens work.

Because what they care about might not be the content of the show, but particular political views.

For example there was quite a vocal group when the first trailers came out and they found out that (shock) not everyone in the show is white.

These groups are often amplified (or in one case, astroturfed into existence) as part of an outrage marketing strategy:

https://switch.com.mt/outrage-marketing-how-why-what/#:~:tex....

Ghostbusters was also promoted this way.

>”For example there was quite a vocal group when the first trailers came out and they found out that (shock) not everyone in the show is white.”

These people exist, but I am extremely skeptical that this is the primary motivator for the droves of negative reviews. What major media production isn’t diverse?

This reminds me of the controversy around Ghostbusters 2016 where people claimed review bombers hated the movie because of the female cast.

I would say it is much more likely that these well-loved properties had botched adaptations and that is why so many people are raking it over the coals.

> What major media production isn’t diverse?

It’s still pretty common, especially in sitcoms and romcoms.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MonochromeCastin...

Millions of people watch shows like this but only an extremely small fraction write reviews. This is why it only takes a small but vocal # of review bombers— emotionally motivated in a way the average viewer isn’t— to have a huge impact on review scores.

> What major media production isn’t diverse?

...and every major media production has people complaining about that.

Yeah but part of what happens is that there are tons of people who just don't like the show and then pretty quickly everybody that doesn't like the show is a racist by implication.

And of course that is the typical company response. Negative reviews, well its all political and racism.

But the reality is that there are also people who don't like some of the race choice in 'House of the Dragon' and that property is as big as Lord of the Rings, and yet those racist don't manage to motivate lots and lots of people to write reviews.

So when you make a good show racists are a small minority, when you have a bad show then all of a sudden all the criticism is because of racism.

House of Dragons doesn’t give reviewers with racist motivations any rhetorical leverage. They can’t hide behind arguments that it doesn’t conform to source or canon or anything like that because the original author is leading the creative process.

the original text clearly states that some of the people that are black in the show are white. It doesn't matter that the author is involved, if you are a racist why do you care that the author has been bought to conform to 'the message'.

> there are tons of people who just don't like the show and then pretty quickly everybody that doesn't like the show is a racist by implication

What do you say about people who are very vocal about how they don’t like the show but admit that they have not and will not ever watch it?

Those people are trash but again, tiny minority.

They seem to be pretty vocal, unfortunately.

The only issue I have with reviews are the ones given by people who haven't watched the show. Everyone who watches is entitled to their opinion, but simply smearing or promoting a show that you haven't even seen based on some sort of culture war position is not useful to anyone.

How exactly do you police reviews so that only people who legitimately watched a show are able to review it?

> Isn't "brigading" and "review bombing" just pure spin?

Do you think it doesn't happen? Or just that it didn't happen in this specific case?

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