I thought we got past this malarkey with the stunning finale of The Sopranos... creative art is not there to satisfy your clamouring desires. That is 'content'.
As long as one can get in the mindset of 'this is some disposable Tolkien-ish fantasy content', it's an OK bit of filler (IMO, having watched the first couple of episodes)
(a) Most of the angry people haven't even watched (!) the few episodes (!!) that are out.
(b) I'm not sure most of the outraged are Tolkien fans. It honestly feels more like dog piling / mob hysteria.
When did we become consumers of visual media where "I don't like it, and I haven't and won't watch it" is a valid position to publicly kvetch about?
> "Now after all this rant: I didn't watch rings of power, and I don't plan to, why soil a good memory and good mental mythos I have of that world?"
> "I watched up till the intro credits of episode one. It seems... OK?"
> "I watched the trailer and I didn't watch the show yet, but I if it follows the trend, I imagine what I will find. I don't know if I will watch it."
> "I found the first episode very long drawn and boring. Wanted to leave a review but Amazon told me: "please watch till the end to leave a review". Not going to torture myself just to leave a review."
> "I’ve only watched one episode, but that episode was not good."
> "That begin said, I haven't watched any RoP, the "nothing" could be complete fluff because the story is too thin."
> "I don't think I'll be watching this series at all based on what I've read in the comments here."
> "zero sympathy here; Tolkien reader; not watching this media at all.. zero"
> "I don’t known about others, but I really don’t want to watch this show now."
Am I the only one that seems weird to? Like, watch it and have whatever opinion you feel! But when did not watch it and have a strong opinion become a valid option?
This sounds very similar to what happened with the fans of the well-known Wheel of Time series. Given the broad divergence from the canon, the future of the series is in doubt [1]
[1] https://screenrant.com/wheel-time-show-backlash-controversy-...
In no particular order:
Conflict between men and women leads to ruination.
Men need women and women need men, without the other they aren't complete.
Men are naturally stronger than women, but women make up for it with teamwork.
Powerful men get harems. Men frequently take multiple wives but the reverse is virtually unheard of.
Slavery as a cultural difference to be respected.
Good guys allying themselves with an empire built by the chattel slavery of women.
Amazon is doubling down. Expect more of this sort of "we'll buy your favorite property and change it and there's nothing you can do about it". Nothing that is still protected by copyright is sacred, you just need a rich enough business to buy it to change it.
I can't comment on the social phenomenon of Amazon mob reviews, but the attitude of Tolkien toward his work is relevant. He incorporated a tremendous amount of material from his research on northern European mythology, and had very definite ideas about how it should all hang together. Once LotR was published, he would react very strongly against interpreting or extending that material in any way that didn't match his vision. A large part of Tolkien's fan base takes a similarly serious attitude towards his material.
Take the Wheel of Time series. A lot of unhappy fans again. Robert Jordan isn't around to give his opinion, but Brandon Sanderson finished off writing the series after Jordan's death and has talked about what he thinks of the TV series. His comments are remarkably less hysterical than what fans say. He basically says he likes it and there are some things he would have done differently [1].
Ghost in the Shell is another example. The live action movie was bad. There was a whitewashing controversy about a caucasian actor playing the lead role. The original Ghost in the Shell anime director came out and said it didn't matter [2]. His comments are worth reading:
> ...Oshii said that because the main protagonist – Major Motoko Kusanagi – is a cyborg, the question of race and whitewashing is a moot point. “What issue could there possibly be with casting her?” Oshii said. “The major is a cyborg and her physical form is an entirely assumed one. The name ‘Motoko Kusanagi’ and her current body are not her original name and body, so there is no basis for saying that an Asian actress must portray her. Even if her original body (presuming such a thing existed) were a Japanese one, that would still apply.”
Oshii added that he thought Johansson was the best possible person to play Kusanagi in the Rupert Sanders-helmed remake, which is out next weekend in the US. He also argued that actors of different backgrounds from the characters they are portraying is part and parcel of the film-making world.
”In the movies, John Wayne can play Genghis Khan, and Omar Sharif, an Arab, can play Doctor Zhivago, a Slav. It’s all just cinematic conventions,” he explained.
”If that’s not allowed, then Darth Vader probably shouldn’t speak English, either.”
[1] https://winteriscoming.net/2022/01/27/how-brandon-sanderson-...
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/mar/24/scarlett-johans...
And considering how bad it went, his opinion might not be that worthwhile in this endeavour.
That raises a kind of interesting point. They aren't rewriting his books, they are rewriting his world.
Tolkien started out with a hobby of creating languages. He then was inspired to build worlds in which those languages would live. His fiction came out of a desire to have adventures in those worlds.
I've read descriptions of Tolkien's dealings with people who wanted to adapt his published stories for film. He was quite ready to accept modifications to the stories to fit the needs of another medium, so long as the main thrust of the narrative was preserved. What would really draw his ire, though, was when people tampered with his world.
All that said, though, his writings, especially later in life, give me the impression that if it were explained to him that racial diversity was to become the hang-up for people that it has, he would have sought to modify his stories to avoid giving offense.
I’m not saying you can’t have an opinion, of course. The recent Star Wars trilogy isn’t exactly an unparalleled artistic achievement. But unfortunately when the internet’s overflowing with misogynists and racists desperate to hold their crumbling cultural Maginot line, any legitimate criticism isn’t going to be heard.
House of the Dragon has surprisingly been great, sure you have the random teleporting character or out of character military tactic but it also shows HBO learned from their mistake and you can feel they brought back the politics and meetings and focus on characters instead of fan service and whatever made the last 4 got seasons the garbage they turned into.
But again you have to have read GRRM's work and not be a contrarian just for the sake of it to enjoy it.
Rings of power had a budget of a billion $, either there is some money laundering scheme at work that I'm unaware of, or people have just forgotten how to hire good writers and other people to make a decent movie/series.
If you gave me a billion $ today I'd just hire Peter Jackson, pay him a shit ton of money so he accepts, and give him FULL creative power over the project so it doesn't turn out like The Hobbit trilogy or That Raimi directed Dr Strange in the multiverse of madness. And if he refuses to do it then find another good director and I'm sure there are a lot of big names who would gladly accept the challenge of topping Jackson's work.
A billion $ is A LOT of money in cinema, despite you having to pay the movie theaters, marketing, etc. Amazon owns imdb so can market it themselves on 2 of the most visited websites in the world: Amazon and imdb (for movie/series watchers), and if that's not enough, they own the streaming service where they plan to put it.
People aren't saying it sucks (at least I'm not) but that it had no reason to not be great. Galadriel felt inhuman in Jackson's movies, she's supposed to be one of the fairest and mightiest elves in middle earth, I doubt she felt like that to anyone in rop.
Now after all this rant: I didn't watch rings of power, and I don't plan to, why soil a good memory and good mental mythos I have of that world? I made that mistake with the witcher, I had built up the characters in my head from the books and later the videogames, then Netflix took a huge dump on this mental model, and now whenever I think about some character (outside of Cavill and a few others who did great work) I also get the image of the new one in my head: I hope this weird rambling makes sense.
It's mostly that it's a very easy angle to write click-friendly articles about.
You can easily go "nut-picking" on Twitter, and find people saying whatever crazy thing you need for an article like that.
It makes me miss old Amazon prime where they'd use the $200M to fund dozens of risky shows from up and coming directors.
Even if 90% ended up being terrible, they'd still end up with multiple shows that I'd enjoy more than one big budget production.
Seems like a standard trajectory for new independent streaming services at this point. First you make art, then you make content.
(Which honestly can suck, because of course some people will just review bomb it no matter without ever actually watching a single episode. Makes it harder for everyone else to actually know if it's bad on its own merits.)
As someone who doesn't live in the US, it is always a bit amusing when you see these Hollywood productions very clearly add or make some characters certain race or gender because of US politics.
As I said, it's a very US thing, that is very noticeable to non US viewers. Try watching some non US movies or shows and you'll see what I mean.
The US seems to have in general a lot of interest in races for some reason. For some applications or forms I've had to fill for US things, I was asked my race or ethnicity, which to me seems completely bizarre (what does it matter?). Moreover I didn't even know what race I was supposed to put (am I white? am I Hispanic?) because I've never been asked.
The reason being systemic racism imposed on brown and black people in the US.
Look back to the 1990s movies where you'd have large casts depicting everyday life, and there'd be literally 0 non-white people. Non-whites were explicitly excluded in many movies, obviously with exceptions, but we're talking about averages and tendencies here. Racism didn't end in the 1960s.
Conservatives think we live in a post-racial era where there's equality of opportunity just because there aren't laws that explicitly discriminate against certain races. But that's a really flawed sociolegal analysis, given that equality of opportunity isn't exclusively determined by equality under law, and given that there's laws that aren't explicitly racist but cause racist outcomes and likely have unstated racist motivations (e.g. marijuana criminality, immigration restrictions).
> There is rarely focus on including for example Asian or Hispanic characters
I totally agree that they need to do a better job on that.
Well, that kind explains "I just don't understand the level of virtriol about a TV show." from OP.
For instance, I don't live in the US, I don't care about the US and most importantly I don't care about US politics, but the US is the only capable of running shows like this.
I imagine there would be americans that don't want politics or political influences in their beloved stories too.
Me, I just want a Tolkien show despicted as in (or as accurate as possible to) the books. I watched the trailer and I didn't watch the show yet, but I if it follows the trend, I imagine what I will find. I don't know if I will watch it.
How much time will I have to wait for a new version? 15, 20, 30 years? I'll probably be long gone.
I find it extremely ironic that people are so bent out of shape about a couple characters cast with darker skin. These must be the same people that have no clue that every character in their favorite book (The Bible, King James version) was non-white. These are most likely the same people with the historically inaccurate pictures of Jesus Christ as a caucasian man.
The two largest fantasy franchises in the world are Euro-centric white fantasy (Middle Earth and GoT). It isn't enough that our fantasy canon dominates the world, we need to have every actor be caucasian as well?
So here's my theory: LOTR is extremely popular with a huge number of fans. This show is subpar. Subpar adaptation of very popular thing means lots of disappointed fans, meaning lots of negative reviews.