BlueJayFan
Well-known member
Casting black people = woke, don't you remember?
The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power
- Thread starter Crusaders
- Start date
eastisbest
Well-known member
lol, but being fair, I'm asking a legit question to try and see their POV. All the angst before the show even started was ridiculous but now they should have specific examples they can point to for the uninformed.
Which parts have been "woke" and which parts are not Tolkien, so far? Specific examples. Characterizations and societies seem to me pretty much the same as the original three so far, so I'm not able to discern.
My favorite so far is the "Galadriel is a Mary Sue" take. Lol.
PantherProud
Well-known member
I'll take lotr10's opinion on Tolkien's work over anyone else's opinion on this site. If it's got his seal of approval, that's all you need to know IMO.
eastisbest
Well-known member
that's all YOU need to know.
I'll gladly accept anyone's insight into the accusations of "wokeness" or non Tolkieness.
PantherProud
Well-known member
eastisbest
Well-known member
since you were pointedly quoting me as opposed to speaking in general, it was immaterial.
cabezadecaballo
Well-known member
Have you read Tolkien ? The four ME books he wrote and the Silmarillion compilation of “prequel” notes. If so, does this telling ring true ?
Or does it feel like something different ? Good, even great perhaps, but different than what one could expect from JRRT ?
cabezadecaballo
Well-known member
Black Vikings, that would be stupid. Black folks in the middle earth, it’s fantasy already, so what could anyone really consider to be sideways ?
eastisbest
Well-known member
IDK if there were any but since they raided as far south as Africa and Africans had migrated and traded throughout the Med and further north, it wouldn't be "stupid." As far as hobbits and any other fantasy character, why should it be expected any different that the different looks in a litter of kittens or a recessive gene popping up in the cousins? A quick google says Tolkien was anti-racist and any writing was just influenced by the times. So why not the adaptation? :shrug"
Regardless, I don't think that's what the objectors are referring to when they say this is "woke," so I'll wait for their input.
edit: googles says "yes" to Black Vikings.
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Yes I read the books though I like science fiction better then fantasy. The simple answer to your question is yes AND no. The visuals in Rings of Power remind me of the mental imagery I had reading the source material. The emotional aspects of the story line do not ring true. At best you can say that the characters do not come across as something Tolkien would write. So in this respect it's very different.
To be clear, I rarely hold movies/TV series to the standard of having to match the source materiel faithfully. This comes from my long experience of being disappointed if I did. And this is particularly true of Science Fiction & Fantasy. This is why I thought the LOTR trilogy, the latest Dune, the Foundation and the Expanse were all so good. They followed their source material very closely.
I guess what you're trying to say is that the show can be great - and I think Rings of Power is great - while deviating form the source material. A good example of this was the Starship Troopers movie. It was a fun watch and great entertainment but also an abomination when compared to Heinlein's brilliant book.
eastisbest
Well-known member
specifics?
How far back in time did the source material go? Did it cover this time era?
Opening episode intrigued me with what occurred before, I would liked to have seen that story.
cabezadecaballo
Well-known member
Thanks for the book recommendation, too. I agree with looking at film differently, even in the CGI era. Imagination inspired by print is limited only by language and the brain power of author and reader.
I can accept a film outside of my reading experience, too. There is only one "Bible" in my life. Nothing else is truly sacred, to me.
cabezadecaballo
Well-known member
Tolkein was not "anti-racist". There is nothing I have read to indicate any measure of racism on his part, but tossing around the current vernacular seems particularly disingenuous to me, especially as "anti-racist" is currently offered up in common parlance. He'd not likely have anything to do with people pushing current "anti-racist" ideology.
Just saying. It seems about as likely as an armed African with Hagar horns.
If you are one that makes a film full of outliers and presents it as realistic or true to an extant story, what are you ?
BlueJayFan
Well-known member
I don't know what's worse: the people upset there are black people in LOTR or the people that are upset that Ariel is black in the new The Little Mermaid
eastisbest
Well-known member
As I wrote, I'm just quoting what I saw after a general google search. Any argument would be with them
If there's nothing to indicate his opinions one way or the other, what good reason is there in this opinion? He wrote a story in which success was primarliy due to different races cooperating and treating each other equally against a culture that thought itself superior.
Apparently the hagar horns are a myth but Black Vikings are not. So unless they came from Greenland, they were African.
I'm still mostly waiting on those that had all these fears to point out exactly what if anything has lived up to those fears. What have they seen they would classify as "woke" and what have they seen they would classify as "non-Tolkien" and support that. I'm not doubting their pre-episode fears. I'm just trying to get some insight. I haven't noticed anything I understand to be classified as "woke" and am not personally familiar enough with Tolkien to know how this might depart from his intent. All I know is the trilogy and I don't see any major conflicts in cultures or intents.
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Starship Troopers is an amazing read particularly in these woke times. Heinlein was an engineer, WW2 Naval Officer and libertarian as well as one of the most influential science fiction writers in history. Troopers is full of interesting ideas that you may not agree with but are thought provoking.
I suspect that is not what they're upset about. But to a race obsessed person like yourself everything that happens must be viewed through a racial prism.
One of the reasons I used the term "emotional" was that it is a feeling I got watching the characters interact and move through the plot that didn't feel like Tolkien to me. But if you want a couple of examples:
1) The opening scenes where the girl Galadrial is playing with her boat and the mean boy is mocking her and then destroys the boat. That entire scene was like something you would see on the Disney Channel or the CW. It felt like nothing Tolkien had ever written.
2) Later when the troop of warrior elves is hunting down Sauron and Galadrial wants to keep going but all the other male elves want to give up and return to the comforts of home. The 2nd in command is especially whiny. Again these characters are not acting like any Tolkien wrote about. At this point the series seemed intent on descending into girl power territory confirming all the advance bad press. Fortunately they stopped that nonsense and settled down to creating a more interesting character for Galadrial.
3) The characters in the human south lands, particularly the mother & her son, were not acting in a way that Tolkien would have wrote.
Crusaders
Moderator
The reasons people object to woke agendas in media has been laid out here before. People who have no respect for artistic creation and storytelling and live in mindset where their personal politics must be reflected in any and all media simply refuse to engage those reasons and instead opt for claiming racism and backtracking to "its fiction, it doesn't matter" - when media portrayal clearly matters to them.
The primary worry going into the show, and this concern has since been proven, was that the show wouldn't be true to Tolkien. Race changing rose to the forefront because the creators made statements about how Middle Earth should look like our modern day world. That is complete woke garbage and just enflamed the worries that the creators were going to take a steaming pile on Tolkien's universe - and they have.
The writing of this show is pretty bad. Just off the top of my head...
- The dialogue sounds like it was written by amateurs trying to make their characters sound medieval-ish. It doesn't sound like Tolkien at all.
- It doesn't do a great job setting up the world at the beginning. Ex. they showed the Two Trees but didn't really explain much about them, how many years prior the events took place, or much of anything concerning Morgoth.
- There's a lot of nonsense dialogue and characters being dumb. Ex. In the beginning it's explained that they know Sauron likes darkness and yet are shocked to find a stronghold in a place that doesn't receive much light? Stupid, lazy writing.
- The treatment of the villains is just basic fantasy stuff. And there's so much evil going on it doesn't make sense for anyone to be questioning the danger.
- They made the Elves a bunch of cowardly idiots (except Galadriel, of course)
- Galadriel doesn't resemble Tolkien's character at all. The concept of her being motivated by revenge is completely absurd at the baseline. They made her completely sour and unlikeable. And, of course, they couldn't help but make her the absolute best at everything at all times in typical woke writing fashion. And apparently she thought she'd be able to swim across an entire ocean...lol
- Not to mention Elves don't decided who can return to Valinor; there's a standing invitation for them all to return whenever they want - except Galadriel who chose exile.
A big part of the problem is Amazon not having access to the Silmarillion and other second age stories. If they were going to spend $1b on a show, they should have done it right. Instead, they've tried to craft a show out of very little material and handed it over to complete amateurs who are more preoccupied with themselves and their ideology than the universe they're crafting a story.
The primary worry going into the show, and this concern has since been proven, was that the show wouldn't be true to Tolkien. Race changing rose to the forefront because the creators made statements about how Middle Earth should look like our modern day world. That is complete woke garbage and just enflamed the worries that the creators were going to take a steaming pile on Tolkien's universe - and they have.
The writing of this show is pretty bad. Just off the top of my head...
- The dialogue sounds like it was written by amateurs trying to make their characters sound medieval-ish. It doesn't sound like Tolkien at all.
- It doesn't do a great job setting up the world at the beginning. Ex. they showed the Two Trees but didn't really explain much about them, how many years prior the events took place, or much of anything concerning Morgoth.
- There's a lot of nonsense dialogue and characters being dumb. Ex. In the beginning it's explained that they know Sauron likes darkness and yet are shocked to find a stronghold in a place that doesn't receive much light? Stupid, lazy writing.
- The treatment of the villains is just basic fantasy stuff. And there's so much evil going on it doesn't make sense for anyone to be questioning the danger.
- They made the Elves a bunch of cowardly idiots (except Galadriel, of course)
- Galadriel doesn't resemble Tolkien's character at all. The concept of her being motivated by revenge is completely absurd at the baseline. They made her completely sour and unlikeable. And, of course, they couldn't help but make her the absolute best at everything at all times in typical woke writing fashion. And apparently she thought she'd be able to swim across an entire ocean...lol
- Not to mention Elves don't decided who can return to Valinor; there's a standing invitation for them all to return whenever they want - except Galadriel who chose exile.
A big part of the problem is Amazon not having access to the Silmarillion and other second age stories. If they were going to spend $1b on a show, they should have done it right. Instead, they've tried to craft a show out of very little material and handed it over to complete amateurs who are more preoccupied with themselves and their ideology than the universe they're crafting a story.
BlueJayFan
Well-known member
People are literally mad that Ariel is black
Where have you been?Not obsessing over race every waking moment of my life.People are literally mad that Ariel is black
Fair points. I still like the series and find it's imagery and special effects stunning. And for me that counts for a lot. It's also entertaining and that's why I pay money for Amazon Prime.
I agree that when diversity is injected into a series or movie simply for the sake of diversity it's off putting.
While I may disagree with some of your points I understand them. What I don't understand are people that get upset by your (and others) takes on this series. People are going to value fidelity to the source material differently.
Crusaders
Moderator
Clearly there are people who don't understand that a lot of people find their woke garbage annoying and see the Ariel race swap as just yet another example. Some find it offensive that white characters are being changed for no reason other than racism. And Ariel, being daughter of Triton, who is the son of Poseidon, has no business being black. It's just stupid. It's a story derived from Greek gods.
It's also unimaginative. Why not create a new animated story featuring a black girl? Instead of expanding their product lineup they go back and swap the race or gender of a classic character as if that is somehow interesting or different.
And then they make matters worse by telling everyone that the reason for the change was to inject "diversity" or make the story more "accessible" to people of color. As if children of all races can't enjoy the original Ariel character. IMO this is racist thinking.
eastisbest
Well-known member
1) "mean boy" 2) "all" the other elves. OK. I think I see where your perception is coming from
3) not particularly informative of Tolkien's writing one way or the other. How would they have acted if he'd wrote them? Did he spend no time on "normal" people?
From my less informed position, the three movies seemed almost totally about adventure and the series (so far) spends more time showing society and culture and not in a particularly unique way. The best exception being the hobbits. The townsfolk could be any medieval show ever. The Elves, nothing new there. Same the Dwarves, entertaining though the scenes were to me.
eastisbest
Well-known member
Or enjoying the new character. Which means that her skin color is no distraction for you. Progress.
eastisbest
Well-known member
I know. Crazy of those Greek people to create Gods that don't look like them. You know, kind of brown.... I guess by the time that got down to Ariel, it all got bleached out.
eastisbest
Well-known member
Where do you see that depiction of "white guys" by the Greeks? In "white" stone? lol. You might be confusing Disney with Ancient Greece. If not, then what did they mean by these?
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How about a little "white guy" Heracles?
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