Lord of the Rings Series -- Amazon (2 Viewers)

[Consigliere]

I don't give a flying fart if there's a black actor playing an elf. What I would like to know, however, is if he's playing a white elf or if he looks to the other characters the same way he looks to the audience.

Like, in the olden days all the actors were men, so female parts were played by a guy. The other characters, however, saw a woman. They played their parts as if the dude playing Lady MacBeth or Juliette was a female. The audience sees a man while the characters see a woman.

...

It's just a thing that appears to be purposely injected by the writers to serve as a distraction and a buffer against criticism.

You are of course correct, but you are trying way too hard to give Amazon a way out here.

This is not the London Globe theatre in 1606, and this is not a high school play when the talent pool is limited. Amazon has a billion-dollar budget, and thousands of actors to chose from, yet went out of its way to show us black elves, because they wanted to show us Wokien instead of Tolkien. It's not the main reason that the show stunk, but it shows that they were not trying.

Humans started black and some turned white because of evolution over a thousand generations. Same as the various human races in Tolkien (Numenoreans were specially granted great strength and height, another detail Amazon neglected.) Tolkien's elves are immortal and rarely reproduce, they do not evolve!

Tolkien meant this to be an Anglo-Saxon origin myth! Do we want a Roots remake with some Chinese actors sprinkled in?

I realize that the 8th circle of the Inferno is for people who argue about racist elves on the internet, but hier stehe ich. Ich kann nicht anders.

 

[UptownSaintsFan]

Well, yeah. That's kind of the point, though. Amazon did a great job of salting the earth RE: legit criticism.

I don't give a flying fart if there's a black actor playing an elf. What I would like to know, however, is if he's playing a white elf or if he looks to the other characters the same way he looks to the audience.

Like, in the olden days all the actors were men, so female parts were played by a guy. The other characters, however, saw a woman. They played their parts as if the dude playing Lady MacBeth or Juliette was a female. The audience sees a man while the characters see a woman.

Fast forward to RoP and Arondir. Does Galadriel see just another elven warrior or does she see the only black elf in Middle Earth? (If he's not the only one, I didn't see the 'blink-and-you'll-miss-it' appearance of another) If the character of Arondir looks to the other characters like any other elf, fine...whatever. Cordova's doing a fine job with the material he's given. It does kind of spike the "black elf" narrative, though. If the character isn't black, then we don't really have a black elf, we have a black guy playing a white elf.

If, however, he looks to the other characters like he appears to the audience then why hasn't anyone remarked on it? Even some little interaction like "Hey, Arondir, we don't see many elves from the lands beyond the Haradrim. What brought you so far north?"

It's just a thing that appears to be purposely injected by the writers to serve as a distraction and a buffer against criticism.

complain about the the writing, the dialogue, whatever. but this just reads like complaints from that incel youtuber. do better.

 

[UptownSaintsFan]

You are of course correct, but you are trying way too hard to give Amazon a way out here.

This is not the London Globe theatre in 1606, and this is not a high school play when the talent pool is limited. Amazon has a billion-dollar budget, and thousands of actors to chose from, yet went out of its way to show us black elves, because they wanted to show us Wokien instead of Tolkien. It's not the main reason that the show stunk, but it shows that they were not trying.

Humans started black and some turned white because of evolution over a thousand generations. Same as the various human races in Tolkien (Numenoreans were specially granted great strength and height, another detail Amazon neglected.) Tolkien's elves are immortal and rarely reproduce, they do not evolve!

Tolkien meant this to be an Anglo-Saxon origin myth! Do we want a Roots remake with some Chinese actors sprinkled in?

I realize that the 8th circle of the Inferno is for people who argue about racist elves on the internet, but hier stehe ich. Ich kann nicht anders.

Not sure it's the elves that are racist here.

 

[boutte]

It's not about black elves/dwarves or feminist virtue signaling or any of that.
It's about terrible writing and character development. Galadriel is one of the most simple minded and badly written characters in years. She's like something out the M SHE U. Would be surprised if the She Hulk made a cameo appearance.

 

[VaeVictus]

complain about the the writing, the dialogue, whatever. but this just reads like complaints from that incel youtuber. do better.

They (the creators) literally did a massive magazine hitpiece on their critics the day after the finale. They're still running damage control to this day. Your "complaints from a youtuber" comment sounds exactly like what these hacks are saying after getting criticism. Do better.

Amazon had a superfan segment prior to the show coming out that almost exclusively discussed representation. Even more humorously, one of the superfans hadn't watched it, and instead raved about HoTD.

Whether your enjoy the show or not, you simply can't deny the showrunners and actors planted seeds of discontent that A) provided more ammunition for the critics and B) screamed, this show is going to be terrible well before a single episode ran.

 

[UptownSaintsFan]

They (the creators) literally did a massive magazine hitpiece on their critics the day after the finale. They're still running damage control to this day. Your "complaints from a youtuber" comment sounds exactly like what these hacks are saying after getting criticism. Do better.

Amazon had a superfan segment prior to the show coming out that almost exclusively discussed representation. Even more humorously, one of the superfans hadn't watched it, and instead raved about HoTD.

Whether your enjoy the show or not, you simply can't deny the showrunners and actors planted seeds of discontent that A) provided more ammunition for the critics and B) screamed, this show is going to be terrible well before a single episode ran.

I haven't read any of amazon's hitbacks. I read the article that someone posted on here and it read like incel trash. That isn't criticism, it's misogyny and racism. I'm seeing some of the same things here and it's disappointing.

I like LoTR, though i don't like it as much as some people here. I think overall the season was enjoyable and pretty, but boring at a lot of points. i also think a lot of the acting was meh. But, i also think LOTR writing is going to suffer in the new GOT environment, which I think is written much more for adults with a grittier realism (for the most part)

 

[VaeVictus]

I haven't read any of amazon's hitbacks. I read the article that someone posted on here and it read like incel trash. That isn't criticism, it's misogyny and racism. I'm seeing some of the same things here and it's disappointing.

I like LoTR, though i don't like it as much as some people here. I think overall the season was enjoyable and pretty, but boring at a lot of points. i also think a lot of the acting was meh. But, i also think LOTR writing is going to suffer in the new GOT environment, which I think is written much more for adults with a grittier realism (for the most part)

They (amazon hitpieces) exist, both before and after the series showed.

Comparatively, some of the same criticisms levied against HoTD before it premiered disappeared b/c the show was actually good.

 

[Scorpius the Allfather]

They (the creators) literally did a massive magazine hitpiece on their critics the day after the finale. They're still running damage control to this day. Your "complaints from a youtuber" comment sounds exactly like what these hacks are saying after getting criticism. Do better.

Amazon had a superfan segment prior to the show coming out that almost exclusively discussed representation. Even more humorously, one of the superfans hadn't watched it, and instead raved about HoTD.

Whether your enjoy the show or not, you simply can't deny the showrunners and actors planted seeds of discontent that A) provided more ammunition for the critics and B) screamed, this show is going to be terrible well before a single episode ran.

I can deny whatever I want.

 

[Tapxe]

I like it so far. I don't have the burden of expectation on it however so I am much freer to enjoy.

 

[Consigliere]

It's about terrible writing and character development.

I totally agree - because it's not Tolkien's writing.

(1) Gandalf grossly mis-timed
(2) Galadriel stupidly over-powered
(3) Sauron and Galadriel meet in mid-ocean and share a raft?
(4) Those harfoots are fighting off those wargs somehow?
(5) Short wimpy bumbling Numenoreans.
(6) Inserting rusty magic sword causes flood which creates volcano.
(7) Phase I: Collect Mithril. Phase II: ... Phase III: Save the Elves

Amazon did not try to make it good - that's the main point.

 

[Tapxe]

Amazon did not try to make it good the way I want

Fixt

 

[Scorpius the Allfather]

Fixt

I said it before and I'll say it again, it would be impossible to completely tell the story. Does anyone really want to watch Sauron take 4 thousand years just to find a single Dwarven ring? I don't. I think the timelines are way too long. And if people have a problem with the changes, then they need to blame the Tolkien estate because the only thing they care about is that things happen in a certain order.

 

[UptownSaintsFan]

I totally agree - because it's not Tolkien's writing.

(1) Gandalf grossly mis-timed
(2) Galadriel stupidly over-powered
(3) Sauron and Galadriel meet in mid-ocean and share a raft?
(4) Those harfoots are fighting off those wargs somehow?
(5) Short wimpy bumbling Numenoreans.
(6) Inserting rusty magic sword causes flood which creates volcano.
(7) Phase I: Collect Mithril. Phase II: ... Phase III: Save the Elves

Amazon did not try to make it good - that's the main point.

i'll never understand how LOTR elitists can hate on people being overpowered after seeing Legolas slide (suf) down a wall on a shield while shooting 3000 orcs (edit - 41). To me, that was the stupidest scene in all of LOTR. If you still can hold that up as a masterpiece, i think you need to leave a lot of room for over-powered people. i'm not saying you're that elitist, but people were willing to overlook that trash, but now we can't seem to overlook anything.

 

[Taurus]

wait...your argument's getting worse - you're accusing them of stunt casting? (bc they knew the plot wasn't working and needed a 'woke' distraction?)
please tell me that's not your argument

"Stunt" casting or not, they deliberately chose black actors when they knew the fandom would be expecting white ones.

But that's not my point. My point is that, from a storytelling perspective, we have a single black elf in a sea of palefaces and nobody notices? If the characters see 'just another elf', then fine. If they see an elf of singular coloration and hair, wouldn't someone at some point make note of it? It's just weird.

 

[Tapxe]

"Stunt" casting or not, they deliberately chose black actors when they knew the fandom would be expecting white ones.

But that's not my point. My point is that, from a storytelling perspective, we have a single black elf in a sea of palefaces and nobody notices? If the characters see 'just another elf', then fine. If they see an elf of singular coloration and hair, wouldn't someone at some point make note of it? It's just weird.

This is a decent argument about all that.

Fear of a Black Hobbit

The demand to keep politics out of art is too often a demand for art to conform to conservative politics.

www.theatlantic.com

Demanding Jim Crow casting requirements for a show on which the concept of race applies to elves and hobbits indicates a rather profound “obsession with identity issues that only go skin deep.” The primary tensions in Middle Earth are among races even more fictional than the ones that divide contemporary society. The fact that its cultures are inspired by real-world history does not rationalize imposing patterns of migration, conquest, and exploitation onto a fictional universe in which they did not take place. J. R. R. Tolkien’s tendency to essentialize his fictional races, giving them intrinsic moral qualities, is the subject of a great deal of research and commentary, but that’s not really the issue here. There are stories set in universes where race works similarly to how it does in contemporary society and where it should influence casting choices, but this isn’t one of them.