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bbgun

bbgun

please don't "dur" me
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boozeman said:
The Black Phone was pretty decent.
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Definitely a unique premise. I didn't buy the fact that the Grabber could afford two homes, or that he was stupid enough to let his brother stay in the house with a live victim below. The little sis was annoying with the Jesus stuff.
 
Smitty

Smitty

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jsmith6919 said:
Damn, really?
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It's at the very least a drastic departure from Tolkien. Think Liv Tyler as the made up elf warrior princess in Fellowship. It may have "fit," into a movie where they felt there were not enough female characters, so they invented one to replace a male character in that scene named Glorfindel, and I lived with it, because the rest of the movie was frickin' awesome (the next two movies sucked, though), and faithful to the original work well within any reasonable expectation of a movie adaption.

But the Amazon series is ALL that, it's ALL made up non-authored content. First of all, it's creating storylines out of stuff that Tolkien never wrote full books about, at best they have a handful of pages and paragraphs from appendices and timelines that were actually published. Then perhaps after that they have probably piles of notes from stuff that was never published or published in unfinished form after his death. And that, in theory, is ok too, because Christopher Tolkien, his son, basically edited, wrote a little, and published the Silmarillion from his father's notes, with only a little of Christopher's own writing added, and it was a masterpiece. Not coincidentally, Christopher Tolkien died in 2020 at age 95, having published 3 final books that were made up of expanded content from stories in the Silmarillion, the expanded material coming from further notes he found of his father's since the Silmarillion was published in 1977 (posthumously to JRR Tolkien himself who died in 1973). I say not coincidentally because Christopher was very protective of the Tolkien works IPs and would never have allowed this Amazon abomination if he had any say. His advanced age and then death certainly allowed the heirs and existing owners of the IP to greenlight this Amazon nonsense which has very little to do with actual Tolkien writings.

So Amazon is instead taking the stuff that there wasn't enough written content and they are hiring their own woke-era writers to come up with stories to fill in sentences or paragraphs worth of stuff that Tolkien actually wrote.

So of course we are getting female dwarf leads where Tolkien ever only hinted at whether female dwarfs even exist. I guarantee you we get lead warrior female dwarfs. We are getting minority elves when Tolkien never once implied that elves were anything but the epitome of anglo-saxon/norse. We are getting Galadriel turned into a warrior princess when there is not a shred of written Tolkien content that would imply that she ever was one. A leader of the Elves yes, but nothing ever portraying her as a wielder of weapons, yet the screenshots show a Galadriel actress all dressed in armor.

They can't help themselves. Even if there's no LGTBQ content, they are going to create storylines that have no business in a Tolkien work. I won't give them my business.
 
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Smitty

Smitty

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Cowboysrock55 said:
So I know I've seen comments about that on Facebook. What's woke about it? I don't care enough to go searching and reading articles about it. Is it because of the races and genders of certain characters?
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see the above post

And people say "Well what's wrong with having a minority elf?"

Nothing. In it's own world.

I watched the Witcher TV series and there's a minority elf. I'm perfectly fine with it. Love the show. I'm not entirely sure elves can be minorities in the actual books written by Sapkowski, but he's alive and had input into the TV series. It wouldn't have been my creative choice but it's relatively seamless.

It does not work for Tolkien. The story is a representation of middle-ages to pre-industrial society in England and the surrounding British, Celtic, and Norse nations. There are no minorities, period, but those men who come from the far east and far south and were outsiders. And there are letters from him in which he expressly addresses the issue. The answer is unambiguously no, period. No minority elves.

If you want a fantasy work to put on TV, make one and put it on, and if it's good, I'll watch. I'm not against minority elves, I'm against having to change something that has no minorities because it's been deemed a sin not to include them.
 
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Cowboysrock55

Cowboysrock55

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Smitty said:
see the above post

And people say "Well what's wrong with having a minority elf?"

Nothing. In it's own world.

I watched the Witcher TV series and there's a minority elf. I'm perfectly fine with it. Love the show. I'm not entirely sure elves can be minorities in the actual books written by Sapkowski, but he's alive and had input into the TV series. It wouldn't have been my creative choice but it's relatively seamless.

It does not work for Tolkien. The story is a representation of middle-ages to pre-industrial society in England and the surrounding British, Celtic, and Norse nations. There are no minorities, period, but those men who come from the far east and far south and were outsiders. And there are letters from him in which he expressly addresses the issue. The answer is unambiguously no, period. No minority elves.

If you want a fantasy work to put on TV, make one and put it on, and if it's good, I'll watch. I'm not against minority elves, I'm against having to change something that has no minorities because it's been deemed a sin not to include them.
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Thanks, I appreciate the synopsis. I'm not so hard-core, I had no idea that Tolkien was that specific on the color of skin. That's why it probably won't bother me in watching it. But I'm sure I will get a feeling pretty quickly if that sort of thing feels forced and it will quickly ruin it for me.

I actually think I'd have a bigger problem with a forced in female character. I'm not against females in action spots. But it can't be forced. Brienne of Tarth in Game of Thrones is a perfect example. Nothing forced about it and well it probably helps that she was in the books all the same. But she was a bad ass in a realistic way that fit the story.
 
1bigfan13

1bigfan13

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For me it's pretty funny when people get all worked up and bothered that works of fantasy don't accurately match a period of time or region.

It's fantasy. Elves, dragons, ogres, and such don't exist in the first place.

If we're talking about some type of period piece based in the late 1800s U.S. that has a black man as the governor of Mississippi and a woman POTUS, then I would raise the BS flag. But I can't bring myself to be upset just because a movie has dared to insert a tad more fantasy into a fantasy. That's just my two cents.

Unrelated but it reminds me of the uproar when the live-action Beauty and the Beast was released around 2016. People were upset about a gay scene in the movie. My thought was, you're concerned about the movie promoting homosexuality but are completely unbothered by and have no objection to the bestiality overtone of the movie? :lol
 
Rev

Rev

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Smitty said:
It's at the very least a drastic departure from Tolkien. Think Liv Tyler as the made up elf warrior princess in Fellowship. It may have "fit," into a movie where they felt there were not enough female characters, so they invented one to replace a male character in that scene named Glorfindel, and I lived with it, because the rest of the movie was frickin' awesome (the next two movies sucked, though), and faithful to the original work well within any reasonable expectation of a movie adaption.

But the Amazon series is ALL that, it's ALL made up non-authored content. First of all, it's creating storylines out of stuff that Tolkien never wrote full books about, at best they have a handful of pages and paragraphs from appendices and timelines that were actually published. Then perhaps after that they have probably piles of notes from stuff that was never published or published in unfinished form after his death. And that, in theory, is ok too, because Christopher Tolkien, his son, basically edited, wrote a little, and published the Silmarillion from his father's notes, with only a little of Christopher's own writing added, and it was a masterpiece. Not coincidentally, Christopher Tolkien died in 2020 at age 95, having published 3 final books that were made up of expanded content from stories in the Silmarillion, the expanded material coming from further notes he found of his father's since the Silmarillion was published in 1977 (posthumously to JRR Tolkien himself who died in 1973). I say not coincidentally because Christopher was very protective of the Tolkien works IPs and would never have allowed this Amazon abomination if he had any say. His advanced age and then death certainly allowed the heirs and existing owners of the IP to greenlight this Amazon nonsense which has very little to do with actual Tolkien writings.

So Amazon is instead taking the stuff that there wasn't enough written content and they are hiring their own woke-era writers to come up with stories to fill in sentences or paragraphs worth of stuff that Tolkien actually wrote.

So of course we are getting female dwarf leads where Tolkien ever only hinted at whether female dwarfs even exist. I guarantee you we get lead warrior female dwarfs. We are getting minority elves when Tolkien never once implied that elves were anything but the epitome of anglo-saxon/norse. We are getting Galadriel turned into a warrior princess when there is not a shred of written Tolkien content that would imply that she ever was one. A leader of the Elves yes, but nothing ever portraying her as a wielder of weapons, yet the screenshots show a Galadriel actress all dressed in armor.

They can't help themselves. Even if there's no LGTBQ content, they are going to create storylines that have no business in a Tolkien work. I won't give them my business.
Click to expand...

 
Cowboysrock55

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1bigfan13 said:
For me it's pretty funny when people get all worked up and bothered that works of fantasy don't accurately match a period of time or region.

It's fantasy. Elves, dragons, ogres, and such don't exist in the first place.

If we're talking about some type of period piece based in the late 1800s U.S. that has a black man as the governor of Mississippi and a woman POTUS, then I would raise the BS flag. But I can't bring myself to be upset just because a movie has dared to insert a tad more fantasy into a fantasy. That's just my two cents.

Unrelated but it reminds me of the uproar when the live-action Beauty and the Beast was released around 2016. People were upset about a gay scene in the movie. My thought was, you're concerned about the movie promoting homosexuality but are completely unbothered by and have no objection to the bestiality overtone of the movie? :lol
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Yeah, I think it's the difference between somebody that is really into the books and someone who isn't. I casually listened to the books and the color of skin didn't really stand out to me so I'm kind of meh on the issue. I get when people get upset because they force straying from the source material but in this case I can't honestly say if it's forced or not. I'll watch and just find out. Unlike some things this isn't really taken exactly from a book if I understand it correct.
 
Smitty

Smitty

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Cowboysrock55 said:
Thanks, I appreciate the synopsis. I'm not so hard-core, I had no idea that Tolkien was that specific on the color of skin. That's why it probably won't bother me in watching it. But I'm sure I will get a feeling pretty quickly if that sort of thing feels forced and it will quickly ruin it for me.

I actually think I'd have a bigger problem with a forced in female character. I'm not against females in action spots. But it can't be forced. Brienne of Tarth in Game of Thrones is a perfect example. Nothing forced about it and well it probably helps that she was in the books all the same. But she was a bad ass in a realistic way that fit the story.
Click to expand...
I was thinking about this in other contexts, for example, an adaption like The Wiz with an all black cast of a very old story in the Wizard of Oz which actually predates the 1930s Judy Garland movie. And I think the difference is that something like the Wiz is a very enjoyable adaption because it says “This isn’t the Wizard of Oz; this is a very specific adaption and reimagining of the Wizard of Oz in a new way.” And that’s totally fine and cool.

The Amazon series is saying “This IS the Lord of the Rings,” or at least “This IS the story of Tolkien’s second age.”

But it’s not. And that’s the problem.

I think it would be fair to say I’m hardcore about the Tolkien source material. But would it fly in todays society to tell an African story and have a white actor play the role?

I would be against against making James Bond a black actor for similar reasons - he’s English, or Welsh, or whatever - and by the same token I would be against making Black Panther played by a white character. The story is about a white character, leave it that way because if you don’t it’s not the same story.

I also understand that there are issues of representation in media that some people see as a big problem and this is their solution, but the real solution should be, stop telling the same stories over and over again (ie, maybe stop making James Bond movies) and tell a new story about a new character who is black. John David Washington was great in Tenet, why can’t he helm a new, original action franchise?

At the end of the day they are altering source material, not interpreting it, for the very deliberate reason of appeasing modern cultural allowances. If that’s what it has come to than I’d rather they leave Tolkien’s unparalleled works on the page because they were great before new authors started making up stories using his name to get rich. Either tell his story faithfully or leave it alone.
 
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boozeman

boozeman

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Every time I watch Pulp Fiction, I get a little bit more out of it.

I just realized.

We are all Vincent Vega.
 
jsmith6919

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Smitty said:
It's at the very least a drastic departure from Tolkien. Think Liv Tyler as the made up elf warrior princess in Fellowship. It may have "fit," into a movie where they felt there were not enough female characters, so they invented one to replace a male character in that scene named Glorfindel, and I lived with it, because the rest of the movie was frickin' awesome (the next two movies sucked, though), and faithful to the original work well within any reasonable expectation of a movie adaption.

But the Amazon series is ALL that, it's ALL made up non-authored content. First of all, it's creating storylines out of stuff that Tolkien never wrote full books about, at best they have a handful of pages and paragraphs from appendices and timelines that were actually published. Then perhaps after that they have probably piles of notes from stuff that was never published or published in unfinished form after his death. And that, in theory, is ok too, because Christopher Tolkien, his son, basically edited, wrote a little, and published the Silmarillion from his father's notes, with only a little of Christopher's own writing added, and it was a masterpiece. Not coincidentally, Christopher Tolkien died in 2020 at age 95, having published 3 final books that were made up of expanded content from stories in the Silmarillion, the expanded material coming from further notes he found of his father's since the Silmarillion was published in 1977 (posthumously to JRR Tolkien himself who died in 1973). I say not coincidentally because Christopher was very protective of the Tolkien works IPs and would never have allowed this Amazon abomination if he had any say. His advanced age and then death certainly allowed the heirs and existing owners of the IP to greenlight this Amazon nonsense which has very little to do with actual Tolkien writings.

So Amazon is instead taking the stuff that there wasn't enough written content and they are hiring their own woke-era writers to come up with stories to fill in sentences or paragraphs worth of stuff that Tolkien actually wrote.

So of course we are getting female dwarf leads where Tolkien ever only hinted at whether female dwarfs even exist. I guarantee you we get lead warrior female dwarfs. We are getting minority elves when Tolkien never once implied that elves were anything but the epitome of anglo-saxon/norse. We are getting Galadriel turned into a warrior princess when there is not a shred of written Tolkien content that would imply that she ever was one. A leader of the Elves yes, but nothing ever portraying her as a wielder of weapons, yet the screenshots show a Galadriel actress all dressed in armor.

They can't help themselves. Even if there's no LGTBQ content, they are going to create storylines that have no business in a Tolkien work. I won't give them my business.
Click to expand...

Apparently this is real, it's like a low budget youtube fanfic










:lol
 
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