No.11616
The fact that Nazis are into Tolkien’s works has always surprised me. I can understand at a surface level that Tolkien based his works off Norse/Anglo-Saxon culture. For example, the Rohirrim are just straight copied from Anglo-Saxon Culture, hell they even speak Old English. But excluding that, Tolkien was hard-core Catholic and he himself described the Lord of the Rings as a Catholic work “unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision”(Letters of J.R.R Tolkien, letter 142). Secondly, The Nazi’s asked Tolkien about his “Aryan” heritage. He wrote back to them saying that his family was German, and Tolkien said that their real reason for asking him about his heritage is to see if was Jewish. Which he replied he was not, but he did call them “gifted people” (letter 30). Finally, Tolkien stated his huge dislike of Adolf Hitler “I have in this War a burning private grudge against that ruddy little ignoramus Adolf Hitler. Ruining, perverting, misapplying, and making forever accursed, that noble northern spirit, a supreme contribution to Europe, which I have ever loved, and tried to present in its true light.” (letter 45)
No.11619
Nice thread
Since Tolkien and Lord of the Rings are pretty good stuff I'm going to link Tolkien posts from the Fantasy thread
The Last Ringbearer
>>1214Tolkien's politics and 'racism' in his story and his life
>>4152>>4171>>10987 >>10993Elf Politics
>>2052>>11484 No.11675
>>11615Are there any communists in lotr?
No.11676
Could any solid LotR lore experts redpill me on who the hell Ghan-buri-Ghan was? When I read the third book, his appearance seemed like a total non sequitur. Is there any lore to him, or why is he even in the story in the first place?
No.11678
>>11676>Ghân-buri-GhânOf him specifically, nothing besides what is given in the book. But he was part of the Drúedain, who are related to men. They are described as being shorter and fatter than regular men, and overall have primitive and wild culture and appearance. They are good natured, and have always fought on the side of good. Unfortunately they have been persecuted by wicked or ignorant men, who see them as evil based on their appearance. Because of this persecution they are very secretive and keep to themselves and a couple of stories have shown them to use magic, that ordinary have no knowledge of.
http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Dr%C3%BAedain#cite_note-TD-1One theory about them that I find interesting in that they could be men who weren't corrupted by discord caused by Melkor during the Ainulindalë (The Music of the Ainur)
No.11685
>>11675It's a fairly medieval setting so I don't think so. The hobbits are bourgs, the Humans are feudal, the Goblins are high-way robbers and normal elves are a stagnant group of elites while Wood Elves are semi-tribalistic anprims. The dragons are artificial spirits given chimeric forms and the Orcs are dominated by strength for leadership.
No.11690
>>11678Neanderthal parallel?
Pretty forward thinking of Tolkien if so, and an interesting way to work them into the mythology.
No.11710
>>11685>The hobbits are bourgsNah they're more like kulaks
No.11718
>>11690I doubt it. It is more likely it is just a coincide.
No.11722
>>11718I mean, knowledge of them had proliferated quite a bit by that point, and Wells even wrote a story of them as 'barbarous beasts' by 1911.
Which does fit in well with the typical views held by Tolkien's 'ignorant men;'
granted, the idea that Neanderthals were effectively humans in terms of their brainpower is a relatively modern understanding,
so perhaps he really did just get lucky in his depiction of related but slightly different from men primitive humans.
No.11733
I prefer the Hobbit story over LOTR, it lacks the whole "good vs evil" army shit and is an interesting adventure of fantasy
No.11735
>>11733There both fun reads I find. But I do prefer the Lord of the Rings as I writing and world building to be better.
No.11744
>>11675Maybe dwarves. Their society somewhat resembles Juche (Longbeard dynasty look like Kim dynasty). Industrial cooperatives, single working-class mostly, brotherhood and not so racist to other races (except orcs and goblins).
No.11745
>>11744 (me)
Well one anon already said that
>>1196 No.11751
the amazon series is going to suck ass
No.11756
>>11751Isn't it supposed take place in the 2nd age? If so that's about 3 and half millennia time period to cover.
No.11757
>>11619>RacismSupposedly Tolkien stated that one of his regrets was that he didn't give the Orcs much sympathy and that they were treated like slaves that often didn't get a choice rather being evil.
I've always found some of the most interesting parts of the Lord of the Rings is when the orcs get to talk and share some of their thoughts, like when merry and Pippen are overhearing the three different groups of orcs bickering (Urak-hai from Isengard, Black Uruks from mordor and the smaller orcs from the Mines of Moria), when Sam overhears Gorebag and Shagrat, or in gorgoroth when Sam and frodo overhear the large soldier and the tracker…. It makes the orcs more than mindless drones and I think it would have been cool to hear a lot more of that and for them to be "humanized" a bit more… Like when Gorbag refers to frodo being left for dead as a "typical elf trick", it implies they have a morality that looks down upon leaving a wounded comrade
No.11761
If you're after a scholarly defense of Tolkien from the progressive/left I really love this book from Patrick Curry.
>>11757yes was thinking the same thing recently, when going back over the part where they are talking about Shelob. Those orcs are not mere animals, but are fully fleshed people with thoughts and feelings
I'm a huge tolkien nerd, but it's one of the faults with the legendarium that he didn't really give as much depth of thought to the Orcs.
No.11762
>>11761 Honestly Orcs are quite well expanded upon in World of Warcraft, as I've stated before in the Fantasy thread.
Something I've read in a rather amusing crossover fanfic of Middle Earth and Naruto by Neon Zangetsu expands on this a bit by having Orc mentalities explained by a rule of strength and by instinct due to how harsh their lives are in general, there is no time to be picky about what you eat or asking questions before attacking because it could cost them their lives.
No.11765
>>11763>>11751Wait there actually IS a Netflix series?! I thought that was just a joke!
No.11766
Gimli destroys the ring
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUrJdsN_-B0I wish this happened TBH
No.11767
>>11765>Netflixyou mean Amazon
No.11768
>>11763>sex and tiddiesThe weirdest Tolkien ever got with sex is the Túrin Turambar having incestuous relationship with his sister Nienor Níniel, neither of which were aware of. And upon finding out both ended their lives.
No.11770
>>11768The last part is honestly unreasonable, TBH.
No.11771
>>11763Can't wait for the gay sex between Frodo and Sam and the accusations of homophobia if you don't think they were gay all along.
No.11775
>>11774I did post about that, though thanks for the complete quote m8.
No.11793
>>11792Ironically they still have NO General Rules or Board rules put up despite someone already creating some basic rules for /hobby/ for the mods to put up and recently rules for the site
>>>/gulag/7986 No.11794
I always wondered what Smaug would do if he had the One Ring.
Gandalf states:
“the dragon, Sauron might use with terrible effects"-
The Lord of the Rings - Appendices (Durin’s Folk)
https://archive.is/a5K1z No.11797
>>11792OP here I'd spoiled it my self.
No.11815
>>11762>Something I've read in a rather amusing crossover fanfic of Middle Earth and Naruto by Neon Zangetsu expands on this a bit by having Orc mentalities explained by a rule of strength and by instinct due to how harsh their lives are in general, there is no time to be picky about what you eat or asking questions before attacking because it could cost them their lives.That actually makes a lot of sense. Much better than it just being their nature.
No.11921
Sauron's view on Gandalf and the rest of the Istari.
If he thought about the Istari, especially Saruman and Gandalf, he imagined them as emissaries from the Valar, seeking to establish their lost power again and 'colonize' Middle-earth, as a mere effort of defeated imperialists (without knowledge or sanction of Eru). His cynicism, which (sincerely) regarded the motives of Manwe as precisely the same as his own, seemed fully justified in Saruman. Gandalf he did not understand. But certainly he had already become evil, and therefore stupid, enough to imagine that his different behaviour was due simply to weaker intelligence and lack of firm masterful purpose. He was only a rather cleverer Radagast - cleverer, because it is more profitable (more productive of power) to become absorbed in the study of people than of animals.
History of Middle Earth, Volume X "Morgoth's Ring", Chapter 5 Myths transformed.
No.12263
I find it somewhat amusing that this thread is just solemn discussion rather than the typical LOTR meme-posting that used to be done.
No.12358
>>11794he'd just get more gold
dragons are fiending for that gold high
No.12359
A liberal homosexual feminist Protestant was teaching a class on George R.R. Martin, known hack
”Before the class begins, you must get on your knees and worship Gurm and accept that Planetos is the greatest fantasy setting of all time even greater than Arda!”
At this moment, a brave, patriotic, British WW1 veteran who had served 1500 tours of duty on the Somme and understood the necessity of war and fully supported all decisions made by Butcher Haig stood up.
”What are the linguistic differences among the peoples of Westeros?”
The arrogant proddie smirked quite schismatically and smugly replied “There is the Old Tongue and the Common Tongue, you stupid warmonger”
”Wrong. There should be hundreds of dialects. If the Wall is 8000 years old as you say, how can the Wildlings and Northmen understand one another?”
The HBO shill was visibly shaken, and dropped his chalk and copy of A World of Ice and Fire. He stormed out of the room crying those redditor crocodile tears. The same tears redditors (who today live in such luxury most can afford sex changes) cried when Missandei was beheaded. There is no doubt that at this point our sola scriptura-faggot wished he had pulled himself up by his bootstraps and become more than a garbage pulp fiction fan. He wished so much he could die a glorious death in battle, but he had sworn to always be a draft dodger!
The students applauded and became Tolkien fans that day and accepted the Pope as their Lord and Master. A giant eagle named “Thorondor” flew into the room and perched atop the flag of Gondor and shed a tear on the White Tree. Beowulf was read in the original Old English several times, and Eru Ilúvatar himself showed up and enacted Aragorn's flat rate tax policy across the universe.
The Lutheran was fired the next day and sunset found him squatting in the grass, groaning. Every stool was looser than the one before, and smelled fouler. By the time the moon came up he was shitting brown water.
No.12362
>>12359Top tier shitpost copy-pasta
No.12657
>>19218
Haven't read it, but looks intriguing.
No.12682
>>12083The Valars were pieces of shit. If they were more proactive nothing of this shit would've happened.
If they cared about humans as much as they cared about Elves, the humans wouldn't be fully exposed to the wiles of Morgoth, convincing them that the world is ruled by a cruel god.
No.12697
>>12682Pretty sure that the Valar, as spirits with Iluvatar wrote the entire history of Middle Earth in song and the parts sang by Melkor became all the suffering and death and chaos he and Sauron would bring. In light of that there arguably wasn’t anything the Valar could do as it was all predetermined anyway. Plus Morgpth encountered the elves and men before the other Valar had, hence how he corrupted some each time.
No.12861
>>12682To be fair, the Valar were probably freaked out about killing large numbers of "fragile" men in the upheaval. They didn't have to worry about that when they went to drag Morgoth out of Utumno since neither elves or men were born yet.
No.18673
>>11733Agree. Bilbo is a badass. I liked the movies by Peter Jackson too. Maybe that makes me a brainlet.
No.18680
>>18673It 100% does, but we can still be friends.
No.19008
>>19004You do realize that the animated Tolkien productions of the past were also animated in Japan right?
No.19009
>>19008Yeah but they weren't "anime". I'll give this a shot but if it's going to be done in a modern meme anime style I'm probably not going to be super into it.
No.19010
>>19009>they weren't "anime". If it's animated on the same level as GiTS I think that'll be fine, and besides they're calling it anime because it attracts the weebs.
No.19012
>>19011>obviously fakeHaha indeed
No.19031
>>19010Yeah that would be cool. My concern is that it just looks like every generic anime made today.
I actually wouldn't mind a 2D animated movie that looks like a smoother version of the old Rankin-Bass movies, where it has that kind of weird, old-school fairy tale look, but they don't really make them like that anymore.
No.19032
>>19031>it just looks like every generic animeWait, have they released concept art/trailers?
>a 2D animated movie that looks like a smoother version of the old Rankin-Bass moviesYeah that's not happening. I knew a dude on DA who was part of a reboot for Flight of Dragons but it got cancelled with only some refurbished concept art he had posted on his account left.
No.19040
>>19032Nothing released yet, it's just what I'm worried about
No.19352
>>19032>>19040So what's the sitch?
No.19449
>>11770I agree. It's pretty gross, but it's not like they were aware of what was happening. They seem awfully quick to assume culpability for something that wasn't their fault and didn't harm anyone.
No.19450
>>12682>The Valars were pieces of shit.Agree.
No.19453
Tolkein supported Franco during the Spanish Civil War. He is literally a christcuck fascist. This thread is cringe.
No.19457
>>19453Proofs?
Also
>muh Christianzzzzz You sound very asshurt. Cope harder
No.22491
Anyone think that Amazon's new LOTR series going to be a massive dumpster fire? I mean it's written by the same guys who wrote Star Trek:Beyond.
No.22492
>>22491Yeah probably. It's pretty obvious the Tolkien estate doesn't care about the quality of adaptations. The original LotR trilogy being good was basically a fluke.
No.22632
Lately I've found myself singing along to some of the poems from Lord of the Rings, namely:Song of Durin, Fall of Gil Galad and the Ent Marching Song
No.22635
Tolkien is overrated beyond belief. He wasn't even original. People act like he invented the fantasy genre for some reason.
No.22647
>>22635>He wasn't even originalHe is, having created several languages in his verse and having only inspiration from Faustian and pre-Faustian Germanic mythology. Nobody has ever claimed he created it all on his own, but the Hobbit or LoTR are not emulating any specific mythological legend of Northern Europe that he based his ideas off of.
>People act like he invented the fantasy genreIn essence he is a founding father of the modern concept of fantasy genre, thus numerous media are heavily based on his foundation of fantasy, from Warcraft to DnD.
No.23010
>>23009They actually released it? I thought that shit died off. LMAO.
No.23106
>>11757Yeah, but on the other hand, they do seem to literally eat eachother.
Tolkien kind of dropped the ball fleshing out their society more.
Same with the Easterlings
No.23125
>>23099Can someone please explain to me why mumakil would be taking part in the siege of Edoras
No.23128
>>23107>female dwarves have beards. Ew. Gross.I mean, yeah.
No.23129
>>23125because they look fucking awesome
No.23162
God fucking damn it looks so bad
No.23502
>>23370On the topic of Ponomarkenko, they're a total glowie and even used a fake Pentagon advisor called "David Jewburg" for their articles (mostly cause he thought most slavs aren't going to realize the jape due to it being an English term)
>>>/edu/10009 >>23487>Everyone starts complaining about there being a black dwarf ladyBecause they're idiots, ironically the main issue is the lack of a beard.
No.23507
>>23487Her being black doesn't particularly matter, but the fact that they are willing to sUbVeRt ExPeCTaTiOnS by doing colorblind casting but they won't give female dwarves beards because of gender norms shows that being woke is purely performative and that they don't give a shit about the source material at all.
No.23511
>>23507>won't give female dwarves beards because of gender normsStupidest thing is, gender norms are fine in general, but this literally goes against the gender norms of dwarves.
No.23532
>>23487There's not that much material for what the show is going to be about. Of course they're going to be doing OC donut steel characters.
No.23546
>lotr is catholic
NO! There's nothing universal about it, no redemption, no universal love.
Like Tolkien said, LOTR is a mythology for England. And indeed it is. A mythology not for any past England, like he wanted, but for a twentieth century fascistic, genocidal inbred empire with all of their racial prejudices put into the book.
LOTR is exactly how fascists and the nazis saw and see the world, and Tolkien is just another fascist. Don't believe that midwit about alegories, everyone with eyes can see what he meant with orcs, elves, mordor, etc.
No.23548
>>23546>>23547Orcs are portrayed how they are because the story is written from the perspective of Frodo/Bilbo, who are themselves quite racist, even toward the "good races." A lot of the portrayal of the more monstrous beings has to do with the prejudices of the characters describing them. The fact that elves, men, dwarves, and hobbits all manage to cooperate within the fellowship (Gimli and Legolas especially) is meant to tell you these kinds of barriers can be overcome in time.
No.23549
>>23548shut the fuck up dude, just say you like it even if it's fascist trash
There's no fucking excuse for Orcs, go read the Iliad and learn how a real epic treats enemies.
No.23550
>>23549 >>23546 >Muh racist orks!>reddit spacingYeah go back you fucking snowflake. You are also utterly ignorant of the Illiad if you're saying this unironically. You're comparing a legendized war between men caused by the meddling of gods to an utterly fictional work based on the mythology of Northern Europe. Elves are the forest spirits of said lore and Orcs, if you had any basic comprehension are born from a group of corrupted elves that turned to evil and served a the physical manifestation of a literal GOD of evil.
>LOTR is exactly how fascists and the nazis saw and see the world <Tolkien is just another fascistYeah the fascist that sent letters to Hitler telling him that his actions made him ashamed to be a Northern European. The fascist that expressed himself as a primitivist and monarchist.
Your "muh allegories reel" shit is, as usual projected racism of liberals.
>>23547>every single race of non-monster humanoid on one side and then the arabs on team monsterYou people really haven't read the books you're bitching about, have you?
No.23564
>>23546The Orcs are the Kin of Cain. In Christian Mythology, after Cain murdered his brother Abel and was cursed by God, he left to wander the Earth with his wife Lilith, and sired many children with her who also bore his curse in their blood, often becoming monstrous or rising from the grave as undead when neither Heaven nor Hell would have them. When the Germanic tribes began to Christianize, they began to associate many of the monsters in their own mythology with the the Kin of Cain. If Tolkien's goal was to to create a sort of mythology of England, he couldn't ignore how popular and widespread the belief in the Kin of Cain was. Similarly, "orc" was a word that had spread around Europe meaning monster or demon, almost certainly a reference to the Roman God of the Underworld Orcus, and showed up in Beowulf which is where Tolkien probably first encountered it, and since Tolkien was a massive Beowulf fanboy, he also likely wanted the main baddies to be Mini Me Grendels (who was also stated in the epic poem to be one of the Kin of Cain).
Lord of the Rings has pretty big Christian influences, and it doesn't take a scholar of theology to see that the plot is influenced by the Christian apocalypse, with the Anti-Christ (Sauron) seizing the world in the name of Satan (Melkor) and, naturally, having the Kin of Cain (orcs) leave the shadows to gather under his banner.
>>23547The primary race supporting Sauron, other than orcs, are the "Black Númenóreans", the exact same race of people as Aragorn, Boromir and the citizens of Gondor. They're just not seen in his novels beyond characters like the Mouth of Sauron because they're implied to all be dicking around in Mordor. The books at least state that the Easterlings were noble, but tricked and lied to in order to secure their loyalty to Sauron. The same courtesy isn't extended to the Black Númenóreans.
No.23565
>>23550>writing a letter to “the nazis” stops you from being racistlol
No.23571
>>23565He openly denounced it and the nazis that espoused racial 'science'. He did not have any racist writings and specifically dismissed any attempt to try and project human races onto his fictional works.
>inb4 hiding it Tolkien lived in a time that had people lynch blacks in the South with no repercussion and the British Empire gassed African villages that refused to bend a knee to their rule, People hardly would care about a racist caricature had he intended it, but he did not.
No.25391
>>23549>There's no fucking excuse for OrcsThe orcs are demons, are you suggesting that every work with demons in it is fascist?
No.25396
>>23571I’d say the racialism in Tolkien’s works have nothing at all to do with the orcs, but rather the fact that only the whites of the West are heroic freedom fighters fighting to ensure Morgoth and Sauron do not rule Middle Earth, the peoples of the East and the South are said to have mostly bowed down to Morgoth’s rule and then Sauron’s after him. Of course there are also other iffy ideas, like the obsession with bloodlines and royal blood, how the Numenoreans have a “superior” bloodline to all other human cultures.
Biggest issue is that the non-white cultures of the world are all servants of Sauron….
No.25427
>>25396The "West" doesn't refer to some kind of Middle Earth equivalent of Europe, the "West" of the Men of the West refers to the island of Númenor, which is, for all intents and purposes, the LotR version of Atlantis. Nor were they all necessarily "white". Some were, but others were supposed to have been of darker complexion, like Aragorn himself who is described in the book as brown skinned.
No.27278
reminder that mordor is the ussr and lotr is fascist. Also the only reason they're putting blacks in the show is because people know it's a fascist book loved by fascists and the people who own the IP don't want to be lumped with fascists.
No.27282
>>25391Aren't Orcs RINGED elfs in Tolkien's lore?
No.27292
>>27282Orcs are corrupted elves, made into a twisted mockery of their former selves by Morgoth. He did this with many creatures. For instance, the trolls are a corrupted, twisted form of the ents.
They have a pretty close correlation with the Kin of Cain from Christian Mythology, which was treated as a lesser type of demon beneath Lucifer and fallen angels, and it's what Grendel was stated to have been in Beowulf, and Tolkien was a massive Beowulf fanboy.
No.27293
>>27278Do you have any evidence that Mordor was supposed to be the USSR?
No.27296
>>27278sweet tumblr's here
No.27297
>>25396>the peoples of the East and the South are said to have mostly bowed down to Morgoth’s rule where does it say that
No.27302
>>27278>fascists<Implying that fascists don't simply latch on to anything that seemingly on the surface supports their ideas because they are a bunch of shallow retards that can't look deeper into the works that they like. Tolkien himself hated fascists and was against their race science. Amazon is only making that LOTR series out of cynical greed. Why do you liberals support corporations so long as they have the "right" races or genders in their products.
You liberals are exactly like the fascists you say you hate.
No.27303
>a story that is explicitly about different races with thousands of years of enmity, distrust, and cultural differences working to overcome it all and set the hate, isolationism, and prejudice they've been clinging to for hundreds or even thousands of years aside, develop an appreciation for one another and their differences, and collaborate in what they all realize is an almost certainly hopeless task all for the slim hope of achieving a final, lasting better world for everyone
>is fascist
No.27335
>>11744>single working-class mostlyWhen there is nobles as the ruling class, it's not "single-class", it's a two-class system.
No.27343
>>27303alternatively
>buddy cop story>pro-cop>fascist No.27344
>>11619>an-monliterally incoherent and self contradictory nonsense
No.27347
>>27345it cannot be resolved
No.28464
Having watched the two episodes that came out im cautiously optimistic. It's a slow start but i like the slower pacing and though things are far from perfect, the dialogue feels a bit stilted too often for comfort, its still pretty enjoyable and im looking forward to seeing the rest of it.
There's a whole host of lore issues/decisions i think are questionable (Galadriel's main motivation being venegance quest rather than being queen of eregion and then lothlorien, her husband and kids being nowhere to be seen, her jumping from the boat to valinor, and being on it in the first place is stupid, but i guess they had no better way to get her to numenor. didn't like the heavenly gates to valinor or whatever that was either, i suppose they needed a dramatic point of no return for galadriel to make a decision at, but prior to the sundering Valinor should be a physical place contiguous with the rest of arda, Tol Eressea was visible from Numenor on clear days and elves travelled back and forth between them so there being a metaphysical barrier between aman and the rest of arda is a bit upsetting)
Probably my main issue is how the timeline seems squished and i was always worried about this when they said they were making a second age show about the fall of numenor and stuff, because the forging of the rings of power and the fall of numenor are almost 2000 years apart and even if they have like 12 seasons or whatever it would be difficult to keep switching out non-elven or maiar characters every season as the plot takes place over dozens of human/dwarf/hobbit generations, so they seem to be insanely condensing the plot to where we start before the rings are forged, sauron & celebrimbor forge the rings, the immediately war, sauron probably already gets captured in that war and taken to numenor and causes its fall, all in the scope of a single human lifetime which will be insane. The reigns of like 20 numenorean kings condensed into two, maybe three at best.
As for the race stuff, im dissapointed since i had hoped/coped that they were going to be interesting about it. I had hoped that the Arondir (the brown elf) was going to be an Avari or some silvan/laiquendi elf from the south east of those that never heeded the summons of the valar to the west and we were going to see brown/black/asian elves in general, but no he's apparentlyhe's just another elf from Lindon under the rule of high elven high king who is apparently maintaining colonial outposts as far as mordor to supervise the humans there in a millenia long post-war military occupation. Also the humans living in the southlands (future mordor) look like norther european peasants and are also overwhelmingly white, like gondor is meant to be on the latitude of turkey, mordor even when green and lush should seem warmer and have more tanned people of the swarthy easterling, or haradrim/variag variety.
The black dwarf princess was in my imaginging hopefully going to be of one of the four eastern dwarf clans from the red mountains some transplant political alliance marriage, but no, she's just a working class gal from khazad dum apparently.
Finally the brown hobbits which i was looking forward to with appropriately brown harfoots (samwise was whitewashed smdh), generally im pretty positive about them i both like their portrayal of nomadic hunter gatherers while still being quaint and hobbitish, in a more primitive way. But though there are quite a few brown/black actors playing harfoots the main character, Nori, and her best friend, are white, and in general i felt some of the harfoots are just white with faces covered in dirt like they're doing brownface to pass them off as darker skinned lol.
So my issue is, not to sound like a /pol/tard, a degree of forced racial diversity. I really wanted and still want and hope to see some societies of predominantly black/brown/asian characters. Give me a bustling hardrim city, som easterling wainriding nomads, give me black or asian dwarf clans and latino or native american elves from the east, give me all brown/black harfoot hobbits. But instead of that the creators of this show prefer what is effectively colourblind casting, instead of casting many black/brown/asian actors in a diverse set of societies they instead just sprinkle one or two in every society, in every village in a way that doesn't make sense and doesn't seem realistic. I've seen excerpts from the creators or people involved defending the casting on the basis of 'tolkien's world wasn't all white people' and 'we want to portray what the world actually looks like' and i agree with that wholeheartedly but at the end of the day this show (so far, in just these two episodes mind you) doesn't look how the real world looks like or how tolkien's world, vast and with many blank spaces to fill in, looks like. It looks like the world that the rich, white, liberal americans/europeans who make this show see in their daily lives. This middle earth doesn't have the demographics of the world, it has the demographics of america. A world in which black, brown and asian people are intrinsically, in their minds, minorities. Little specks of colour and diversity sprinkled of the the masses of white society, and of course they fit in perfectly and because the liberals are of course colourblind and don't see race so their existence is devoid of context. They can't portray societies which are predominantly black, brown or asian, where maybe there's only a single white person sprinkled in, or none, even though that's where most of those people live in the real world, what entire vast countries on this earth are like, and what entire vast realms in middle-earth should be like. But liberals are uncomfortable with and don't like thinking about those countries full of 'minorities' because it doesn't fit their essentialist view of 'minorities' in white societies and brings up all sorts of uncomfortable contradictions of imperialism and the world system so they prefer to act as if those countries simply don't exist, and representation in the media must be solely as 'minorities' and never societies.
No.28468
>>11616Yeah, he was probably guilty of casual racism like basing the orcs off caricatures of mongolians, but the framing of him as fash sympathetic just doesn’t fit. Also my experience with LotR might be a bit odd, but while all the white kids were reading Harry Potter at my school, the only people I knew who were reading Tolkien were my black and mexican friends. I feel like the wignats hopped on the Tolkien train long after the movies came out because they’re way too lazy to read all that shit.
No.28470
i tried reading the hobbit when i was little but put it down after the first few chapters because nothing was really happening
i watched the lotr movie trilogy years later and remembered pretty much nothing from it, maybe the walking trees and the uh tavern where they meet the edgelord guy
it's very much like a condescending adult's idea of what a naive child would like
No.28474
>>28464Disappointed so far with pretty much everything except Galadriel looking really hot. The show is literally for 12 year olds and the script was written by a woman who created an über kitschy fairytale rather than a truly epic prequel saga to Jackson's LOTR oeuvre. There are problems with the original lore too, Elrond & Gil-Galad sending Galadriel to Valinor doesn't fit in at all, neither does the glowing "gate" to Aman on the ocean. And where the fuck is Celeborn, Galadriel's husband?
No.28478
>>28474>The show is literally for 12 year olds and the script was written by a woman who created an über kitschy fairytale rather than a truly epic prequel saga to Jackson's LOTR oeuvremade me chuckle
good job if it's a troll
No.28482
>>28470The beginning of the Hobbit isn't supposed to be action packed, it's meant to build the sense of mystery and wonder. You're supposed to become curious about what's out there in the world like Bilbo.
The Lord of the Rings wasn't for children.
>tavern where they meet the edgelord guyI think I know why you don't remember it; you were watching it either half-asleep or under the effects of some sort of narcotic if you think Aragorn is an "edgy guy".
No.28484
>>28482>You're supposed to become curious about what's out there in the world like Bilbo.i didn't
>you were watching it either half-asleep or under the effects of some sort of narcotic if you think Aragorn is an "edgy guy"i call him an edgelord because i remember him as the hard-boiled rogue guy with the dark cape from that scene
No.28493
>>28464Yeah, I probably would like this show more if it filled out lore of the more unknown haradrim, easterlings, elves and dwarves, even if they had to be looser with lore, rather than what we're getting with Galadriel's quest setup
No.28495
Would things be better off without the Tolkien Estate? I'm of course against current copyright law, but at least with Tolkien Estate there isn't dogshit pumped out every year, even though Hobbit trilogy sucked and I'm not that hopeful about Amazon's show
No.28499
>>28478So far the whole thing including plot & dialogues is more blatant kitsch than Harry Potter ffs, i imagine the make-up box of a 12 year old teenager girl would look more mature and interesting.
Why did Bezos not just team up with Jackson or the creators of GOT if he would spend a lot money anyway? He also could've hired George Lucas. I mean e.g. Star Wars is also too much kitsch for my taste yet i do find it very enjoyable.
No.28506
>>28499Damn dude, come on, there was some cheesy lines but it wasn't that bad.
No.28508
>>28470>it's very much like a condescending adult's idea of what a naive child would like <it's too slow and I don't remember the story as a kid or an adult because I have a poor memory and attention span… so it's a poorly made kids series *confusion*
No.28509
>>27343>>buddy cop story>>pro-cop>>fascist <projecting modern shit<Oh no a buddy cop story, it MUST be fascist! This is even assuming its a buddy cop story, and it isn't, not even remotely.
No.28523
>>28508the novel isn't banal and condescending, i just have a "poor memory and attention span"
No.28539
All the shit I like:
> Middle Earth mogs Westeros
> Really sick cities just like the original trilogy, I came seeing Durin's mountain
> Durin in general
> I think the old man is a Maiar? Seems like an interesting plotline
> Even though the timelines are a bit screwy I'm pretty hyped to see the forging of the rings
Everything else:
> Dialogue has real unskippable cutscene vibes
> Hobbit parts are SLOW as fuck
> Town wench/witch romance with the elf is especially awful
> Elf speech is gayer than normal even if I like Elrond
> Completely rewriting Galadriel, not sure if this is bad, she is kinda interesting with the vengeance angle i guess
> Literally what the fuck were the ocean scenes in the last episode, completely pointless - waste of budget and didnt advance the plot except to introduce a love interest
Gonna keep watching for the city porn.
No.28664
Who was the old man who fell from the sky? was it sauron?
No.28665
>>28523>the novel isn't banal and condescending, i just have a "poor memory and attention span"There's probably lots of other things wrong with you too
No.28680
>>28484>i didn't Then you're an arse
>i remember him as the hard-boiled rogue guy with the dark cape from that scene That's not the meaning of edgy LMAO
No.28686
>>28495Christopher Tolkien dying is really what sealed the IP's fate. He was the last one to really give a shit about trying to maintain the integrity of his father's work. His grandchildren don't give a fuck.
No.28691
>>28686This would have eventually been inevitable.
If I was Christopher Tolkien, I would have just let the work pass into the public domain instead of letting my shit kids milk my dad's franchise for money.
No.28693
>>28691Letting it pass to the public domain honestly might have been the best move. On the one hand it wouldn't have stopped Amazon from going buck wild with the property. On the other, being in the public domain prevents it from being artificially monopolized, diminishing its attractiveness as a tentpole IP.
So when are we going to hear a hobbit say a fuck word
No.28717
>>28693How does public domain prevent megaporkies like Disney from suing the shit out of other people who try to use the same source material in their work?
No.28718
>>28717Disney can't sue you for using IP they don't own. If it's public domain nobody owns it. They could sue you for doing something with Disney's The Little Mermaid™ but they can't do shit about you using the original folk tale.
No.28719
>>28718I bet Disney can use legally ambiguous threats of legal action to stifle any attempts at using any source material Disney has already used. Releasing lotr under a GPL license would be a more robust solution in terms of protecting the public's ability to make derivative works form it.
No.28721
>>28464Me again. Just watched the third episode and am now blackpilled, this show sucks so much. Who wrote this garbage. Im so drained I can't even be bothered to list all the things im bitching and moaning about. They blew their mediocre load in the two episode premiere and it'll just be garbage from now on.
No.28722
>>28721On the bright side, they said that Amazon streaming was betting it all on this show, so if it's so bad it might end that little venture.
No.28723
>>28721>Who wrote this garbageI always find it impressive how these shows (and movies) can dump 500+ million in it but are never capable of buying good writing. I find it hard to believe that the writers are just all hacks and amateurs, so it must be the financial demands that come with so much money flowing through these projects that restrict creativity or personal engagement, or spirit, or anything human from anything. Written by AI.
No.28724
>>28723I mean many of the older writers left the industry due to the writers strike and the culture industry saps any creativity from people to make everything based on a formula that sells. Not to mention these new writers are notoriously lazy and don't bother doing any reasearch on the setting of established fiction.
No.28737
>>28717The same way you can write and publish all the Wizard of Oz stuff you want but MGM can't do shit about it as long as you don't base it off their movie.
That's the power of being in the public domain. The public is considered the communal owner of it, and can do whatever they want with it. It's why Disney fights for indefinite copyright extensions so hard. Once the copyright runs out and their ancient properties start entering the public domain, they can no longer maintain artificial scarcity and profit off of them.
>>28719>I bet Disney can use legally ambiguous threats of legal action to stifle any attempts at using any source material Disney has already used.I guess we'll find out.
https://www.ksat.com/entertainment/2022/01/06/disney-likely-seeing-copyrights-to-winnie-the-pooh-expire/ No.28738
>>28723If Marvel is anything to go by, the writing process is severely fucked by the CGI process. The impression that I get is that in older productions, a lot of the writing is adjusted on the fly for various reasons. Maybe they realize that something is stupid or doesn't work so they just axe it. Maybe the actors have some character input that changes how a story goes. In the original LOTR trilogy you had people reading through the books and making adjustments to the script all the way up through filming, and you had actors like Christopher Lee, who was an expert on the subject matter of both LOTR and stabbing people, and that affected the production. So with a much more versatile production process, bumps and wrinkles can be smoothed out on the fly, but with productions like Marvel movies, which I think this, what, half a billion? billion dollar? Amazon series basically qualifies as, with so much money invested in it and its digital effects, there are now these bottle necks that just lock the production into being a certain way. There's a scene in the script set in Caras Galadhon or whatever and that scene cost 30 million dollars, and the digital effects slaves have been working on it for 6 months, so you can't just toss it out…
I guess really we're living in the fallout of George Lucas's prequel trilogy, where the digital effects completely run the show, and they're so expensive and integral to the show that they can't be worked around. Compare it to something like SW OT, which was dogshit when Lucas first cut it together, but his wife was able to rearrange all the parts that worked into one of the most successful movies of all time. I just don't think that's really possible any more with current production methods.
No.28739
>>28738>I guess really we're living in the fallout of George Lucas's prequel trilogy, where the digital effects completely run the show, and they're so expensive and integral to the show that they can't be worked around.The ironic part of this was that Lucas pioneered a lot of that technology specifically to reduce the costs and complexity of the production pipeline and to be able to make alterations to the film in post-production. There's a featurette from Phantom Menace where you can see Lucas directing an editor to digitally move live action characters around in a scene to change the blocking of the shot, and to splice in different takes from each actor to get the exact performance he wants (which of course ruins the chemistry between them lol). He was chasing bad ideas that were bad for different reasons, but the importance of digital post production has basically hijacked the whole filmmaking process and has become bad for new reasons.
No.28759
>>28738This is an interesting analysis, but I thik the opposite may in fact be true. Sure these companies have money, but the amount they're willing to spend depends on how much they think the show is likely to earn, amongst other things.
There was a comment in the TV thread (I'd link it if I knew how to link comments from other threads) about how the She-Hulk tv series was filmed. Instead of just getting a muscle mommy to play the hulk and a regular size actress for Jen, they decided to do the hulk stuff with CGI. Now Marvel has plenty of money, so they could do the entire thing in CGI if they wanted to, so you'd think this wouldn't be a problem. Well, as soon as production began the writer started getting asked to reduce the She-Hulk screen time because it was too expensive.
"Can you do this with Just Jen?" or "can you cut this scene entirely?" even though the show was called fucking She-Hulk! The writer said that they think Disney are trying to pump stuff out as cheap and fast as possible, so it could well be that the people responsible for this are doing the same. As common logic dictates, it's possible to make something fast and cheap, but the result probably won't be good. I know that isn't really materialist analysis, just a trueism, but it holds up in this instance, I believe.
No.28761
I was almost gonna watch the new series. Thank fuck I listened to the struggle session ep. It totally exposed how how the limited rights that amazon could acquire means that the show can only be a bunch of bullshit. Pretty eye opening.
No.28765
Of course the seafarer who "rescued" Galadriel turns out a king with oh so "noble blood" and ancient lineage who just happens to "dress in commoner's rags". Fucking hell.
No.28774
>>28765its honestly getting better with each ep. the overhead shot of numenor especially made the episode worth watching. the dialogue is getting better in parts too while being a fucking trainwreck in others - slitting the elves throat was so dumb.
No.28802
>>28759>(I'd link it if I knew how to link comments from other threads)Three meme arrows >>>
The board code /hobby/
And the post number 28221
by their powers combined:
>>>/hobby/28221 No.28806
>>28802Thank you most wise anon
No.28853
>>27282>>27292He later changed due to the implications of having an entirely evil race, which Tolkien was very weary of and it conflicting with cosmology of series. He never settled on it before he died. I would suggest and reading the tolkien gateway article about it if Don't want to read HOME.
https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Orcs/OriginSide question have any you anons read "The History of Middle Earth" series? its a twelve set the goes in depth of the history of the creation of the silmarillion and lord of the rings all put together by his late son Christopher Tolkien. Some of the changes include the Aragorns original nickname to be Trodder to the Akallabêth to be a time travel story.
No.28863
>>28853Doesn't all the lore exist through the framing device that he found manuscripts and translated them to English from the languages of Middle Earth? Like, The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings are canonically written by Bilbo and Frodo (and Sam) respectively. You could just argue that the records are incomplete so there's nothing confirmed and you can have whatever headcanon you want.
No.28875
Not sure if will indugle this show, it seems a bit removed from Tolkien's prose and just a modern fantasy production, but I rewatched the movies recently and I am more convinced now that they aren't very good. I don't wanna ruin anybody's childhood memory but it's the truth.
It's full of popmpous dialog, it shows you constant slaughtering but there is not a single drop of blood to keep it family friendly, the slow-mos are insufferable as if I am watching a Zack Snyder movie, it's totally overacted and you never feel that the hereos are in danger especially with trying to build in comic relief during the main battles and it shies away from showing Saruman's occupation of the shire which is the bit that shows the cost of war and doesn't just glorify it. The homoerotic tension between Frodo and Sam is dumb, and Sauron looks like Morgoth. The moment they have Aragorn walking into over 50 Uruk-Hai that are man-sized and easily cutting through them in the first movie you know that there aren't any stakes.
It had some nice setpieces, the costumes were alright, and CGI was amazing for its time. But rewatching them now feels like a drag and it especially baffling people praise Peter Jackson, that fat fuck is a b-movie trash horror directer that got catapulted to be the new Francis Ford Copolla because of that LOTR shit.
The way Tolkien writes you have to set up a film adaptation more like a stage play, I don't think it's possible to make a family-friendly blockbuster with it.
No.28882
>>28875>I don't wanna ruin anybody's childhood memory but it's the truth. lmao as if people don't regularly rewatch these films as adults
>The way Tolkien writes you have to set up a film adaptation more like a stage playWhat does this mean exactly?
No.28884
>>28882>lmao as if people don't regularly rewatch these films as adultsFor the memberberries? Same reason people rewatch the Star Wars prequels despite the god-awful dialog. Well take it from this adult I decided to rewatch them because I felt like it and it was a slog.
>What does this mean exactly?Tolkien is clearly influenced by old Anglo-Saxon sagas like Beowulf and similar stuff, and that is how he writes, you can't set up a film adaptation like a Marvel movie but you have to do it like you'd do a Shakespeare. That doesn't mean Tolkien is up there with Shakespeare but it's the kind of vibe you have to go for and not go for Narnia or some shit.
No.28887
>>28885Marvel has been making movies since 1943 also you didn't respond to anything I said.
No.28888
>>28887this doesn't make sense and I am really angry, also I'm not you samefagging
No.28889
>>28888I am not samefagging.
The first Captain America movie was released 1944.
No.28890
>>28474Galadriel is canonically trans btw
No.28904
>>28853I've read the two book of lost tales and peoples of middle earth, I was really interested in the early draft stuff of what would become silmarillion such as the Noldor being named "Gnomes", the wicked dwarves, and Tevildo the prince of cats being the lieutenant of Morgoth instead of Sauron
No.28922
>>28863That's why The Last Ringbearer is an actual believable theory. There are multiple implications that orcs and Sauron/Morgoth aren't the bad guys. After all those supposed treacheries there were still a lot of people siding with them and called them liberators. They are basically the only ones with technology like medicine.
No.28926
>>28774I agree Numenor looks great, they modelled it in sort of a Byzantium and Phoenizian style if i'm not mistaken. The orcs look ok too. I still do not like the kitsch painting colours though and the writing is still awful (ohhhhhh yay, a white horse!!! t. not a 12 year teenager girl, but 5000 year+ old Noldor female who is banned from Aman due to being involved in a rebellion and massacre). Hope the dude from GoT gets a better plot and decent fight scenes and Elendil's & Isildur's storylines go really close to Tolkien (Jackson adapted the books almost 100%), because i'm really not interested in more of the extremely cheesy fairytale stuff. I'm still watching the show only because i like Tolkien a lot. I've read almost everything he published.
No.29060
I like where episode 4 went but the main conflict this episode was resolved way too easily without any action by the main characters.
No.29081
https://im1776.com/2022/09/13/middle-earth-in-the-content-economy/
>“Tolkien has become a monster, devoured by his own popularity and absorbed into the absurdity of our time… The chasm between the beauty and seriousness of the work, and what it has become, has overwhelmed me. The commercialization has reduced the aesthetic and philosophical impact of the creation to nothing. There is only one solution for me: to turn my head away.”— Christopher Tolkien, Le Monde
No.29082
>>29081>But Christopher Tolkien’s lament was prophetic. In the same comments from 2012, he added that “it seems that The Hobbit will be the same kind of film.” The scope of these comments was not limited to Jackson’s films, but rather to the broader commercialization of his father’s corpus in his entirety. He saw Jackson’s trilogy and knew what was coming. Endless films in the Tolkien Cinematic Universe, big-budget action videogames, Denny’s menu, Made in China toys; all at the expense of what he loved about his father’s work.
>And he was right. The Hobbit indeed contains elements that do directly contradict the structure of Tolkien’s work, most obviously in the saccharine, cringe-inducing love triangle set up between elves Legolas and Tauriel, and dwarf Kíli. This change undercuts the tremendous focus that Tolkien gave to the symbolic significance of his genealogical structure. It also pierces the veil too deeply and thereby compromises the character of Legolas into a more pathetic cast. And, of course, all omens point to an acceleration of this commercialized disregard for Tolkien’s work in Amazon’s The Rings of Power.
>This process happens to more or less anything wildly successful. Godzilla (1954) is a beautiful and melancholy cinematographic masterpiece. But by the ’70s, Godzilla had become a pastiche of itself, an intentionally cheap and campy product for children. Godzilla’s creator Tomoyuki Tanaka later told People Magazine that turning Godzilla into a loveable hero had been a mistake and caused the decline of the franchise. (And they are still making Halloween movies.) For this reason, I am more cynical than Christopher. I’m amazed when anything big is decent twice. Yet if you rolled the dice 10,000 times you would not get another trilogy like Jackson’s.
>The Lord of the Rings – the book, not the films – is a work of remarkable depth and complexity. Tolkien’s work is one of those rare accomplishments so overshadowed by its own commercial success that academia has not yet fully appreciated its artistic merit. But as much as I hate to admit it, its success is exactly why you should expect to see Middle Earth turned into a wide variety of endless trash. I didn’t understand this ten years ago. But Christopher Tolkien did; he saw the writing on the wall and it broke his heart. No.29088
>>29082his son was such a faggot, just give up the rights, I rather see a multi part silmarillion than the next fucking batch of marvel movies. Tolkien is no more sacred than Shakespeare, Virgil or Homer, and all of those have shittier Hollywood franchises.
No.29089
>>29088hollywood would marvelize the legendarium at best and make it into a star wars tier mess at worse anon
No.29090
>>29089im fine with that, it might end up being slightly better than the most recent marvel crop or A24 alt-marvel schlock. Tolkien fans are obsessed with their sacred cow bullshit.
No.29091
>>29088>I rather see a multi part silmarillion than the next fucking batch of marvel moviesyou're seeing it now on amazon and it's basically a marvel movie
No.29092
>>29091its just fanfiction (i like parts of it) because they can't even mention the name of galadriel's brother.
No.29093
>>29092which sucks because they have the budget to do something actually pretty good with it. The parts that aren't just the writers masturbating about what made up characters should be like in a tolkien sim are pretty good.
No.29301
You know what? Imma say it. Fuck JRR Tolkien! So this dumb ass Rings of Power show comes out and the only criticism I ever see people make of the fucking thing is that there's people that aren't white in it and its disrespecting Tolkiens legacy. Good. Fuck that n!qqa! He's old and dead for decades now. Maybe his bitch ass shouldn't have made a whole ass fantasy franchise full of mostly white people and white humanoids to start with. Maybe this bitch ass faggot ass n!qqa shouldn't have made the only dark skinned people in his books allied with the villains of the whole story. Critical support for Bezos in his crusade against crusty old ass tired ass fantasy writing dead n!qqaz.
No.29305
>>29301More like it's nothing but Bezos' own little vanity project mostly to try to get another "Game of Thrones" clone to try to test the viability of his streaming service. It's nothing but cynical greed and hubris.
Seriously chrring on a capitalist who only runis culture just like other capitalists.
No.29323
>>29305Test the viability? Niqqa that shits been a heavyweight competitor in streaming for sometime. I was mostly joking about supporting Bezos anyhow, he probably has very little involvement with this if anything. But the culture your whinging over Amazon ruining is reactionary anyhow was my point. Sorry if you can't watch muh fantasy and have it full of your precious white people.
No.29328
>>29323You're obviously either a troll from /pol/ pretending to be a black liberal or a idiotic retarded reddit sakaioid.
The reason why we are against it is it's simply yet another example of corporations cynically using someone else's work and simply repeating what succeeded before to try to catch up in the current cultural zeitgeist.
Not to mention that this liberal nonsense is simply just them trying to keep the status quo and basically taring anyone who sees through their marketing to see the naked black hole of endless greed behind the curtain as "racist". How does it feel that your entire liberal ideals are being used to justify imperialism and American cultural hegemony.
Besides. my big issue is that their "Original Character DONUT STEEL' dwarf doesn't have a beard. Female dwarves have beards. This shows they did absolutely no research in the setting and are just lazy.
No.29329
>>29301It honestly amazes me that people have such little time on this earth and they choose to spend their precious few hours and energy they have left getting upset about shit like this.
I'm aware this is all bullshit and all of the "culture warriors" are retards getting baited by obvious manufactured outrage to get people talking about the latest product™, but I still find it baffling they fall for it every. single. time. I almost forgot LOTR and Tolkien even existed were it not for some people I know IRL asking me what I think about Amazon ruining Tolkien's Anglo-Saxon fanfiction by putting The Blacks in it. Maybe instead of whining about some shitty show just pick up a better book uygha
No.29330
>>29328>Claims to not be racist with Shapiro tier facts and logic>Shows racism by assuming I have to be black, white, or have read a single thing by SakaiGet yout shit together /Leftypol be more like this guy
>>29329 No.29331
>>29330Ah yes, totally a of reddit-tier retard coming in here and shitting up a thread to try to make leftypol look like a bunch of "racists".
How does it show racism to assume you're either white, black, or read Sakai?
And you were the only one who mentioned Shapiro here, buddy. Do you not have any reading comprehension?
>>29329>I almost forgot LOTR and Tolkien even existed were it not for some people I know IRL asking me what I think about Amazon ruining Tolkien's Anglo-Saxon fanfiction by putting The Blacks in it.Yeah, sure you did, that totally happened and is not a part of your retarded bait at all.
No.29333
>>29331I'm sorry anon but there are no known measurements as of yet to describe how little space fantashit occupies in my brain in my day to day life
No.29343
>>29328> being this autistic about dwarves not having beardstolkien fags are something else man.
No.29936
>>29305>More like it's nothing but Bezos' own little vanity project mostly to try to get another "Game of Thrones" clone I had nothing to do today so I started watching it and while I don't think it's
this bad as some make it out to be, it feels nothing like a Tolkien show and I thought the exact same thing - it's heavily inspired by Game of Thrones, except the sex scenes and the f-bombs. Other than that, it is written in the exact same way as GoT and the plot feels similar too, it's a lot of political scheming and less high fantasy.
The problem is it doesn't work because the Tolkien universe is like high-high fantasy and not grounded and grimdark like GoT. If it was a standalone fantasy show without the burden of Tolkien and being a LotR prequel, I would give it a solid 6 out of 10. The biggest weakness is Galadriel. The actress has zero charisma, they should have taken someone like Evan Rachel Wood who has proven herself on Westworld instead, and she is written like a man, she is also a Mary Sue but so over the top that she can escape a dungeon in Numenor, easily defeat four guards with her bare hands and break into the royal palace. Nerf her, nerf the elves in general.
A good thing about the show is the portrayal of the orcs. They look even less than how they were described in the books than in the movie series, but that is a deviation I am okay with. They look much scarier and they are given some character, and are not mindless drones, they even showed some emotion when one of their comrades died.
No.29964
There are so many dumb things in this show that make laugh. I am at episode 5 and what do you think happens when you set brandy neat on fire? Yes it'll probably burn but in this show it looks like a fucking 9K720 Iskander missile hit the two ships with a massive explosion.
Dude. Burning liquer doesn't explode.
And don't even get me started about the last episode where the oarsmen couldn't even fucking row properly, did they not instruct the extras??! Remember billions are spent on this shit.
No.30018
>>29964I think it was pitch not brandy? But idk
No.30033
Lotr has always been a childish autistic fantasy trash that is all style and absolutely no substance. Style is fine a la John Wick but at least in that series, the style is actually given substance by great action and great world building. Lotr is just a rip off of a whole bunch of fantasy shit and no doubt rips off a bunch of Brother's Grimm which itself is a collection of already existing folklore. Something like John Wick is original and unique in it's world building whereas lotr wreaks of folklore rip off and reselling that trash as original.
No.30038
are there more cool designs like the wolf in the show
please post
No.30039
>>29098they smoke kush in lotr??? wtf
No.30062
>>30033And here we have yet another ignorant dumbass who doesn't know LOTR is based of of old folklore of central and northern europe.
And John Wick? You're comparing LOTR to a James Bond clone like John Wick.
Seriously the state of burgers today.
No.30063
>>30039I think they were talking about the barrels of hobbit "Pipe Weed" (tobacco) that Saurman had in storage.
No.30071
>>30062Lotr is a rip off. Just cuz you have your nostalgia goggles on for some overhyped fantasy rip off doesn't make it good.
No.30083
>>30033>>30062Dont get me wrong I love John Wick. But the whole series is just an excuse to have Keanu and Fishbourne larp as Neo and Morpheus again and that in itself is superior to anything connected to Tolkien
No.30088
>>30071>LotR is a ripoffA ripoff of what, exactly?
No.30113
>>30071A rip off of what exactly?
No.30131
So, the old dude that crashes to earth is Gandalf right? Or one of the other wizards?
No.30133
>>30033Never seen John Wick. Lord of the rings has substance actually
No.30136
>>30063Hobbit pipeweed has weird properties and gets you high
No.30137
>>30136Nvm, Iooked it up.
I read unfinished tales when I was a kid. There was a section in there where he talks about it “clearing the mind” but not really getting you stoned exactly.
No.30177
>>30113Real answer: there's a lot of medieval literature that Tolkien takes inspiration from. Boromir for example is loosely based on Roland, one of Charlemagne's paladins as depicted in The Song of Roland.
It's not at all a "rip off" but there are definite connections and lineages between Tolkien's characters and medieval European literature.
No.30180
Are you Tolkien nerds enjoying this Amazon show? It's so fucking boring.
No.30197
>>30180No, it's nothing but a fanfiction made up by a bunch of burger liberals and Jeff Bezos vanity project.
Christopher Tolkien should have just released LOTR into the Public domain.
No.30203
>>30197Even if lotr was in the public domain that wouldn't have stopped this. The wizard of oz is in the public domain, but the old movie with judy garland is still the private property of MGM.
No.30211
>>30180we tried watching it with a mate, dropped it because we really count bear it anymore. So slow, so boring, you don't care about any of the character and they're all so unlikeable, they vaguely tried politics but are just shit at it, its just shit
No.30228
>>30180I gave up 2 epsiodes in
No.30229
>>30226In the scene with the captured Uruk she was super fucking racist. Like Nazi level. And we are supposed to ignore that on a allegedly "woke" show because "we are the good guys".
Perfectly captures the liberal mindset.
No.30230
People in the IMDB comment section must be paid Amazon shills. They are saying that this shit is vastly better than HotD. If you don't see the difference of the quality of the writing then you must be some sort of troglodyte or a paid shill.
No.30231
>>30229An allegory for Burgeria hunh
No.30232
>>30177It's an eclectic mishmash of European folklore, Old English sagas, the brothers Grimm, Richard Wagner and Christian motives. There is not the definitive influence.
No.30263
>>30131i was correct.
>>30180People who didn't enjoy it are fags, I thought it was good. Yehyeh it was a billion or whatever and obviously nothing like the original movies but it was never gonna be
No.30265
>>30264Its fantasy that made it on to TV, what exactly were you expecting from your watching experience?
No.30266
>>30265I dunno, maybe something half-decent like GOT? Even though House of the Dragon has some dumb shit in it, it's still infinitely better than Rings of Power.
I mean for fuck's sake, you don't have to eat whatever shit is put in front of you and say it's delicious.
No.30267
>>30266Idk, you can equally make crits of Rings of Power, but ultimately, they are both fairly trashy. Rings of power has more political intrigue, whereas things in Tolkien in general are always pretty clear cut, even when they are trying to give a character a bit more dimensions to them.
One is modern, one is post modern. In LOTR, there are very clearly set and defined values. In GOT, everything is a shade of grey.
Neither of them make a particularly compelling political critique or something though. LOTR pretty basic good versus evil story, GOT is, a critique of feudalism? I mean it is, but also, its not. You're sitting there rooting for what? The stability of the realm perhaps. But you're not really, because you want to see dragons lay waste to shit etc. You want to see the villains get their comeuppance perhaps, or perhaps you are an Edgelord and want to see the villains win.
They are both viewed for basically escapist reasons. In terms of building a cool world with interesting things going on, which is all they really need to be, I think they both do fine.
No.30268
>>30267'Tolkien is black and white' is a monstrous strawman that every defender of this shitpile drags out, obviously Tolkien isn't GRR Martin but some of the biggest themes of his works are about how basically good people can be tempted or tricked or seduced into doing evil. There's plenty of possible material that you could use there if you wanted to make a 'post-modern' show.
For example the anti-elf racism in Numenor COULD have been used in a genuinely interesting and smart way if they stuck closer to the original plot and had it slowly bubble up over time, but instead in the show, you have a fucking rabble form around a guy yelling about how 'elves are taking our jobs!' when there's literally ONE FUCKING ELF in the entire kingdom.
You don't have to defend every piece of shit by saying 'bro it's just escapism' or 'bro you just have to turn your brain off'. Why the fuck can't we have actual smart writing? Why is that so apparently impossible for the big corporations to achieve? (Of course I know the reasons why but it's a rhetorical question and they could make a better product if anybody gave a shit instead of just looking for their next paycheck)
No.30271
>>30268I wasn't saying its a good thing that lotr is black and white, but it is pretty black and white. Most of the characters are pretty one dimensional.
>For example the anti-elf racism in Numenor COULD have been used in a genuinely interesting and smart way if they stuck closer to the original plot and had it slowly bubble up over timesure, but also others have complained that it was too slow already and it already crunches the timeline bastardising some law
In terms of your bottom paragraph, the bottom part answers the top part, which is why pretty much all you are gonna get is the escapism.
In terms of putting a pretty aesthetic and some faces to names it does the job. The main plot lines hold I think, the Sauron story, which is truish to the lore, the gandalf story.
No.30272
In fact, comparing like for like, i liked this series better than the hobbit movies, which really really sucked. (but i still enjoyed :) )
No.30275
>>30265>You should be able to enjoy it despite being shit because… because you just should, ok?-_-
No.30277
>>30272I mean yeah ok, this series was much better than the Hobbit movies, but they were borderline unwatchable so that's not saying much.
No.30370
>>30272 Yeah no, the Hobbit films largely sucked, but I still had more fun watching that then I did this series. Everything about it screamed liberalism and lackadaisical effort. You could turn on an episode of that Netflix Witcher series and barely tell the difference since it's all the same boring, Game-of-Thrones-rip-off aesthetic that has been plaguing fantasy television series since GoT aired.
No.30785
Recently on the ukraine general the topic of Hobbit Camps in Italy came up in regards to NPR discussing Giorgia Meloni (new Italian PM then) and discussing the pipeline to fascism LOTR lead to (in spite of Tolkien himself being anti-fascist and not intending any fascist allegory in the first place - disliking allegory in general in fact). I thought it was thread relevant and rather funny to share. Maybe this is the reason the USSR didn't have an official translation published for decades?
-
https://translated.turbopages.org/proxy_u/it-en.en.546a1997-6359766a-ce21ebc7-74722d776562/https/it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campi_Hobbit -
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/hobbit-camps-fascism-italy https://archive.ph/cb9kB No.31344
>>30785You have to understand some historical context for Lord of the Rings. Specifically, the Lord of the Rings was arguably the first in what is now a proud tradition of liberals/fascists making political retard takes based on fantasy/sci-fi literature. Around the 60s, people started using it as their equivalent of "the guy we don't like is Voldemort and we're Dumbledore's Army". Ironically for these fascists, the most common political interpretation was the Mordor was Nazi Germany, but "Mordor is the USSR and the orcs are Russians" was a close second, and it's an interpretation that made its way into many of the early fan translations of the book in Eastern Europe. Apparently, one Russian translation completely ran with the idea that the Scouring of the Shire was a satire of communism.
If you haven't read the books, Mordor and the orcs are not even remotely communist, fascist, German or Russian, so these are all retard takes. However, unfortunately, it's retard takes that are apparently very popular in Europe, especially the butthurt belt.
No.31436
Are there any good reviews/articles/videos that are critical of RoP *without* being some anti-woke rightoid screed?
No.31437
>>31347You can also see in that pic they made no effort with hair and makeup to make them look like elves. Tolkien elves should have an ethereal feeling to them, not sporting a modern crew cut.
No.31872
>>31437isn't this just your own cultural bias though, the same way people think that Romans speaking in posh british accents is "right"
No.31873
>>31347Ear prosthetics were also mass produced rather than being made specifically for the actor, so often they dont even fit right. Most expensive TV show ever, ladies and gentlemen!
No.31876
>>31872It's more based on my memory of reading the books and the descriptions given to elves. A simple and practical haircut like that (regardless of cultural context) implies a certain level of groundedness and a sacrifice of form for function that isn't thematically in line with elves.
No.31877
>>31873Where did all that money go? The Peter Jackson LotR trilogy had half the budget of this TV show *after* you take away the money that had to go to paying off the Tolkien estate.
No.31881
>>31877the difference is on this production, nobody gave a fuck. effort >>>>>> money
No.31891
>>30018 Pitch doesn't explode from fire either though. If anyone has seen tar catch fire, that's basically the same thing and it's just going to slow-burn producing horridly noxious smoke at worst.
No.31892
>>29343 The point is that they cry diversity, yet apparently a bearded woman isn't something to include.
No.31957
>>31892well as we all know, diversity is one thing, but no uggos allowed
No.32040
Anyone like this channel?
https://www.youtube.com/@InDeepGeekI enjoy his LOTR lore videos, maybe just because I'm a noob who has read nothing except LOTR/Hobbit and he talks about things from other books and letters
No.32462
>>11616>>28468yeah, just because he didn't like nazis doesnt mean he was woke. He was basically the jordan peterson of the 1940s
No.32463
>>32462Moorcock was right
No.32465
>>32463Please, LOTR is overflowing with them as it is
No.32481
>>32040Lemme link you one of the best LOTR geek channels out there, especially like this dude personally since I’m more interested in themes the author wants to convey and literary techniques rather than “lore”
https://youtube.com/@TheRedBook No.33138
>>12359>”What are the linguistic differences among the peoples of Westeros?”>The arrogant proddie smirked quite schismatically and smugly replied “There is the Old Tongue and the Common Tongue, you stupid warmonger”>”Wrong. There should be hundreds of dialects. If the Wall is 8000 years old as you say, how can the Wildlings and Northmen understand one another?”Meanwhile in LOTR everyone presumably speaks the same language. Even the talking spiders lol.
>Start your story by inventing 100 languages>Times it factors into the story: 0>Westron was the language of the Dúnedain of Middle-earth. By the end of the Third Age it was more or less a universal languages spoken throughout the races and peoples of the Westlands. LMAO. They had WSL courses for the fucking giant spiders.
No.33160
>>33158Way to completely miss the point the guy was making.
Even today in the age of internet, a globe spanning information network, combined with economic superiority of the west, english is not spoken by every person on the planet. But for some reason this "lingua franca" is the only language that is spoken by people it seems, because outside of somerunes of the door, none other languages are encountered, the supposed language diversity have zero bearings on the plot or characters. It is spoken by everything - from fucking trees to spider that is thousands years old that was residing under literal rock for those thousands of years eating everyone she encountered. How exactly Shelob is supposed to know this "lingua franca"?
No.33161
>>33138>>Times it factors into the story: 0Everyone and their dog knows about Durin's Door lmao. There are multiple occasions where reading, speaking, or translating text is important as well. Not to mention all the times characters discuss minor discrepancies of terminology like hobbit vs halfling.
>>33160The general point about everything speaking Westron is a fair criticism, but mainly insofar as it constitutes missed opportunity. People are often multilingual so it's not much of a stretch for some characters in large regions being able to communicate with each other through a common tongue, not unlike with Latin. And this does indeed happen. One example is when Treebeard speaks to Merry and Pippin in Westron but to the other Ents in Entish. As for Shelob, she was actively hunting intelligent creatures who spoke the lingua franca and she is also intelligent so it's not really surprising she would learn it. Not that she speaks in the story except by implication since she communicates with Gollum somehow.
No.33162
>>33161>People are often multilingualNot in LOTR. There is difference between being multilingual and everybody speaking the same language. Characters aren't written as nultilinguals who have to communicate with each other using one of the languages, they are written as if all of them speak the same language. Even fucking spiders.
>she was actively hunting intelligent creatures who spoke the lingua francaHunting and eating, not speaking to them. And definitely not learning their language ffs. This is just a ridiculous argument.
>but to the other Ents in EntishOe maybe same language but slower.
>but mainly insofar as it constitutes missed opportunityMore like bad writing. And that means that lotrs fans don't have any high ground about "muh invented languages" over got fans. Tolkien just as shitty writer as Martin is. Actually even worse since later managed to write at least a couple of decent books.
No.33167
>>32463Moorcock's criticism of Tolkien is overblown by Tolkien haters. Moorcock admitted Tolkien was a big influence on his own work.
No.33186
>>33162Many franchises suffer from this, at least Star Trek solves it with translators. Star Wars not so much. But the whole invented language thing is a thing that came recently.
No.33188
>>33186Nah, i understand this. I wouldn't even bring this topic if some fanboys wouldn't brag about how superior Tolkien is because muh languages when in actual books the don't really matter much.
No.33191
>>33160Shelob never speaks though.
No.33194
>>33138>>33162This is the dumbest criticism of Tolkien I've ever seen and it is astonishing. Language comes up every fucking time in his stories. It's like the very core everything else is built around even. It's pure linguist porn.
Book 1
>' "If indeed you look only, as you say, for records of ancient days, and the beginnings of the City, read on! " he said. "For to me what was is less dark than what is to come, and that is my care. But unless you have more skill even than Saruman, who has studied here long, you will find naught that is not well known to me, who am master of the lore of this City.">`So said Denethor. And yet there lie in his hoards many records that few now can read, even of the lore-masters, for their scripts and tongues have become dark to later men. And Boromir, there lies in Minas Tirith still, unread, I guess, by any save Saruman and myself since the kings failed, a scroll that Isildur made himself.Book 2
>`Welcome!' the Elf then said again in the Common Language, speaking slowly. 'We seldom use any tongue but our own; for we dwell now in the heart of the forest, and do not willingly have dealings with any other folk. Even our own kindred in the North are sundered from us. But there are some of us still who go abroad for the gathering of news and the watching of our enemies, and they speak the languages of other lands. I am one. Haldir is my name. My brothers, Rúmil and Orophin, speak little of your tongue.Book 3
>There sat many men in bright mail, who sprang at once to their feet and barred the way with spears. 'Stay, strangers here unknown!' they cried in the tongue of the Riddermark, demanding the names and errand of the strangers. Wonder was in their eyes but little friendliness; and they looked darkly upon Gandalf.>'Well do I understand your speech,' he answered in the same language; 'yet few strangers do so. Why then do you not speak in the Common Tongue, as is the custom in the West, if you wish to be answered?'Book 4
>They spoke together in soft voices, at first using the Common Speech, but after the of older days, and then changing to another language of their own. To his amazement, as he listened Frodo became aware that it was the Elven-tongue that they spoke, or one but little different; and he looked at them with wonder, for he knew then that they must be Dúnedain of the South, men of the line of the Lords of Westernesse.Book 5
>In vain men shook their fists at the pitiless foes that swarmed before the Gate. Curses they heeded not, nor understood the tongues of western men; crying with harsh voices like beasts and carrion-birds.And this is by no means an exhaustive list. I can only conclude that you never even read these books.
No.33195
>>33194Lol. And almost every time "hey we speak common, so all other languages are gonna be at best mentioned once or twice and never gonna be a plot point". Ever heard of "show, don't tell"?
>It's like the very core everything else is built around even. It's pure linguist porn.Ahahhahahaha, no, it's not. It's just jerking off to medieval epics.
No.33196
>>33195You're basically mad about people not grunting at each other all the time in a fucking fantasy book.
No.33200
>>33196Said the guy who called book sometimes mentioning a couple of other languages a "linguist porn". Tolkien fans are a fucking joke.
No.33429
>>33195>Ever heard of "show, don't tell"?Yes, something the CIA came up with because they thought books with too much exposition were causing people to have a bit too much to think.
No, seriously. The CIA were heavily involved in the mid-20th century writing organizations who thought up rules like "show, don't tell."
No.33430
>>33429Source? Sounds intresting.
No.33432
>>33194>This is the dumbest criticism of Tolkien I've ever seen and it is astonishing. Language comes up every fucking time in his stories. It's like the very core everything else is built around even. It's pure linguist porn.Lmao none of that has any linguistic aspect at all. WTF are you talking about?
No.33434
>>33432Linguistics would be about how people express ideas and concepts within different frameworks. No point saying:
>This guy spoke Japanese>but than he said in perfect English>blah blah blooeyThat means nothing.
No.33436
>>33434>Linguistics would be about how people express ideas and concepts within different frameworksPart of the reason Dénethor treats Pippin the way he does is because the Hobbits don't use formal speech (pronouns or honorifics or whatever idk) and when he speaks in a familiar way to him Dénethor assumes he's of a higher class/station than he actually is. (While all the main hobbits but Sam are landowners/bourgeois none of them are nobles or comparable in station to the Steward of Gondor.) This isn't something that comes across in the English text of the book itself (because Tolkien couldn't figure out how to represent it) but it's in his notes.
No.33437
>>33431>>33430
> “Write from experience.” “Show, don’t tell.” Self-knowledge. Self-discipline. Well-known conventions like these, whether delivered in classrooms, writing seminars or simply from one writer to another, often anchor traditional writing advice for literary authors and journalists alike in the United States.
>While these conventions may seem benign and often useful, they also have a history of political utility. Thanks to a network of underwritten cultural projects and front groups, state organs like the CIA and State Department collaborated with creative-writing programs like the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and publications like the Paris Review to cultivate and reinforce writing tenets like these. The aim: to focus literature and journalism on the individual, feelings, sensory details, rather than on community, political theory, and large-scale political concepts.https://citationsneeded.medium.com/episode-144-how-the-cold-war-shaped-first-person-journalism-and-literary-conventionss-42bf68ccaefhttps://www.vice.com/en/article/4x3vg3/how-the-cia-turned-american-literature-into-a-content-farmhttps://www.openculture.com/2018/12/cia-helped-shaped-american-creative-writing-famous-iowa-writers-workshop.htmlhttps://www.chronicle.com/article/how-iowa-flattened-literature/https://www.currentaffairs.org/2022/04/how-creative-writing-programs-de-politicized-fiction No.33442
>>33437Zamn
>>33431Burgers/the CIA certaindly do their best to turn me into a shizo
No.33443
>>33431My dude the CIA had their hands in all kinds of crazy shit. The amount of schizo you'd have to get to make implausible accusations about them is pretty high.
>>33437Fascinating and another important point about "show don't tell" is that it's an inherently subtle way of writing, as in it's a bit harder to understand the point than if the point was spelled out. This means that some percent of readers will miss the point, and it also makes it easier for the writer to miscommunicate in the first place. This contributes to the Death of the Author school of interpretation, since it's a lot easier to glean different meanings from a text the more ambiguous it is. That makes it easier to subvert or co-opt a text and in fact this is something we see all the time. It makes me wonder if the glowies are involved in some of the memes out there misinterpreting things like American Psycho to be some cool sigma grindset guy.
No.33449
>>33437> to focus literature and journalism on the individual, feelings, sensory details, rather than on community, political theory, and large-scale political concepts.That's not what "show don't tell" us about. Meds.
No.33451
>>33449It kind of is. If you emphasize showing things that puts your focus on direct experience, which has to be situated in a particular perspective, i.e. individualist. If you emphasize concepts those tend to be interconnected, broadly applicable, and can be held in common across different perspectives.
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