Rings of Power: Tolkien's Shambling Skinsuit

TomServo said:

Ok Chris.

Click to expand...

Oi, I think that diverse casting is bad and I'm not going to watch this unless you guys say it's good.

Khalan said:

but I don't think it's inherently bad they wanted a diverse cast?

Click to expand...

"And last of all the mounting wave... took to its bosom Tar-Míriel the Queen, fairer than silver or ivory or pearls."

Sound like a black chick to you? Numenor was ruled by the House of Elros, the descendants of Elrond's twin brother who chose the Gift of Men over immortality. This isn't just diverse casting, it's blackwashing a character whose appearance was explicitly described by Tolkien. It's almost as bad as blackwashing Fringilla Vigo in The Witcher.

Drinsic said:

It's inherently bad because it tells you they care even less than the films about sticking to the source material, and that they're more concerned with The Message™ than basic biology.

Click to expand...

"Basic biology" in a fantasy world that contains walking, talking trees. Okay.

All of the key characters from the books that have been shown so far are white. Alright, I guess so far there's that obscure Numenorean queen who Tolkien mentions like three times in all of the source material who's brown. I'll be sure to stop everything immediately and charge up my rage cannons.

All that aside, despite the last couple of trailers looking somewhat promising, I still fully expect this to largely be an abortion painted over with some nifty special effects. If it's slammed from here to the Undying Lands and the writers blame that all on racism, then they can go stick their dicks into a running blender for all I care. Beyond that, I really can't muster up a shit to give.

Some people here have done an impressive job of making complaining about the disease more irritating than the disease.

zignor 4 said:

"Basic biology" in a fantasy world that contains walking, talking trees. Okay.

All of the key characters from the books that have been shown so far are white. Alright, I guess so far there's that obscure Numenorean queen who Tolkien mentions like three times in all of the source material who's brown. I'll be sure to stop everything immediately and charge up my rage cannons.

All that aside, despite the last couple of trailers looking somewhat promising, I still fully expect this to largely be an abortion painted over with some nifty special effects. If it's slammed from here to the Undying Lands and the writers blame that all on racism, then they can go stick their dicks into a running blender for all I care. Beyond that, I really can't muster up a shit to give.

Some people here have done an impressive job of making complaining about the disease more irritating than the disease.

Click to expand...

"And last of all the mounting wave... took to its bosom Tar-Míriel the Queen, fairer than silver or ivory or pearls."

Sound like a black chick to you? Numenor was ruled by the House of Elros, the descendants of Elrond's twin brother who chose the Gift of Men over immortality. This isn't just diverse casting, it's blackwashing a character whose appearance was explicitly described by Tolkien. It's almost as bad as blackwashing Fringilla Vigo in The Witcher.

zignor 4 said:

"Basic biology" in a fantasy world that contains walking, talking trees. Okay.

All of the key characters from the books that have been shown so far are white. Alright, I guess so far there's that obscure Numenorean queen who Tolkien mentions like three times in all of the source material who's brown. I'll be sure to stop everything immediately and charge up my rage cannons.

All that aside, despite the last couple of trailers looking somewhat promising, I still fully expect this to largely be an abortion painted over with some nifty special effects. If it's slammed from here to the Undying Lands and the writers blame that all on racism, then they can go stick their dicks into a running blender for all I care. Beyond that, I really can't muster up a shit to give.

Some people here have done an impressive job of making complaining about the disease more irritating than the disease.

Click to expand...

i dont mind if they change the story of my favourite book for a political agenda! Who cares guys! Who cares if it amplifies the downstream cultural racism current blowing up. Its just only on the internet!

Gavinmad said:

"And last of all the mounting wave... took to its bosom Tar-Míriel the Queen, fairer than silver or ivory or pearls."

Sound like a black chick to you? Numenor was ruled by the House of Elros, the descendants of Elrond's twin brother who chose the Gift of Men over immortality. This isn't just diverse casting, it's blackwashing a character whose appearance was explicitly described by Tolkien. It's almost as bad as blackwashing Fringilla Vigo in The Witcher.

Click to expand...

You mean the character that I explicitly mentioned in the quote you responded to, who no one outside of hardcore Tolkien nerditry remembers from her handful of fleeting mentions in The Silmarillion, but whose physical appearance is suddenly serious business? When they roll out Young Gondorians and teenage Boromir is played by Kevin Hart, I'll jump on the train with you guys and we can all smash our dicks together. Looking at what they've revealed so far, I just don't care. Sauron Shady (if that's indeed really Sauron) lookin like whiney Anakin's angstier cousin is much more concerning.

zignor 4 said:

"Basic biology" in a fantasy world that contains walking, talking trees. Okay.

Click to expand...

Do you understand how suspension of disbelief works? Nothing about the LotR universe's fantasy elements have suggested that things like skin color being associated with genetics/bloodlines and geography no longer apply. Why would there be random black hobbits or dwarfs? Unless they just happened to take one long journey from the land of black hobbits or the land of black dwarfs or the land of Puerto Rican elves, where did they come from? It makes no sense.

zignor 4 said:

I just don't care

Click to expand...

I guess some people look forward to being replaced.

Ossoi said:

Wat?

Click to expand...

You know what I meant, book accurate to a T.

The blackwashed a few witcher characters, and have blackwashed (Is this even a real term) characters in other shows tons and they've have been fine.

I am not saying don't shit on it, but hold off until we see how bad or good it is then shit away.

Also like, they are making up 90% of the story since tolkien didn't really write this. So if you are upset at a casting choice be just as upset the show even exists as it is taking a LOT of liberties. I mean I don't remember the lines in the trailer in the books, do you?

Drinsic said:

Do you understand how suspension of disbelief works? Nothing about the LotR universe's fantasy elements have suggested that things like skin color being associated with genetics/bloodlines and geography no longer apply. Why would there be random black hobbits or dwarfs? Unless they just happened to take one long journey from the land of black hobbits or the land of black dwarfs or the land of Puerto Rican elves, where did they come from? It makes no sense.

Click to expand...

There are multiple lines of Dwarves, Elves, Men, and Halflings in Tolkien's writings. Many of them are not explicitly described at all. Clearly there are what we would consider to be black, Middle Eastern, and far-Eastern races that meander in and out of the tales, and interbreeding between races is not at all an uncommon theme of Tolkien's. So far with this show we have some brand new characters that fall into those categories, and one existing character that maybe one person here actually remembered from the books who got a smack from the diversity committee. I'll pour a 40 in her honor.

There's going to be a MASSIVE amount of shit in this show that is completely invented by the writers. If I wanted to get myself all frothy over this I'd be much more concerned about all of opportunities for the source material to get shredded by that fact alone. If you pulled all of the dialogue from The Silmarillion and The Unfinished Tales into a book it would be like 20 pages long.

nice to see Bear McCreary get paid at least, he's worked on the soundtracks for bangers like BSG, Black Sails, Snowpiercer, Walking Dead, God of War

Cad said:

Somehow all the white Wakandans are getting left out of Black Panther though, I'm sure thats just a coincidence and the source material didn't support any far flung white lines or tribes, so, sorry, couldn't do it. Funny how this diversity casting only goes one way.

Click to expand...

I have practically zero interest in Black Panther one way or the other, but there could be a small difference in what I understand is supposed to be a secret, largely racially-singular society by design to the biological makeup of an entire world.

But alright, I'll pour a second 40 for the white Wakandans.

Anyone with a Prime membership (incl me) are clearly absorbing the cost of this mess since the sub is increasing for the first time in 8 years.

I honestly think its just fucking lazy to drop a POC in wherever a director sees fit. Why? Because these hacks cant fucking create their own fucking source material for where a POC fits. Saw where a director was stating he wanted to do a Black Superman the other day. Why? Whats the point? Why not create a Super Hero thats Black and is just as good if not better than Superman? You know, so the Black Kids dont feel like its some hollow fucking multi-verse thats never visited again? Oh? You have? It wasnt popular? HRMMmmm... To be clear, its not because the idea sucks - but because, as stated above, the directors are lazy and fucking suck. Too hard for them to make this work.

People say "tiring," but at this point its just annoying. Go find fucking stories out of Africa that are fantastical. Hell, the Middle East has loads of stories to pull from. So again, why the fuck does a POC need to be put into a story like LOTR? Cause its fucking tokenism and every notion of it in this series is hollow and empty of meaning.

Grizzlebeard said:

Anyone with a Prime membership (incl me) are clearly absorbing the cost of this mess since the sub is increasing for the first time in 8 years.

Click to expand...

I wish I could dump Amazon prime video and twitch for a reduced fee. I rarely watch anything on it, and it ends up funding all this wokescold programming.