IMDB deleted all negative user reviews for The Rings of Power • Hacker News Board

Re: IMDB deleted all negative user reviews for The Rings of Power

#261

Post by oblio » Sat, Sep 03, 2022, 12:58 PM UTC

peoplefromibiza wrote: post #224

kthejoker2 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean ... she's a fairy, not a human .. what does her skin have to do with the time period or place in which she appeared? And there's literally zero reason to insist that Collodi's description is the only way a fairy character can be portrayed in a staged version of his book. The real problem is getting upset over the skin color of the actors and actresses playing fairies (or stormtroopers or elves or angels or for…

> she's a fairy, not a human .. what does her skin have to do with the time period or place in which she appeared? I mean, why can't we have a viking Black Panther and put Wakanda near Iceland? > The real problem is getting upset over the skin color of the actors and actresses playing fairies No one is upset for that, I, as Italian, am upset that some writer thinks that Collodi's story needed to be changed in ways th…

> The pale white skin is a well known proxy for ethereal/angelic beings

In European and European derived culture...

Re: IMDB deleted all negative user reviews for The Rings of Power

#262

Post by bigDinosaur » Sat, Sep 03, 2022, 12:58 PM UTC

farleykr wrote: post #61

My issue with the show has nothing to do with the “woke” stuff mentioned here. I don’t like it because none of the heroes are likable. All of them have some form of sticking it to the man and doing what they want as their story line. True heroes are self-sacrificial and reluctant. Contrast Galadriel who acts like a self righteous dickhead with Aragorn who was reluctant to accept his calling spent and three movies pro…

I'm seeing the same pattern I saw with Star Trek: Discovery (race and gender) and Captain Marvel (gender) - a critic would say 'I don't like the plot/logic/world/strength of the hero' and be accused of racism/sexism/not liking strong female characters, where this was untrue and just used to dismiss valid criticism. On the other hand, there was a contingent of people who did dislike it based on somewhat sexist or anti-woke reasoning, but as far as I could tell this was overall a small group. A bit of conflation later and, well, you get the worst of all worlds: critics who feel like they are being censored (or who are), and fans who will not accept the slightest criticism without slinging accusations of racism/sexism/whatever, along with a contingent who is deserving of the latter criticism but is more likely just laughing at the total chaos.

The actual quality of the show, on the other hand, almost ends up being irrelevant. Personally I usually wait about two seasons before judging a TV show.

Re: IMDB deleted all negative user reviews for The Rings of Power

#263

Post by oblio » Sat, Sep 03, 2022, 12:59 PM UTC

GenerocUsername wrote: post #240

flarg wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it the case that race is acceptably mutable if it isn't germain to the story and that making all audiences feel more accepted and therefore happier is a laudable goal. Nothing woke about greater non white representation. Plenty snowflake about not wanting this.

No. That's the lie being told these days and repeatedly blowing up on faces though

Is it a lie? Research constantly shows that people want role models like them and diverse audiences want... diverse characters :-)

Re: IMDB deleted all negative user reviews for The Rings of Power

#264

Post by dewey » Sat, Sep 03, 2022, 12:59 PM UTC

stingraycharles wrote: post #102

sofixa wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Didn’t know IMDB was owned by Amazon Yep. That's what enables Prime Video's X-Ray where you can see details about the actors and music of a particular scene while watching, and what also makes it impossible for competitors such as Netflix to have a similar feature. If IMDB were separate, the data would probably be accessible to anyone.

IMDB is the only provider of this type of data?

No, there's a bunch of other companies doing that but they are not as consumer facing as IMDb. One would be: https://www.gracenote.com/tv-and-movie-data/

Re: IMDB deleted all negative user reviews for The Rings of Power

#265

Post by sirshmooey » Sat, Sep 03, 2022, 12:59 PM UTC

peoplefromibiza wrote: post #247

rchaud wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It becomes clear that the black blue fairy was put there to check a box The movie is in English, using exclusively non-Italian actors , which in itself is checking a box. What difference does it make if they cast another non-Italian actor to play a role?

> What difference does it make if they cast another non-Italian actor to play a role? Who said anything about being Italian? I've only quoted the author words (Collodi) The fairy is pale white not because she is a white person, but because she's pure. Pale white skin is not an Italian trait, so I don't understand what Italianness has to do with anything. If anything, the fact that she is pale white makes her obviousl…

> The fairy is pale white not because she is white, but because she's pure.

Curious equivocation there.

Re: IMDB deleted all negative user reviews for The Rings of Power

#266

Post by bumblebritches5 » Sat, Sep 03, 2022, 1:01 PM UTC

No post body was provided.

Re: IMDB deleted all negative user reviews for The Rings of Power

#267

Post by manuelabeledo » Sat, Sep 03, 2022, 1:01 PM UTC

GenerocUsername wrote: post #240

flarg wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it the case that race is acceptably mutable if it isn't germain to the story and that making all audiences feel more accepted and therefore happier is a laudable goal. Nothing woke about greater non white representation. Plenty snowflake about not wanting this.

No. That's the lie being told these days and repeatedly blowing up on faces though

So it is not acceptable?

I don’t understand this position. If they add more diversity to appeal to wider audiences, that’s bad. If they make everyone white skinned, even if Tolkien himself didn’t describe most races as such, that’s fine?

Re: IMDB deleted all negative user reviews for The Rings of Power

#268

Post by dewey » Sat, Sep 03, 2022, 1:01 PM UTC

bombcar wrote: post #258

Amazon owns IMDB - they could easily put a “minutes watched” next to each review, and let you sort/filter by that.

And what interesting data point would that give you? "A lot of people watched that" isn't really a metric for the quality of anything.

Re: IMDB deleted all negative user reviews for The Rings of Power

#269

Post by ethbr0 » Sat, Sep 03, 2022, 1:02 PM UTC

Bakary wrote: post #154

BrainVirus wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very astute comment. We are living in some kind of Twilight Zone environment right now. Corporations purchase IP for decades-long, popular franchises, then deliberately alienate their core audience. Then they act as if all these people they just deliberately pissed off aren't real people. Words like "brigading" are a clever way to dehumanize your critics.

Applying Occam's razor, given that this process has repeated for years over multiple franchises, the conclusion is that the core audience is not who you think they are. Online commentary creates a strong visibility bias. Reddit is perhaps the most egregious example of this.

Watching it happen over and over, my impression has been that:

(a) Creative leaders (producer, director, writer) hired for these projects chafe at having anyone tell them what to do (and this especially includes the source material!).

(b) Creative leaders hired for these projects are typically not themselves fans, and do not elevate anyone who is a fan to a position of authority, and so lack even an awareness of the material. And critically, an awareness of what current fans enjoyed in it. Which is sometimes a feeling or deeper than just "these specific characters or places."

(c) As big budget projects, and costly rights acquisitions to start with, there are powerful committees put in place to keep creative on the rails, who are even more (a) & (b) themselves.

As a result, there is literally no one in the room with a powerful voice who understands why so many people liked this thing.

Say what you want about recent Marvel & Star Wars, but Feige/Favreau/Filoni seem to have a better sense and balance of "Why did people like this thing originally?" and "What will attract people who aren't fans?"

Re: IMDB deleted all negative user reviews for The Rings of Power

#270

Post by vintermann » Sat, Sep 03, 2022, 1:02 PM UTC

motogpjimbo wrote: post #198

Bakary wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Applying Occam's razor, given that this process has repeated for years over multiple franchises, the conclusion is that the core audience is not who you think they are. Online commentary creates a strong visibility bias. Reddit is perhaps the most egregious example of this.

The evidence doesn't back you up here. The Rise of Skywalker made half as much money as The Force Awakens. Rey and Rose Tico merchandise didn't sell. Viewing figures for recent Disney Marvel TV shows have been extremely low. Star Trek Discovery can't be viewed in many countries because no network broadcasts it. Netflix's attempts at woke series tend to get cancelled after the first season. And so on. The poor perform…

I think it's best explained not by ideology as such, but by self-handicapping. If you're facing a hard exam that you have no idea if you can pass no matter how hard you try, you can study hard, and risk the humiliation of failing... or you can kick back, relax, do a little partying, do a little mildly illegal drugs. Then if you fail, you can say you weren't really trying, you didn't really care that much. And who knows, you might even still succeed, and then you get the satifaction of being so good you didn't even have to work hard!

For a modern Hollywood director, if you put in just a little obnoxiously "woke" stuff, just a pointless gender or race swap, or maybe make someone gay or trans who wasn't in the source material... Now if it fails just for being bad, you can claim it failed because of those handful of people who complained about it online.

So it's not that the "woke lobby" has that much power to force directors to "cast diversely" or something, it's just that it's a convenient excuse for everyone involved. Nobody ever got fired for choosing IBM, and nobody ever got fired for making a film look a bit more like affluent modern America.