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IMDB deleted all negative user reviews for The Rings of Power

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

#371

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…

It actually is the point. Wokeism cannot create likeable characters or plotlines.

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

#372
post #6

Interesting to contrast the IMDB rating with Rotten Tomatoes, not owned by Amazon, which currently has an audience rating of 38%. https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/the_lord_of_the_rings_the_... In my opinion, Steam does the best job of handling this tricky problem by leaving all reviews up and transparently letting the user pick whether or not to include periods of "unusual activity".

Quoted post unavailable.

Suppose the show had been extremely faithful to the source material and hordes of Tolkien fans had reviewed it well. Would similar logic apply? That their good reviews should be deleted because they would be mostly useless to the broader audience?

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

#373

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 race and location of Black Panther and Wakanda are integral parts of their story and character. Not the case with the blue fairy. Definitely not the case with elves in a fantasy world.

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

#374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then why spend the money to get the rights to a known series at all? Make up a new IP in Generic Medieval Fantasy Land with lavish production values. No licensing or contract renewal fees, and you don't upset any existing audience.

Have I watched this new LotR show and their WoT show? Yes. Because I've enjoyed the books. Would I watch a generic IP they invented? No. At least not until it got huge and I got it recommended by others.

Is that really true? If I saw any fantasy or sci-fi series that didn't derive from a book or comic series I'd take off work to binge it. I'm so tired of regurgitation. A known writer's name attached would me me run rather than walk to the remote.

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

#375

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…

That's the Second Age for you. None of the major characters is supposed to be likable, except maybe Elendil. This is not a story about heroism and self-sacrifice. It's a story where powerful people do stupid things out of pride, great empires fall, and almost everyone dies.

That is a good point. The simarillion was probably the first true tragedy I was wxposed to.

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

#376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't worry, it's not you. People who are quick to call someone racist are nearly always struggling internally with their own racism. To their credit they feel quite a lot of shame about that, but until it's resolved they can be quite unpleasant.

Let me offer a different perspective: the complaint is inconsistent and solely focused on race, which makes it appear racist.

I think GP is not arguing his case well, especially not to Americans, who come with a preset cluster of expectations and arcane protocols to signal that we "get it".

And, sure, anti-Black racism might be his prime motivation. But, just assuming it's so, when someone questions American appropriation of his own culture's literary traditions is ... it's frankly imperialist.

"Americans agree: Italian who questions American depictions of Italian cultural traditions is just a bigot"

Have a bit more charity.

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

#377
post #19

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Quoted post unavailable.

People are grumpy because Amazon gutted LotR universe, made it an empty vessel for their political ideology and now refuse to deal with well-earned criticism in an honest fashion.

It's so sweet you think a corporation like Amazon has a political ideology other than making as much money as ever possible.

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

#378

Well, we live in the age where the story hardly matters. I saw Top Gun the other day, and was shocked at how bad it was. The aerial stuff was superb, but everything else looked so amateurish. Acting was hideous, the story was so predictable and boring there was hardly any substance to the film. And yet it got an 8,5 rating at imdb.

Matt Damon went into some detail about why movies are like this nowadays: https://youtu.be/gF6K2IxC9O8

Interesting, but the DVD vs post-DVD part of it doesn't make sense without more explanation or numbers attached.

In the DVD era most people didn't buy expensive DVDs - they rented them from Blockbuster (then later Netflix) just as they had done before on VHS.

In the post-DVD era there is still plenty of money coming after the theatrical release in the form of money from streaming services. How does this source of revenue compare to that of the DVD era, and, if it's significantly different, then why?

One thing that's different nowadays is how quickly movies go from theatre to streaming, but that's under control of the movie studio - presumably they expect to make more money this way.

Perhaps the real problem is the cost of producing, and marketing, these Hollywood movies in the first place, making it necessary for everything to be a mega-hit to be successful.

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

#379
post #84

I think people with legitimate criticisms are starting to get really tired being called a racist or a misogynist. 99% of the reviews aren't about wokeness at all. They're about the writing, the pacing and the how unbelievably dull the show is.

When I happen to feel critical of something that the woke or anti-woke crowd is critical of for their own irrational reasons, I am angry at that crowd, not at everybody else who is also angry at that crowd and who can not realistically be expected to distinguish every single individual critical comment when judging the legitimacy of an aggregate number.

In my experience, people directing anger the other way frequently end up declaring that they are now, in some capacity, on the side of the irrational crowd in question, with a "YOU made me do this" rationalization, which is pretty highly transparent.

Note that this is not to say there is no such thing as people doing the unfair lumping-in you describe on an individual basis, which is indeed its own problem.

But also note that, if you frequent the places where people feel more free to be openly anti-woke, you will find that those who would like to make irrational anti-woke criticisms also exaggerate the more acceptable criticisms you describe. This is because the show or movie is beyond merely "badly written" for them and has triggered their "hate" feelings. So, some amount of reviews critical of non-political/racial/etc things like pacing end up being magnified anyway by the hate the reviewer has underneath.

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

#380

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…

Yeah, the writing is the issue. I have no problem with ethnicity or even gender swaps. Honestly, a gender swap of a male character would have been better than changing Galadriel

The problem is that they’re more focused on tying the series to Peter Jackson’s work and ensuring that children can watch it. The original stories were better.

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