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

#511

Post by LunaSea » Sat, Sep 03, 2022, 3:58 PM UTC

WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #107

pseudo0 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate to do the "pull out the dictionary" thing, but those people are precisely the core audience for LoTR media ( https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/core-... ): > the type of people who are most likely to buy a particular product, watch a particular TV programme, etc. The Tolkien fans don't need a dozen Amazon Prime adverts to watch a new LoTR show, they seek out new LoTR content on their own. T…

I think that even by your definition the core audience is people who enjoyed the movies and watch prestige TV shows especially when you consider the marketing campaign. That’s the people Amazon is targeting. Fans of LotR as a universe are a very small subsection of that.

It does not look like prestige though.

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

#512

Post by cainxinth » Sat, Sep 03, 2022, 3:59 PM UTC

sjroot wrote: post #403

cainxinth wrote: post #242

Amazon, which owns IMBD, is pushing this thing hard. I have turned off every single setting in Alexa related to hunches, promotions, suggestions, etc. I loathe when I ask for the weather and she concludes with “…by the way, I can also…” But I still got a reminder that this show was available when I asked what time it was the other day.

The first time I heard one of those “I can also” lines, I lost interest in ever purchasing an Alexa or frankly any Amazon home product. Shame the amount of engineering effort that went into that system, only for it to be destroyed by absurd business strategy. I’m sure a couple PMs got a “level 2 to level 3” promotion out of it or something.

I usually just cut her off and cuss at her. I'm hoping Amazon is tracking how frequently people verbally assault Alexa to optimize the UX, but that's probably wishful thinking.

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

#513

Post by carapace » Sat, Sep 03, 2022, 4:00 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.

Ockham's Razor doesn't apply in adversarial situations.

We know the big operators purchase these franchises (economic wrappers around fictional universes) to pursue profit. They modify the stories and characters to optimize profit, they've been doing it for about a century, and they're very good at it.

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

#514

Post by Bakary » Sat, Sep 03, 2022, 4:01 PM UTC

satyrnein wrote: post #478

Bakary wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Racism certainly plays a big part in the frequency of such complaints, but it nonetheless raises some important questions. Ultimately, nobody really, genuinely holds the opinion that an actor can be of any appearance for any role. There will always be exceptions that will break their immersion, because unlike with theatre there is the expectation that the movie is WYSIWYG. To give an extreme example, would you be com…

I was surprised to learn (about myself at least) that this isn't really true, when I saw the musical Hamilton. Of course, the characters also break out into song, etc.

Well that is to be expected, because much like theatre musicals don't have that WISYWIG immersion expectation at all.

To test your belief, it would make more sense to picture a "serious" historical movie where the actors portraying the founding fathers don't look much at all like the faces on the dollar bills.

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

#515

Post by eternalban » Sat, Sep 03, 2022, 4:07 PM UTC

auggierose wrote: post #419

eternalban wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently binge watched a series (Irma Vep) that, very tongue in cheek, addressed the malaise of "platforms" affecting film/cinema. It's a very complex work (in terms of multiple layers of readings) spanning the director's closure over his lost love (see Irma Vep 1996), a hat tip to Truffaut's Day for Night , and a very explicitly expressed concern of characters of how "content platforms" have killed cinema and muta…

Have to check it out. Not sure about the 2022 show, but the 1996 movie sounds intriguing. Don't remember anything about Day for Night , just that I found it similarly confusing as Fellini's 8 1/2 . I do remember that I really liked Jules et Jim by Truffaut, but then again, it has Jeanne Moreau. I can recommend her movie Bay of Angels . It's a simple but great movie: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056846/

I really liked the 2022 -- there is a lot to chew on if you are a film buff as it is very self-referential in context of French Cinema -- but it's likely not everyone's cup of tea at the surface level. Technically, like (or surpassing) his Carlos miniseries, it is exceptional. Great acting as well. Lars Eidinger's was quite excellent imho, as was Vincent Macaigne's. (Plan to revisit the 1996, for Maggie Cheung. /g)

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

#516

Post by thedonkeycometh » Sat, Sep 03, 2022, 4:09 PM UTC

SunlightEdge wrote: post #442

To be maybe controversial... I'm still thinking about it, but I do wonder if diverse casting works in European fantasy stories. The problem I have is that it generally pulls me out of the experience/ makes it less immersive. I welcome diverse castings in modern shows (though we don't need every show to follow a template 'diverse' casting). A common counter argument is, well you can suspend your disbelief and imagine…

No post body was provided.

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

#517

Post by LawTalkingGuy » Sat, Sep 03, 2022, 4:14 PM UTC

samatman wrote: post #320

ubercore wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want the best actor for a role, not one with the right skin color. You can hedge around the skincolor issue all you want, but that's the basis for your complaint.

Colorblind casting is the right approach to theatre, I firmly agree with this. The world might not be ready for Raisin in the Sun to be translated to Vietnamese and performed entirely by Vietnamese people, I say go for it. This works so well because theatre is a practice. Any play, even if it's performed once by one company (surely the mode for plays) is of the ages. Merry is black in your stage adaptation of the Fel…

The problem is that casting is explicitly not colorblind. Nobody would complain if a Nigerian studio did a black-only version of LotR because (presumably) they have more black actors than white.

It's the intentional woke fuckery, just so the studio can talk about racist manbabies or whatever, that is toxic. They're trying to start this very review-brigading as an excuse for however bad the show turns out. If it tanks they blame the ratings, not the material.

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

#518

Post by zmgsabst » Sat, Sep 03, 2022, 4:15 PM UTC

Victerius wrote: post #165

zmgsabst wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pareto tells us that 0.1% of people account for 38% of the money. Intentionally aggravating your most passionate fans is a moronic business plan — like a mobile game that intentionally pisses off the “whales” to pursue casuals.

The exact shape of a Pareto distribution depends on two or three algebraic parameters. And the Pareto principle isn't some universal law that applies everywhere.

Sure — do you think it’s likely or unlikely to apply to things like profit per customer in media? …do you think the distribution will be significantly different than mobile games?

Are you objecting to the general idea that highly engaged customers produce disproportionate impact — or just those specific numbers?

If the latter, okay… but that doesn’t address my point that it’s a bad business plan, just quibble about it.

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

#519

Post by peoplefromibiza » Sat, Sep 03, 2022, 4:15 PM UTC

krapp wrote: post #499

peoplefromibiza wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> White skin is associated with purity, darker skin with corruption it's the oldest metaphor in the world it's light vs darkness, like white magic and black magic. Heaven is light, hell is darkness. Nobody sees "the dark at the end of the tunnel". The idea that black people mean evil and white people mean virtue is a stretch of the modern thinking, by the same people that believe that blacklist comes from black peopl…

>it's the oldest metaphor in the world >it's light vs darkness, like white magic and black magic. >Heaven is light, hell is darkness. >Nobody sees "the dark at the end of the tunnel". You seem to have confused "the world" for "Christian Europe." There are plenty of cultures in which these metaphors are reversed, or don't exist at all. And the only referent that is relevant to this specific conversation is that of Tol…

> You seem to have confused "the world" for "Christian Europe."

Not really

Yumboes are supernatural beings in the mythology of the Wolof people (most likely Lebou) of Senegal, West Africa. They closely resemble European fairies. Their alternatively used name Bakhna Rakhna literally means good people, an interesting parallel to the Scottish fairies called Good Neighbours. Yumboes are the spirits of the dead and, like many supernatural beings in African beliefs, they are completely of a pearly-white colour. They are sometimes said to have silver hair.

Chinese mythology has white foxes and white tigers.

There are similar examples in all the mythologies.

> He's clearly not drawing entirely from "universal" metaphors of "light" and "darkness." And even if he were, mapping that to race is still ignorant and worth calling out.

Tolkien was a well known anti-modern, Roman Catholic orthodox conservative.

But mongol-typed are not actually dark skinned, they were in fact often very pale in the past, and tbf he also wrote "degraded and repulsive versions of".

Same way I could say, as Italian, that "Jersey Shore" protagonists are a degraded and repulsive versions of Italians.

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

#520

Post by tamori » Sat, Sep 03, 2022, 4:15 PM UTC

peoplefromibiza wrote: post #167

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…

> Contrast Galadriel who acts like a self righteous dickhead with Aragorn who was reluctant to accept his calling spent and three movies proving himself to be worthy of honor and love You mean three books, right? The difference here is that Aragorn was written by Tolkien, this show wasn't and has completely betrayed the original material. Race or gender swaps are not a big issue, but they become one if the purpose is…

Wait, there were no black people in Italy in the 1800s? Italy isn’t exactly far from Africa - Africans were part of the Roman Empire, and Shakespeare was writing about black people in Italy only a couple centuries earlier - Heck, Othello was based on an Italian story written around the same time as Pinocchio, and that one had a black protagonist, too! They may not have been a majority, but they existed.