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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

#651

Post by onepunchedman »

rowanG077 wrote: post #607
onepunchedman wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you say European, except for the fact that Tolkien wrote the story, what part of the show thus far has given you an explicit European feel? Did the Harfoots resemble British subjects, or do the race of men have to be from the European continent because of their skin color? Which city did Lindon look like? If we're already in a fantasy setting, why is there such a focus on relating the setting of the fantasy to o…

You honestly deny that middle earth is not based on Europe? Everything Tolkien wrote was drenched in that reference frame.

You're not at all touching on my argument. Read my reply to maxk42.

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

#652

Post by wizofaus »

didibus wrote: post #584
wizofaus wrote: post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if you restrict "black" to mean African Americans, that subculture has existed in its own right quite long enough for new stories to have been formed surely? The wikipedia article on African American literature would certainly suggest there's plenty to choose from.

> The wikipedia article on African American literature would certainly suggest there's plenty to choose from. Absolutely, I recognize I might just be unaware, and that's probably because they're not made into big budget movies and very much should be. I'd also love to see that. And to be clear, I'm in 100% agreement that I want to see and think there should be a lot more of their stories represented and made into big…

Why should a writer or for that matter film or TV producer even care what "some folks" are gonna think - it's impossible (and pointless) to please everybody. The idea that the fantasy genre is inherently European and should only consist of caucasian characters is patently absurd and untrue anyway - even CS Lewis had an Arabic-inspired protagonist (female, at that, but that's no denying a fair bit of racist sentiment in his writings too).

Btw this is an interesting read: https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/books/2021/...

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

#653

Post by bergenty »

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…

I like the diverse casting, it fits the world in my opinion especially since Tolkien populated it with so many different races. What makes my blood boil is the pukeworthy feminist drivel hamfisted into everything. I couldn’t get past the first episode with Galadriel as some kind of warrior aping what should really be a man’s role.

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

#654

Post by bergenty »

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…

They managed to make me hate Galadriel 15 mins into the first episode. It’s brilliant, just not in the way we want.

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

#655

Post by 8note »

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…

Middle earth, and lots of fantasy in general is dominated by race and racism. Everyone's personality and stature is decided by their birth, and the breakdown of that system should be a plot point in the story to make the last alliance, though even the final fight is going to be super racist with the good races killing all the bad ones.

Diverse communities within those races is a jarring juxtaposition - they're both super racist and super not racist at the same time.

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

#656

Post by bergenty »

lordentropy wrote: post #487

Good god! It must be really hard to make anything these days. If you don't put enough people of color, people will shout of bigotry. If you include a few, some will accuse of wokeness and review bomb it to hell. I'm just glad that the show got made!

People are more pissed off about the feminist bullshit in the show. Galadriel a warrior? Give me a fucking break, puke.

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

#657

Post by 8note »

soueuls wrote: post #618
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…

The main problem with diversity, is that most of the time it's a performance. And it's often done with bad actors, who will spend hours and hours on talk shows, describing how they are proud to be the first X to have played in this role. The result is thus disappointing. And it does not create anything of value. Because unsurprisingly, people are not paying to the the "first black elf". Nobody care. So it's just alie…

Moreso with diversity, it's a diverse set of people playing a non-diverse set of characters. The characters are all written to be white, just with non-white people playing them.

They're doing something cool by having the diverse cast, but the writing doesn't adjust to make a story that feels like it has a diverse cast

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

#658

Post by LEDThereBeLight »

Maursault wrote: post #631
scarmig wrote: post #621

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That centers race a bit much. There weren't black people in medieval Europe, but nor were there white people. We're projecting contemporary racial categories onto a past where they didn't exist. The question of whether there were black people in Europe is akin to asking what did people there think of the USSR. That said, yes, people we'd currently code as black existed in Europe, though disproportionately in entrepot…

> There weren't black people in medieval Europe But there definitely were.[1] Also, the idiots complaining about black elves are racist morons. There were, in fact, black elves in Tolkien's world. Though never depicted as such by artists, Eöl the Dark Elf (who was not Moriquendë, i.e. not a member of the Moriquendi or the Elves of Darkness) probably wasn't white. In The Silmarillion, Tolkien goes out of his way to de…

You’re not understanding his argument. Medieval Europe didn’t have this internalized concept of race or skin color like we do - they categorized people more by religion (catholic, Protestant, Muslim) or origin.

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

#659

Post by LunaSea »

WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #549
LunaSea wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does not look like prestige though.

Call it like you want. I meant that it’s a TV show with a production budget of 60 millions dollars an episode without counting the rights purchase. It can’t really be compared to a traditional show. This season is going to cost twice as much as the original three movies. That’s completely insane.

It's entertainment and the entertainment factor is what gets measured.

Fargo had 10x less budget and was much more entertaining.

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

#660

Post by dwild »

nzealand wrote: post #527
pseudo0 wrote: 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".

While a third of the IMDB ratings are 10, another third of the ratings are 2 or 1. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7631058/ratings/?ref_=tt_ov_rt I think the reviews are being flooded by two extreme opinions If you look at the ratings from the top 1000 raters, you get a more normal distribution. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7631058/ratings?demo=top_1000_v... But it's really hard to trust anything about these numbers now…

Theses graphs are always so useful on IMDB. The popular or controversial movies are always like that, usually it's less bad and you can actually see the normal distribution in the general population, but we are lucky to have the top 1000 raters in this case.
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