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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

#731

Post by wizofaus »

CapricornNoble wrote: post #698
didibus wrote: post #584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

>>>What I wonder though is how much those stories are a part of the average Afro American active culture. Do they grow up reading those books too, or they do so reading Tolkien instead? I read Tolkien, because my mother was a nerd, and shared her love of sci-fi/fantasy with me. I presume she got her exposure to sci-fi/fantasy at university (graduated 1973), despite attending an HBCU. I really do wonder who introduced…

> All of this cultural squabbling is the fault of a loud demographic of predominantly-young, emotionally-immature, college-brainwashed intersectionalists,

You are undoubtedly better qualified to have an opinion on such matters than I am, but the article I linked to above suggests your view is not shared by all with strong ties to their African heritage.

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

#732

Post by simonh »

thrown_22 wrote: post #730
simonh wrote: post #729

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what? The same applies. Sub Saharan Africa had frequent contact with North Africa and the Middle East. The Romans sent expeditions, and Arab traders travelled across much of the continent. For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romans_in_Sub-Saharan_Africa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timbuktu#History The Egyptians sponsored a Phoenician expedition that circumnavigated Africa. Finds at the ruins at Great Zimb…

Yes, and you keep ignoring the death rates for those expeditions.

Please point out the evidence for these death rates. Any way the death rates from disease don’t matter. What matters is the survivors. What we do know is this contact happened. That’s a fact. It was even common enough to be economically important. That’s all it takes for people from far populations or with distant ancestry to show up.

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

#733

Post by Maursault »

rowanG077 wrote: post #728
Maursault wrote: post #726

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why specify Europe? Why not just say the Solar System? Or the Western Spiral Arm of the Milky Way? Or the Local Group? Inexplicably, you chose to be incredibly vague. Just because France is in Europe does not make Europe representative of France. You can say the Eiffel Tower is in the Milky Way, but this is overly broad and imprecise; it makes far more sense to say it is in France. Similarly, Tolkien borrowed from ve…

It's quite simply because Tolkien's work shows Germanic, Finnish, Greek, Celtic and Slavic mythological influences. That spans almost the entirety of Europe. I don't feel you are arguing in good faith here. Either you are willingly ignoring it's European heritage or just haven't done the research on it.

> It's quite simply because Tolkien's work shows Germanic, Finnish, Greek, Celtic and Slavic mythological influences. That spans almost the entirety of Europe.

He was a gifted linguist, influenced by Germanic, Celtic, Finnish, Slavic, and Greek language and mythology.[1]

Yes, indeed, as the wiki you've drawn from states, Tolkien, the man, was influenced by his studies of various ancient cultures. But to create his fiction he drew from his own life, his Christianity, his experiences during WWI, and Norse and Finnish mythology. Tolkien did not draw on the entirety of the catalog of European mythos to build his world. If you can show me, say, how one of his characters draws from characteristics of a specific Greek hero or god, or likewise for any Germanic, Celtic, or Slavic stories, I'd really be genuinely interested.

I have already named the specific Finnish source that Tolkien borrowed from, and provided a specific example of Tolkien borrowing from Norse sagas, namely, using characteristics of Odin for a few of his characters. Please provide any specific example of Germanic, Greek, Celtic or Slavic influence in Tolkien's work, and name the source. Just one will do, so please take your pick.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._R._R._Tolkien%27s_influence...

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

#734

Post by user_named »

Maursault wrote: post #726
rowanG077 wrote: post #716

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't believe Italy, or the Nordic countries are European I will not be able to convince you. Our world view is simply too different to come to an understanding.

Why specify Europe? Why not just say the Solar System? Or the Western Spiral Arm of the Milky Way? Or the Local Group? Inexplicably, you chose to be incredibly vague. Just because France is in Europe does not make Europe representative of France. You can say the Eiffel Tower is in the Milky Way, but this is overly broad and imprecise; it makes far more sense to say it is in France. Similarly, Tolkien borrowed from ve…

No post body was provided.

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

#735

Post by user_named »

Maursault wrote: post #669
LEDThereBeLight wrote: post #658

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Fair enough, but that still sounds absurdly idyllic and very hard to believe. I would expect it to be the opposite, that there was extreme racism even between different families within the same culture, and mostly only in Europe and not so much in the Middle and Far East. Europeans invented racism, and I would have expected it to have occurred around the fall of the Western Roman Empire. But this is all conjecture.

No post body was provided.

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

#736

Post by user_named »

Beltalowda wrote: post #580
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…

Vulcans (and the related Romulans) on Star Trek were always very light-skinned; in the original series and TNG they always appeared with white make-up. Then Voyager had Tuvok (who is black) and no one seemed to mind of complained at the time as far as I can recall. I certainly didn't really take notice of it until today when I started thinking about this entire thing. Star Trek: Voyager first aired in 1995, so it's b…

Going one step deeper, the issue isn't the forced casting itself but that you're not allowed to have an opinion about it.

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

#738

Post by docmars »

hackerlight wrote: post #54
WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think all critics of “mandatory woke” can be boiled down to “I hate it because it has black people in it”. I mean I wouldn’t personally use the world woke because it looks mostly devoid of meaning but as a European, the mandatory diversity in American production has reached a point where it sometimes gets very funny. I don’t really mind it because it doesn’t affect the narrative structure of what you are watc…

> mandatory diversity For everyone except East Asian males. They are generally not allowed into the diversity club unless they're playing a martial arts expert. East Asian women get casted because, well, at least they're women. Maybe they can find themselves a nice non-East Asian boyfriend in the movie. East Asian men can go and screw themselves. God forbid if they included a conservative older white male who isn't p…

A melting pot devoid of individual culture or expression. It's ridiculous. They forced as many races as they possibly could into the same scenes, representing the "same" peoples to check a box for representation (cheaply) in the most homogeneous way possible, which is half the reason this show is so uninteresting.

It removes the entire concept of having different nations with different people who are proud of their culture and ways of being, each with something unique to bring to the table, say in scenarios of war, uniting together against something evil, trade, customs, and everything else that isolated groups represent on their own.

Globalism isn't even realistic in a setting like Lord of the Rings, yet here we are.

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

#739

Post by docmars »

allendoerfer wrote: post #51
WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think all critics of “mandatory woke” can be boiled down to “I hate it because it has black people in it”. I mean I wouldn’t personally use the world woke because it looks mostly devoid of meaning but as a European, the mandatory diversity in American production has reached a point where it sometimes gets very funny. I don’t really mind it because it doesn’t affect the narrative structure of what you are watc…

> I must confess that I did roll my eyes at black characters acting normally in the middle of a tavern in medieval Europe recently. It ruins the whole viewing experience, because you stop buying what you see. Characters are just very obviously not believable anymore. People in present times still react strongly to people of different skin color if they are not used to seeing them. And I am supposed to just let it sli…

Today, anything that could possibly incite violence or impart "otheredness" towards an "oppressed" people group will not do in film, the risk is too high (albeit manufactured from nothing), lest they experience the total condemnation of Twitter for not following the latest narrative and appealing to this very small group of radical activists who are almost singlehandedly dictating what modern multimedia is allowed to portray.

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

#740

Post by ironcurtain »

the_lonely_road wrote: post #383
farleykr wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not opposed to that being her prospective character arc but she’s not portrayed that way. There’s nothing to make us like her and from the storytelling and craft perspective there should be. We should at least see her questioning herself. She’s not presented as a cautionary tale. She’s presented as a strong woman who has to deal with domineering men. Even that would be a compelling story line. But again we don’t…

Isn’t this just because we, the viewers, know that she is right given the whole Sauron is the big bad in Lord of the Rings? We are suppose to appreciate her focus and refusal to give up given that we know she will be ultimately vindicated.

Story should make no assumptions about what audience knows, it should be fully contained.
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