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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

#791

Post by Beltalowda »

scraptor wrote: post #780
Beltalowda wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The new Star Wars films made $2 billion, $1.3 billion, and $1 billion in box office alone (this excludes streaming, DVD sales, merchandise, etc.) So yes, they're making money. (I have no opinion on these films btw; I haven't seen them, and only dimly remember the old ones – I never cared much for them.)

Another way of looking at it is that they alienated half their audience in only three movies. They killed one of the most well known franchises for peanuts.

$1 billion in box office is still huge; I wouldn't call it "peanuts". And the box office of the original three films was $776 million, $538 million, and $475 million, so that was quite similar.

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

#792

Post by nec4b »

sudosysgen wrote: post #782
nec4b wrote: post #770

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By Roman I meant having Italic roots. It is a bit disingenuous to call them them indigenous or ethnically African. Especially because his father was of Punic origin and not a Berber as you are implying.

There were multiple Roman emperors born in North Africa. One had mixed Punic and Italic origins, one was a mix between Punic, Berber, and Syrian ancestry, and Caracalla had only Berber ancestry.

Caracalla could not possible be only of Berber ancestry, since neither of his parents were Berber. His father (Septimius Severus, the first "African emperor") was of Punic and Italic origins. Caracalla's mother (Julia Domna) was of Arab origins. The third Roman emperor was his brother Geta.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caracalla

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

#793

Post by nec4b »

tremon wrote: post #777
nec4b wrote: post #770

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By Roman I meant having Italic roots. It is a bit disingenuous to call them them indigenous or ethnically African. Especially because his father was of Punic origin and not a Berber as you are implying.

A lot of Romans (i.e. inhabitants of Rome) did not have Italic roots. Most inhabitants of Rome came from conquered regions, either as slaves, as wives, or as traders.

Sure, but this is not what we are discussing here in this thread.

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

#794

Post by wizofaus »

peoplefromibiza wrote: post #588
mcphage wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only part of the depiction he’s complaining about is race, though.

> The only part of the depiction he’s complaining about is race Am I? Are you sure? Can you quote me on that please? The blue fairy is an important part of my culture, at least for me. If someones rewrites it using all the power of a conglomerate like Disney, that puts at risk our shared culture and heritage. For me she's gonna be a woman with blue air, for someone younger it will be a bald black woman, that has no d…

I would totally watch a Sherlock Holmes played by Benedict Cumberbatch dressed up as bald black woman!

Look, if having the blue fairy's character being reinterpreted in such a way is simply something you'd prefer not to watch, that's cool. Maybe it bothers you that a generation of new viewers will absorb a different version of a story for which the orginal has a particular place in your heart, but that's just how culture works - for most of human existence stories weren't written down and changed on each retelling anyway. It doesn't lessen their importance or impact.

Having said all that - I've yet to hear many examples of modern adaptations of music in classical tradition written 100s of years ago that I can accept as any sort of improvement. I can't quite put my finger on why there's such a difference.

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

#795

Post by amanaplanacanal »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #668
amanaplanacanal wrote: post #532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps we as a society can eventually get to the point where nobody cares what color skin people have. That seems like a great outcome to be.

For historical depictions, it matters.

Maybe. If race matters to the story, then it might be confusing if the person doesn’t look like the race they are supposed to be, to some viewers. If race isn’t really part of the story, I don’t see how it matters.

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

#796

Post by mrcheesebreeze »

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 think diversity is best done by making it lore friendly and not just retconning things.

Making characters and nations with real substance is far more fun than just going back and changing something for political reasons.

I would rather see an introduction of african type regions in allegory for empires like The malian empire, Abyssinian Empire, Ajuuran Sultanate, or others rather than throw blacks into european type settings.

Even if we wanted to add blacks into europe type settings we could at least add lore reasons.

Many blacks were in spain under muslim rule and even at times the rulers of muslim areas of spain were black.

Just say that part of the continent was invaded, bam you can add in non-whites in a european setting.

We can do these things tastefully and add interesting lore.

As a black man I find it insulting to be given token characters of no substance, I would rather no inclusion than low effort shoe-ins.

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

#797

Post by mrcheesebreeze »

8note wrote: post #657
soueuls wrote: post #618

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Also these people seem to not read much about the works they mess with, there are plenty of non-white factions in lotr that have less set lore about them.

We can easily add in lore friendly blacks and do it in a way that makes less spoken about factions more interesting.

Why do low effort tokenism when you can do something interesting and still diverse?

All it takes is a bit of effort.

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

#798

Post by mrcheesebreeze »

sudosysgen wrote: post #725
nec4b wrote: post #706

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>There were Roman emperors who were indigenous to (Northern) Africa. They were decedents of Roman people living there and not sub Saharan Africans.

Rome was a multiethnic empire. I don't see what being Roman or not has to do with ethnicity. The Roman people living there being ethically Berber, that is, African. The name Africa itself probably coming from the Afri Berber tribe. They were both Roman people and also ethnically African. And Berber tribes despite not being from subsaharan Africa did, through thousands of years of contact, have significant ethnic and…

Empires that are large are usually cool like that.

Many of the top people in large empires aren't the same race or culture of the original people.

The caliphates had many groups not from the ruling elite's ethnic groups gaining high positions.

The romans had warriors and leaders of many different origins.

The mongol empire had and frequently used different ethnic groups in their armies and their leaders race-mixed with the locals.

Empires tend to be more colorful in order to control more land, its a natural effect of owning a lot of land.

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

#799

Post by pier25 »

appleflaxen wrote: post #348
pier25 wrote: post #338

I thought it was mediocre overall but Amazon is doing this to prevent review bombing. Presumably because the IMDB rating appears in the Prime app

> Amazon is doing this to prevent review bombing I think that's the complaint. Is review bombing somehow illegitimate? If so, what separates a "bomb" review from a legitimate review?

Bombing results in a bias but couldn't the same be said of any review system?

Even on Steam the reviews are biased to people that bought the game and are interested in the genre. It's not an objective score by the majority of people.

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

#800

Post by coldtea »

_-david-_ wrote: post #746
coldtea wrote: post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the Black Panther being a black superhero character, with African background, which is important to the story, means the "best actor" should include those qualities. It's not just about "best" in acting abilities alone (as if those can be taken in abstract regardless of the story), but best in fitting the character and the role. So you're kind of making the parent's point.

Why do you think that is what the parent post meant? He said he doesn't care about "the right skin color". If he doesn't care about skin color, then why can't Black Panther be white? I don't think the post was claiming it matters if it is intrinsic to the plot.

>Why do you think that is what the parent post meant?

https://effectiviology.com/principle-of-charity/

https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/steelmanning

I'd rather not assume people are card carrying KKK racists, if nothing they said necessitates that...

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