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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

#521
post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not quite that level, but plenty of people seem fine with Bridgerton swapping the race of its characters, which I believe is otherwise a standard period drama.

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

#522
post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By translating the origin from Italian into English another crowd is reached, and movie adaptations often differ from books. In this case, casting was chosen to be diverse at the expense of a detail barely anyone cares about. Whether such behavior is -all things considered- a win or loss depends on if such choice hugely hampers the popularity. IOW, vote with your wallet.

> In this case, casting was chosen to be diverse at the expense of a detail barely anyone cares about. Sorry, but that's like saying that nobody cares about Gandalf the white in LOTR, and you can cast whoever you like for the role and make his robe rainbow colored. In fact Amazon didn't do that, the actor playing Gandalf in Rings of power is a white man. For obvious reasons, that have nothing to do with being against…

Perhaps the casted person was the best choice? Ian McKellen was an excellent choice for the role of Gandalf. Whether the same is true for other actors and roles depends on a case by case scenario. I couldn't care less about his skin colour.

We in the West allowed foreigners and people of colour into our culture. We deal with it by being inclusive in 2022. Deal with it, simple as that. You don't like it, you don't watch it.

I live in a country where a bunch of people have decided to hang their flags upside down. I don't like that and if I see a business doing such, I don't do business with them. Simple as that as well.

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

#523
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".

What is interesting? It’s just review bombing.

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

#524
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also on the side of Amazon delivery vans.

And the Amazon boxes you get delivered have LOTR graphics on them

with Amazon Prime raising rates routinely, they want customers to engage with Prime Video, which is really a loss leader that's meant to keep consumers renewing Prime membership.

Amazon boxes is premium real estate and it costs them nothing to advertise. Its helping drive awareness, as you recalled the ad and specifically where you saw it, which is a strong signal for advertisers that want to infiltrate your mind.

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

#525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>European fantasy stories European history should be portrayed accurately, be it fantasy or reality. It seems that those that shout loudest about cultural appropriation are the first to glorify cultural appropriation when it suites their world view.

> European history should be portrayed accurately, be it fantasy or reality. It seems that those that shout loudest about cultural appropriation are the first to glorify cultural appropriation when it suites their world view. This so much. Mixed skin color withing the same race in a fantasy world makes little to no sense to me. Also the fact that dumb characters (say the hobbit girls for example) are always depicted…

What about the dumb harfoot moms who aren’t white? I think you’re seeing what you want to see.

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

#526

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 argument that if you can suspend your disbelief for dragons and magic you can suspect your disbelief for a diverse cast is a dumb argument because you could use it for basically anything.

Most fantasy shows that are in English use British accents. It’s what we expect. But why not use a heavy southern U.S. accent? If you van accept this world with dragons and magic why can’t you accept a southern accent?

If it deviates too far from our expectations then it just seems like a bit.

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

#527
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 we know Amazon has been deleting user written reviews that are negative.

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

#528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not about race, is about culture. You can have any black character in middle earth, --any--, as long as is Southern. Nobody would bat an eye. You can made this character as heroic and positive as you want. Having a black elf is a miscast, because most races in LOTR depict real groups of people or real cultures in Europe. Elves are tall and blonde and represent the Germanic and Scandinavian traditions that Tol…

Just really cannot fathom this if you are serious. There are literal tree people and talking eagles and giant evil wizards in this world for godsakes! It is a fantasy world! Like truly, how can you care about this? Do you not feel any dissonance in your logic here? It is just beyond parody.

Why do you have a problem a Honda Civic is in Middle Earth? It is a fantasy world! There are literal tree people for godsakes!

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

#529
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it very much depends on the tavern. In many places sure, it would be unknown. Could a random village have a black resident, maybe a sailor or member of a trade expedition that happened to settle there? Absolutely. Adventure fiction is often centred on unusual characters with exceptional back stories or circumstances, and people like that did exist.

> Could a random village have a black resident, maybe a sailor or member of a trade expedition that happened to settle there? Absolutely. No, because they would have died from the novel diseases the village would have had. There's a reason why when Europeans went anywhere they died by the boat load and pretty much everyone they brought back to Europe also died. It's always fun to remember that Pocahontas died in Engl…

The Middle East and North Africa had frequent contact with Europe. When thousands of Europeans went on crusade to the Middle East they didn’t all drop dead. The Romans went everywhere. Berber pirates even raided for slaves as far north as Iceland. This is simply not an issue. The Americas was a different situation, they’d been isolated from Eurasia for tens of thousands of years.

In Middle Earth the Numenorians had extensive colonies in the far south, and also had contact with the Elves and their ancestral homelands in the northern regions. Again, just not an issue.

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

#530

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, Galadriel should have just shut up and gone to Valinor!
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