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Amazon spending $465M on season 1 of The Lord of the Rings series

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Re: Amazon spending $465M on season 1 of The Lord of the Rings series

#541

Post by abhorrence »

HWR_14 wrote: post #476
bobdvb wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I'd disagree with the assertion about Elijah Wood, Deep Impact was a pretty big film and he had a key role in that. He also had many other roles before that in some pretty notable films, especially The Faculty and heck, he was playing alongside Kevin Costner in 1994! Perhaps I am just old, and a keen film watcher, but I wouldn't describe him as a lesser known actor at that point in his career. Also, Sean Bean…

Elijah Wood was famous as a child. That doesn't really translate into adult roles. I mean, seriously, look at Wil Wheaton or that Home Alone kid.

Often child actors (like Wil, for example) don’t actually want to be actors and it’s just overbearing parents making them do it. Naturally, for many of them, as soon as they reach adulthood and gain more control over their lives, they don’t continue a career in acting.

Re: Amazon spending $465M on season 1 of The Lord of the Rings series

#542

Post by tptacek »

blakebreeder wrote: post #539
tptacek wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's wildly not the case in the performing arts; just, like, a crazy thing to say. Stars get cast over and over again because audiences are comforted by familiar faces, not because the stars themselves are somehow the best actors in the world. Ben Affleck is a leading man, for Christ's sake.

You managed to ignore "generally" twice (specifically put in to avoid your exact kind of response), construct a strawman argument for me, and then failed to actually defeat that strawman argument. Who is talking about "stars?" None of the cast I mentioned in the original comment are stars. They're ESTABLISHED, EXPERIENCED, PROVEN actors. That's literally the whole point I was making. And your response to the strawman…

Yes, if we're going to just accept the "crazy talk" rhetoric (I'm fine with it!), I stand by what I said: you are the crazy talker here. :)

I do love that citing Ben Affleck forced you to retreat into "I said generally!" though. We agree on something!

Re: Amazon spending $465M on season 1 of The Lord of the Rings series

#543

Post by Beltalowda »

hedora wrote: post #319
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure that we've not seen the end of The Expanse 's universe.

I hope you're right, but they had an entire scene in the last episode where the main characters complained at Bezos for cutting off funding. This is not the mark of a show that they plan to renew. :-(

> This is not the mark of a show that they plan to renew. :-(

Amazon doesn't own the TV/movie rights of The Expanse (beyond the seasons they funded), they're owned by Alcon Entertainment. So basically, whatever Amazon does or doesn't plan to do is kind of irrelevant and there isn't really anything stopping from the show appearing on, say, Netflix, or the BBC in a few years time. This is also why it transferred from SyFy to Amazon relatively easily.

Re: Amazon spending $465M on season 1 of The Lord of the Rings series

#544

Post by treis »

xdennis wrote: post #440
treis wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because there's not wildly successful books with wildly successful movies about the amazing empires that ruled the African continent. And it's hardly rewriting parts of LOTR to have a black actor portray Legolas. Everything is still the same except the color of the guys skin. You'll be fine.

> Everything is still the same except the color of the guys skin. That's exactly what people mean when they say wokesters use people's cultures as skins, with no content. If you wanted to add African representation, let's say Zulu, you'd add something specific to Zulu culture: people, language, songs, stories, etc. But instead they just change some skin colours in an existing story. That's not representation, that's…

Yes, people want what you describe too.

What I describe means you don't effectively hang a "Whites Only" sign on one of the larger productions happening today.

Re: Amazon spending $465M on season 1 of The Lord of the Rings series

#545

Post by chimineycricket »

tomtheelder wrote: post #528
xdennis wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everything is still the same except the color of the guys skin. That's exactly what people mean when they say wokesters use people's cultures as skins, with no content. If you wanted to add African representation, let's say Zulu, you'd add something specific to Zulu culture: people, language, songs, stories, etc. But instead they just change some skin colours in an existing story. That's not representation, that's…

I think the counterargument would be that casting people of different races isn't really supposed to be about culture at all. In theory it's meant to provide a sense of inclusion to those who might not look like the characters as they were intentionally written. As in: "LOTR is still for me, even if I don't look like a European." I don't really want to get into the validity/efficacy of that. I just don't really have…

>"LOTR is still for me, even if I don't look like a European."

What? Is there a law that says I can't enjoy art that doesn't include my skin color? If there's a TV series about Nelson Mandela, would you be okay with a white actor playing him? What about Rosa Parks? It's for inclusion right?

Re: Amazon spending $465M on season 1 of The Lord of the Rings series

#546

Post by manmal »

chaostheory wrote: post #438
tptacek wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having Jackson even nominally involved in the project would be a pretty terrible sign for me, after the Hobbit fiasco (which in turn colored my appraisal of ROTK and, in particular, the extended LOTR editions). As for the writer's room on this show, it looks solid to me: * Jason Cahill wrote a bunch of episodes for The Sopranos * Justin Doble wrote 4 episodes in S1 and S2 of Stranger Things, and those are the only tw…

Agree with Jackson being terrible to even have on for consulting due to what he did to The Hobbit. I wasn’t happy with what he did with some key scenes in LOTR either. I feel the main reason he was left out though is because there might be animosity between him and the Tolkien family in terms of art direction.

The Hobbit production was so heavily rushed, I wouldn’t hold the quality issues against Jackson.

Re: Amazon spending $465M on season 1 of The Lord of the Rings series

#547

Post by tptacek »

kevinmchugh wrote: post #433
tptacek wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not one of the Marvel Shows would break any reasonable TV top 10. The "1-2 showrunners, a writers room, and a rotating cast of directors" model is unimpeachably successful; it got us Breaking Bad, The Wire, The Sopranos, Deadwood, The Americans, and Mad Men, among many others.

Atlanta and Barry both have small director pools, being mostly Hiro Murai and the series star/creator. Even those benefit from being able to switch for tonal benefit. To some extent I think Louie set the precedent there, as CK was given complete creative control. Comedians were asking for "the Louis deal". Glover (and Ansari) seemed to get it, and both had the sense to hire other talented people. Louie (the show) suf…

Barry has something like 11 writers, and 6 directors, though Berg and Hader direct most of them. Arguably, writing in TV shows is more (or at least equally as) important than direction.

Re: Amazon spending $465M on season 1 of The Lord of the Rings series

#550

Post by usrn »

asdff wrote: post #414
AlexandrB wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably just a job. Some Amazon executive says, "Hey, can you write us some Lord of the Rings episodes for X dollars?" Writer says, "Sure." I don't think hubris enters into it, the same way that construction workers don't usually compare their output to the Roman Colosseum. I also don't think that the Tolkien universe is somehow sacrosanct. If the show sucks, then it sucks - it doesn't take away from the origin…

The problem is that these things don't exist in a vaccuum. The funko pop doesn't really matter, its not taking many resources from other projects. This show potentially is taking resources, talent, money etc. If it sucks, that means chances are there will be a very long dry spell before investors decide to try another Tolkein work. So it does kind of take things away from the fandom if it does end up sucking and burn…

> If it sucks, that means chances are there will be a very long dry spell before investors decide to try another Tolkein work.

After seeing the fruits of the investors being involved I think I'm ok with that.

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