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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

#801
post #792

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You are correct on that detail - I mixed up Caracalla and Macrinus, the second of which was of Berber origin and also a Roman emperor. Which is an ironic error from part since Macrinus conspired to kill Caracalla. My original point still stands, however, and I believe you are still mistaken in that.

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

> Macrinus was born in Caesarea (modern Cherchell, Algeria) in the Roman province of Mauretania Caesariensis to an equestrian family of Berber origins. According to David Potter, his family traced its origins to the Berber tribes of the region and his pierced ear was an indication of his Berber heritage.

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

#802
post #792

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You are correct on that detail - I mixed up Caracalla and Macrinus, the second of which was of Berber origin and also a Roman emperor. Which is an ironic error from part since Macrinus conspired to kill Caracalla. My original point still stands, however, and I believe you are still mistaken in that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macrinus > Macrinus was born in Caesarea (modern Cherchell, Algeria) in the Roman provinc…

You are right, I did forget about Macrinus (mixed Geta's timeline). Though I don't agree with your point still standing. Him being an emperor for a short time was more of a fluke rather than an indicator of something common. Rome was in possession of North Africa for 2 centuries or more by than. He is the only Emperor for who you could claim to be indigenous (as far as we know) North African. And he ruled for only 1 year.

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

#803
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

It seems kind of weird to characterize Tolkien fans being interested in a new, high-profile Lord of the Rings show as "brigading". Of course the people with the biggest emotional connection and interest in a franchise will be the ones most active in reviewing, creating YouTube videos, and discussing it online. I think the better question is why so many established sci-fi and franchises seem to be alienating their cor…

Because many of the studios think that big budgets and flashy effects can cover for nonsensical plots, mediocre acting, and characters whose choices do not fit with who they are.

And frequently these mediocre writers roll into established franchises and actively make editorial decisions as if they're the reason were watching e.g. LotR. Newsflash, Tolkien is a far better writer than whoever is on Amazon's payroll, probably best to just stick to his ideas whenever possible. If you want to innovate you'd piss less people off doing a mediocre job in a brand new universe.

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

#804

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Keep in mind that that is pre-inflation. Episode 4 made 1.3 billion adjusted for inflation, with a far smaller moviegoing audience.

The new films are just milking every ounce of life out of the franchise. The money they're making is indeed peanuts to what a talented crew could have made.

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

#805
post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a distinction between creative -license and -arrogance.

there is always an inherent bit of arrogance anytime someone reworks the works of the original creator, so i'm still not sure what you're distinction is. just by attempting to update/modify the story signals you think your version is better. arrogance.

If someone is rolling into a Tolkien IP believing they're better at high fantasy than Tolkien, it goes from "arrogance" to "megalomania".

Sometimes it really is best to minimize the artistic license and let the masters work shine through.

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

#806

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Regardless of the intended position neither would make him a "card carrying KKK racist".

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

#807
The other day 8 looked at the IMDB score for the Rings of Power. The score was something like a 3 out of 10, but what caught my eye is the number of user reviews was nearly 200,000. That is way higher than it should be at this point. The problem is that people who haven't even seen it are creating Imdb accounts just so they can give it a negative review. This happened with the all female Gohst Busters movie as well. After the trolls got board they stopped filtering the reviews and it wound up around something like a 7, which is pretty accurate. That Ghost Busters movie wasn't amazing or bad, it was just average, and trolls who had a problem with the premise refused to watch it, which is fine, but then also gave it a 1 star user review just because they hated the idea which isn't.

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

#808

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a business point of view having a fanatical core of fans who recommend your show to everyone is why you bought the IP. Today I saw physical adverts for House of the Dragon on the train ride home. The only thing I thought about was how shit the last season of Game of Thrones was and how I will never read any media about that world again. Even though I would have watched a new show set in a completely different wo…

I think they also buy these IPs for the cultural impact. With these massive brands like Star Wars/Marvel/Game of Thrones, people get a strong sense of FOMO because they know everyone else will be talking about the new show or movie and they don't want to be the only one who hasn't seen it. These names are so big that they influence pop culture, and that's why media companies are paying huge sums for them.

That only works for so long. It's burning money for warmth instead of spending a bit of time to buy firewood.

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

#809
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems kind of weird to characterize Tolkien fans being interested in a new, high-profile Lord of the Rings show as "brigading". Of course the people with the biggest emotional connection and interest in a franchise will be the ones most active in reviewing, creating YouTube videos, and discussing it online. I think the better question is why so many established sci-fi and franchises seem to be alienating their cor…

Because it’s not the core audience. People who care about the lore and source material are insignificant compared to the amount of people who just enjoy a lavish production in a medieval fantasy setting. Clearly Amazon is targeting the people who enjoyed the movies and want a similar experience in a TV show format. Most don’t really care that it conforms to what Tolkien wrote. Heck, I’m probably unusual compared to t…

If that were true then why buy the LotR franchise rights?

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

#810

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…

> I think what people resent isn't the fact that there are black elves, it's the forcing of it, and that everything is scrutinized at a microscopic level for alleged "racism" (e.g. [1])

Who exactly _forced_ Amazon to do this? That article is just another opinion on the internet. If this is the thought police I think Amazon's gonna be OK no matter how they cast the elves.

What's funny to me is the in-advance-defensiveness when people wanna complain about "woke" casting. Witness the ridiculous discussion about Pinocchio in this discussion driven by the anti-woke complainers, because nobody otherwise cares about a stupid Disney movie for kids. Getting offended at how Pinocchio is portrayed, and they call minorities sensitive LOL

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