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Achtung Englander
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Re: General TV News

Post by Achtung Englander » Mon Jul 18, 2022 1:30 pm

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Achtung Englander
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Re: General TV News

Post by Achtung Englander » Mon Jul 18, 2022 1:38 pm

As a non-white person even I am getting a tad fed up with juxopositing black people in cold environments which would not be compatiable with their skin tone unless they travalled there. For LOTR I don't care as its all bollocks anyway but adding black people to historic settings that was predominately (or even all) white is plain stupid. Reinventing history inaccurately can be very damaging.

If we are going all diversity - what about orientals or eskimos in films set in historic Africa. Might as well go full bat shit.
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Re: General TV News

Post by Wrathbone » Mon Jul 18, 2022 2:36 pm

I get what you're saying, but using an example of another fantasy world established by an early-20th century author, I present to you Conan the Barbarian. Robert E. Howard's Hyborian Age was a fictionalised version of Earth set roughly around 9000BC, which is comparable to what Tolkien did with Middle Earth. The 1982 film was set in the equivalent of Europe, possibly veering into Turkey, but notably there are plenty of East Asian characters, one of whom is a prominent supporting cast member. Thulsa Doom (James Earl Jones) is black. I don't remember anyone ever batting an eyelid over any of the cast choices in Conan, even though historically the odds of people in 9000BC making it from North-West Europe (Conan's land) to China or Japan, and vice-versa, is highly-unlikely at best and laughable at worst.

And yet loads of people are up in arms at the prospect of non-white hobbits, elves and dwarves in the LOTR TV series. As a bit of a Tolkien nerd, most of those choices are perfectly compatible with his writing, and even in the cases where it contradicts the skin colour in the text (I think there are maybe two references in all his works), it doesn't change the substance of the text in any detrimental way.

I sincerely believe this is something people choose to make a problem.

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Raid
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Re: General TV News

Post by Raid » Mon Jul 18, 2022 4:56 pm

Achtung Englander wrote:
Mon Jul 18, 2022 1:38 pm
As a non-white person even I am getting a tad fed up with juxopositing black people in cold environments which would not be compatiable with their skin tone unless they travalled there.
Is there anything in Tolkien's fiction that suggests that people *can't* travel large distances? I haven't read the books, but the third film shows fleets of corsairs travelling by substantial-looking ships, and I hardly think those were built to sail around a lake.

I think I may have said this when the first teasers for the show were released, but I just fail to see the harm in rewriting arguably insignificant parts of the fiction to suit a modern audience.

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Re: General TV News

Post by Achtung Englander » Mon Jul 18, 2022 6:01 pm

As I said having a diverse set of races in LOTR does not bother me.

Having a diverse set of characters in historic settings does.
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Raid
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Re: General TV News

Post by Raid » Mon Jul 18, 2022 6:27 pm

Are we still talking about Middle Earth? :-s

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Re: General TV News

Post by Sly Boots » Mon Jul 18, 2022 8:46 pm

Raid wrote:
Mon Jul 18, 2022 6:27 pm
Are we still talking about Middle Earth? :-s
I think you and Wrath misread what AE said the first time, he said he doesn't care how diverse things get in fantasy settings, but does when it comes to historical settings.

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Re: General TV News

Post by Raid » Mon Jul 18, 2022 8:50 pm

Right, yes, ignore that then.

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Wrathbone
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Re: General TV News

Post by Wrathbone » Mon Jul 18, 2022 9:21 pm

I think my comments still stand. What I was trying to say (badly) is that the suggestion that using characters from implausibly distant lands is tokenism doesn’t hold up for me whether it’s a fantasy setting or an historical setting. In fact in the case of Middle Earth I think it should be treated similarly to history, because that’s how Tolkien approached it - i.e. the fact that it’s fantasy shouldn’t make it an anything-goes free for all. I haven’t seen anything about the LOTR show that has taken the piss in that respect, though.

What gets me with the Conan example (and I recognise that this doesn’t apply to AE) is that the problems people are levelling around diversity in LOTR are equally applicable to the 1982 Conan movie, but nobody considered it a problem then. Probably because it’s not a problem. I think if Conan had been released for the first time today, amidst the backlash to perceived ‘woke’ diversity, it would have had a similar vitriolic response to what LOTR is dealing with now.

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Re: General TV News

Post by Raid » Wed Jul 20, 2022 6:34 pm

Another trailer for a big budget fantasy show.



I can't find even the slightest bit of enthusiasm for it. It's incredible how much damage that final season of Game of Thrones did - it didn't just end the show badly, it actively took away all of the interest I had in the world that they'd spent the previous 7 (ok, maybe not all 7) building.

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Re: General TV News

Post by Animalmother » Wed Jul 20, 2022 7:02 pm

It pretty much killed any enthusiasm I had for anything Game of Thrones as well. Loved the books but honestly couldn't be bothered now if they're ever finished. Actually I'd still class Hardhome and Battle of the Bastards and pretty amazing tv if I'm honest..

When is this supposed to be set, a few or a hundred years before the original show?

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Wrathbone
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Re: General TV News

Post by Wrathbone » Thu Jul 21, 2022 6:42 am

I think it’s meant to be shortly after Aegon conquered Westeros, so just under 300 years before GoT.

The trailer is damn well boring. It looks devoid of any personality, like they’ve taken a two paragraph précis from GRR Martin and thrown a load of CGI and blonde wigs at it.

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Re: General TV News

Post by Sly Boots » Thu Jul 21, 2022 7:00 am

Meeeeh.

The only great seasons of GoT were based on the books Martin has actually published, everything went downhill after that (more of a staggered collapse than a drop off a cliff, but still) when the writers were required to come up with stuff on their own, and that's even with Martin's involvement giving them a rough guide. I have literally zero faith in a series that isn't based on what he's written, and it's a period of time we don't actually have any pre-existing relationship with from the books.

I'd be more interested in a series set during the Mad King's reign and Robert's rebellion, the events of which were touched on in the books, so it would be great to get that detail more fleshed out.

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Re: General TV News

Post by Alan » Thu Jul 21, 2022 7:15 am

The jump the shark moment was Brienne vs Stannis. It wasn’t all awful from there but that was the big this is going shite moment.
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Re: General TV News

Post by Mantis » Thu Jul 21, 2022 9:15 am

When was that, season six? I only vaguely remember the details now but for me it all started going down hill bit by bit from season 4 onwards. That random trip beyond the wall to save Bran from Craster's Keep was when I started to notice that the content made up by the show runners was seriously lacking in quality. And then we had Dorne in season 5. #-o

By the time we hit the final season it was just abominable TV. Knowing the outcome of the story has even killed my interest in the next books now, if we ever get them. Watching some soulless spin off based on snippets of a history book that GRRM wrote because he can't bring himself to finish the main series is the last thing I would like to do.

Are we still getting the white walker spin off or was that canned?

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