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ArsThaumaturgis Since: Nov, 2011 Relationship Status: I've been dreaming of True Love's Kiss
#251: Feb 14th 2022 at 7:49:35 AM

Well, that's the thing: I don't feel like it teased enough to pique much interest—for me, at least. As mentioned above, a suggestion of Sauron, or a name-dropping of Galadriel, or a glimpse of the Rings—something recognisable and enthusing—might have helped a lot alongside all the admitted-prettiness otherwise on show.

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Whowho Since: May, 2012
#252: Feb 14th 2022 at 7:57:26 AM

The previous teaser, which was the title reveal, was far more effective at establishing a tone I feel.

Gaon Smoking Snake from Grim Up North Since: Jun, 2012 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
#253: Feb 14th 2022 at 8:36:09 AM

Yeah it's a very early teaser for a show that's almost a full 8 months away from airing. I about expected that there's not much to show here. The money making shot in the teaser is, by my reckoning, the beautifully depicted look at Númenor early on.

Honestly, what's most tiresome is the startling amount of white supremacist trolls and bots crawling out of the woodwork all to post the exact same tolkien quote (“Evil is not able to create anything new, it can only distort and destroy what has been invented or made by the forces of good”, which they helpfully demonstrate by [[copypasting the same quote a million times rather than coming up with a original critique).

For amusement's sake, have the early trailers of Fellowship of the Ring:

Early 00's trailer editing was a lawless wasteland. Makes the film look like a low-budget tv adaptation with all the random choppy cuts and fade-outs.

"All you Fascists bound to lose."
ArsThaumaturgis Since: Nov, 2011 Relationship Status: I've been dreaming of True Love's Kiss
#254: Feb 14th 2022 at 8:51:33 AM

The money making shot in the teaser is, by my reckoning, the beautifully depicted look at Númenor early on.

If it's the shot that I'm thinking of, then that is a good shot, admittedly.

The previous teaser, which was the title reveal, was far more effective at establishing a tone I feel.

Hmm... Actually, on this I'm not sure that I agree. I feel that the one thing that this new teaser did establish was tone: there's a wonderful feeling of scale—see that waterfall!—and beauty to it that really feels like it fits the material, I find.

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Feb 14th 2022 at 6:51:59 PM

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theLibrarian Since: Jul, 2009
#255: Feb 14th 2022 at 11:01:34 AM

Was that Numenor? It looked more like an elven city, though I suppose the mountain in the background could be the big one that was at Numenor's center.

And yeah, this whole white supremacist thing is just right-wing trolls deciding "Durhur the elves are gonna be black and gay now cuz woke" instead of any actual criticism because they can't find one.

Gaon Smoking Snake from Grim Up North Since: Jun, 2012 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
#256: Feb 14th 2022 at 11:15:02 AM

Aside from the port-status fitting Númenor's sea-faring nature and the big mountain looming in the distance, the architecture seemed distinctly Gondorian-ish to me and the statue at the center (Elros, I'm figuring) calls to mind the Pillar of Kings statues.

"All you Fascists bound to lose."
shadowblack Since: Jun, 2010
#257: Feb 14th 2022 at 11:38:50 AM

Can we not reduce the critisisms down to white supremacist crap? Not everyone complaining is some sort of supremacist (though some likely are). In fact, not everyone complaining is white to begin with.

Now bots are definitely a thing. And I mean both types of bots here – scripted bots and actual people who post that “evil cannot create” text just because other people post it. Basically they are jumping on the bandwagon, so I view them the same as bots. Is it petty and childish? Sure, but when has that stopped people from doing something?


Back to the trailer, this teaser trailer did nothing to actually tease my interest. I am not much of a Tolkien fan – I have read the LotR books and watched the movies, and that's it – so the locations mean nothing to me. Fans that have read everything Tolkien has written might recognize the locations shown, but regular people will likely just see the trailer, think that it looks expensive, and move on. I hope future trailers will show something a bit more substantial, something to catch and keep people's interest.

theLibrarian Since: Jul, 2009
#258: Feb 14th 2022 at 11:42:16 AM

I've heard concerns that Amazon will mess it up somehow, yes. Those I am treating as valid, because that's a worry I have too.

But when you see most of the comments being exactly that sort of garbage about elves? Yeah, those are just trolls who don't need to be listened to.

Gaon Smoking Snake from Grim Up North Since: Jun, 2012 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
#259: Feb 14th 2022 at 11:46:58 AM

No one reduced all of the criticism to "white supremacist crap". This thread itself has been fairly critical of what has and has not shown up, but it's silly to pretend like a significant part of the backlash isn't white supremacists, particularly these 4chan-esque bot farms. Discourse about this in general has been full of people complaining about the "wokelords" or what have you.

It's a similar scenario as with the sequel trilogy of star wars. Now, if you ask me, the sequel trilogy was a disaster, so I'm not one of its defenders and have never been, but it's undeniable that a significant portion of the backlash were reactionaries spewing bile at "SJW culture". The sooner we establish that the sooner we can get ahead of the curve of the inevitable poisoning of the well that's going to happen.

"All you Fascists bound to lose."
Hodor2 Since: Jan, 2015
#260: Feb 14th 2022 at 11:53:12 AM

I'm not totally able to get at specifics of why it rubs me the wrong way (I'll confess that I have not read the books other than The Hobbit and bits of Fellowship so far), but the criticisms I see it getting really do rub me the wrong way and seem to be coming from a place of bad faith.

Like YMMV obviously but nothing about the teasers/information released so far indicates cheapness and lack of care for the source material.

Two particular criticisms I will note are the complaints about a beardless female dwarf (I don't think anyone believes that the lack of a beard is what people are complaining about) and complaints about Galadriel in a combat role. What's funny with that one is that when it's pointed out that the text confirms Galadriel being a warrior, the response is that she's so powerful that she didn't need to wear armor so her having armor in the show is (in so many words) pandering to feminists.

Also, I saw today criticism of a Harfoot (Hobbit precursors) character, Elanor 'Nori' Brandyfoot having a dwarven-sounding nicknname (correct me if I'm wrong here), even though the Harfoots are explicitly framed as having close and friendly relations with dwarves. Like that's literally their whole "thing" in the introduction to LOTR.

Edit - For what it's worth, I think the other objection was that Elanor was (also) an elven name. Which I guess? Although see above about bad faith criticisms.

Edited by Hodor2 on Feb 14th 2022 at 1:58:44 PM

theLibrarian Since: Jul, 2009
#261: Feb 14th 2022 at 12:02:07 PM

Not to mention the Tolkein estate is satisfied with this. The Tolkein estate is really anal about the property being portrayed well.

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Goku Black
#262: Feb 14th 2022 at 12:03:58 PM

I'm curious how we'll this series needs to do to continue though?

From what I've heard it's insanely expensive and I'm not sure how success is measured for something like a streaming service like this.

"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
Gaon Smoking Snake from Grim Up North Since: Jun, 2012 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
#263: Feb 14th 2022 at 12:25:51 PM

Criticisms about Galadriel are always scattershot, because anyone who has actually read the full Tolkien material knows that Galadriel's backstory is famously inconsistent because Tolkien kept revising it and never settled on a proper way to integrate her in the Silmarillion (she was created for LOTR and Tolkien liked her so much he felt the need to retroactively match her in canon, but this proved a challenge). There's enough material to do basically anything you want with her past self. In this version in particular they seem to be rolling from Unfinished Tales, which does state Galadriel took direct part in at least one military engagement (the Kinslaying of Alqualondë) and was present in several others.

the complaints about a beardless female dwarf (I don't think anyone believes that the lack of a beard is what people are complaining about)

This, itself, being an example of the poisoning of the well the white supremacists are causing. I think wanting the female dwarves to have beards is a perfectly fair complaint (Tolkien does describe in some length how they have beards just like the males and in fact look almost exactly like male dwarves to the untrained eye), particularly given bearded, burly female dwarves would have been a golden opportunity to showcase some very unusual female body types and physiques. It's something I believe, for example.

But the nazis are out in such force (and this female dwarf happens to be played by a black actress) that it's functionally imposible to tell if someone complaining about the female dwarves not having beards is a legitimate criticism or a dogwhistle.

To bring up SW again, it's running into the same headache that it was to cricize the problems with the writing in Rey's character when so many were doing that as a smoke-screen to be mysoginistic. Poisoned well.

"All you Fascists bound to lose."
Hodor2 Since: Jan, 2015
#264: Feb 14th 2022 at 12:40:19 PM

Regarding the dwarves, I wasn't sure if this was something supported by Word of God or just something that Gimli tells Legolas. Because if the latter, I think it would be easy to handwave it as Gimli trolling him. From some more googling, I do see that it does seem to be Word of God.

Just speaking for myself, although I liked how Terry Pratchett used the concept of bearded female dwarves, I'm not not really a fan of Tolkien's use of it, because I would tend to assume it was only included to mark them unlovely, since there are zero female dwarves in the novels anyway (correct me if I'm wrong here).

Not to mention, there aren't really a whole lot of female elves or humans in the novels either. So it's kind of a weird flex to justify the lack of (visible) female characters from one group, since the books only have a handful of female characters anyway.

Edit - So I guess my take is that while an adaptor could have done interesting things with the idea, Tolkien himself didn't.

Edited by Hodor2 on Feb 14th 2022 at 2:43:33 PM

Gaon Smoking Snake from Grim Up North Since: Jun, 2012 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
#265: Feb 14th 2022 at 1:00:21 PM

Tolkien only names one female dwarf (Dís, Thorin's sister, but she never actually shows up). I think male and female dwarves being virtully identical is both Tolkien giving an easy out to the absence of female dwarves in the story ("There were some, they just look a lot like the males!") and to set-up a contrast with the more feminine-looking Elves who literally couldd not grow a beard if their life depended on it (a grand total of two elve are mentioned as having the capacity to grow beards).

Tolkien didn't really do anything with female dwarves. He didn't do much with the dwarves in general as he pretty clearly struggled with retro-fitting them in the Silmarillion (similar as Galadriel). But I think the idea of bearded, burly female dwarves would be fantastic for body diversity and it's a shame it's not being done.

"All you Fascists bound to lose."
theLibrarian Since: Jul, 2009
#266: Feb 14th 2022 at 1:02:18 PM

I imagine they'd be doing it partly because that's not really a well-known thing in LOTR, and possibly because otherwise it'd be too difficult to tell dwarf characters apart at a glance.

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Goku Black
#267: Feb 14th 2022 at 1:03:44 PM

So which parts of the Similarian is this adapting?

"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
theLibrarian Since: Jul, 2009
#268: Feb 14th 2022 at 1:09:27 PM

None, the Silmarillion was the First Age. The Second Age was when the Rings were made.

Bense Since: Aug, 2010
#269: Feb 14th 2022 at 1:11:20 PM

I rather like the sequel SW trilogy, better than the prequel trilogy in any case, and I don't think it was harmed in anyway by having a more racially diverse cast and a female lead (it's problems lie mostly in the plot).

I do wonder a bit at the need the producers of the Amazon LotR series seem to feel to go out of their way to have a more racially diverse cast, however. Having actors of color play elves or dwarves isn't ruled out by anything Tolkien wrote, but neither is it really supported. The part of Middle-earth that all of Tolkien's stories focus on is supposed to be a distantly pre-historic Europe, and the Elves and Dwarves Tolkien describes in any detail (which is not very many, really) are basically all white.

The Vanity Fair article says "It felt only natural to us that an adaptation of Tolkien's work would reflect what the world actually looks like." If you really wanted to make the people of Middle-earth "more like what the world actually looks like", shouldn't all of the cast be playing humans rather than many of them playing elves, dwarves, and hobbits?

It is jarring to me to see Galadriel in armor and acting in the teaser like a traditional "action girl". The Galadriel in the text is an extremely dangerous and powerful woman, but it's because of her mastery of magic and strength of will rather than her sword fighting ability. Again, there's nothing in Tolkien that says she never wore armor or fought with a sword, but it seems somewhat out of character to me even for a thousands-of-years-younger Galadriel (she's still around 2,300 years old when Sauron forges the Ring). There aren't any elven warrior women mentioned in The Silmarillion, though some of the human women give the impression they might have been trained sword fighters. Peter Jackson resisted the push to make Arwen an action girl outside of taking Glorfindel's role in the first movie, and I think that was the right move. Arwen in the text is not an action girl, and it would have been false to her character to make her one (in an adaptation that already had a very different approach to Aragorn's character). I feel much the same about Galadriel. But, maybe I'm wrong, it will be fantastic, and I will think the "young action girl" approach to Galadriel improves the character. I'm perfectly willing to be open-minded.

The dwarf women in The Hobbit movies had beards. They were extras, only glimpsed alive in the early pre-Smaug scenes (with some corpses discovered by Thorin and Company in a dead end in the mountain). They had a sort of light fringe of hair along either side of the chin rather than a full male beard. Not exactly true to Tolkien's statement that the dwarven women were largely indistinguishable from the men to non-dwarves, but they did have beards of a sort.

Hodor2 Since: Jan, 2015
#270: Feb 14th 2022 at 1:15:19 PM

"The Vanity Fair article says "It felt only natural to us that an adaptation of Tolkien's work would reflect what the world actually looks like." If you really wanted to make the people of Middle-earth "more like what the world actually looks like", shouldn't all of the cast be playing humans rather than many of them playing elves, dwarves, and hobbits?"

Yep. That's totally a good faith argument there.

Edit - I do realize this is kind of overly dismissive, since you do make other arguments in your post, but I don't really know what else to say about this quote, since this is basically the same thing as finding black people more unrealistic than dragons.

I think you get that elves, dwarves, and hobbits don't exist and so aren't part of the conversation on representation, right?

Edited by Hodor2 on Feb 14th 2022 at 3:21:00 AM

miraculous Goku Black (Apprentice)
Goku Black
#271: Feb 14th 2022 at 1:17:04 PM

Ah alright is their any major work in the Legendarium which covers the second age. Wondering what we could see?

"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
Aleistar Since: Feb, 2018 Relationship Status: Hugging my pillow
#272: Feb 14th 2022 at 1:18:46 PM

[up]x4 & [up]x5: Depends on what you mean by "Silmarillion." If you mean the 1977 book that compiled the pre-LOTR history and legends of Middle-earth, there are sections detailing the Second (most notably the Akallabêth, or Fall of Númenor) and Third Ages, which is presumably when this is set and which they may or may not be adpating. "Silmarillion" in-universe, IIRC, refers exclusively to Elvish stories about the First Age and the Elves' conflict with Melkor/Morgoth.

[nja]

[up] There are some things in The History of Middle-earth and Unfinished Tales about the Second Age that they may also draw from, but I don't know where they fit in the what-can-be-adapted discussion.

Edited by Aleistar on Feb 14th 2022 at 4:25:55 AM

Gaon Smoking Snake from Grim Up North Since: Jun, 2012 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
#273: Feb 14th 2022 at 1:27:25 PM

So which parts of the Similarian is this adapting?

The chapters "Akallabêth" (dealing with thee progression and fall of Númenor) and the first 15 or so pages of "Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age" (as the title indicatees, it quickly becomes about the Third Age), namely, which are at the very end of the published Silmarillion. Technically the name Silmarillion relate to the saga of the Silmarils in the First Age, which is indeed 90% of the book, so those two chapters aren't technically part of the Silmarillion story (the quenta Silmarillion).[nja]

Notoriously it's the briefest and least explored part of Tolkien's canon, as it's a grand total of around 50 pages of material (most off which deals with the Fall of Númenor) skimming over events in contrast to the more than 300 on the First Age and the over a thousand of the Third Age.

Aside from that, LOTR also has relatively extensive appendices about the Second Age, mostly reiterating the same info with additional details in some aspects.

[up] Unfinished Tales at least is being used, given Galadriel's characterization here is drawn from material there.

Edited by Gaon on Feb 14th 2022 at 1:28:25 AM

"All you Fascists bound to lose."
Bense Since: Aug, 2010
#274: Feb 14th 2022 at 1:40:04 PM

I do realize this is kind of overly dismissive, since you do make other arguments in your post, but I don't really know what else to say about this quote, since this is basically the same thing as finding black people more unrealistic than dragons.
No, I meant kind of the opposite. I was saying that Middle-earth obviously isn't very much like our modern world at all, and that "making it look more like the real world" is therefore a pretty silly idea. The cast of characters is more diverse than anything we would realistically find in real life, since it's made up of dwarves, elves, and hobbits alongside the humans.

To me the statement by the creators seems like a pretty transparent cover for "we felt obligated to go out of our way to include racially diverse actors so we wouldn't be mobbed on the internet by SJWs." Of course that meant they would get the internet trolls from the other side of the spectrum criticizing them instead. I guess they felt that was the better alternative.

Edited by Bense on Feb 14th 2022 at 2:44:31 AM

Gaon Smoking Snake from Grim Up North Since: Jun, 2012 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
#275: Feb 14th 2022 at 2:05:35 PM

The obvious reading of that comment to me is the simple fact that film adaptations are filmed in the real world, to tell stories to real people. Tolkien always stressed the notion of escapism and flight of fantasy but even he was keenly aware no work of fiction is completely untethered from reality. The Shire being basically a idyllic version of the English countryside is the most obvious case of the real world reflected in canon in some way.

To use an example unrelated to Tolkien himself, the films (and pop culture as a whole) got into a convention of the Dwarves speaking in a distinctly scottish accent, namely on British stereotypes about scots being hairy, aggressive, brave and stubborn. Tolkien never describes what a Dwarvish accent sounds like, and their people is a mix of germanic with semitic (namely their language, Khuzdûl, is derived from semitic tongues). Scottish accents are entirely convention reflecting real world beliefs to suit an adaptation. Hell, so's everybody accents except maybe Orcs (who do have a noticeably "lower-class" esque speech patterns, so the pseudo-cockney they get in the films fits somewhat).

No one rioted over Dwarves getting scottish accents, but for some reason all minorities have to do is to show up in roles and it's treated as if the authors are dimennsion-shifting Middle-Earth to whatever minority-related boogeyman people want to say (BLM, Antifa, what have you).

"All you Fascists bound to lose."

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