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Post by geneweigel on Aug 26, 2022 12:23:45 GMT -5
The JURASSIC PARK movie is a good example and I tried to enjoy it flat for it's good points but then it creeps on you. They make it so you are condoning the sickness of the movie by just seeing it. Its beyond casting its deliberate mistreatment of ethnic people for a reaction and dumb "reparations". I heard so many bad remarks since seeing it that they seem to be sacrificing their audience.
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Post by geneweigel on Aug 26, 2022 12:37:38 GMT -5
Heh I'm in Target right now listening to announcement on how I can find out about becoming an "anti-racist". It's 1984.
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Post by GRWelsh on Sept 3, 2022 6:54:12 GMT -5
I watched the first two episodes at Brian's yesterday since he has Amazon Prime. I wanted to see it on a big screen, and Brian has the biggest TV monitor I know of. I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it, either. I lowered my expectations enough that I was able to watch it as fan fiction loosely based upon the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, and so I was able to be less critical. If I put on my (wide brimmed and peaked) purist hat, I'd totally hate every moment of it with the exception of the landscapes, maps, set designs, costumes and some of the music. The lore, dialogue and motivations are off and not Tolkienesque. Setting that aside, I'd call it a slow moving, mediocre fantasy with potential to get better. For other die-hard Tolkien fans, my advice is either lower your expectations all the way to the ground or skip it completely.
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Post by geneweigel on Sept 3, 2022 11:26:51 GMT -5
I did the same for the recent DR STRANG, THOR, etc but in the wake of those the kids just day after day mocking the lines and they don't even know the comic flubs that I let slide (Like the cosmic powers being reduced to afterthoughts for a bad story. Ex: Eternity and Shuma-Gorath.) They did question the conveniently mundane gay robot in ETERNALS which I didn't catch. I love Tolkien but I'm not sure Jackson's version is the ultimate Tolkien movies like some people say considering his cheesy THE HOBBIT. Jackson did make strides to stay true on many levels though. So he has to have some appreciation. That said I'm going back to Bakshi and audio!
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Post by geneweigel on Sept 3, 2022 12:29:29 GMT -5
Heh, as an aside, I went back to to Facebook to promote BROKEN CASTLE and attending cons. As I have no family garbage my news feed is endless RINGS OF POWER news links.
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Post by Scott on Sept 6, 2022 5:48:33 GMT -5
If you take the Tolkien adaptation out of it, it’s not bad. My expectations for Middle Earth disappeared after seeing the first trailer.
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Post by GRWelsh on Sept 6, 2022 9:24:21 GMT -5
Some things I liked were that it keeps me guessing where Sauron is (my guesses were meteor man or Halbrand or even the shard), who the meteor man is (hopefully not a wizard), and what the black shard artifact is (it is reminiscent of a morgul blade and I like it how it reforms the more blood it gets). I also liked the relationship of Elrond and Durin IV which I thought had the most emotional relatability so far. I liked the Arondir elf character but that romance he has with the human healer woman doesn't have much chemistry... They seem mostly reluctant to be seen together. I liked how the encounter with an orc for a normal woman and teenage boy was like a horror movie. Overall, the writing is clumsy but I'll give it a chance to get better. They really need to make Galadriel more likeable as the main protagonist. The Harfoots are just meh... I guess they're supposed to seem cute and endearing but I keep thinking of them as homeless hobbit hobos.
If this series was set in a generic fantasy world (like someone's D&D campaign) I'd like it a lot better.
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Post by GRWelsh on Sept 13, 2022 10:50:06 GMT -5
I did not start watching this with the intent to hate on it. I wanted it to be good. I can put things aside like the awkwardly implemented diversity and the alteration of the lore... But the writing is terrible. For the things I set aside, I'm pro-diversity and I admire a company that has the goal of hiring more diverse actors and employees, but it should be implemented in a logical way, otherwise it's just distracting. Middle Earth already has diversity and they could have easily created characters from Harad and Rhun, but instead they sprinkled people of different skin colors seemingly randomly among Elves, Dwarves, Men and Harfoots. Like I said before, it's not a deal breaker but it is mildly distracting because it wouldn't make sense in the context of Middle Earth. If you point this out, you get called a racist. For the lore, I can accept that when you adapt something from book to film or TV it is sometimes a good idea to make it easier for the casual viewer to understand it. For example giving Arwen the deeds of Glorfindel in LOTR doesn't negatively affect the overall story and helps to develop Arwen more as a character and cuts down on the overall number of characters which may already be confusing to the casual viewer. As a Tolkien purist I don't love such changes but I can accept them. I can at least see the reasoning. With THE RINGS OF POWER I don't see any similar reasoning, other than that they are compressing the overall time frame to allow the mortal characters to continue to interact with the Elves and Sauron throughout the five seasons. But no other changes to lore make sense to me. It feels like this was written by someone who saw the Peter Jackson movies and maybe read through the books once and is a casual fan but doesn't love the lore. They don't really have a good handle on the characters or themes that Tolkien cared about. Galadriel wasn't obsessed with finding Sauron, and the other Elves had no reason to think Sauron was gone forever and could never come back. In the lore it was Gil-Galad that warned the Elves about Annatar. Galadriel is Elf royalty not just some commander in Gil-Galad's service. He was the High King and son of Fingon and grandson of Fingolfin, but Galadriel is older and the daughter of Finarfin. They should be relating to each other more as peers and members of the same royal family than as king and soldier. Gil-Galad didn't have authority to let Elves go back to Valinor, that was granted by the Valar. Also, they say Elrond couldn't attend the council since he isn't an Elf-Lord. What? Elrond may not be very old at this point, comparatively speaking, but he too is Elf royalty. Elrond is the son of Eärendil the Mariner, one of the most legendary heroes of the First Age, who is still flying a magic ship around in the sky lit by a Silmaril! Elrond is the brother of Elros, the First King of Numenor. Elrond is the great grandson of Turgon, the King of Gondolin on one side, and great grandson of Beren and Luthien on the other side. Elrond has so many royal and heroic ancestors that it is hard to remember them all. Elrond is a big deal, even in the early Second Age. He's Elf royalty and kin to the highest royalty of mankind. And they made him into a politician and speech writer for Celebrimbor and a crappy friend who forgot the wedding of the prince of the most important Dwarf kingdom in all of the Middle Earth... So that makes him a crappy politician too.
They could have easily wrote drama that naturally comes out of the lore, such as the tension among the Noldor between Celebrimbor as a descendant of Fëanor and Galadriel and Gil-Galad as descendants of Finarfin and Fingolfin. Or focus on how Gil-Galad and Galadriel didn't trust Annatar but Celebrimbor let him in. The writing could easily develop tensions that emerge out of the lore, rather than just ignoring it or simply getting it wrong.
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Post by geneweigel on Sept 13, 2022 11:10:34 GMT -5
I just feel like having listened to the "kids" in my family complain about how The Netflix show "The Umbrella Academy" was so far from the comic, by the singer of the "My Chemical Romance" band, was the preview for understanding what was going to happen here.
Film and TV are fast becoming vaporware it seems. Hopefully, these ninnies working hard to project their brain dead guilt will be a passing trend. I want to be entertained not handed some stilted guilt by someone who hasn't walked a mile in my shoes. Turning it off is a lot easier.
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Post by GRWelsh on Sept 14, 2022 9:33:38 GMT -5
You're right, writing just isn't as good anymore. THE RINGS OF POWER feels like they're making it up as they go along or are working from an outline without taking the time to think everything through. "We'll have the orcs digging tunnels under the human villages!" Uh, why not just have the orcs raid at night? That seems like a lot less work! And why didn't the Elves at the watch tower notice any of this devastation going on nearby? It all just feels slapped together for TV with "shocking revelations of the week" mentality. You would think if you acquired this property your number one concern would be to get the story to be great and in alignment with the lore you paid so much for. They throw money at everything else except the script writing and editorial oversight of the lore and whether anything actually makes sense.
The only thing I like about the writing is how they're keeping me guessing who Sauron is. The Elrond/Durin scenes would be pretty good if they didn't make Elrond look like a total idiot. The dwarves, in spite of their random diversity, talk with Scottish accents and burp and act boisterous like the laziest dwarf stereotype there is. Really, they should be Norse, or Jewish, or some weird combination of that. I can't think of any characters I like or care about.
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Post by geneweigel on Sept 14, 2022 9:55:31 GMT -5
It all just feels slapped together for TV with "shocking revelations of the week" mentality. That reminds me of my enthusiasm for that LOST (2004-2010) show where it was all clue revelations to a mystery (Why is there the foot of a giant Egyptian god statue?) and the final wrap up was zero explanation.
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Post by GRWelsh on Sept 15, 2022 9:02:21 GMT -5
Yeah, I think we all felt ripped off by LOST, and it is now the stereotype of entertainment that looks cool up front but falls apart because the writers never thought things through. "We'll just throw out some mystery and tie it all together later." That's the J. J. Abrams mystery box, and he thinks it's a clever approach but it's the stupidest idea ever when it comes to plotting out a story. I would argue that the first couple seasons of LOST are some of the best TV ever, since the show had a fantastic setting, compelling characters and an interesting story telling device with the flash backs. At the time it felt fresh and different, yet also tapped into our perpetual fascination with things like 'Bermuda Triangle' type zones of the paranormal, secret societies, lost civilizations, monsters, etc. I thought for sure the explanation was going to be ancient/alien technology, but then they crapped out with spiritual mumbo jumbo that failed to tie up all the loose ends.
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Post by geneweigel on Sept 15, 2022 10:10:20 GMT -5
Its not like old TV was great either.
Take for example the Incredible Hulk:
I recall being a kid and being disappointed with the Incredible Hulk TV show (1978-1982) because it had no real villain except that episode when there was another Hulk. The original cartoon was like an artistic take on comic reading rather than an actual production. When the new Incredible Hulk cartoon (1982-1983) came on TV it was like you were watching an actual Hulk comic although in a sleight brain dead mode. Then the 1996 cartoon version came out and it retro-updated to the current comic so the concept was muddled dealing with the old Hulk's problems at the same time as his new problems that it appeared as superficial muck.
So you couldn't win back then either.
Going forward I think hostile takeovers of other cultures is next on the big media/Hollywood slab because once this period ends it has to have a next move. China seems to have backed off because of that possibility.
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Post by GRWelsh on Sept 16, 2022 7:14:38 GMT -5
I guess you're right and there's always been bad TV. There was plenty of lazy writing back in the 70's and 80's. I was so excited when THE INCREDIBLE HULK came out and was a loyal watcher but I also didn't understand why it wasn't more like the comics ("Why do they call him Robert Banner instead of Bruce? Why isn't the Hulk bullet proof? Where are the super villains?"). It didn't feel like a superhero show, it felt like a monster show, which isn't a bad fit but it became very formulaic and I was later disappointed to find out it was essentially a rip off of THE FUGITIVE from the 60's (My dad knew this all along and never said anything!). I felt bad for the Bill Bixby character with "The Lonely Man" piano theme playing at the end of each episode, but didn't really identify it with my Hulk comic books or the Marvel Universe... (Jack Kirby had a cameo which I only learned about in retrospect, which is cool, but doesn't make the show any better).
Some people say we are living in the second golden age of television, and I suppose that is true when you look at the run of well written and high production value shows like THE SOPRANOS, THE WIRE, DEADWOOD, BREAKING BAD, MAD MEN, etc. But that is all the more reason to be critical of something like THE RINGS OF POWER being in the mediocre to poor range. There's just no excuse for it.
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Post by geneweigel on Sept 16, 2022 10:50:58 GMT -5
Fargo was really good but then it slowly got PC creep until the characters became face value/no talent.
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Post by geneweigel on Sept 20, 2022 18:02:54 GMT -5
I was just going through some of the various Tolkien RPG material that I had and whatever the problem is with this show doesn't seem to be the old Tolkien problems of old with RPGs. The RPGs are like Tolkien themed doorknobs. Cool for a little while then it seems to be too much.
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Post by Scott on Sept 20, 2022 18:58:17 GMT -5
A problem with the old Tolkien RPG stuff is that it’s too rules heavy, and just like the D&D stuff, since the rules don’t specifically say to apply with common sense, people don’t. It’s bad enough with a system like D&D, but when you get rules heavy it becomes a nightmare and half your party of heroes injures themselves walking up.a flight of stairs.
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Post by GRWelsh on Sept 20, 2022 19:52:25 GMT -5
I never played MERP but downloaded many of the supplements out of nostalgia for the ads that used to appear in DRAGON magazine back in the 80's. One that always intrigued me was "The Court of Ardor." I was interested in how they expanded on Middle Earth beyond the lands we know, and the continent map was always fun to look at. Often they went deep into the lore and wrote lots of detail on these other regions, which was kind of cool. But something always seemed a bit off, perhaps because of different writers being involved with different levels of skill and lore knowledge. Elves in a tropical setting never felt like a good fit to me, since they mainly come out of Norse and northern European folklore. At that point, however, you are pretty much just running your own fantasy RPG so why bother? You might as well just play D&D in the Amedio Jungle on the World of Greyhawk! The MERP rules mechanics never seemed to be a fit for a LOTR themed RPG either. I took a hard look at THE ONE RING game and it seems to capture the feel of the setting much better with its rules mechanics and limits its settings to the regions we know such as the Wilderlands and Eriador. I see there is a 5e D&D version of that game and I'd be willing to try it. I have to give a shout out to the LOTRO game even though it is a video game the content makers really get the lore right and the mechanics also feel like they'd fit in Middle Earth, with hope and despair being major elements. Game play can still be a grind at times, but the visuals, music and lore are top notch, and I'd say those guys have done the best expansion on Tolkien that feels logical and right of any adaptation I've ever seen. For example, the Dunlanders seem vaguely like ancient Celts more primitive than the Rohirrim which feels similar to the Celts versus Saxons dynamic of real world history. The same goes for the dwarves of eastern kindreds who I think have a Slavic influence to their naming conventions, to contrast them with the Norse of Durin's Folk/the Longbeards.
Honestly, I'd be afraid to GM a campaign set in Middle Earth as I think my players -- some of whom know Tolkien as good as me if not better -- would key in on anything that might contradict lore or even moreso that doesn't "feel right" for Middle Earth -- like overt spell casting versus subtle magic, Elves that seem mundane versus ancient and ethereal, any clerics of the Valar since that certainly doesn't seem to be a thing in LOTR or the Silmarillion, etc. There doesn't seem to be any religion at all in Middle Earth, yet the wise know about and revere the Valar. That's just one element you'd have to get the right feel for if GMing a campaign set in Middle Earth. AD&D is geared towards allowing players to get that feel of going from nobodies up a scale to legendary status heroes, and there is that theme too in Middle Earth but it is usually a slower burn so I don't think it translates as well to an RPG. Bilbo rises to greatness but it isn't so much because of his increase in experience and skill as a burglar but because of his humbleness and moral grounding when thrown into a great event... His simple lack of greed and desire for a peaceful resolution along with his bravery and some luck is what makes him great. He never really becomes a high level thief, he just gets a magic ring of invisibility and an elvish dagger, and he's motivated by loyalty to his friends and desperation. And something similar applies to Frodo and Sam... Frodo doesn't become some sort experienced high level adventurer, it is more like he becomes wise and weary from the suffering he endures. Sam is just a loyal friend with a lot of endurance but not really any fighting or adventuring skills. Bilbo, Frodo and Sam are able to bear the One Ring better than others because of their lack of desire for power. The implication is that Gandalf, Elrond and Galadriel would be far more susceptible to it. Saruman was seduced just by the thought of it. Tom Bombadil is the exception among the creatures with actual power, only because he is fundamentally a simple being also who mainly cares about the creature comforts, home, Goldberry, and the natural wonder of his region. So in Middle Earth what makes you great isn't just raw power, but a sort of humility and ability to focus on the moral goods like friendship, family, and the love of nature, and being able to accept one's role in the world. Those themes are all wonderful, but it is difficult to get them to translate into a fantasy RPG with players who have a built-in expectation to go up in levels and find more and better magic items and spells.
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Post by GRWelsh on Sept 20, 2022 21:00:43 GMT -5
My judgement of THE RINGS OF POWER so far is that they would have been better off creating all original characters to be the main protagonists and antagonists in the Second Age that they are telling the story about. For those of us who know the lore, we already know what happens to the likes of Galadriel, Elrond, Gil-Galad, Celebrimbor, Miriel, Elendil, Isildur and even Sauron. So there isn't much tension there. For original characters, we don't know their fates so that allows much more drama. And if they want diversity in the cast so badly, they could easily add in some human characters from Harad, Khand, and Rhun, or the Hither Lands, since those are regions not much written about and you can therefore tell whatever stories you want. An example might be how the Numenoreans, especially those in the King's Men faction, become much more imperialistic and cruel in their dealings with the men in Middle Earth (which comes from the lore). A character from Harad may (rightfully) resent this, and Sauron could take advantage of this by offering the character one of the Nine Rings of Power given to men. We could see that character initially use his power for good (as he sees it) to fight back against the much stronger Numenoreans, but then gradually come under the ring's control and adopt a name like Khamul (which might mean something in his culture like 'great king or sorcerer') before eventually becoming a ringwraith. Another idea is to show an original character who is a dwarf lord of one of the kindreds not much written about and show what happens after he is offered one of the Seven Rings of Power offered to the dwarves. Sauron may try to get control of him, but fails due to how strong and enduring dwarves are, but the greed of the dwarf nonetheless brings about his own downfall as he tries to amass greater wealth... Or perhaps Sauron sics a dragon on them! It could have parallels to Thorin's story, but doesn't have to exactly replicate it. I'd completely leave out the hobbits, and 'known' characters would just have supporting roles in the background. A servant of Sauron might be the one giving out the rings, and thus we don't know what happens to that antagonist as well, wondering if he could turn out to be the Mouth of Sauron or if that was a title later taken by another.
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Post by geneweigel on Sept 20, 2022 22:38:26 GMT -5
Yeah, the qualms about Bakshi and Rankin Bass seem like nothing now. I really don't want to click on RINGS OF POWER to give them any validation. Someone mentioned on Facebook maybe the mystery beard guy is Bombadil and then admitted to trolling laughingly. At least, Tom Bombadil is my nice little Tolkien sanctuary to remain untouched... Bombadil takes off his blue coat and is ripped. "Hey, Gold!" A person with a mess of blonde hair approaches... (((CLICK))) I can't watch anymore!
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