Of all the possible things to be bothered by, that one must surely be the most Reddit.
Television The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power
- Thread starter DWelbz19
- Start date
I liked that actually. But then I was watching it as a reactor so my mindset was one of fun not annoyance.That and the Mordor reveal
Why would I need an explanation for there being a black elf? It's just a thing.
Exactly. People seemingly able to believe in fictional Elves as an entity but give them a black elf and it fries their brain. Mental.
Why do you think it's mental that I want to be able to understand the rules of a fictional world?
tbh, I wasn't talking about you specifically but the general need for explanations on skin colour when referring to completely fictional creatures / characters seems odd to me. Like believing in an elf (a made up entity in the first place) is fine and needs no explanation but having a black elf / elves suddenly needs detailing.
What rules in particular do you need or want just to explain the colour of somebodys skin? I ask out of interest really because it's not something I feel I ever need.
Well as I caused this discussion now of course I feel addressed by your post.
I don't need much to be honest. When every elf is white, than that's just it. If there are lots of white and lots of black elves than I can also go with it (however I would than have to accept a broken continuity because movies and series, as that would be a change) as then it would be simply a case of elves as a people being either black or white.
Having just one black elf however makes him an exception, and exceptions usually need a reason to exist. As there is no reason given in the series why Arondir is black, the only explanation left (especially considering interviews with the showrunners) is that he is black because they wanted to have a black elf and didn't care to explain why only this one exists. They just never acknowledge that he is special in the writing, but he is special due to his casting. That doesn't fit for me.
Devastated that i'm getting involved in this discussion/thread but that is fecking hilarious sorry. Get over it mate.
It's because most fantasy has been written by white people who when inventing characters and races, had mostly white people in mind. They're addressing that more recently and it doesn't really have anything to do with lore. If they made him be 'special' just because of his skin colour that wouldn't look great.
They can't just continue to only cast white actors because that's what was always done.
Some of the elves are described as darker in the silmarillion if i remember correctly, and some are described as white. Most are not described at all.
Oh I didn't mean to give him special abilities or something like that, just give a reason why he is different.
And I am absolutely on board regarding not only casting whites. However looking at how much freedom the writers had they coul easily have kept the elves as they were and give a huge role to a Haradrim instead of an elf. That way they could keep their casting decisions and at the same time keep the continuity to the movies and books. I would have liked something like that much more.
But before this all comes along the wrong way let me make something clear: the casting is the least of my problems with the series, the biggest one is the terrible writing in general, and what I described now is a small aspect of it. If I would think it's a great story otherwise I would probably not even care about it.
The prime example of bad writing was when the injured Sauron had to be treated by the high elves and rode a distance larger than what was covered in the three movies off screen, arriving in no worse condition and being healed. That shows best that they don't care about logic in their world.
If we're worried about the lore, then why the hell is anyone standing for the angelic 19-year-old Elijah Wood playing Frodo Baggins when we all know he should have been a fat middle-aged man? If we are so worried about the lore, where on God's green earth is Tom Bombadil? The Barrow Wights? The Scouring of The Shire? Are we just going to sit here and take this fecking shit? You don't give a shit about fecking Glorfindel!? How can you sit there watching the events of The Two Towers book unfold in The Return of The King movie? Elves at Helm's Deep?! This is outrageous! It's unfair! You're sitting there and watching Elrond bring Aragorn Narsil instead of reforging it himself after carrying a broken sword for the previous six hours. Why are you not burning down the cinema?! What about Denethor, for Christ's sake? Look how they massacred my boy! And his boy, too! In the book, it takes a hundred Uruk-hai to take down Boromir, not a made-up prick called Lurtz. If anyone cared about the lore, Peter Jackson's head would be on a pike next to every member of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences who gave him all those goddamned Oscars.
Why is a reason needed though? He just has different skin colour. It's no bigger of a deal than if he were to wear slightly different clothes to most previous elves or something.
Next to the pike with Lurtz's head on it you mean.
Good post, like that one.
But seriously the changes made for the movie made sense and have an inherent logic. They don't destroy or ignore how the world of Middle-Earth works.
Dunno man, just because he has black skin don't make him special though does it? I just don't really see how it affects or detracts from the show. My thoughts were how average it (the show) was, what a wasted opportunity, could have been better ... not 'woah sh*t, there's a black elf, mind blown!'
^
I think the convo should pretty much end there personally.
Good post, like that one.
But seriously the changes made for the movie made sense and have an inherent logic. They don't destroy or ignore how the world of Middle-Earth works.
You're not wrong for pointing out that internal logic in a story is important. I didn't care much about the black elf and took it as "feck it, they're giving us a black main character". I got over it pretty easily, but it is glaring given that he's apparently the only one.
The United Nations of Harfoots was much harder for me to look past. Heck, bloodlines are a point of emphasis in LOTR. It just doesn't make any sense.
I understand why people want to adapt fiction made in different times to include people other than straight white folks. Just make it make sense please. LOTR casts the southrons or easterlings etc as untrustworthy and ultimately evil brown people (it's been a long time since I've read the books, I'm probably oversimplifying a bit), why not have a group of them or similar be something other than generic weasely, orientalism-tinged bad guys.
Nobody can ever say you didn't try.
S2 confirmed to be released this year. Let the hatewatching commence!
I didn't even want to hatewatch it. It was just so surface level meh. Think I'll leave it unless it people I trust say it actually gets good.
Get your bets in early. I reckon this one will be decent, they’ll play it safer and there’s less world building needed.
Have they got new writers? There's no way the show will be a success with the clowns from S1 in charge.
They need to completely change the aesthetic too. It was too clean. LOTR had grit.
It wasn't that clean. Hobbits were dirty as were the dwarves and the Mordor people. The only nation that felt clean were the Numenorians and Elves. But that's fair enough given the climate the Numenorians lived in and we only really got to see city Elves with the exception of elf man in Mordor and Galadriel who always seemed fairly dirty when in Middle Earth. I thought the visuals throughout were excellent. It was the horrific writing that was the real issue for me.
Not that sort of clean.
I meant in terms of the way it's shot. Maybe clean isn't the right word but it just looked so artificial and surface level. Even the dirty stuff looked polished, if that makes sense.
I actually watched a video about this the other day.
That's a subjective take ultimately. That guy seems to love Batman for example and I hated the visuals in that film, dark, gritty and messy. He complains that a WW1 film shouldn't have colour!? Just sounds pretentious to me, like the people who moan that films should look gritty. Desaturating images like they do in computer games in the 00's in games like Gears of War for example made the visuals look incredibly dull and lifeless.
Didn't see the reactions here when it was coming out but I'm assuming it wasn't positive.
It really should've been centred around Elrond. Galadriel and Sauron became pretty unwatchable by the end, and making her young and impetuous has led to a situation where Elrond is going to have to get with her daughter at some point over the 5 seasons, who is apparently not born yet. Given they've crammed in hobbits and Gandalf, I guess Amazon have been dictating that it has to hit certain checkboxes to get the audience's recognition. Ends up being very generic fantasy "content".
It really should've been centred around Elrond. Galadriel and Sauron became pretty unwatchable by the end, and making her young and impetuous has led to a situation where Elrond is going to have to get with her daughter at some point over the 5 seasons, who is apparently not born yet. Given they've crammed in hobbits and Gandalf, I guess Amazon have been dictating that it has to hit certain checkboxes to get the audience's recognition. Ends up being very generic fantasy "content".
Yeah I didn't agree with all of it and I hate films that are too dark like the batman one seems to be (haven't seen it).
But I agreed with the overall idea that modern films do just look a bit 'off'. I can't really explain it. A lot of the stuff in the original LOTR felt more grounded within the world whereas ROP just felt so polished that even the stuff that was meant to look gritty just looked.. nice?
They certainly tried to do too much too quickly. I tried to remain positive through the show as I enjoyed some aspects of it but the finale was such a huge let down for me. The writing of Saurona plot was so, so bad. They rushed the most important moment in the entire Age with the forging of the rings and spent more time with the fecking Hobbits.
It felt like they didn't really have a clear direction and were always fighting against what they were and weren't allowed to show due to licensing which resulted in an incoherent storyline. I found the finale deeply, deeply frustrating.
Basically yeah, the "gotta give everything an origin story, including Gandalf, photonegative-Galadriel and for some reason Mordor" basically meant none of the actual story could have any depth. The stuff with Gil-galad and the mithril may have frustrated me even more than Sauron tbh because it was so tacked on.They certainly tried to do too much too quickly. I tried to remain positive through the show as I enjoyed some aspects of it but the finale was such a huge let down for me. The writing of Saurona plot was so, so bad. They rushed the most important moment in the entire Age with the forging of the rings and spent more time with the fecking Hobbits.
It felt like they didn't really have a clear direction and were always fighting against what they were and weren't allowed to show due to licensing which resulted in an incoherent storyline. I found the finale deeply, deeply frustrating.
I refuse to believe they haven't taken heed of the immense backlash. I'm probably living in hope but given how much money it has cost and how long they want this to run, there's no way they just bulldoze ahead and don't address a few things. Is it even that hard to write something when you have the actual plot broadly laid out and a timeline to adhere to, all they need to do is make the audience like a few more characters and make the plot a bit less forced and it's immediately much better.
If they had included a full nudity hbo like sex scene between Galadriel and Sauron all would be forgiven. Especially if he made his reveal in bed after sex whilst smoking a pibe of tobacco. Anyway im looking forward to more "I AM GOOOOD" lines from Gandalf.
I've seen some leaks that suggest it'll maybe be more in line with peoples expectations next season. It should improve from that low bar, but I think a lot of people just won't bother carrying on.
I won't be hatewatching, but I will be abjectdisappointmentwatching.
I think it will be the make or break season - the lotr brand still will draw a lot of people who didn’t like S1 in (I’ll defo at least start S2) - but they've obviously not started it off on the right foot where everyone is clucking for S2.
The brand alone will secure enough viewers no matter what.
Some obvious issues aside, I quite enjoyed S1 and am not afraid to admit it. I am mildly optimistic that S2 will be the step up it needed. I can't imagine Amazon replacing the showrunners and wanting to risk another season with the volume of (justified or not) criticism S1 received.
Not possible because it's a problem of very bad writers. They would need to get rid of all the writing staff and eat a lot of humble pie.