Just wondering. The show seems to be in kind of an… odd state. I only watched the first episode, didn’t love it, none of my friends expressed positive feelings…
… but it’s got pretty good critical reviews, it’s getting a second season this year, and honestly it often “looks good” from promotional material.
Is it worth giving a second shot? Is anyone looking forward to the second season?
I was skeptical of it and I’m a diehard fan of the books and the films because I grew up with them. I found the show to not be as good as the movies. However, my wife loves the show, and is lukewarm on the movies, and she’s not typically into fantasy things.
I think the reason is because the movies and books are about 9 cis white men saving the world. There are a few pretty women who pop up to kiss them, tell them they’re handsome, and send them on their way with nice gifts every so often.
The shows center on a strong woman doing what she thinks is best despite the naysaying of men.
In that view, it’s no wonder my wife likes the new show so much more than the movies. It was an interesting look into how inclusivity matters. Not every story needs to be about a band of white guys saving the world. It’s nice to have some stories from the Tolkien universe about other people.
So in that sense I’m a big fan. It provided an avenue for my wife to connect with this world of fantasy that I really love. The books and the movies are not very accessible or relatable if you are not a white man. This gave her a connection point, after we watched the show she asked all about the lore and the background, then she wanted to watch the movies again.
I understand people appreciating the ring of power for being inclusive but boy is that just a super dishonest representation of LoTR.
Literally the fellowship is a multiracial group, two of which being bitter rivals. Both of which probably having not much regard for humans due to the ring not being destroyed. The fellowship forming and succeeding occurs only because multiple different races put their prejudices aside and work together.
One of the “pretty women who pop up to kiss them” resists probably the greatest temptation in the story in which her power would make her “a dark queen” and provided the fellowship with multiple life saving items.
Eowyn literally kills the witch king and had the famous “I am no man” moment. A woman who was ignored and dismissed turned the tide of that battle.
Saying that lotr is multiracial because different characters are different races in universe is missing the point. No black kid is gonna look up to Aragorn and think “he’s just like me”. Also claiming gender diversity because of one character (and another that had one moment of significance that still could have been cut without much impact on the story resolution) is wild.
I love LOTR as much as the next guy but I can admit it does have somewhat of a diversity issue.
That’s interesting, because by this logic Asian kids (and I mean Asian from the Middle-East to South Asia to East Asia) can’t watch the first season of that show and identify with the characters.
Researching the topic, there was actually some backlash about it a few years ago (https://nextshark.com/ludi-lin-amazon-lord-of-the-rings) which led to the addition of Asian look actors for season 2: https://news.yahoo.com/amazon-ring-powers-announces-cast-215130312.html?guccounter=1
Well it was written nearly a century ago, so it’s not too surprising that diversity of representation was not great. Many countries got women’s suffrage much later than that point in history.
Yes it has a diversity issue, I don’t dispute that of the other comment for a reason. However I take issue with solely characterising it by those issues. I personally feel only referring to it by it’s problematic elements, a good portion of which are because of Hollywood at the time and the era in which it was written, is disingenuous at best.
I would think that said “black kid” to use your term who while they may not be able to self insert as a particular character could still appreciate them and certainly appreciate the underlying message of the movie, which isn’t “a bunch of white guys do the thing”.
The lack of PoC in the story and the casting for the movies doesn’t change the message and overt themes of the book that I mentioned. Frankly I think if someone only took “white people rule” and “the woman show up to be pretty and kissed” from the story then the bigotry may lie with that person.
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Saying that LOTR has racial diversity because there is an elf and a dwarf and hobbits is fucking hilarious. If you pull off the prosthetic ears, what color is the skin of the guy underneath… Can you imagine if that was how racial representation actually works? Like an Asian person seeing Gimli and Legolas and being like wow, racial minority people just like me! I can really relate to this! That white guy has different ears, he’s just like me!
Why bother making Black Panther or Shang Chi? What a waste of money! You could have just put pointy ears on Hawkeye and completely fulfilled the racial diversity need.
LOTR fans are really on another level with their cognitive dissonance. I love Tolkien but I can also appreciate that he is a product of a culture and time when racial and sexual equality were not doing great.
Given your entire comment is based off of your first sentence, something which I never said, I was going to just ignore you. Pretty interesting your use of the term cognitive dissonance when your entire reply is attempting to jam a bunch of words in my mouth for it to even work.
Cool you found it hilarious though, I myself find it pretty funny when people claim to be about understanding and inclusion before making generalised claims about an entire fan base based on their misinterpretation of someone’s comment. More so given you’ve stated to part of said fan base, diehard even. Maybe read my reply again and the others I’ve made in this thread because clearly you missed my point.
Edit: I also saw that deleted comment, good on you for having the decency to remove it but I’d point out my remark about the bigotry being within seems to have been more accurate than I initially expected.
That’s cool. I get it. And I get your take. Even if LOTR does have definite strong female characters… it is still very much a series about a group of guys being dudes.
That doesn’t matter to a lot of people, but if it matters to your girlfriend or maybe a newer generation of fans that’s a-ok