Tolkien created one of the most fleshed out fantasy universes to date. As a result, there's a not inconsiderable number of die hard fans who don't react well to disregarding canon as there is a rather insane amount of detail spelled out in the books.

As long as one can get in the mindset of 'this is some disposable Tolkien-ish fantasy content', it's an OK bit of filler (IMO, having watched the first couple of episodes)

> As a result, there's a not inconsiderable number of die hard fans who don't react well to disregarding canon as there is a rather insane amount of detail spelled out in the books.

This sounds very similar to what happened with the fans of the well-known Wheel of Time series. Given the broad divergence from the canon, the future of the series is in doubt [1]

[1] https://screenrant.com/wheel-time-show-backlash-controversy-...

I don't understand why they even bothered trying to adapt the Wheel of Time. The values expressed in those books, particularly w.r.t. gender, were obviously going to clash hard with the present zeitgeist and necessitated butchering the story to bring it into compliance. Anybody could have seen that coming. They should have just written a new story.

In no particular order:

Conflict between men and women leads to ruination.

Men need women and women need men, without the other they aren't complete.

Men are naturally stronger than women, but women make up for it with teamwork.

Powerful men get harems. Men frequently take multiple wives but the reverse is virtually unheard of.

Slavery as a cultural difference to be respected.

Good guys allying themselves with an empire built by the chattel slavery of women.

Wheel of Time season 2 was confirmed before season 1 ended and season 3 was confirmed before any part of season 2 aired.

Amazon is doubling down. Expect more of this sort of "we'll buy your favorite property and change it and there's nothing you can do about it". Nothing that is still protected by copyright is sacred, you just need a rich enough business to buy it to change it.

This feels different though.

(a) Most of the angry people haven't even watched (!) the few episodes (!!) that are out.

(b) I'm not sure most of the outraged are Tolkien fans. It honestly feels more like dog piling / mob hysteria.

When did we become consumers of visual media where "I don't like it, and I haven't and won't watch it" is a valid position to publicly kvetch about?

I've seen several memes presented to me by Facebook, since it's normally the kind of content and subject matter I'd consume, counseling people to not even "hate-watch" it. So there is some variety of blind opposition or boycot afoot, and shockingly, the comment sections very frequently come back around to color-blind casting.

How do you know they haven’t watched it?

Because they said so?

> "Now after all this rant: I didn't watch rings of power, and I don't plan to, why soil a good memory and good mental mythos I have of that world?"

> "I watched up till the intro credits of episode one. It seems... OK?"

> "I watched the trailer and I didn't watch the show yet, but I if it follows the trend, I imagine what I will find. I don't know if I will watch it."

> "I found the first episode very long drawn and boring. Wanted to leave a review but Amazon told me: "please watch till the end to leave a review". Not going to torture myself just to leave a review."

> "I’ve only watched one episode, but that episode was not good."

> "That begin said, I haven't watched any RoP, the "nothing" could be complete fluff because the story is too thin."

> "I don't think I'll be watching this series at all based on what I've read in the comments here."

> "zero sympathy here; Tolkien reader; not watching this media at all.. zero"

> "I don’t known about others, but I really don’t want to watch this show now."

Am I the only one that seems weird to? Like, watch it and have whatever opinion you feel! But when did not watch it and have a strong opinion become a valid option?

Some of the reviews were posted before the episodes were even released.

But a lot of the people who are freaking out clearly haven’t read the books because the stuff they say is often incorrect

Note that the canon is somewhat fluid: Tolkien changed his mind on various things (off-hand, I can think of the creation of the orcs, when the wizards first arrived in middle-earth and what exactly Balrogs look like).

Quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi

But 'Jupiter' has been dead for close to 50 years. While Tolkien was protective of his work and its integrity, I'm not entirely sure he would have wanted it to ossify entirely (as already quoted elsewhere: "I would draw some of the great tales in fullness, and leave many others only placed in the scheme, and sketched. The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama").

> I just don't understand the level of virtriol...

I can't comment on the social phenomenon of Amazon mob reviews, but the attitude of Tolkien toward his work is relevant. He incorporated a tremendous amount of material from his research on northern European mythology, and had very definite ideas about how it should all hang together. Once LotR was published, he would react very strongly against interpreting or extending that material in any way that didn't match his vision. A large part of Tolkien's fan base takes a similarly serious attitude towards his material.

That's fine, but Amazon isn't rewriting his books. I think it is impossible to infer Tolkien's reaction, and furthermore, quite silly to try and enforce that inferred reaction.

Take the Wheel of Time series. A lot of unhappy fans again. Robert Jordan isn't around to give his opinion, but Brandon Sanderson finished off writing the series after Jordan's death and has talked about what he thinks of the TV series. His comments are remarkably less hysterical than what fans say. He basically says he likes it and there are some things he would have done differently [1].

Ghost in the Shell is another example. The live action movie was bad. There was a whitewashing controversy about a caucasian actor playing the lead role. The original Ghost in the Shell anime director came out and said it didn't matter [2]. His comments are worth reading:

> ...Oshii said that because the main protagonist – Major Motoko Kusanagi – is a cyborg, the question of race and whitewashing is a moot point. “What issue could there possibly be with casting her?” Oshii said. “The major is a cyborg and her physical form is an entirely assumed one. The name ‘Motoko Kusanagi’ and her current body are not her original name and body, so there is no basis for saying that an Asian actress must portray her. Even if her original body (presuming such a thing existed) were a Japanese one, that would still apply.”

Oshii added that he thought Johansson was the best possible person to play Kusanagi in the Rupert Sanders-helmed remake, which is out next weekend in the US. He also argued that actors of different backgrounds from the characters they are portraying is part and parcel of the film-making world.

”In the movies, John Wayne can play Genghis Khan, and Omar Sharif, an Arab, can play Doctor Zhivago, a Slav. It’s all just cinematic conventions,” he explained.

”If that’s not allowed, then Darth Vader probably shouldn’t speak English, either.”

[1] https://winteriscoming.net/2022/01/27/how-brandon-sanderson-...

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/mar/24/scarlett-johans...

> ...Amazon isn't rewriting his books.

That raises a kind of interesting point. They aren't rewriting his books, they are rewriting his world.

Tolkien started out with a hobby of creating languages. He then was inspired to build worlds in which those languages would live. His fiction came out of a desire to have adventures in those worlds.

I've read descriptions of Tolkien's dealings with people who wanted to adapt his published stories for film. He was quite ready to accept modifications to the stories to fit the needs of another medium, so long as the main thrust of the narrative was preserved. What would really draw his ire, though, was when people tampered with his world.

All that said, though, his writings, especially later in life, give me the impression that if it were explained to him that racial diversity was to become the hang-up for people that it has, he would have sought to modify his stories to avoid giving offense.

>Oshii added that he thought Johansson was the best possible person to play Kusanagi

And considering how bad it went, his opinion might not be that worthwhile in this endeavour.

He took the mythology completely out of context and added his own catholic morals on top. But he created a great work of fiction in its own right.

I seriously missed some weird angry mob. I watched the first two episodes yesterday out of curiosity and it was the most compelling TV show I’ve seen in years. I’ve read the books a long time ago and enjoy fantasy. I thought this was a great start for a fantasy series.

It’s mostly hysteria. I’m enjoying it a lot more than the clunky GoT prequel series, for instance. I can’t possibly see how it could move someone to join in a one star review-bombing campaign unless they had a political agenda they weren’t being honest about.

I’m not saying you can’t have an opinion, of course. The recent Star Wars trilogy isn’t exactly an unparalleled artistic achievement. But unfortunately when the internet’s overflowing with misogynists and racists desperate to hold their crumbling cultural Maginot line, any legitimate criticism isn’t going to be heard.

>Clunky got prequels

House of the Dragon has surprisingly been great, sure you have the random teleporting character or out of character military tactic but it also shows HBO learned from their mistake and you can feel they brought back the politics and meetings and focus on characters instead of fan service and whatever made the last 4 got seasons the garbage they turned into.

But again you have to have read GRRM's work and not be a contrarian just for the sake of it to enjoy it.

Rings of power had a budget of a billion $, either there is some money laundering scheme at work that I'm unaware of, or people have just forgotten how to hire good writers and other people to make a decent movie/series.

If you gave me a billion $ today I'd just hire Peter Jackson, pay him a shit ton of money so he accepts, and give him FULL creative power over the project so it doesn't turn out like The Hobbit trilogy or That Raimi directed Dr Strange in the multiverse of madness. And if he refuses to do it then find another good director and I'm sure there are a lot of big names who would gladly accept the challenge of topping Jackson's work.

A billion $ is A LOT of money in cinema, despite you having to pay the movie theaters, marketing, etc. Amazon owns imdb so can market it themselves on 2 of the most visited websites in the world: Amazon and imdb (for movie/series watchers), and if that's not enough, they own the streaming service where they plan to put it.

People aren't saying it sucks (at least I'm not) but that it had no reason to not be great. Galadriel felt inhuman in Jackson's movies, she's supposed to be one of the fairest and mightiest elves in middle earth, I doubt she felt like that to anyone in rop.

Now after all this rant: I didn't watch rings of power, and I don't plan to, why soil a good memory and good mental mythos I have of that world? I made that mistake with the witcher, I had built up the characters in my head from the books and later the videogames, then Netflix took a huge dump on this mental model, and now whenever I think about some character (outside of Cavill and a few others who did great work) I also get the image of the new one in my head: I hope this weird rambling makes sense.

Galadriel is thousands of years younger in this show... The show does a good service to both the lore and the old movies, you can see they put a lot of care into it so dont worry. The orcs actually look like corrupted elves, which they didnt in peter jackson. Peter showed that he was done with lotr in the hobbit..

There isn't, in the big picture, a huge level of such vitriol.

It's mostly that it's a very easy angle to write click-friendly articles about.

You can easily go "nut-picking" on Twitter, and find people saying whatever crazy thing you need for an article like that.

The HN comment threads above indicate there's a fair amount of vitriol.

I watched up till the intro credits of episode one. It seems... OK?

It makes me miss old Amazon prime where they'd use the $200M to fund dozens of risky shows from up and coming directors.

Even if 90% ended up being terrible, they'd still end up with multiple shows that I'd enjoy more than one big budget production.

> It makes me miss old Amazon prime where they'd use the $200M to fund dozens of risky shows from up and coming directors.

Seems like a standard trajectory for new independent streaming services at this point. First you make art, then you make content.

Yeah smaller budget Amazon was amazing Patriot is still one of the best TV shows ever There was a glimpse of those glory days with “outlaws” though

Amazon, that union busting corporation, spent a billion dollar to deface Tolkien and Variety thinks "trolls" are the problem here? See the greater picture and it's implications. And Amazon thinks they deserve a medal for being performatively "woke"? while having the most utter disdain for their employees trying to organize for better work conditions?

This is the latest culture war front. The right-wing media ecosystem are pointing their hundred millions viewers at this one outrageous thing. It'll eventually wane like the previous iterations, such as critical race theory in schools.

Wait what's the culture war angle here? I don't get the correlation between "purist" Tolkien fans and the right wing vs left wing? I'm probably missing something since I've never read or watched anything related to tolkien or LOTR, but for me it looked more like a typical fanboy reaction/rage to Amazon adding new stuff to an original story.

(Which honestly can suck, because of course some people will just review bomb it no matter without ever actually watching a single episode. Makes it harder for everyone else to actually know if it's bad on its own merits.)

There’s black people in it. That’s it. That’s the whole controversy

That's an oversimplification. The "controversy" is that some people already had an image of what elves looked like (tall, very white, long haired) and now one of the main characters who is an elf, is a short haired black man.

As someone who doesn't live in the US, it is always a bit amusing when you see these Hollywood productions very clearly add or make some characters certain race or gender because of US politics.

It's even more bizarre when you consider that all of Tolkien's works are based on an incredibly Anglo Saxon/European centric view of the world.

I find it extremely ironic that people are so bent out of shape about a couple characters cast with darker skin. These must be the same people that have no clue that every character in their favorite book (The Bible, King James version) was non-white. These are most likely the same people with the historically inaccurate pictures of Jesus Christ as a caucasian man.

The two largest fantasy franchises in the world are Euro-centric white fantasy (Middle Earth and GoT). It isn't enough that our fantasy canon dominates the world, we need to have every actor be caucasian as well?

It’s amusing when people don’t understand that it’s a political decision to have movies and tv shows with entirely white people in them.

It's a US political decision. In my country, where there are very very few black people, it definitely wouldn't be a political decision to not include black people. But it goes beyond that. What I usually see is that the focus is on including black characters. There is rarely focus on including for example Asian or Hispanic characters, or they are portrayed in much more stereotypical ways.

As I said, it's a very US thing, that is very noticeable to non US viewers. Try watching some non US movies or shows and you'll see what I mean.

The US seems to have in general a lot of interest in races for some reason. For some applications or forms I've had to fill for US things, I was asked my race or ethnicity, which to me seems completely bizarre (what does it matter?). Moreover I didn't even know what race I was supposed to put (am I white? am I Hispanic?) because I've never been asked.

> The US seems to have a lot of interest in races for some reason.

The reason being systemic racism imposed on brown and black people in the US.

Look back to the 1990s movies where you'd have large casts depicting everyday life, and there'd be literally 0 non-white people. Non-whites were explicitly excluded in many movies, obviously with exceptions, but we're talking about averages and tendencies here. Racism didn't end in the 1960s.

Conservatives think we live in a post-racial era where there's equality of opportunity just because there aren't laws that explicitly discriminate against certain races. But that's a really flawed sociolegal analysis, given that equality of opportunity isn't exclusively determined by equality under law, and given that there's laws that aren't explicitly racist but cause racist outcomes and likely have unstated racist motivations (e.g. marijuana criminality, immigration restrictions).

> There is rarely focus on including for example Asian or Hispanic characters

I totally agree that they need to do a better job on that.

> it’s a political decision to have movies and tv shows with entirely white people in them.

Well, that kind explains "I just don't understand the level of virtriol about a TV show." from OP.

For instance, I don't live in the US, I don't care about the US and most importantly I don't care about US politics, but the US is the only capable of running shows like this.

I imagine there would be americans that don't want politics or political influences in their beloved stories too.

Me, I just want a Tolkien show despicted as in (or as accurate as possible to) the books. I watched the trailer and I didn't watch the show yet, but I if it follows the trend, I imagine what I will find. I don't know if I will watch it.

How much time will I have to wait for a new version? 15, 20, 30 years? I'll probably be long gone.

Lots of shows have black people in them, and most of them don't get tons of negative reviews.

So here's my theory: LOTR is extremely popular with a huge number of fans. This show is subpar. Subpar adaptation of very popular thing means lots of disappointed fans, meaning lots of negative reviews.

I'd heard "meh" things about it before it was even out and none of it included anything about there being a black elf. What was complained about were weak writing, trying to add sex/nudity to GoT it, and firing their lead "Tolkenist" because he was opposing it, etc.