Star Wars, Star Trek and other Sci-Fi

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James Nichols's recreation of a defining moment in UFO Lore, the Billy Meier incident...

(Sorry about the retitle, I keep confusing Venusians with Pleadians, they all look alike to me...;))
 

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In response to the Rings Of Power trailer, a *lot* of people have been reposting a JRR Tolkein quote about evil not being able to create new things only corrupt. But Tolkein never said that. He said something that means the same, but it's worded quite differently. This video explains:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLw-ZgVpgRQ


Repostign the same fake quote is lazy.
 
With regard to the Rings of Power, what was sold was very specific.

Amazon does not have any rights to the Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, Histories of Middle-earth, or any other works outside of the Lord of the Rings and its appendices and the Hobbit.

They are allowed to invent new characters, but characters that are in the appendices should not contradict the brief information given in the appendices in the tv show. Given the appendices are pretty much just a list of major events, that leaves a lot of space for invention.

As a Tolkien fan who's read all Christopher Tolkien's detailed analysis of the writing of Lord of the Rings etc, I'm reserving judgement on this until I watched it.

The Dwarf princess photo is wrong because she doesn't have a large beard, not her skin colour. Lord of the Rings is a product of its time - it is a bit racist. Good guys are white, most of the bad guys are black. Orcs are in theory corrupted Elves and Men, though Tolkien vacillated on the exact origins, and they are described as having slanted eyes and swarthy complexions. The Easterlings are clearly Asian, the Haradrim of the South are African. Neither are likely to be featured much, if at all, in Rings of Power, leaving just Orc casting for non-white actors.

In making a film in 2022, casting only white characters across the board except for the bad guys is seen as problematic. You could solve this by consistently casting different Good races e.g. black people playing Dwarves, latino people playing Silvan Elves, white people playing Noldor, asian people as Numenoreans, etc. Given the number of races involved, this could work and would help show that they are racially distinct, even if its not truly book accurate. It looks like instead we just get random casting in each race.

Whatever.

I liked His Dark Materials just fine, even though there was a bit more ethnic diversity in casting than in the books. Didn't in any way materially affect the story, or my enjoyment of it. Things like hair length of Elves - I don't care. Maybe hairstyles were different in the Second Age.
 
Justo Miranda said:
edwest2 said:
I've read recent comments from those involved about "non-Europeans" being cast in various roles. They want very much to do these things because they want the original story recast to fit their ideas as opposed to adapting the source material. They know what they're doing.

Among some in Hollywood, the recent fad is to make everything they can into a "modern" and "better" version of the old stuff. To promote their own "modern" view of the world. And they can do this all they want by creating original material that does no damage to any source material. And if that's not good enough, they can produce documentaries.

Much has been written about Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings. Leave it alone and leave those of us who know the material alone. But, apparently not. A built-in audience will walk into the trap, and just as the tripwire detonates the mine - poof - fewer viewers. I am not looking forward to this.
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In the universe everything is in motion, in life everything changes, in art everything evolves... except Star Trek and avant garde theatre.
Click to expand...

Eh? No some things are timeless because they are formulas that touch the part of us that is eternal. I dont quite know if I agree with your assumption.

...and i'm finding that I am slowly drifting away entirely from the current day popular worldviews, including Overscan's analysis. The myth of progress and other paradigms infect a whole lot of current day discussion. I like to keep Tolkien, percieved warts and all.

Edit: had to add a thought.
 
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overscan (PaulMM) said:
With regard to the Rings of Power, what was sold was very specific.

Amazon does not have any rights to the Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, Histories of Middle-earth, or any other works outside of the Lord of the Rings and its appendices and the Hobbit.

They are allowed to invent new characters, but characters that are in the appendices should not contradict the brief information given in the appendices in the tv show. Given the appendices are pretty much just a list of major events, that leaves a lot of space for invention.

As a Tolkien fan who's read all Christopher Tolkien's detailed analysis of the writing of Lord of the Rings etc, I'm reserving judgement on this until I watched it.

The Dwarf princess photo is wrong because she doesn't have a large beard, not her skin colour. Lord of the Rings is a product of its time - it is a bit racist. Good guys are white, most of the bad guys are black. Orcs are in theory corrupted Elves and Men, though Tolkien vacillated on the exact origins, and they are described as having slanted eyes and swarthy complexions. The Easterlings are clearly Asian, the Haradrim of the South are African. Neither are likely to be featured much, if at all, in Rings of Power, leaving just Orc casting for non-white actors.

In making a film in 2022, casting only white characters across the board except for the bad guys is seen as problematic. You could solve this by consistently casting different Good races e.g. black people playing Dwarves, latino people playing Silvan Elves, white people playing Noldor, asian people as Numenoreans, etc. Given the number of races involved, this could work and would help show that they are racially distinct, even if its not truly book accurate. It looks like instead we just get random casting in each race.

Whatever.

I liked His Dark Materials just fine, even though there was a bit more ethnic diversity in casting than in the books. Didn't in any way materially affect the story, or my enjoyment of it. Things like hair length of Elves - I don't care. Maybe hairstyles were different in the Second Age.
Click to expand...
At that point why not just create something new and original? (Of course we know WHY they don't do that. It's easier to take an established property and lay your ideology on top of that. Unfortunately all they've ended up doing is wrecking a lot of IPs.)
 
TMA1 said:
Justo Miranda said:
edwest2 said:
I've read recent comments from those involved about "non-Europeans" being cast in various roles. They want very much to do these things because they want the original story recast to fit their ideas as opposed to adapting the source material. They know what they're doing.

Among some in Hollywood, the recent fad is to make everything they can into a "modern" and "better" version of the old stuff. To promote their own "modern" view of the world. And they can do this all they want by creating original material that does no damage to any source material. And if that's not good enough, they can produce documentaries.

Much has been written about Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings. Leave it alone and leave those of us who know the material alone. But, apparently not. A built-in audience will walk into the trap, and just as the tripwire detonates the mine - poof - fewer viewers. I am not looking forward to this.
Click to expand...
In the universe everything is in motion, in life everything changes, in art everything evolves... except Star Trek and avant garde theatre.
Click to expand...

Eh? No some things are timeless because they are formulas that touch the part of us that is eternal. I dont quite know if I agree with your assumption.

...and i'm finding that I am slowly drifting away entirely from the current day popular worldviews, including Overscan's analysis. The myth of progress and other paradigms infect a whole lot of current day discussion. I like to keep Tolkien, percieved warts and all.

Edit: had to add a thought.
Click to expand...
Progress is not a myth: a hundred thousand years ago in Europe hyenas and wolves ate our children, a hundred years ago a simple wound on the fingers could kill us... Not now. But I agree with you on the timeless things: eternal life, the dream of flying, and curiosity about the stars.
 
Orionblamblam said:
edwest2 said:
"lazy" Noooo... no, no.
Click to expand...

Lazy, yes. If they wanted a show to get across The Message, they could easily dream up all new characters, settings, worlds. But it's far easier to culturally appropriate things like Dr. Who, Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, Star Wars, etc. and corrupt them.
Click to expand...
It is easier to use the doors that already exist in the walls than to build new ones, the cultural appropriation has the advantage that The Message is not rejected because it is protected by the old acceptance memes. In the world of insects the invaders of the anthills use the pheromones of the ants so as not to be detected by the defending soldiers, in our body some viruses do the same to escape to the white globules. In the religious world the winter solstice has been colonized on many occasions to capitalize on the relief they felt in ancient times when the length of the days stopped shortening.
 
overscan (PaulMM) said:
The Dwarf princess photo is wrong because she doesn't have a large beard, not her skin colour.
Click to expand...
It's wrong for both. The Dwarves are not only beings from Norse myths, they also spent their lives underground. Explain how either of these lead to dark skin. Plus, the design of the clothes and jewelry don't scream "Dwarf," but "generic fantasy."


overscan (PaulMM) said:
Lord of the Rings is a product of its time - it is a bit racist. Good guys are white, most of the bad guys are black.
Click to expand...
It's set in a mythologized prehistoric Europe. You know... the continent with white people, and nothing but white people, until basically the last fifty years? Tolkien wrote something specifically to be English folklore. The English are a white ethnic group. By changing things, you're saying that you know better than the author.

If an Indian author wrote something based on Indian mythology, would you be upset if they cast a bunch of Indians for the movie? Where would your outrage be over Vishnu, say, not being portrayed by a Hispanic or a Maori?

overscan (PaulMM) said:
The Easterlings are clearly Asian, the Haradrim of the South are African. Neither are likely to be featured much, if at all, in Rings of Power,
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Only because the writers are talentless hacks. If they wanted to include Unearned Diversity... well, hell, the Numenoreans were pretty good mariners and they traveled the world. Initially they set up exploratory and trading posts all over the place, eventually turning into colonies and centers of conquest. Got an explanation why the Numenoreans wouldn't have sailed to have adventures among the Haradrim or the Easterlings or whoever else?
 
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This has not - by all evidence - been a case of "you know better than the author." It's a case of "we'll modernize it by doing it OUR way." And MODERNIZE means adding every element of WoKe MaDneSS.

I've dealt with writers and I know talentless hacks when I see them. This appears to be a case of "Take that oooold stuff and make it wOkE" And "The peasants NEED this stuff. Presented THIS way."

"The White Man is the Devil." And so on... That's what this is all about.
 
If the writers/producers wanted to tell stories that Tolkien didn't, they could do worse than to follow this example and give a reason *why* Sauron wants to wipe out civilization:

FLVi1-PXMAUKTnC
 
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edwest2 said:
This has not - by all evidence - been a case of "you know better than the author." It's a case of "we'll modernize it by doing it OUR way."
Click to expand...
Those are not mutually exclusive. "Our way" in this case is "better than the authors way." The authors way in this case was to give the English some folklore of their own; the Amazon writers/producers way is to say "screw the English, they're not allowed to have their own stuff."
 
Tolkien, not Tolkein. Aargh!
 
Orionblamblam said:
edwest2 said:
This has not - by all evidence - been a case of "you know better than the author." It's a case of "we'll modernize it by doing it OUR way."
Click to expand...
Those are not mutually exclusive. "Our way" in this case is "better than the authors way." The authors way in this case was to give the English some folklore of their own; the Amazon writers/producers way is to say "screw the English, they're not allowed to have their own stuff."
Click to expand...

Sorting this out - it translates as "We can't leave English folklore alone, we have to change it by adding what we want to it." It then stops being English folklore. Shame on them.
 
That's not the point. I would ask those involved at Amazon: What language are you speaking? If the answer is English, I would ask them to leave English folklore alone.

Where I work, we've adapted mythology from various cultures, moved things around geographically, invented pantheons, cultures and languages. With over 200 book titles in all, it's been a lot of work. But this is a case of "Loosely based on the works of J.R.R. Tolkien with serious deviations along the way." That's not a good thing.
 
edwest2 said:
This has not - by all evidence - been a case of "you know better than the author." It's a case of "we'll modernize it by doing it OUR way." And MODERNIZE means adding every element of WoKe MaDneSS.

I've dealt with writers and I know talentless hacks when I see them. This appears to be a case of "Take that oooold stuff and make it wOkE" And "The peasants NEED this stuff. Presented THIS way."

"The White Man is the Devil." And so on... That's what this is all about.
Click to expand...
Jean-Claude Juncker > Quotes > Quotable Quote

“We all know what to do, but we don’t know how to get re-elected once we have done it.”

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/454948-we-all-know-what-to-do-but-we-don-t-know
 
In the U.S., the common man, the everyday man is the bedrock. The politicians experience the tidal wave in a way the common man does not. Sometimes, the common man is called to do something extraordinary: to be a test pilot, an astronaut. Who is he doing this for? Himself and his posterity, and for his country.

Back on topic. Deviating from an established folklore like this is not a good idea. I was heartened to see photos of Eastern European women in regional, ethnic dress. Personal identity and national identity require it. I was born in America but I'm not American in the sense that my parents were not born here.
 
Game of Thrones? How to put this?

Bleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
 
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