[Ninety-Six]

 MObreck, on 23 February 2022 - 07:58 PM, said:

I suppose in an indirect manner the whole original gamergate debacle technically ended up drastically changing my views on politics and the mainstream media. Watching the media spin a completely one-sided narrative, and in many cases flat out lie, about a topic I had deep understanding of led to me starting to notice them pulling the same dirty tricks when reporting on other more important world issues. The one pulled thread that unraveled the entire tapestry so to speak.

That's pretty much what happened with me, though I was already wary of certain news organizations like CNN by then. Gamergate made me realize that all of them were completely corrupt to the core, whether they were massive multimedia corporations or smaller websites.

[Jimmy]

When they wouldn't allow young men to just have their video games or whatever, they created a coalition of people who do things just to spite them. I've voted Republican in every single election, local to national, since GamerGate. Not because I agree with Republicans, Hell I voted for Jill Stein one time, but no, I vote Republican because I hate Democrats and Progressives. I do it purely out of spite at this point, and there are millions of people they've readicalized in this way by not allowing them to have their own communities and cultures. It's all about globo[redacted.]

[jkas789]

Fuck me.

[jkas789]

I have watched the first episode and I hate it so damn much. Here, prepare for the autistic rant I posted on the discord:

SPOILERS:

Spoiler

1.- They are basically merging about 1600 years of history into a however long series it's gonna be. They are literally merging the making of the rings, the fall of Numenor and what looks like the start of the war on Sauron. How in all that is good and holy in this forsaken cynical world are a bunch of writers supposed to do that without going for like 12+ seasons?

2.- The writing is basically at the level of a fanfiction. In fact, I could probably recommend LOTR fan fiction better written than this.
3.- The first age is glossed over, THE FUCKING KINSLAYINGS are also glossed over. THE FUCKING HELCARAXE WHICH GALADRIEL EXPERIENCED WAS MEMORY HOLED. The WAR OF WRATH IS NERFED AND GLOSSED OVER. THEY BARELY SHOW THE FUCKING FALL OF BELERIAND. BITCH A FUCKING CONTINENT WAS SUBMERGED. THAT DESERVES MORE THAN A 7 SECOND CLIP. THE VERY VALAR PHYSICALLY MAINFESTED AND TOOK PART IN THIS WAR!

4.- Galadried being turned into this girl boss character that is just sassy and aggressive instead of the graceful, royal, powerful magic wielder that she was at this point in time. She was already one of the most interesting and influential characters in the Legendarium whose actions potentially even influenced the fall of the house of Feanor and all the shit show with the Silmarrils. Why are we memory holing the other 2 brothers of Galadriel? Also of course fucking Galadriel is "commander of the northern armies, warrior of the wastelands". We don't even know if she actually fought in the rebellion of the Noldor! HELL, GALADRIEL NEVER HUNTED SAURON! While on that note:

4.1.- Galadriel telling Elrond that he hadn't seen what she had seen. Bitch Elrond FOUGHT IN THE WAR OF WRATH while you where doing jack shit. He also survived the destruction of the Haven of Sirion by the sons of fucking Feanor and watched his mom commit basically suicide by transfiguration so that she could deny the silmarillion to Maedhros and Maglor.

4.2.- By this point Galadriel is very much married and in love with Celeborn. Where is he? Fuck, were is Celebrian?. AFAIK by the time Sauron is rising she was born already.

4.3.- Of course fucking Galadriel is getting bullied since the start because she was so different and special. Of course. And of course she is put down by everyone around her that think they know better but she knows that Sauron is just around the corner waiting.
Ignoring that she wasn't bullied, in fact she was by all accounts loved by everyone. Maybe even a little too much. She did have a creepy perverted uncle that later on went to create the Silmarillions and fuck over everyone.

4.4.- Continuing on fucking Galadriel hunting Sauron: The whole Galadriel hunting Sauron? Not a thing. AFAIK at that point in time Galadriel was not a "commander of the northern armies, warrior of the wastelands". In fact, she was very much living with Celeborn ruling a fiefdom under the High King and AFAIK rearing Celebrian. It isn't until much later after Annatar pops up and then reveals himself as Sauron that she actively starts acting against him mainly by telling Celembrimbor to not be an idiot and hide the rings.

5.- The elephant in the room: There are no black elves, however there are black/brown skinned humans (specifically in the arad region). Imagine if instead of having this plot thread we had a story line that showed off the Haradian Culture. Amazon literally had carte blanche to write about this little known region. You could have actually talked the issue of racism and interracial marrieages (which tbh I can't believe is still a thing. In taco land south of the border interracial marriages are basically a non issue), at that point the Haradrim were under the control of the Numenoreans and by all accounts it was not a fun time. It would have made a better example of the decadence of the fall of Numenor and would have been a better way to tackle racism and discrimination. And guess what? It's all in the fucking lore.

That would have been way more interesting to look at than this trashy interracial romance/drama story line masked as a interspecies drama that makes no sense in Arda. This is not the USA. I get people have this weird need to insert current sociopolitical American issues into their entertainment but the rest of us don't care about that at all.

5.1.- Also Arondir being a half elf is ABSOLUTE BULL THAT INTRODUCES A TON OF PROBLEMS INTO CANON. THERE HAVE ONLY BEEN VERY FEW AND CONTROVERSIAL INSTANCES OF HUMANS AND ELVES MIXING. TO THE POINT THAT IT WAS ESSENTIALLY A WORLD CHANGING EVENT. IT SUCH AN IMPORTANT EVENT THAT EVEN A FUCKING VALAR (MANDOS) GOT INVOLVED ONCE. Being a half elf in LOTR is basically a super power they can even choose if they want to be fully mortal or not. Look at everyone of the Half Elfs in LOTR and tell me to my face that they were just random nobodies. I DARE YOU.

5.2.- Humans trying to fuck over a HALF ELF. Are you for real? Why? Tirharad is not even a thing in lore. Also again, poorly veiled social commentary.

6.- Hobbits being a thing in the 2A is plausible. No problems there.

7.- The "romance" plot between Arondir and Bronwyn is very awkward and forced. I don't believe it at all.

8.- Everything is super fucking near. The Undying lands is a 1 1/2 day on boat, Moria is within fucking walking distance, sea is just a small sea you see? A fucking pond.

9.- Plz don't tell me that guy at the end is Sauron. Also plz let it be just a random fucking Maia. Actually no, don't touch the Maia. Don't make it fucking Gandalf as well. Why even bring a Maia into this!? We already have Sauron/Annatar potentially fucking shit up.

Visually it is a mixed bag. Some of it looks good, some of it looks like a damn video game. The dialogue is fanfiction tier. In fact this all feels like someone wrote a fanfic of their Self insert Galadriel and then got Amazon to bank roll it. As a hardcore fan of the Legendarium I'm not a fan. I have read fanfictions better than this trash.

EDIT: Wrote my thoughts out better.

[Mark]

Since I haven't signed up with any streaming services I'll probably never watch the series but I won't let that stop me from blabbering here .

Coming at it from a totally different viewpoint of someone not fully versed in the whole LOTR universe in the same depth as jkas there is a much better chance I might like it. From what little I've seen from commercials or trailers it looks good to me. But not having seen it there is also the chance its a stinker if the casting or acting sucks. The fact it doesn't follow the established lore faithfully or cover the entire history would mean less to me than it would for hardcore fans. I enjoyed the various Dune movies and mini-series even though they had the same issues of glossing over large parts of the story or not following the books exactly. Same with most movies or movie franchises I watched and enjoyed at face value without over-analyzing.

[Aristotle Gumball]

[Ninety-Six]

 jkas789, on 01 September 2022 - 09:24 PM, said:

That would have been way more interesting to look at than this trashy interracial romance/drama story line masked as a interspecies drama that makes no sense in Arda. This is not the USA. I get people have this weird need to insert current sociopolitical American issues into their entertainment but the rest of us don't care about that at all.

We don't like it either.

Well, the sane of us.

[ReaperMan]

Lets talk about the real issue here. They made the freaking elves ugly. Wtf amazon? I want my elves so sexy I question my sexuality.

[jkas789]

The loss of long haired elves was an absolute travesty.

I just finished viewing episode 3 and Jesus that was a whole bunch of nothing. Honestly at this point I'm getting so tired of Galadriel being a bitch to everyone and anyone. I get it, this series grabbed the lore and throwed it out the window. I don't like it but I can deal with it. But at least give me a likeable main character that doesn't confuse being a strong female character with being an absolute bitch of a person.

Having the queen of Numenor getting into a cat fight with Galadriel was a waste of our time, specially because it all could have been resolved by yeeting them out there but noooo, we needed Galadriel to sus out the symbol of Sauron (which was retarded) and so logic bends to make the story happen. Poor Earandil having to deal with Galadriel and the queen. What a surprise that one of the few likeable characters in this gets the short end of the stick. Truly the MVP this episode. Finally they were not subtle at all with Isildur and Halbrand. Whatever they could be foreshadowing with their scenes? I think at this point we all know Halbrand is gonna be Sauron. It's too on the nose and on par with the pretentious shitty writing of this show. Also it makes the "romance" between Galadriel and Not Sauron even more telling of where this show is probably going.

The acting is horrible, specially Galadriel's. Her face is constantly twisted on a scowl and honestly I blame the direction on this because I have looked up the actors individually and i know for a fact that some of them can act.

You know what show is really good? House of the Dragon. I was honestly surprised that even with the lore changes and race bending, the show so far has been really, really good. It's almost as if it's trying to keep to the spirit and original plot of the source while trying to adapt it into a tv series. I wonder who managed to do kinda the same before? A trilogy of movies even.

Yeah it's not as good Game of Thrones at its best. But you know what? It's way better than a lot of the garbage streaming services keep pushing out this days.

Go watch House of the Dragon folks. It's way better than this. You can polish a turd but ultimately, a turd is still a turd.

And if you want a better fanfiction than this one set in the Silmarillion? Go read Oak and Willow on fanfiction.net. Yes it is a romance between Celeborn and Galadirel. Yes, it strays somewhat (not much) from the lore while keeping to the spirit of it. Yes, I am indeed trying to make a point.

[Forge]

Any show that forces muh diversity, or has the token muh strong wombman is immediately stricken from my 'ever going to watch this' list.

the minute the fans complain about shitty story writing, boring shows, bad cgi, wooden acting, ruining pre-existing lore, or far fetched mental gymnastic plots - then they are all accused of being sexist, racist, homophobes -instead of the show's actors, producers, and its braindead twitter-twatters actually accepting responsibility that it's a truly bad show.

[Forge]

[MObreck]

Want a bit of a chuckle? Originally Amazon had planned to do a Conan series that by all accounts was shaping up really well.

But then there was a woke change in leadership at Amazon Prime. The new leader decided the Conan series was too toxic, shut it down, fired the showrunner, and shifted focus to this dreck instead.

You know what that fired showrunner is working on now? House of the Dragon. Revenge is a dish best served cold...

[Forge]

 MObreck, on 16 September 2022 - 02:57 PM, said:

Want a bit of a chuckle? Originally Amazon had planned to do a Conan series that by all accounts was shaping up really well.

But then there was a woke change in leadership at Amazon Prime. The new leader decided the Conan series was too toxic, shut it down, fired the showrunner, and shifted focus to this dreck instead.

You know what that fired showrunner is working on now? House of the Dragon. Revenge is a dish best served cold...

Amusing. Considering there's strong evidence that r.e. howard was a closet gay.
That and amazon could have 'reimagined' the lore and made conan the sidekick of one of howard's female characters - like red sonya.

[Fox]

The guy who writes about muscular shirtless men is gay??

[Danukem]

 Forge, on 16 September 2022 - 06:11 PM, said:

Amusing. Considering there's strong evidence that r.e. howard was a closet gay.

Being a cisgender gay white male just isn't good enough these days.

cisgender male -3
gay +2
white -1

net points -2

[Forge]

[Forge]

[jkas789]

Nice writing amazon.

[Doom64hunter]

 jkas789, on 20 September 2022 - 11:17 AM, said:

Nice writing amazon.

Beginning made me think of a protest against automation in Amazon warehouses lmao.

Funny considering that the Elves in the LOTR books (apart from Legolas) are all basically saying "I just want to grill".

[Forge]

[Reaper_Man]

 Jimmy, on 24 February 2022 - 01:56 AM, said:

When they wouldn't allow young men to just have their video games or whatever, they created a coalition of people who do things just to spite them. I've voted Republican in every single election, local to national, since GamerGate. Not because I agree with Republicans, Hell I voted for Jill Stein one time, but no, I vote Republican because I hate Democrats and Progressives. I do it purely out of spite at this point, and there are millions of people they've readicalized in this way by not allowing them to have their own communities and cultures. It's all about globo[redacted.]

This may be the most utterly pathetic thing I have ever read in my entire life, made more sad only by how absolutely serious you are.

[Jimmy]

I don't care.

[Phredreeke]

[Aristotle Gumball]

Yeah who gives a fuck. I was never interested in LOTR but all the whining is making me hate the fanboys as much as the show itself, which I'll never watch. Let it be forgotten.

[Forge]

 Thrice Cursed, on 22 September 2022 - 07:04 AM, said:

Yeah who gives a fuck. I was never interested in LOTR but all the whining is making me hate the fanboys as much as the show itself, which I'll never watch. Let it be forgotten.

interesting hot take.
the fan boys with their nasal whining about lore deserve the prog-lodites calling them racists, sexists, and homophobes.

[Aristotle Gumball]

I think the people who interpret my post in that way, deserve worse

[Forge]

 Thrice Cursed, on 22 September 2022 - 10:02 AM, said:

I think the people who interpret my post in that way, deserve worse

disagree.
between the two factions I think we could make a version of hunger games out of it.
At least it would make for a better show than the current drivel.

"I strike you with my +2 rolled up c.s. lewis pulp mag. *snark-snark*"
"Help! Rape! You've offended my third pronoun!"

[Danukem]

 Aristotle Gumball, on 22 September 2022 - 07:04 AM, said:

Yeah who gives a fuck. I was never interested in LOTR but all the whining is making me hate the fanboys as much as the show itself, which I'll never watch. Let it be forgotten.

I used to love the books, but in retrospect a lot of that was due to how I met my wife and we read them together. I still think they are very good but not worthy of obsession. Also, the fans should admit that the Peter Jackson LOTR movies were not that great. They were decent. Then the Hobbit films were complete trash. So a lot of damage had been done to the franchise well before Amazon came to the party.

As for the fanboys getting upset about Rings of Power... I haven't watched the series but I have no reason to doubt that it's pretty bad from what I've heard. Here's where I tend to agree with you: Once you have determined that some entertainment is not for you, then continuing to watch and/or complain about it is at best very low-grade entertainment in itself, or at worst pointless self-harm. On the self-harm end of the spectrum, it is analogous to a guy who spies on the girlfriend who dumped him and is tortured by her current dating life.

The one group who has a pretty good reason to continue banging the drums are the hate-farmers who make a living on such things. Even then, it seems to me like a sad way to make a living. There are successful YT channels that do nothing but bitch and moan about popular entertainment. The points they make may be entirely accurate, but in the end the content on those channels isn't worth much. I'm sure they tell themselves that they are having a great time and building a community. But if they look back in 10 or more years at the countless hours they spent making all those videos, I doubt they will feel good about it.

[Forge]

internet memory is short memory. It has 'gold-fish' duration that it lasts until the next sensationalized thing comes along to divide people and get everyone hating on each other over stupid shit.

People forget that Peter Jackson's LOTR movies were hated on by the same people hating on this netflix series - mostly about omissions, additions, and deviations from the books.

If you don't like someone's "re-imagining", then stop watching what you don't like and stick with the book.

It never made much sense to me that these simps and haters keep watching the streaming series and giving netflix money and viewership that the network needs in order to make more crappy shows.

[Aristotle Gumball]

The Hobbit movies were pretty entertaining. I liked em. The LOTR films were like soap opera for sad nerds. I didn't hate them, but they were mostly boring until the final one which at least had cool parts.