Quote from: oggsmash on February 23, 2022, 03:43:26 PM

Quote from: Reckall on February 23, 2022, 02:44:19 PM

Quote from: jhkim on February 23, 2022, 12:45:53 PM

Quote from: Reckall on February 23, 2022, 09:36:42 AM
And that's the whole point. Try to remake "Ran" but "more inclusive for the modern world" and the Japanese will re-enact Pearl Harbor right on your head. So will do other cultures with their beloved tales. Only in the West we are selling our ass out and call it "progress".

I'm not sure what you're advocating here. Should other cultures not be bothered by adaptations? Or should the West be more thoroughly against others taking its culture? Ran itself takes a lot from Shakespeare's King Lear, while in turn Western movies adapted Kurosawa - like The Seven Samurai.

The answer, here, is two-fold. First: what was the intent of the original author? And, second, what do intend with "adaptation"?

We could say that Shakespeare was, for the lack of a better work, very "open" to interpretations. In his plays we get the bare minimum - usually a place, the initial relationship between characters and little else (some scholars think that Shakespeare put the name of places in his plays as a recognition to from where the tale who inspired him came). He was able to write about universal values that resonate with everybody - and I guess that people from, let's say, a Bantu tribe in Africa would be able to connect with the idea of love that we find in "Romeo and Juliet".

"Ran", on the opposite, is a very "closed" tale. While it is a partial adaptation from "King Lear" (and the earlier "Throne of Blood" is a more direct adaptation from "Macbeth") it is also inspired by Japanese feudal legends - a hint to the universality of some themes. It is set in a specific place and time; the movie characters, the landscapes, the weapons and the attitudes reflect this. Kurosawa worked for ten years to get it right. You can't insert "diverse and inclusive characters" in a "more modern adaptation" of "Ran". It would be both stupid and almost sacrilegious towards Kurosawa.

"The Magnificent Seven" isn't a "westernised" version of "The Seven Samurai". True, the basic plot points are the same so they bought the rights (so not to be sued like when Kurosawa successfully sued Sergio Leone for having based "A Fistful of Dollars" on "Yojimbo"). "The Magnificent Seven", however, is an original western built from ground up to be its own story set on the American frontier. It isn't "The Seven Samurais but with some cowboys so that the American audiences can identify!" And once you discover Kurosawa's movie you can enjoy it too even if it has no cowboys.

Tolkien's world, like Kurosawa's movies, is very "closed". Everything is detailed and explained. Everything has a reason to exist in a certain way according to the specific time period a specific event is set. Sauron in the Second Age is not Sauron in the Third Age. Dwarves aren't black. One can't barge in, put their contemporary identity politics in it and hope to get away with it. What you get is the reactions that you are seeing.

Quote
Broadly, I lean towards less outrage. I think skin color is just one trait among many, and it's not all that important. It can be a signal for other themes in the story, but by itself it isn't the most important.

The easiest answer is "If skin color is not important, why change it from the lore? And if it is important, why don't use the many PoC that, we know, inhabit Tolkien's world? Or, if you really want black dwarves, why do not create your own story?

But even if we already talked about the answer to this (Amazon is so unsure about its own ability to create that never in the life they would ditch elves, dwarves and hobbits) "arbitrary skin color" is only one of the problems that this show has - and not even the most important. The list goes on and on, from the baffling admission that they want to set five seasons in the Second Age while not having the rights to the books, to a stunningly "meh" teaser (this is what Peter Jackson produced as a "teaser" to wet our mouths: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-XoEGlvlp0; pro tip: the shot of the Fellowship at the end buries anything that Amazon has shown), to their new "Tolkien Expert" who labels Tolkien as an "anti-semite whose work is problematic" (!?), to, now, these "superfans". It is indefensible.

  I would add, given Tolkien set out to create a "Mythology for Northern Europe", skin color sort of absolutely matters.  It also matters that it has been muddled with SOLELY for the intent of attracting outrage, along with the hint at having sex scenes and sodomy as a norm.  Those are things that the author never, ever intended, of that we can all be 100 percent sure.

Where was "the hint at having sex scenes and sodomy as a norm" found?

Quote from: VisionStorm on February 23, 2022, 04:08:02 PM

Quote from: jhkim on February 23, 2022, 12:45:53 PMI feel like there's a tendency to be inconsistent on both sides. Some left-leaning people are outraged at casting white actors in non-white parts, but OK with casting non-white actors in white parts. Conversely, there are right-leaning people who don't care about casting white actors in non-white parts, but are outraged at the inverse.

First off: When/where has it been established that people outraged about castings in these fantasy/sci-fi franchises are specifically/primarily "right-wing", or outraged for political reasons, as opposed to being outraged because they're part of the fandom invested on these franchises?

Secondly: Even if we were to take the above assumption as a given (we're not, but just for the sake of argument), the difference is that when primarily "left" identifying people are outraged at some non-white character being cast by a white actor, absolutely NO ONE who fails to display outrage disagrees with them AFAIK, unless they (the outrage mob) mistakenly believe that a character should be non-white, when that's not necessarily the case (don't recall examples right now, but I know this happened at least once or twice).

NOBODY genuinely advocates casting white people for playing Egyptian gods, for example, even if they don't explicitly come out in droves to social media to say so. Everybody knows casting a white guy to play an Egyptian god is ridiculous. People just didn't show the same amount of outrage when they did it with Gods of Egypt, for example, cuz it's not like that was a beloved franchise. It was just some random film supposedly about Egyptian gods...played by white people, because reasons nobody disagrees are absurd.

The same is NOT true in the reverse. People on the other side of this discussion DO advocate casting non-white, women, etc. actors to play white or male roles just because "fuck white people and men", for political reasons. It isn't only that they rage when someone of the wrong non-white race/ethnicity gets cast, but that even if someone of the correct race/ethnicity gets cast they still nitpick about they not being arbitrarily "dark" enough, cuz that's the level of racists that they are. And if you criticize them you get mainstream media articles written about you and your presumed ideological and moral failings.

So this is not really a case of both sides being equally inconsistent are outraged because "reasons". But more about ONE side being AGGRESSIVELY ideologically motivated and backed up by the media, while the other side is motivated strictly by fandom and subject to intense media scrutiny. And the politically motivated ("left") side pushes both, FOR race/gender swapping of their preferred variety (to opposition of the ACTUAL fandom of those franchises), as well as AGAINST race swappings they don't like (to the opposition of NO ONE, cuz NO ONE likes it, even if they say nothing), while the fandom side pushes ONLY against race swappings (or similar insertions).

Your Gods of Egypt bit got me thinking of all of the movies with a northern European-looking Jesus or Moses...and of 21 Jump Street and Korean Jesus too.

Quote from: HappyDaze on February 23, 2022, 04:17:09 PM

Quote from: oggsmash on February 23, 2022, 03:43:26 PM

Quote from: Reckall on February 23, 2022, 02:44:19 PM

Quote from: jhkim on February 23, 2022, 12:45:53 PM

Quote from: Reckall on February 23, 2022, 09:36:42 AM
And that's the whole point. Try to remake "Ran" but "more inclusive for the modern world" and the Japanese will re-enact Pearl Harbor right on your head. So will do other cultures with their beloved tales. Only in the West we are selling our ass out and call it "progress".

I'm not sure what you're advocating here. Should other cultures not be bothered by adaptations? Or should the West be more thoroughly against others taking its culture? Ran itself takes a lot from Shakespeare's King Lear, while in turn Western movies adapted Kurosawa - like The Seven Samurai.

The answer, here, is two-fold. First: what was the intent of the original author? And, second, what do intend with "adaptation"?

We could say that Shakespeare was, for the lack of a better work, very "open" to interpretations. In his plays we get the bare minimum - usually a place, the initial relationship between characters and little else (some scholars think that Shakespeare put the name of places in his plays as a recognition to from where the tale who inspired him came). He was able to write about universal values that resonate with everybody - and I guess that people from, let's say, a Bantu tribe in Africa would be able to connect with the idea of love that we find in "Romeo and Juliet".

"Ran", on the opposite, is a very "closed" tale. While it is a partial adaptation from "King Lear" (and the earlier "Throne of Blood" is a more direct adaptation from "Macbeth") it is also inspired by Japanese feudal legends - a hint to the universality of some themes. It is set in a specific place and time; the movie characters, the landscapes, the weapons and the attitudes reflect this. Kurosawa worked for ten years to get it right. You can't insert "diverse and inclusive characters" in a "more modern adaptation" of "Ran". It would be both stupid and almost sacrilegious towards Kurosawa.

"The Magnificent Seven" isn't a "westernised" version of "The Seven Samurai". True, the basic plot points are the same so they bought the rights (so not to be sued like when Kurosawa successfully sued Sergio Leone for having based "A Fistful of Dollars" on "Yojimbo"). "The Magnificent Seven", however, is an original western built from ground up to be its own story set on the American frontier. It isn't "The Seven Samurais but with some cowboys so that the American audiences can identify!" And once you discover Kurosawa's movie you can enjoy it too even if it has no cowboys.

Tolkien's world, like Kurosawa's movies, is very "closed". Everything is detailed and explained. Everything has a reason to exist in a certain way according to the specific time period a specific event is set. Sauron in the Second Age is not Sauron in the Third Age. Dwarves aren't black. One can't barge in, put their contemporary identity politics in it and hope to get away with it. What you get is the reactions that you are seeing.

Quote
Broadly, I lean towards less outrage. I think skin color is just one trait among many, and it's not all that important. It can be a signal for other themes in the story, but by itself it isn't the most important.

The easiest answer is "If skin color is not important, why change it from the lore? And if it is important, why don't use the many PoC that, we know, inhabit Tolkien's world? Or, if you really want black dwarves, why do not create your own story?

But even if we already talked about the answer to this (Amazon is so unsure about its own ability to create that never in the life they would ditch elves, dwarves and hobbits) "arbitrary skin color" is only one of the problems that this show has - and not even the most important. The list goes on and on, from the baffling admission that they want to set five seasons in the Second Age while not having the rights to the books, to a stunningly "meh" teaser (this is what Peter Jackson produced as a "teaser" to wet our mouths: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-XoEGlvlp0; pro tip: the shot of the Fellowship at the end buries anything that Amazon has shown), to their new "Tolkien Expert" who labels Tolkien as an "anti-semite whose work is problematic" (!?), to, now, these "superfans". It is indefensible.

  I would add, given Tolkien set out to create a "Mythology for Northern Europe", skin color sort of absolutely matters.  It also matters that it has been muddled with SOLELY for the intent of attracting outrage, along with the hint at having sex scenes and sodomy as a norm.  Those are things that the author never, ever intended, of that we can all be 100 percent sure.

Where was "the hint at having sex scenes and sodomy as a norm" found?

  When they hired an intimacy coach and constantly harped they want a "game of thrones" like series with similar sex and violence as well as representation.   Which usually translates to naked people banging it out, and if it is going to be like GOT/every HBO series that means we will have to have at least one gay male couple.
 

Quote from: VisionStorm on February 23, 2022, 04:08:02 PM
Secondly: Even if we were to take the above assumption as a given (we're not, but just for the sake of argument), the difference is that when primarily "left" identifying people are outraged at some non-white character being cast by a white actor, absolutely NO ONE who fails to display outrage disagrees with them AFAIK, unless they (the outrage mob) mistakenly believe that a character should be non-white, when that's not necessarily the case (don't recall examples right now, but I know this happened at least once or twice).

When there were rumbles of Gal Gadot playing Cleopatra some stray SJWs screeched that "the role belonged to an Egyptian actress!!!111" Cleopatra was Greek.

The SJW skin-game is based on hate, not a desire for love. Its much more internally consistent in hating white people (they will hate everybody else as well when its convenient), then they are 'respecting the source material'.

The Queen of England can be black because 'We found the best actress for the job', but Martin Luther King can NEVER be white because 'It must be faithful to the source'. Egypt MUST be historically accurate in representation, but when they adapt a story of WWII we can of course replace a team of men with a singlewoman.

Social Justice rejects the very notion of reality, and once you understand that, then the rest of their behavior becomes clear and internally consistent.

Quote from: VisionStorm on February 23, 2022, 04:08:02 PM
NOBODY genuinely advocates casting white people for playing Egyptian gods, for example, even if they don't explicitly come out in droves to social media to say so. Everybody knows casting a white guy to play an Egyptian god is ridiculous. People just didn't show the same amount of outrage when they did it with Gods of Egypt, for example, cuz it's not like that was a beloved franchise. It was just some random film supposedly about Egyptian gods...played by white people, because reasons nobody disagrees are absurd.

People flipped out over Gods of Egypt.

Personally, I'm 100% fine with it. Though I'm also one of the small number of people who thought Gods of Egypt was very entertaining. The scene with Ra on the barge circling the planet, by itself, would make the movie for me.

Quote from: HappyDaze on February 23, 2022, 04:19:00 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on February 23, 2022, 04:08:02 PM

Quote from: jhkim on February 23, 2022, 12:45:53 PMI feel like there's a tendency to be inconsistent on both sides. Some left-leaning people are outraged at casting white actors in non-white parts, but OK with casting non-white actors in white parts. Conversely, there are right-leaning people who don't care about casting white actors in non-white parts, but are outraged at the inverse.

First off: When/where has it been established that people outraged about castings in these fantasy/sci-fi franchises are specifically/primarily "right-wing", or outraged for political reasons, as opposed to being outraged because they're part of the fandom invested on these franchises?

Secondly: Even if we were to take the above assumption as a given (we're not, but just for the sake of argument), the difference is that when primarily "left" identifying people are outraged at some non-white character being cast by a white actor, absolutely NO ONE who fails to display outrage disagrees with them AFAIK, unless they (the outrage mob) mistakenly believe that a character should be non-white, when that's not necessarily the case (don't recall examples right now, but I know this happened at least once or twice).

NOBODY genuinely advocates casting white people for playing Egyptian gods, for example, even if they don't explicitly come out in droves to social media to say so. Everybody knows casting a white guy to play an Egyptian god is ridiculous. People just didn't show the same amount of outrage when they did it with Gods of Egypt, for example, cuz it's not like that was a beloved franchise. It was just some random film supposedly about Egyptian gods...played by white people, because reasons nobody disagrees are absurd.

The same is NOT true in the reverse. People on the other side of this discussion DO advocate casting non-white, women, etc. actors to play white or male roles just because "fuck white people and men", for political reasons. It isn't only that they rage when someone of the wrong non-white race/ethnicity gets cast, but that even if someone of the correct race/ethnicity gets cast they still nitpick about they not being arbitrarily "dark" enough, cuz that's the level of racists that they are. And if you criticize them you get mainstream media articles written about you and your presumed ideological and moral failings.

So this is not really a case of both sides being equally inconsistent are outraged because "reasons". But more about ONE side being AGGRESSIVELY ideologically motivated and backed up by the media, while the other side is motivated strictly by fandom and subject to intense media scrutiny. And the politically motivated ("left") side pushes both, FOR race/gender swapping of their preferred variety (to opposition of the ACTUAL fandom of those franchises), as well as AGAINST race swappings they don't like (to the opposition of NO ONE, cuz NO ONE likes it, even if they say nothing), while the fandom side pushes ONLY against race swappings (or similar insertions).

Your Gods of Egypt bit got me thinking of all of the movies with a northern European-looking Jesus or Moses...and of 21 Jump Street and Korean Jesus too.

Now I'm reminded of the multi-racial/ethnic Jesuses of American Gods: one Jesus for every ethnic group and race. They even had a Mexican Jesus getting killed while crossing the border, and a flood of Jesuses at Ostara's party.

Quote from: Reckall on February 23, 2022, 04:28:46 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on February 23, 2022, 04:08:02 PM
Secondly: Even if we were to take the above assumption as a given (we're not, but just for the sake of argument), the difference is that when primarily "left" identifying people are outraged at some non-white character being cast by a white actor, absolutely NO ONE who fails to display outrage disagrees with them AFAIK, unless they (the outrage mob) mistakenly believe that a character should be non-white, when that's not necessarily the case (don't recall examples right now, but I know this happened at least once or twice).

When there were rumbles of Gal Gadot playing Cleopatra some stray SJWs screeched that "the role belonged to an Egyptian actress!!!111" Cleopatra was Greek.

Yeah, that was one of them. Another one (I think) was Ghost in the Shell, which I believe the character was supposed to have an android body or something. But people assumed "Anime, therefore Japanese woman". Not sure about the details, since I'm not exactly an Anime fan, so I might be wrong about that one, though.

Quote from: Pat on February 23, 2022, 04:47:06 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on February 23, 2022, 04:08:02 PM
NOBODY genuinely advocates casting white people for playing Egyptian gods, for example, even if they don't explicitly come out in droves to social media to say so. Everybody knows casting a white guy to play an Egyptian god is ridiculous. People just didn't show the same amount of outrage when they did it with Gods of Egypt, for example, cuz it's not like that was a beloved franchise. It was just some random film supposedly about Egyptian gods...played by white people, because reasons nobody disagrees are absurd.

People flipped out over Gods of Egypt.

Personally, I'm 100% fine with it. Though I'm also one of the small number of people who thought Gods of Egypt was very entertaining. The scene with Ra on the barge circling the planet, by itself, would make the movie for me.

I barely remember it, TBH, and wasn't terribly impressed by it. I can see people complaining about the casting, but don't think it was supposed to be a serious film to begin with. Just some actiony quasi-superhero film using Egyptian gods as an excuse to have characters with superpowers fighting with special effects, IIRC.

Quote from: VisionStorm on February 23, 2022, 05:03:19 PM

Quote from: Pat on February 23, 2022, 04:47:06 PM
People flipped out over Gods of Egypt.

Personally, I'm 100% fine with it. Though I'm also one of the small number of people who thought Gods of Egypt was very entertaining. The scene with Ra on the barge circling the planet, by itself, would make the movie for me.

I barely remember it, TBH, and wasn't terribly impressed by it. I can see people complaining about the casting, but don't think it was supposed to be a serious film to begin with. Just some actiony quasi-superhero film using Egyptian gods as an excuse to have characters with superpowers fighting with special effects, IIRC.

It's pure cheese. But glorious cheese.

Quote from: VisionStorm on February 23, 2022, 05:03:19 PM
Another one (I think) was Ghost in the Shell, which I believe the character was supposed to have an android body or something. But people assumed "Anime, therefore Japanese woman". Not sure about the details, since I'm not exactly an Anime fan, so I might be wrong about that one, though.

No, you are not. GitS (the anime) used a realistic or semi-realistic style for the characters, so you can clearly see that the Major has caucasian features. More so, when Oshii cast Polish actress Malgorzata Foremniak as the lead for his live-action movie "Avalon" he admitted that one reason was how she strongly reminded him of the Major.

Quote from: oggsmash on February 23, 2022, 03:43:26 PM

Quote from: Reckall on February 23, 2022, 02:44:19 PM
Tolkien's world, like Kurosawa's movies, is very "closed". Everything is detailed and explained. Everything has a reason to exist in a certain way according to the specific time period a specific event is set. Sauron in the Second Age is not Sauron in the Third Age. Dwarves aren't black. One can't barge in, put their contemporary identity politics in it and hope to get away with it. What you get is the reactions that you are seeing.

  I would add, given Tolkien set out to create a "Mythology for Northern Europe", skin color sort of absolutely matters.  It also matters that it has been muddled with SOLELY for the intent of attracting outrage, along with the hint at having sex scenes and sodomy as a norm.  Those are things that the author never, ever intended, of that we can all be 100 percent sure.

Tolkien was hugely *opposed* to the Germanic attempts at creating a mythology for Northern Europe based on racial traits. His mythology was based on *language*. Tolkien described vast tracts of detail in his world, but as far as I can tell, he never mentions the skin color of dwarves. He did liken them to Jewish people in an interview, which would fit with some being dark-skinned and some being light-skinned.

The new series is clearly not going to be true to Tolkien because they don't have the rights to the Silmarillion. However, I'm not clear that Tolkien would have a problem with black-skinned dwarves. He does, for example, describe the Harfoots as being "browner of skin" than other hobbits, though he did generally describe elves as being fair-skinned. So black-skinned elves isn't canon while black-skinned dwarves is fine. He described orcs as having "Mongol-type" features, which often isn't reflected.

But then, he also described Frodo as being a stout, red-cheeked 51-year-old when he went off on his adventure -- which is vastly different than how Peter Jackson cast his Frodo.

I think changes in adaptation are to be expected. I'm not opposed to purism per se, but I was fine with Jackson's Lord of the Rings films despite blatant changes like these (though I disliked the Hobbit movies).

Quote from: jhkim on February 23, 2022, 07:25:23 PM

Quote from: oggsmash on February 23, 2022, 03:43:26 PM

Quote from: Reckall on February 23, 2022, 02:44:19 PM
Tolkien's world, like Kurosawa's movies, is very "closed". Everything is detailed and explained. Everything has a reason to exist in a certain way according to the specific time period a specific event is set. Sauron in the Second Age is not Sauron in the Third Age. Dwarves aren't black. One can't barge in, put their contemporary identity politics in it and hope to get away with it. What you get is the reactions that you are seeing.

  I would add, given Tolkien set out to create a "Mythology for Northern Europe", skin color sort of absolutely matters.  It also matters that it has been muddled with SOLELY for the intent of attracting outrage, along with the hint at having sex scenes and sodomy as a norm.  Those are things that the author never, ever intended, of that we can all be 100 percent sure.

Tolkien was hugely *opposed* to the Germanic attempts at creating a mythology for Northern Europe based on racial traits. His mythology was based on *language*. Tolkien described vast tracts of detail in his world, but as far as I can tell, he never mentions the skin color of dwarves. He did liken them to Jewish people in an interview, which would fit with some being dark-skinned and some being light-skinned.

The new series is clearly not going to be true to Tolkien because they don't have the rights to the Silmarillion. However, I'm not clear that Tolkien would have a problem with black-skinned dwarves. He does, for example, describe the Harfoots as being "browner of skin" than other hobbits, though he did generally describe elves as being fair-skinned. So black-skinned elves isn't canon while black-skinned dwarves is fine. He described orcs as having "Mongol-type" features, which often isn't reflected.

But then, he also described Frodo as being a stout, red-cheeked 51-year-old when he went off on his adventure -- which is vastly different than how Peter Jackson cast his Frodo.

I think changes in adaptation are to be expected. I'm not opposed to purism per se, but I was fine with Jackson's Lord of the Rings films despite blatant changes like these (though I disliked the Hobbit movies).

  The black skinned dwarves that lived underground? You think they are alright, but I do not remember any references to black dwarves.    Browner of skin implied a tan.  They were all white, and that is all right.  I think everyone disliked the hobbit movies.    We should all keep pretending they make changes like this based on finding the best actors and such, and not because they are sociopaths determined to rewrite characters out of pure racial animus.

The thing with the Hobbit films is that if you pared away the extra stuff that wasn't in the book you could have had two decent films.  And even with all their problems, you never get the impression that Jackson disrespected the lore.  He just got caught up in cramming everything he could in there, embellishing some stuff, getting enamored with CGI and chase scenes, and unnecessary "fan service."  So yeah, when you add all that up it got pretty bad, but most of the changes had at least some basis in the lore rather than being based on virtue signalling and tokenism.

Quote from: jhkim on February 23, 2022, 07:25:23 PM

Quote from: oggsmash on February 23, 2022, 03:43:26 PM

Quote from: Reckall on February 23, 2022, 02:44:19 PM
Tolkien's world, like Kurosawa's movies, is very "closed". Everything is detailed and explained. Everything has a reason to exist in a certain way according to the specific time period a specific event is set. Sauron in the Second Age is not Sauron in the Third Age. Dwarves aren't black. One can't barge in, put their contemporary identity politics in it and hope to get away with it. What you get is the reactions that you are seeing.

  I would add, given Tolkien set out to create a "Mythology for Northern Europe", skin color sort of absolutely matters.  It also matters that it has been muddled with SOLELY for the intent of attracting outrage, along with the hint at having sex scenes and sodomy as a norm.  Those are things that the author never, ever intended, of that we can all be 100 percent sure.

Tolkien was hugely *opposed* to the Germanic attempts at creating a mythology for Northern Europe based on racial traits. His mythology was based on *language*. Tolkien described vast tracts of detail in his world, but as far as I can tell, he never mentions the skin color of dwarves. He did liken them to Jewish people in an interview, which would fit with some being dark-skinned and some being light-skinned.

The new series is clearly not going to be true to Tolkien because they don't have the rights to the Silmarillion. However, I'm not clear that Tolkien would have a problem with black-skinned dwarves. He does, for example, describe the Harfoots as being "browner of skin" than other hobbits, though he did generally describe elves as being fair-skinned. So black-skinned elves isn't canon while black-skinned dwarves is fine. He described orcs as having "Mongol-type" features, which often isn't reflected.

But then, he also described Frodo as being a stout, red-cheeked 51-year-old when he went off on his adventure -- which is vastly different than how Peter Jackson cast his Frodo.

I think changes in adaptation are to be expected. I'm not opposed to purism per se, but I was fine with Jackson's Lord of the Rings films despite blatant changes like these (though I disliked the Hobbit movies).

You're aware of how much ignorance about LotR are you displaying?

The Harfoots were browner of skin than other hobbits... Which doesn't mean black, unless you think Italians are black.

Also Harfoots aren't Dwarves.

https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/Harfoots

Tolkien was creating a mythology for england, something that would have taken place way in the past. He did describe men of different ethnicities and where did they live, his dwarfs are inspired by norse dwarfs, why would anyone think that means there can be dwarfs that aren't white beats me.

But please do carry on explaining to us why Shaka Zulu or Anansi can be portrayed by a white man.

Quote from: oggsmash on February 23, 2022, 07:36:45 PM

Quote from: jhkim on February 23, 2022, 07:25:23 PM

Quote from: oggsmash on February 23, 2022, 03:43:26 PM

Quote from: Reckall on February 23, 2022, 02:44:19 PM
Tolkien's world, like Kurosawa's movies, is very "closed". Everything is detailed and explained. Everything has a reason to exist in a certain way according to the specific time period a specific event is set. Sauron in the Second Age is not Sauron in the Third Age. Dwarves aren't black. One can't barge in, put their contemporary identity politics in it and hope to get away with it. What you get is the reactions that you are seeing.

  I would add, given Tolkien set out to create a "Mythology for Northern Europe", skin color sort of absolutely matters.  It also matters that it has been muddled with SOLELY for the intent of attracting outrage, along with the hint at having sex scenes and sodomy as a norm.  Those are things that the author never, ever intended, of that we can all be 100 percent sure.

Tolkien was hugely *opposed* to the Germanic attempts at creating a mythology for Northern Europe based on racial traits. His mythology was based on *language*. Tolkien described vast tracts of detail in his world, but as far as I can tell, he never mentions the skin color of dwarves. He did liken them to Jewish people in an interview, which would fit with some being dark-skinned and some being light-skinned.

The new series is clearly not going to be true to Tolkien because they don't have the rights to the Silmarillion. However, I'm not clear that Tolkien would have a problem with black-skinned dwarves. He does, for example, describe the Harfoots as being "browner of skin" than other hobbits, though he did generally describe elves as being fair-skinned. So black-skinned elves isn't canon while black-skinned dwarves is fine. He described orcs as having "Mongol-type" features, which often isn't reflected.

But then, he also described Frodo as being a stout, red-cheeked 51-year-old when he went off on his adventure -- which is vastly different than how Peter Jackson cast his Frodo.

I think changes in adaptation are to be expected. I'm not opposed to purism per se, but I was fine with Jackson's Lord of the Rings films despite blatant changes like these (though I disliked the Hobbit movies).

  The black skinned dwarves that lived underground? You think they are alright, but I do not remember any references to black dwarves.    Browner of skin implied a tan.  They were all white, and that is all right.  I think everyone disliked the hobbit movies.    We should all keep pretending they make changes like this based on finding the best actors and such, and not because they are sociopaths determined to rewrite characters out of pure racial animus.

Dude his justification for black dwarves is the Harfoots, which are:

1 Hobbits
And 2 not black.

Quote from: Persimmon on February 23, 2022, 07:43:34 PM
The thing with the Hobbit films is that if you pared away the extra stuff that wasn't in the book you could have had two decent films.  And even with all their problems, you never get the impression that Jackson disrespected the lore.  He just got caught up in cramming everything he could in there, embellishing some stuff, getting enamored with CGI and chase scenes, and unnecessary "fan service."  So yeah, when you add all that up it got pretty bad, but most of the changes had at least some basis in the lore rather than being based on virtue signalling and tokenism.

I dunno. I can't argue with you because I've never seen any of the Hobbit films. I kinda refused to, on principle.

I was sort of looking forward to the Hobbit movie, since the original  book that I first read in, what, 1968, seemed purpose-written for a neat self-contained 2 hour movie. Perfect to pace, nice beginning, middle and end, something that, now, I could see with my daughter,  knowing she wouldn't be drenched in a bunch of tedious pointless friggin "lore."

But no, friggin Peter Jackson and his friggin bucks demanded that it be a multi-movie epic drenched in irrelevant crap. So, never went. Don't plan to.