Lord of the Rings Racist!!!

[Rokenn]

Originally posted by Skunk: In any event, blame Hollywood for its inaccuate portrayal and ruination of Tolkien's masterpiece; rather than the book. It is not for nothing that the Tolkien Estate has not only distanced itself from the movie but is also still fighting a legal battle with the makers to prevent them associating any merchandise with the Tolkien name or book titles. It has even prevented New Line Cinema from creating a Movie museum and has refused to give film rights to make 'The Hobbit'... [/QB]

It's not the Tolkien estate that is holding up The Hobbit it's this:

Regarding this whole Peter Jackson - HOBBIT story coming out of Berlin! Hey folks, Harry here... So far in all the reports in the "legitimate press" about THE HOBBIT and Peter Jackson they seem to be asking him the question, "Would you ever consider making the prequel to LORD OF THE RINGS, THE HOBBIT?" and Peter tends to answer with, sure he'd be interested, but he has to shoot KING KONG for Universal first and he wants to shoot a smaller quirkier New Zealand-y movie first, plus he feels the need to take a break from that universe before returning to it after living in it for 7 straight years. Of course he'd be using some of the original cast in that film, but the real question is... "Why has New Line Cinemas not got you signed and on the dotted line on HOBBIT, it'd make a BILLION dollars!?!?!?!" The reason, as Peter stated at Butt-Numb-A-Thon is that for one, he's never been approached or made an offer from New Line Cinemas to direct THE HOBBIT. Ok, so that begs the question, "Are they *** insane?" Peter answered that by saying that New Line is very keen on wanting to do THE HOBBIT, but there are LEGAL ENTANGLEMENTS that are keeping it from happening. You see... NEW LINE has the rights to make a Movie from the book THE HOBBIT. However, UNITED ARTISTS/MGM apparently have the rights to distribute that movie. SO - why would New Line make Peter Jackson an offer to make a movie that they could not distribute. And why would MGM/UA make an offer to Jackson to distribute a movie they can not make? LIKE "SPIDER-MAN" and the rights issues that kept that in the hands of lawyers for two decades, this is the problem going on with THE HOBBIT. So, as long as the power of the ring motivates each studio to not cooperate and work the deal out to each others' mutual satisfaction, Jackson can... "WANT" to make the film all he wants, the fact is... beauracracy could keep it from every come to fruition. So, let's hope things work out, I want to see Weta's SMAUG so bad... the burning of Lake Town... The butterflies above the trees... Riddles in the dark.... the Woodland Elves... Barrell riding! And that final war over Smaug's Gold. "I likes mine, RAAAAW!" One day, perhaps!

source

[Timber Loftis]

Elves, hobbits, humans, dwarves, orcs, wizards, and it's not diverse enough. There's just no pleasing some people. Where is this prejudice that skin color is the only valuable diversification coming from? While some may say, "from those with different color skin, of course," I say rather this prejudice comes from ivory tower types who spend more time thinking about life than living it -- I mean it's the perfect kind of "sensitive guy" banter to get young coed students into bed, is it not?

I'd just like to point out that in our boring world, there is only one humanoid species -- Tolkein had the vision to imagine many. He's more "diverse" than the twit who wrote the article will ever be.

i dont agree with the sentiments of the author of the article. rather, i'm pointing out a glaring blind spot:

black and swarthy is used to represent evil and white to represent good. and the 30's is within a generation of the slave age. whatever cultural or personal context it was written in, it's being presented in TODAY's context.

you're all so blinded by your passion for jackson's two-bit hack work as a director for a second-rate bunch of long-winded books that you'll bury your heads in the sand instead of trying to understand the author's concerns.

i'll say it again: if it wasnt LOTR, none of you would be jumping to the defence - most of you wouldnt comment at all.

[Cerek the Barbaric]

Originally posted by sultan: i dont agree with the sentiments of the author of the article. rather, i'm pointing out a glaring blind spot: black and swarthy is used to represent evil and white to represent good. and the 30's is within a generation of the slave age. whatever cultural or personal context it was written in, it's being presented in TODAY's context. you're all so blinded by your passion for jackson's two-bit hack work as a director for a second-rate bunch of long-winded books that you'll bury your heads in the sand instead of trying to understand the author's concerns. i'll say it again: if it wasnt LOTR, none of you would be jumping to the defence - most of you wouldnt comment at all.

So tell us, sultan, did you like the books or not? [img]graemlins/biglaugh.gif[/img]

[Timber Loftis]

Okay, Sultan made me link it:
THREAD AT OASIS.

Please read my reply therein, because this guy is an absolute twit. I'll agree with you that the books are a bit more difficult or "boring" to read than many fiction works, but Tolkein wrote in the grand style. As a writer, I respect the fact that he never narrated anything, but rather let all the history be told through the characters. For the most part, he only uses setting description and dialogue, yet he conveys eons of history. He's very good, and I recognize that. You may not have the patience to read the works, but that does not mean they are not good literature.

[ 01-07-2004, 01:48 AM: Message edited by: Timber Loftis ]

[Night Stalker]

Sultan, one could also say that this twit is so blinded by his PCgasmic spew that he fails to enjoy a fantasy epic tale (one of Tolkien's goals in writing TLotR was to create a modern English Epic as grand as Beowolf).

The context of the tale is absolutely more important than the opinions of PCnazis (oops there it is! [img]tongue.gif[/img] ) today. Updating a fantasy world to reflect todays PC diversity hogwash is just silly, and the idea only serves to give this twit his 15 s.

[Skunk]

Originally posted by sultan: i dont agree with the sentiments of the author of the article. rather, i'm pointing out a glaring blind spot: black and swarthy is used to represent evil and white to represent good. and the 30's is within a generation of the slave age. whatever cultural or personal context it was written in, it's being presented in TODAY's context. you're all so blinded by your passion for jackson's two-bit hack work as a director for a second-rate bunch of long-winded books that you'll bury your heads in the sand instead of trying to understand the author's concerns. i'll say it again: if it wasnt LOTR, none of you would be jumping to the defence - most of you wouldnt comment at all.

Personally, I'm leaking to the defence of Tolkien rather than to the Destroyer of literature, Jackson. And yes, I am also critical of Lloyd Hart because he paints Tolkien as racist without having read the book.

Had he done so, he might have discovered that **ALL** of his critiscisms regarding race were as a result of Jackson's changes and not as a result of Tolkien's writings. Indeed, the only good praise that he does make is:

"Of course there are redeeming images and ideas portrayed in the films such as the Ents protecting the forests by destroying the industrial military complex as well as the fact that white people can be turned to evil to join forces with all the evil dark skinned man flesh eating Orcs and Uruk-hai.

which in he is seemingly praising Jackson for - when in actual fact it is one of the few parts of the book that Jackson has not changed. The praise belonged to Tolkien rather than to Jackson.

Tolkien's book is about black and white fighting on both sides of good and evil (even the High Elves in Tolkiens book are described as dark skinned) - whereas Jackson turned the tale into East vs West, White vs Black.

Lloyd then goes on to say:
I think J.R.R. Tolkien wouldn't have minded including people of skin color as heros in these films if he were alive today.
Considering that is indeed how Tolkien wrote the charactors, one would have to agree with Lloyd there - since to do otherwise would be to depart from the original text as Jackson did in his hatchet job.

Originally posted by Night Stalker: Updating a fantasy world to reflect todays PC diversity hogwash is just silly, and the idea only serves to give this twit his 15 s

But in this case, Jackson updated a relatively PC novel to reflect today's box-office requirements for a hit movie. Jackson correctly ascertained that a darker skinned King Aragorn of the West would not sell as well as a 'white guy' and diverted from Tolkien's plot accordingly.

The movies have and have always been about white cowboys vs black cowboys and indians with innocent white settlers caught in the middle. It's what sells and Jacksons irreverant changes merely reflected these box office requirements.

Hence the reason why I hate these films with so much venom.


[ 01-07-2004, 04:04 AM: Message edited by: Skunk ]

[Sir Taliesin]

The men of Carn Dum, were descended from Numenor. At some point the Northern Kingdom was divided in to three smaller Kingdoms. Carn Dum was one of them.

Also I must point out that the men of Westerness were descended from the Men of the First Age that aided the Elves in their fight with Morgoth. The First Ruler of Numenor was in fact Elrond's brother. Not quite sure where you got that they were of a Mediterrean origin, because I'd tend to think they were more of a Northern European origin. Especially, since Tolkien was attempting to write a fictional ancient history for Britian.

[Stratos]

Originally posted by Night Stalker: The context of the tale is absolutely more important than the opinions of PCnazis (oops there it is! [img]tongue.gif[/img] ) today.

Oops, somebody said the 'n-word'. this thread is going down the drain.

[ 01-07-2004, 09:21 AM: Message edited by: Stratos ]

[Timber Loftis]

Skunk, I think P.J. did a better job remaining true to a text than about any movie I have ever personnally seen -- quite hard considering the epic nature of the undertaking. I think your rant is silly considering how wonderful these movies are. I think you create standards you yourself could not live up to, nor could anyone. It's real easy to hate everything, ain't it?