The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (Prime)

[Jono8]

How exactly? If a company is adding Real Life elements into a show, at least be consistent and have sound reasons why. A black dwarf doesn't make sense in the same way a black human would.

Why doesnt a black dwarf make sense? It is a FANTASY world with talking trees and elephant sized spiders.

 

[Jono8]

They literally have quotas and percentages...it's right in front of your eyes!

"Where the story allows", they "aim" to. That still doesn't mean they definitely chose the actors they did because of it.

They way melanin works in the real world is not a reason to exclude black people from being elves/dwarves from an adaption of a story about wizards and power rings.

 

[C Kent]

Why doesnt a black dwarf make sense? It is a FANTASY world with talking trees and elephant sized spiders.

In the world created by Tolkien? it's already been explained to you numerous times, but for whatever reason you are just choosing to ignore it.

 

[Throrik]

I'm enjoying elements on this - but too much Harfoots in it for me, I wanted something mainly focused around Men/Elves/Dwarfs. Not a big fan of the look of the majority of the Dwarfs either, very Hobbit-esque in their design. The modern haircuts boggle my mind still, doesn't take anything away from the story I know but still. Not sure who smoked a lot of longbottom leaf when they decided to do that weird horse slow-mo scene. I can see this getting better as it goes, and into a second season though.

 

[fez]

Not sure who smoked a lot of longbottom leaf when they decided to do that weird horse slow-mo scene.

Morfydd Clark is a massive fan of horses and had it written into her contract that she gets one goofy horse riding scene of her choice per season.

 

[Jono8]

In the world created by Tolkien? it's already been explained to you numerous times, but for whatever reason you are just choosing to ignore it.

A. Im still yet to be given a direct quote from Tolkien that says there was never any and could not be any black elves or dwarves, let alone a quote from his book where he explained that melanin works exactly the same in his fantasy world, as it did in the real one.

B. Even if he did, it is Amazon's adaption of his work. Have Amazon claimed to be doing a direct and 100% faithful copy of his work?

 

[VincentHanna]

B. Even if he did, it is Amazon's adaption of his work. Have Amazon claimed to be doing a direct and 100% faithful copy of his work?

Essentially they have the rights to Fellowship, Two Towers, Return of the King and the appendices.

They are essentially making up what happened in the second age, but based on what little is written about it:

We took all these little clues and thought of them as stars in the sky that we then connected to write the novel that Tolkien never wrote about the Second Age,” Payne says. The duo cites songs like “The Fall of Gil-galad” or “The Song of Eärendil” or Fellowship chapters like “The Council of Elrond” and “The Shadow of the Past” or the “Concerning Hobbits” section of the prologue as sources for significant lore dumps. Beyond the premiere, there aren’t, however, any significant time jumps or, thus far, episode-long journeys to the past. The rights to the First Age material from The Silmarillion are still owned by the Tolkien estate.

 

[C Kent]

A. Im still yet to be given a direct quote from Tolkien that says there was never any and could not be any black elves

"They were a race high and beautiful the older Children of the world, and among them the
Eldar were as kings, who now are gone: the People of the Great Journey, the People of the Stars. They were tall, fair of skin and grey-eyed, though their locks were dark, save in the golden house of Finrod; and their voices had more melodies than any mortal voice that now is heard"
RotK - Appendices F

let alone a quote from his book where he explained that melanin works exactly the same in his fantasy world, as it did in the real one.

How about the many many times that Tolkien himself stated that Middle Earth was an alternative representation of earth prehistory, "a different state of imagination" I think were the words he used, and of course you also have that the world and people within it were all drawn from Northern European folklore.

Pretty good interview with Tolkien himself from 1964

B. Even if he did, it is Amazon's adaption of his work. Have Amazon claimed to be doing a direct and 100% faithful copy of his work?

Why spend 1 billion plus on a well-known IP only to just go and change many things about it? Why not use one of the many other great fantasy series out there that doesn't have a fanbase that detests change? Or I don't know, spend a billion on creating a new IP where Amazon can set the rules?

Edit: all I wanted was a well written, well acted tv show, and for the billion plus that this is costing Amazon surely that wasn't too much to ask for? Given the amount of people watching this is only going in one direction I expect many other people just wanted the same, but I guess tv viewership is like a stone eh.

 

[Darujhistan]

"Where the story allows", they "aim" to. That still doesn't mean they definitely chose the actors they did because of it.

No of course it doesn't!

 

[Darujhistan]

I'm enjoying elements on this - but too much Harfoots in it for me, I wanted something mainly focused around Men/Elves/Dwarfs. Not a big fan of the look of the majority of the Dwarfs either, very Hobbit-esque in their design. The modern haircuts boggle my mind still, doesn't take anything away from the story I know but still. Not sure who smoked a lot of longbottom leaf when they decided to do that weird horse slow-mo scene. I can see this getting better as it goes, and into a second season though.

The Elves design is terrible (irrespective of skin colour) - they just like humans with pointy ears, the haircuts and costumes are also very poor. The Harfoots are a meme at this point, nothing about their "society" makes any sense.

 

[Dis86]

God so much nonsense about the race of characters.

Who cares as long as: a character is as described in source material (if a new character create whatever you want) and that the actor is actually decent at the role.

Neither of which are met in certain examples.

 

[Greebo]

The Elves design is terrible (irrespective of skin colour) - they just like humans with pointy ears, the haircuts and costumes are also very poor. The Harfoots are a meme at this point, nothing about their "society" makes any sense.

Well its totally made up and new by Amazon

Tolkein described the Harfoots as:

Harfoots are one of the three breeds of Hobbits. The Harfoots were the most common and typical of the kinds.

They were shorter and smaller than the other breeds, browner of skin, had no beards, and did not wear any footwear; Their hands and feet were neat and nimble. They liked highlands and hillsides, and lived in holes they called smials, a habit which they long preserved. They were accustomed to settle in one place longer.

They were also on very friendly terms with the Dwarves, who travelled through the High Pass on the Great Road.

In their earliest known history, the Harfoots lived in the lower foothills of the Misty Mountains in the Vales of Anduin, in an area roughly bounded by the Gladden River in the south and the small forested region where later was the Eagle's Eyrie near the High Pass to the north.

They were the first to migrate westward into Eriador, beginning thus the Wandering Days of the Hobbit peoples[1]. They were first recorded in Arnorian records around T.A. 1050 and it was to them that the name Periannath (Halflings) was first applied by the Dúnedain of Arnor.

They tended to settle down for long times, and founded numerous villages[source?] as far as Weathertop while at the same time their kin were still back in the Vales.[1] By the 1300s of the Third Age they had reached Bree, which long was the most western village of any Hobbits.

The Harfoots were joined between T.A. 1150 and T.A. 1300 by the Fallohides. The Harfoots took Fallohides, a bolder breed, as their leaders.

When the Shire was colonized in T.A. 1601, most of its people were Harfoots.

So Harfoots tended to stay in one place, maybe for centuries and live in holes and then move onto a new place. So Amazon have thrown that out for their artistic/storyline telling.

And from Tolkeins description if Amazon had made all the Harfoots Indian in appearance they could have justified that easily. So people shouldnt be so upset at Lenny Henry being cast, they should be more upset about all the white Harfoots if they want to be true to Tolkein.

They were probably still brown by the time of LOTR so it really could be said Peter Jackson got the casting all wrong going with white actors to play Hobbits.

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

Well its totally made up and new by Amazon

Tolkein described the Harfoots as:

Wash your mouth / typing fingers with soap

Everyone knows they should be white, appear as middle class, and wear mainly tweed clothing in a 60s landed gentry style.

 

[Darujhistan]

Well its totally made up and new by Amazon

I think we can just leave it at that!

 

[C Kent]

They were probably still brown by the time of LOTR so it really could be said Peter Jackson got the casting all wrong going with white actors to play Hobbits.

Apart from Frodo/Sam/Bilbo/Merry/Pippin et all being described as being white, yeah sure[
It wasn't just PJ either, the original trilogy had Shippey attached, you know the no 1 guy on the planet for Tolkien stuff - the same guy that left this project a month or 2 after being hired, think we now know why.

I think we can just leave it at that!

Indeed

 

[Darujhistan]

Wash your mouth / typing fingers with soap

Everyone knows they should be white, appear as middle class, and wear mainly tweed clothing in a 60s landed gentry style.

Well you have the scruffy, sociopathic, nonsensical boring, Irish baiting Hobbits of your dreams then! Rejoice!

I know which representation of Hobbit 99% of people will prefer, and which representation will be remembered forever.



I've been over talking about the poor casting choices for ages, I'm right, the casting is aesthetically incorrect, it is not in the spirit of Tolkien and the great man would be appalled. Others may differ in opinion, and that is fine, but I know which viewpoint will stand the test of time, I know when people think of Tolkien they will not think of human looking elves with modern haircuts, they will think of Jackson's majestic ethereal Elves and of what JRRT wrote.

So come on then, Instead of trying to send everyone down the Hobbit hole of race AGAIN, which seems to be the favourite tactic of amazon stans at the moment...

Tell me why you think the show is good?

 

[Jono8]

They were probably still brown by the time of LOTR so it really could be said Peter Jackson got the casting all wrong going with white actors to play Hobbits.

I wonder why there was never any uproar about that from the same people....

 

[Greebo]

Apart from Frodo/Sam/Bilbo/Merry/Pippin et all being described as being white, yeah sure
Indeed

Did he? Where? AFAIK Tolkien never described Frodo/Sam/Bilbo/Merry/Pippin as being white and there was a lot of controversy over Peter Jackson's casting in the Hobbit at the time and the casting director was fired for only auditioning white actors for the roles.

This week, the casting director of "The Hobbit" was fired for turning away a woman of Pakistani descent for being too dark to play a hobbit. The agent also placed an advertisement in a New Zealand newspaper seeking extras with "light skin tones."

"We are looking for light-skinned people. I’m not trying to be … whatever. It’s just the brief. You’ve got to look like a Hobbit," said the agent in video footage captured during auditions. After the person in question was fired, producer and director Peter Jackson distanced himself from the casting director, who remains unnamed.

"The crew member in question took it upon themselves to do that and it’s not something we instructed or condoned,” said a spokesman from Jackson's production company. "No such instructions were given."

Peter Jackson’s production company released a statement clarifying that the casting director had acted totally alone, and that it had never made any explicit specifications that they should only be auditioning white people. All it ever did was make three Lord Of The Rings films without any black people.

 

[Rroff]

They were probably still brown by the time of LOTR so it really could be said Peter Jackson got the casting all wrong going with white actors to play Hobbits.

Events of LOTR was over 1000 years later to the founding of the Shire with quite a few changes hence referred to as Hobbits rather than Harfoots - although likely more diverse than the all white cast of the PJ movies.

Personally don't care so much about the colour of the skin - I do care when race or social justice themes and so on are shoehorned in for external reasons/virtue signalling.

 

[Dis86]

Well its totally made up and new by Amazon

Tolkein described the Harfoots as:



So Harfoots tended to stay in one place, maybe for centuries and live in holes and then move onto a new place. So Amazon have thrown that out for their artistic/storyline telling.

And from Tolkeins description if Amazon had made all the Harfoots Indian in appearance they could have justified that easily. So people shouldnt be so upset at Lenny Henry being cast, they should be more upset about all the white Harfoots if they want to be true to Tolkein.

They were probably still brown by the time of LOTR so it really could be said Peter Jackson got the casting all wrong going with white actors to play Hobbits.

So again...browner of skin which I pointed out dozens of pages back. It doesn't say brown of skin or black of skin. Browner. The implication from this is probably more Mediterranean in appearance since hobbits are still descended from the men of the North. And if they are Indian, fine but the point is that as an immobile, closed and isolated society you'd expect their appearances to be somewhat regular.

Note that the guys from the trilogy aren't harfoots.