When Tolkien woke up – E24

Episodes of Strength: The Most Expensive TV Series Ever Sowed Identity Politics and Harvested a Storm.

The three films based on The Lord of the Rings are among the biggest box office successes of all time. Amazon owner Jeff Bezos is definitely a huge fan. He thought more Tolkien would be a great way for Amazon to challenge Netflix and HBO. As far as I know, unfortunately he only had the copyright to the parts and the footnotes.

The result is The Rings of Power, which premieres this fall on Amazon TV. The series claims to be “inspired” by Tolkien’s “Kun”. Not since Star War: The Rise of Skywalker (2019) has had a major investment that had so many negative expectations before launch.

got the trailer Tens of thousands of negative comments. A quote attributed to J.R.R. Tolkien is displayed again: “Evil cannot create anything new, they can only corrupt and destroy what good powers have invented or made.” Tolkien never wrote this, it seems to be a paraphrase of something Frodo says in The Lord of the Rings.

I almost forgot to say it: If you don’t know who Frodo is, you might as well stop reading here. So what’s the problem? This is either very simple or very complex. The simple explanation is to tap the mind.

In this novel, Tolkien’s fans are “Samon”. They can’t stand seeing dark-skinned people in Tolkien’s world and they can’t stand seeing strong female characters. They simply cannot stand “representation” and “fairness” – a manipulative word that has no equivalent in Norwegian.

This is the story of culture journalists. I suspect this may have something to do with the fact that accusations of racism against entire groups produce hate speech as effectively as the real thing. The articles themselves are also written, and the story is included in the Amazon promotional package.

Perhaps it is a bonus that the journalist does not have to read Tolkien’s notebook. Amazon has tried to put artificial turf on negative public opinion through paid influencers, dressed as “super fans”. Things did not go well. Influencers, as they are known, are rarely voracious readers.

On the other hand: a number of YouTube phenomena have found a niche where they butcher entertainment in order to “wake up”. Sometimes that is appropriate. Someone had to point out that The Umbrella Academy is intolerant, clumsy and malicious. On the other hand, the new Predator movie has been unreasonably underrated.

Is it okay to change skin color, change gender, and highlight the advantages of one gender over another when portraying a well-known story? Is it okay if Super Girl isn’t white like in the cartoon? This straight becomes gay in the Sandman? That skinny girls are physically stronger than muscular guys? Most will say yes.

Is it okay to set aside quotas for people of color in historical places where there were no people of color? I guess it depends on whether you think this is a falsification of history, or whether you think historical films always talk more about when they were made than they claim to show.

The Bridgeton series could not have been produced any time other than now, yet it is not much criticized, as it detracts from its self-worth. “Batuman” exaggerated and became a joke. I will admit that I have mixed opinions. If it “works”, I’m forgiving. When it rains, turn it off.

Good taste is dead anyway. Hollywood is too commercial. Quality is only measured by money. If people want to escape from reality, they should have it. Best of all, they’re definitely superheroes in hilarious CGI-soaked underwear. Hollywood makes almost nothing else.

Perhaps that’s why TV series are about to take over cinemas. Commentator Alexis Bechard has argued that the true golden age of television began in the 2000s, as a result of improvements in both computer-generated painting and storytelling, as well as the emergence of reliable streaming services.

Which is why Amazon chose to make Tolkien TV, rather than make a new movie cycle. That is why they now have high shoulders. Lately, American pop culture has had an extraordinary number of successes with projects that didn’t even make the money it cost them to achieve.

Strong advocates believe that anti-wake YouTubers like The Critical Drinker are keeping fans away from movies they should like. The traditional reviewers seem to have lost their credibility. No wonder: When was the last time you watched a Norwegian movie that scored less than four dice?

OK. We therefore agree that it is common for ethnic and sexual minorities to be included in films and series. And let’s say it was neither harmful nor profitable, as critics and supporters of the phenomenon would like.

But why, then, does Tolkien’s new interpretation create such strong feelings? This is partly due to the fact that Tolkien was a professor at Oxford who created a world of minute detail. He invented whole languages, drew historical lines dating back thousands of years. Every seed, every event gave meaning.

Tolkien fans know this because we immersed ourselves in it. We know the sources. We feel ownership of Tolkien’s world and want to respect it. The Lord of the Rings films told Tolkien’s story. That’s why they’re likable and that’s why it gets embarrassing when Amazon “updates” Tolkien’s wallet to Woke.

There is one more thing, something few people know about. Tolkien wrote The Lord of the Rings as a legend of Britain. He was an expert on the Norse sagas, Volospa, Finnish Kelavala, and German Nibelungenlied and Beowulf. He wanted the British to have such a basic text.

Borrowing from them all, he wrote the greatest epic story ever, a gift to the English – an origin legend. And he succeeded! It is important, then, that Galadriel is not a maid of armor, that female dwarves have beards and that hobbits are not dark-skinned. This is where Amazon seems to have gotten it wrong.

Because there are people with dark skin. In Tolkien’s world, female warriors and non-sexual characters have settled the Amazon and created new ‘progressive’ heroes. And apparently they did it to get Woke warriors into Hollywood. Tolkien’s work is legendary, and has nothing to do with our times.

Well, Britain has become a “nation of immigrants”. Well, the British identity is reduced to a common and small multiple. Well, the English identity is being dismantled and devalued. But here the Amazon intervenes and takes away from the indigenous people their legendary past.

Some people will feel the need for sarcasm when they read this, but bear with me. In a Nobel Prize lecture in 1995, historian Helen Carrier de Encos warned that the Russian nation paid the price for communism “with its vitality, in fact, with its very existence.” Minorities were allowed to cultivate their own uniqueness, but not Russians.

Carrier warned in 1992 that this could generate intolerant Russian nationalism. And she was right! Nationalism, as it is known, derives its strength from resentment – in being denied something that truly belongs to it. This is why trying to breed “franchise” evokes such strong emotions.

Because Tolkien is more than a privilege, he is a culture. This is why self-indulgent actors’ monologues about how important it is to be, personally, this ‘first’ this or that – are met with utter fury.

Amazon now wants to know if it’s “wake up = broken”. They should earn $150 million a season minimum. The question is whether Tolkien’s audience – which includes most fans of fiction – will be captivated by them. Those who want to redeem the future by falsifying the past are in danger of perishing in the present.