"Gender and race-swapped Middle Earth" Topic

LOL – so the latest trailer for Rings of Power clearly shows that many of the key figures in the 2nd Age have been race- and gender-swapped:

1. Numenor – A race-swapped Tar Miriel is the Queen, Ar Pharazon is mere advisor

2. Moria – a race-swapped Queen Disa rules Moria, a non-race swapped red-haired Dain is like her son or something

3. Elves – A role-swapped Galadriel assumes the actions of both Elrond and Gil-Galad as a sword swinging action hero and army commander, rather than her JRRT described role as a leader and powerful sorceress. Oh, and all the men-folk Elves are why, "Galadriel, why do you keep fighting?" -- and she's all like, "Because there is a tempest in me!" and " I will not be deterred!" and so and such and such. She will not suffer being elf-splained, oh no!!

4. More Elves – a race-swapped elf (original character Arondir) is part of the occupying Elven forces of Palestine…. er, Tar Harad…

5. Ta Harad – made up, but evidently men-folk need a strong woman to lead a revolt against the Elves, or maybe Sauron?? Hard to say.

6. Sauron – still unclear, but he's not going to appear in the form as written by JRRT -- Anatar, a beautiful and charismatic Maiar-like being. Sauron will either be "Halbrand" or the creepy chick dressed in white robes.

7. The House of Elendil and Isildur – two actors who look nothing alike as father and son.

8. Oh and the teaser soundtrack reeks of CW theme music! Awful!

This might be a good generic fantasy show dunno, but it's clearly not Middle Earth when they ignore JRRT's works and have characters with fundamental changes doing things they never did, in places they never went, with people they never met.

Oh, give it up. Everything coming out of Hollywood reflects Hollywood's obsession du jour, and books seldom survive contact with script writers, let alone directors and producers anyway. It's not news, and it paints no miniatures.

And never forget the kid who commented to Faulkner about what Hollywood had done to his books. Faulkner waved at the shelf behind him and said, "but they haven't done anything to me books: they're all right here."

I wonder why Sauron looks like M&M – the rapper, not the candy.

Faulkner was a Hollywood screenwriter.

I wonder why Sauron looks like M&M – the rapper, not the candy.

LOL, yeah, also looks like the kind of creepy meth-head who hits you up for cash at a gas station.

I wonder why Sauron looks like M&M – the rapper, not the candy.

… May I have your attention, please?
May I have your attention, please?
Will the real Slim Sauron please stand up?
I repeat, will the real Slim Sauron please stand up?
We're gonna have a problem here?

…
…
…

… I'm Slim Sauron, yes, I'm the real Sauron
All you other Slim Saurons, are just imitating
So won't the real Slim Sauron, please stand up?
Please stand up, please stand up

M&M, The Real Slim Sauron

Rings of Power will, unavoidably, inevitably, be a product of 2022. They wouldn't make it if they weren't confident of making a buck, and if they tuned it to satisfy the twelve or fourteen Tolkien purists or even the twenty four people who have read all of Tolkien, well, it wouldn't make enough to pay for craft services, to say nothing of all the 1s and 0s.

There's no way I'm not going to watch the first episode. If I like it I'll keep watching, if I'm too annoyed – and I might be even though I have not read the Silmarillion – I'll quit. That seems beyond obvious.

I think they have to turn heroes into sword-slingers. The PJ movies did. It's hard to sell a series that's just people talking to each other. Unless you're making Bridgerton. People assume that a medieval setting has people sword fighting every day. This was never going tone Jane Austen. I can live with this part.

And I don't mind gender-swapping. It can make it fresh. I don't think it means anything.

Changing the race of a character is more fraught. Coming from Earth we assume people have different skin colors because their ancestors spent most of the last millennia in particular latitudes. If you have a society of people with one skin color and one person has a different skin color, it suggests their ancestors are somewhere else. How did they get here? Are they an outsider? How many people in this society share that background? Does it mean anything in their society? If the character's skin color means something, let us know. If it doesn't mean anything are you saying race doesn't mean anything or that race shouldn't man anything? More importantly, am I supposed to presume that this has nothing to do with the main plot or will it have nothing to do with the main plot? Am I watching Othello or A Midsummer Night's Dream?

Happily, I generally find in sci fi and fantasy movies that if they ignore race I can ignore race and the movie will make sense. I am absolutely not sure if that's what they want or if that's what's right, but it makes it possible to watch the film. If they are saying something about race they usually *really* obvious about it, and I can go along or not depending on how unpleasant they are.

I don't think we can predict whether the series will be watchable or not. We just have to watch the first episode. We can certainly predict that a lot of Tolkien fans are going to be mad. That was never not going to happen. Basing Middle Earth on traditional Northern European societies meant that it was going to be all-white and nearly all male. There is absolutely no way you could film that today. If you thought you were going to get that, you are living in a fantasy world, not arguing about one.

Kenneth Branagh recently remade Death On The Nile. That's the fourth time, at least that it's been filmed. It was definitely a product of 2022, but this was handled really well and made the story more interesting. So it is possible.

Vis-a-vis point 5 – Boudica.

Point 7 – don't care, I'm sure there will be worse.

Point 8 – okay, *now* you have me worried.

I know, Parzival. You can get a little feel for him in that period reading Leigh Brackett. They worked in Hollywood at the same time, and together on a script at least once. (Her assessment was that he was very good with story structure, but couldn't write a word of acceptable dialogue.)

But it has nothing to do with how Hollywood treated his books. Might have to do with how he treated other authors' books.

They wouldn't make it if they weren't confident of making a buck, and if they tuned it to satisfy the twelve or fourteen Tolkien purists or even the twenty four people who have read all of Tolkien, well, it wouldn't make enough to pay for craft services, to say nothing of all the 1s and 0s.

I disagree. The LOTR is among the top 10 best selling books in human history, with more than 250,000,000 books sold in over 40 languages. There's a large installed fan base, from hard core to casual fans who should have been a natural audience for RoP. Amazon's choice was easy:

1. Do a good faith adaptation of JRRT's works as Peter Jackson did with the highly acclaimed, x435-award winning (including x5 Oscars) box office blow-out "Lord of the Rings" film trilogy that earned 10x production costs

OR

2. Do their own thing using Middle Earth as a background and marketing tool, as Peter Jackson did with the widely-panned Hobbit Trilogy, which did poorly in the box office, only netted 4x over production costs, and won a paltry 43 film awards.

Looks like they went with Option 2…sigh…

Arjuna cracking me up

Good one

Arjuna
Thank you for that.

'cause people are tired of being lied to.
Amazon: "Hey guys, we're gonna make a LoTR series!"
LoTR Fans: "Yeah!!! oh wait, what the heck is this mess? awww"

Here's what I think is going on – Money and Marketing.

The more licensed characters and content Amazon uses in ROP, the more they have to pay the Tolkien Estate. So to maximize ROI they have to minimize the use of JRRT-created source content.

* That's why most of the characters are "Original Content" and why the settings, stories and timeline have been mashed up beyond recognition.

*They are not courting fans of JRRT's works. Because of the lack of source content and canon-based storylines and characters, they knew the large and established fan base would generally be annoyed or upset -- so they needed to create a new "moral" reason for people to watch.

* That's why they are using pop culture diversity outrage marketing – to divert attention from what they are doing and get people to fixate on shiny objects and peddle shallow diversity claims about the show. They hope to create a cultural-political drive for people to watch the show and to bury the fan base in a storm of outrage marketing and spin, and to draw new people in who want to see what all the fuss is about.

We'll see if it works, I mean, they've certainly spun up the outrage machine -- but will it translate to a large and growing loyal fan based over the planned 5 seasons, or a short term bump followed by a decline of interest as the fickle diversity-outrage fans switch to the next shiny object??

I'm not watching until they cast Morgan Freeman as Ilúvatar.

Or Alanis Morissette as a second choice, as long as she doesn't sing.
I'm not dogmatic.

Did they really wrote Xandir P. Wifflebottom out of the script?

The "Eminem" actor is female. Definitely not Sauron according to the leaks.

Most Tolkien fans have already given up on the Rings of Power.

All indications point to this series looking pretty, but will be a dumb story. There will be initial interest from casual fans, then most likely viewers will tail off. It's a generic fantasy show with LOTR tacked to it for marketing power.

No Tilda Swinton?

She was as archangel Gabriel in Constantine, so it would be appropriate.
Of course the whole film was an atrocity.

"Who are the Black Numenoreans?"

They were those that fell into evil. The term has nothing to do with skin color.

"I'm not watching until they cast Morgan Freeman as Ilúvatar."

That could be very cool.

Seems like cultural vandalism to me. It may have merit on its own but not as Tolkien brought to life on screen.

Here's what a self-proclaimed Tolkien nerd had to say:

"Had the pleasure of joining a theater full of Tolkien fans in watching the first 2 episodes of #TheRingsOfPower . Can't wait to say more, but there were more things for deep lore fans than I expected, and I walked away excited for what's to come.
There are a couple things that I'm still a bit unsold on, but the craftsmanship on display here is very clearly top notch and some very specific concerns I had seem to be much ado about nothing, which is great. Can't wait for everyone to see it so we can talk freely!!"

So perhaps we should just wait and see before we all get our panties in a wad.

There may be some "deep lore" in the prologue. This refers to the Two Trees and so on. It's pretty hard to mess that up if they stick to the source material.
The show runners and producer have already told us the rest of the lore is broken or made up.

Could be worse, they could have had Elvis Elves…

So perhaps we should just wait and see before we all get our panties in a wad.

I'll watch to see what it's like. But there's no "deep lore" or even basic lore in this show from what I have seen in the trailers.

*Galadriel's brother didn't die fighting orcs. He was killed by werewolves/wargs sicced on him by Sauron, and Sauron didn't mark him with a symbol, and he was dead and buried before Galdriel found out. So -- no funeral byre scene of sworn vengeance.

* Galadriel never embarked on a 1000 year quest of vengeance against Sauron

*Gladariel never commanded armies, and wasn't a sword slinger

*Galadriel never traveled to Numenor

*Galadriel never met nor ever allied with Tar-Miriel

So Amazon has ignored JRRT's works, has made fundamental changes to characters and has them doing things they never did, in places they never went, with people they never met.

People enjoying the Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth probably aren't the target audience.

I mean, nowadays Tolkien is just a flavour enhancer for streaming binge food, after all.

Compared to Philip K. Dick Tolkien got off easy.
Allthough, not all, but a lot of film adaptations of his books were entertaining and even intelligent.

I watched the latest trailer again, and I think Amazon designed the Rings of Power based on marketing demographic research rather than around telling a great story. The top advertising demographic is Female viewers from 18-34yo because they are the top spenders.

That explains why the main character roles have been gender swapped, why we see so much "empowerment" content/messaging, and even why the trailer has a CW soundtrack.

telling a great story

Amazon just tells one great story, its own story.
And yes, you're absolutely right, that means they're designing products for special market demographics, not the classic fan base.
Tolkiens works are just raw material, semi-finished goods and a customer base that needs to be expanded and refreshed.

But that doesn't have to be a bad thing necessarily.

There's also no 'rings' at all in season one.

They should have called it 'The adventures of Warrior Galadriel'.

Tolkiens works are just raw material, semi-finished goods and a customer base that needs to be expanded and refreshed.

JRRT's works have sold over 250,000,000 copies in over 40 languages. It is one of the top 10 best selling sets of works in human history. That's a pretty dang large installed customer base.

This (lengthy) video has a great outline of a really good direction Amazon *could* have taken, based on JRRT canon and their licenses. Too bad they didn't hire this guy!!

YouTube link

JRRT's works have sold over 250,000,000 copies in over 40 languages. It is one of the top 10 best selling sets of works in human history. That's a pretty dang large installed customer base.

You're right, it is.
Over decades and probably more than 90% Lord of the Rings books.
Perhaps 9.9% Silmarillion, three third of them read to page 20 and left gathering dust on the book shelf afterwards.
And about 0.1% Unfinished Tales.

A lot of the former owners already dead.

The films are also already twenty years old and its main audience between 35 and 55 years old now.
Amazon has to rejuvenate and broaden it.

For me it's okay, and allthough I read and enjoyed almost all of it I don't consider myself a big fan of Tolkien.
The Jackson films were great, the Hobbit not so, but the franchise moves on nonetheless.

Me too, somewhere else to.

p.s. I still love the BBC Radio dramatisation of The Lord of the Rings from 1981 and its German counterpart.
For me better than everything that came afterwards.

Cecil B deMille took on the Bible

Yes, but that was just the word of the Lord, which you can twist and turn as you like.
The word of Tolkien is something sacred, and no true believer would ever dare to desecrate it by changing it.
I sense a schisma and a comming holy war in the fandom…

Point 5, Tar Harad, I'm pretty sure "Far Harad" is a Middle Earth location. Or it was in the Iron Crown series of adventure modules for MERP.

My Quenya has become a bit rusty lately, but the affix 'tar' has the meaning 'High', 'Queen' or 'King'.

So if it really is Tar-Harad and it is a place, it is fictional, but since Tolkien didn't care much for the southern and eastern areas of the continent, aside from his comment that their population allied with Sauron, I don't think adding reasonably believable locations and people is a problem.
Since Quenya was used, it could be a colonial base of Númenor.

There is not much you will find about those people and places beside:
"Gothmog the lieutenant of Morgul had flung them into the fray; Easterlings with axes, and Variags of Khand, Southrons in scarlet, and out of Far Harad black men like half-trolls with white eyes and red tongues."
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King, "The Battle of the Pelennor Fields"

And the modules for MERP, 'Far Harad, the Scorched Land', 'Hazards of the Harad Wood' and 'Greater Harad Campaign Book' were obviously made up.
Lovingly made up but totally made up.
No one minded at the time.
To be precise, we loved to have them.

Not to mention that the Silmarillion and the Unfinished Tales are not written history, but deliberate mythologies and to a large extent fragments.

Nonetheless, watching the trailers again, they still leave me cold.
Allthough, that could just be me getting old.

The modern Tolkien adaptations have all strayed from the Books.

Arwen is a killer elf ninja in the films-in the books she's great at sowing banners.

The Two Towers film was about 50% (or more) additional storylines not from Tolkien (and very little singing about poor dead Boromir). The elves at Helms Deep – not in the books they weren't.

And The Hobbit? The cross-cultural elf-dwarf love story, I do not recall Tolkien writing such a storyline in The Hobbit.

But it's pointless to cry out for a true adaptation that stays close to the book. If you want that then the BBC Radio adaptation from the 1980s is your best bet (and Brian Sibley even cut Bombadil from that, much to his regret, as he had to fit everything into 13 hours). A film which is all about characters and is 90% dialogue? Fat chance my friends, fat chance.

@Arjuna and @Mingye Louie – I think you are being a bit unfair about The Silmarillion – it was very well advanced since it was, ironically, the book that Tolkien most wanted to get published.

20thmaine, true, but the changes made by PJ did not extend to the main characters, primary plot, or the outcome. For example, the Elves at Helms Deep were a nod by PJ to the War in the North where Elves and Men fought Orcs and Easterlings together, since you can't do a cut away like that. So he stuck the Elves in, they looked cool but were not the focus of the story and they didn't change the outcome of anything.

In contrast, Rings of Power has changed core storylines and has characters doing things they never did, with people they never met, in places they never went.

For example, the whole Tar Harad storyline is a poorly veiled reference to the Israel-Palestine issue because, in a released clip, Arondir is part of an Elven Occupation force in Tar Harad to keep them from going evil again. What the ever-lovin' heck is that?!?!? That's completely fabricated and totally contrary to the nature of the Elves in JRRT's world.

In the end all that really matters is the viewing figures and whether or not the show makes money.

Everything else (and I realise I am currently part of it!) is pointless debate – and I sort of feel that the ire of some big fans of the books is going to have less effect than a flea bite on an Oliphant.

Pointless debate is the beloved realm of nerds!
I mean that in a good way. It's usually a fun thing.
The YouTube trailers are being ratio-ed to hell, so there are many fleas infecting that beast.

RoP will do well, at first, because of brand familiarity and for the "normies" that don't have anything invested except for wanting to be entertained. Remember hobbits? Remember orcs?

There's apparent confusion between an adaptation and 'inspired by'. RoP is not an adaptation. The recent trailers, in fact, declare the series is 'inspired by' Tolkien. This means they made up. This is significant.

Every reasonable person knows an adaptation is not a scene for scene, word for word, replication from book to screen. Change of format equals necessary changes for the sake of pacing, time, budget, etc. A good adaptation retains the themes and spirit of the original.

'Inspired by' means you can use names, places and events and do what you want. RoP uses the absence of evidence as evidence argument.

Using the "bible" analogy. Someone could come up with "Revenge of the Hebrews".
15 year old teenagers, Prince Moses, Earl Jesus and the angel Gabriel gather Jesus's siblings (2 of them are adopted Nubians – how dare you question it, you Bigots) for a 5 year adventure to India. Along the way they must defeat the Sodomites lead by evil Lord Gomorrah. They initially rely on their sword skills (and gather a large body count) but eventually learn they really only needed the power of prayer and faith to defeat evil. Oh, and Jesus's adopted sister, Josephina, becomes the most powerful, because she believes in herself in the final showdown at Stonehenge.

I can claim it's inspired by real characters, supplemented with made-up characters and locations, with time-compression to fill the gaps. Possibly entertaining, but ultimately, nonsense.

So are we making this Jesus The Arse Kicking Barbarian movie or not?

'Cos that pitch sounds awesome.

How do they get from India to Stonehenge – I'm hoping it's some magic carpetride with a lot of bad guys trying to stop them. We could spin that off as a platform-hopping computer game….

There could be money in this Jesus guy…..

So are we making this Jesus The Arse Kicking Barbarian movie or not?

Minimum 7 year HBO series. It will cost $3 USD billion even though it's open source. India to Stonehenge – Prince Moses tinkers with boat building.

Minimum 7 year HBO series. It will cost $3 USD USD billion even though it's open source. India to Stonehenge – Prince Moses tinkers with boat building.

I'll get my people to talk to your people and see if we can't get this the green light….

need to talk to GW about the spin-off Battle Game.

Do we need to push up the love interest side? Maybe Jesus could hook up with a fallen angel who switches sides…or, and go with me on this, a really good-looking Vampire. That could broaden the franchise some….or, no, better yet, a really good looking undead Mummy….with the magical powers that can be passed to Josephina. I'm seeing interlacing story arcs, will 7 seasons be enough?

Jesús, it's going to be the greatest story ever told, I tell ya.

What about an Maria Magdalena story arc?

Will be Lucy Lawless in it?

So who holds the rights right now?

Jesús was Mexican, so whom do we cast?
Something along the young Jenette Goldstein in Aliens II would be great…

Do we need to push up the love interest side? Maybe Jesus could hook up with a fallen angel who switches sides…or, and go with me on this, a really good-looking Vampire. That could broaden the franchise some….or, no, better yet, a really good looking undead Mummy….with the magical powers that can be passed to Josephina. I'm seeing interlacing story arcs, will 7 seasons be enough?

It only makes sense because 18-36 female demographics is everything. Let's do an angel-vampire that glitters in moonlight because that will improve it. Josephina will be stunning, brave and funny. The other characters will say it often so we don't forget. K-Pop and Taylor Swift soundtrack because it must reflect the modern enlightened times.

Good to see Arjuna gets it. He's Executive Producer.

Wow- an angel-vampire.

Man, you are so right for this one!

Good to see Arjuna gets it. He's Executive Producer.

Great!
I'm da man!
Thank you!

Jenette Goldstein would have been absolutely the right guy for that job.
Jewish heritage, looking latino, being female (?) and bodybuildress!

Oh sweet Lord, the dialogues!

"Hey Jesús, have you ever been mistaken for a man?"
"No. Have you, Judas?"

Regarding Schwarzenegger…
YouTube link
Thinking about it,he would be a great Moses!

I like the fallen angel idea:

Fallen Angel: "But Jesus, I'm a fallen angel"
Jesus : "Me too."
FA : "how can that be you hunky arse kicking barbarian?"
J: "Because I've fallen for you baby"

I like the fallen angel idea

Of course, no soul is left or right behind.
We embrace diversity.
Of income streams…
So Barack Obama as Fallen Angel?

Using the "bible" analogy. Someone could come up with "Revenge of the Hebrews".

If you do it well, sure, why not? If you do it poorly and then cry RACISM! MYSOGYNY! and such, then nah.

I wish I could remember the name of a highly entertaining action novel that has recasts Three Wise Men as three Wise Guys (Hit Men) hired by enforcers for King Herod to track down the baby Messiah. They do so have a conversion moment, and end up using their conman and thuggish skills to pose as the Three Wise Men and distract Herod and his men long enough to help Jesus' family escape to Egypt. As the family flees, the Three Wise Guys battle Herod's men in great over the top action scenes, reading it was like watching a John Woo movie with sword and sandal.

The author reached for it -- and got the brass ring! Rings of Power…not so sure.