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"Evil cannot create anything new, it can only spoil and destroy what good forces have invented or created" - J.R.R. Tolkien

I cant wait for a movie that has random white guys cast as members of Shaka Zulu's tribe.

As a black person who actually loves fantasy and has read LOTR and the hobbit, I hate this tokenism. They could have easily used the Haradrim characters (a race of black people who are warriors, pirates, merchants and sailors) that Tolkien created in the amazon show if they wanted more racial diversity but I guess race-swapping dwarves, elves and hobbits is more appropriate........Just more insulting tokenism and mockery to actual black people who like fantasy and all it does is inspire more vitriol towards genuinely good diverse characters.

"The Shadow that bred them can only mock, it cannot make: not real things of its own." -J.R.R. Tolkein

I just realized why the black dwarf woman doesn't have a beard. It's cuz they don't want anyone to think she's a man when she has her lesbian relationship scene with faux-Galadriel.

I agree with the diversity. Can we have Brad Pitt as the next Black Panther?

Replacing the fantasy of Tolkien with the fantasy of intersectional social justice.

Imagine lecturing others about "cultural appropriation" for a decade and then you do THIS. To every european franchise ever.

As a huge Tolkien fan I loved the game shadow of war! Guess what, the 2 dlcs made you play as a strong female character fighting FOR galadriel and the other as baranor a native of haradrim. No one was complaining about that because the people writing the story actually did their due diligence and gave them a logical background that fits within the lore of middle earth. I loved it I wanted more of baranor and his brother I thought they were hilarious and cool and yeah I'm white and cna still relate to and enjoy these characters even though they're black. That game had huuge success surely Amazon can see that fans aren't mad about the color of people's skin they're mad that amazons gonna turn the most amazing world ever into a generic Hollywood fantasy of the "modern age"

There's no hope of me watching the show at this point. I'm absolutely going to ignore it the way I do everything Disney puts out too. It's a shame they have to drag the series through the mud with a half billion dollar project that you absolutely know is going to get half a billion dollars in marketing. It's a nightmare, but I'm happy to see it exposed for the garbage it is.

This was the same issue I had with The Witcher show. Ethnic diversity being forced is bad. How many times do we have to go over this? If you want such characters, don't erase the true aspect of certain characters to make them not who they really are.

They-- they being Elves, Men, Dwarves, Hobbits, Orcs etc.-- are actually referred to as races in Tolkien's mythology; so, already a diverse universe, but, yanno, with *fictional* races and not a 21st century American sociopolitical conception of race...

You were correct.. they are called races. Elves, dwarves, man, hobbits, orcs, goblins..

They’re gonna rewrite Gandalf as a gay transhobbit. You see, that’s why he hung out with the Baggins, he wanted Frodo as his boyfriend.

Beardless dwarf is a half breed agent of Sauron.

This is what Tolkien was trying to warn us about.

*J.R.R. Tolkien to Henry Resnick:* "Rhun is the Elvish word for ‘east.’ Asia, China, Japan, and all the things which people in the west regard as far away. And south of Harad is Africa, the hot countries." 😂 *They shouldn't have changed Hobbits, Eldar or Dwarves to being black-of-skin, when they have the Druedain of Armenelos (could have interpreted them) or the pygmies which Earendil (Elrond's father) encounters in Harad; and even one of the bloodlines of Elros (Elrond's brother) ~* Tolkien based Middle-earth on Northwestern Europe (pre-Roman to be exact), however, there are non-Marachian/Hador (non-white) present within the Second Age of Endor (even the First Age) such as the descendants of the Druedain in Armenelos who travelled with the Edain to Numenor as a reward for fighting Morgoth; the Pygmies which Earendil (Elrond's father) encounters in southern Haradwaith in the Book of Lost Tales; those whom the Blue Wizards interacted with being sent by Manwe to Rhun and Harad; Numenorean expansionism within the inner-West, South and East; the foundation of Numenor's greatest settlement prior to Gondor: Umbar in Far-Harad; Khamul the Easterling before he's given one of the Nine Rings (becomes a Ringwraith); Aldarion's odyssey; Sauron's 500+ years in Rhun after the War of Wrath or the Numenorean bloodlines of Elros (Elrond's brother) who mated with the women of Harad after Eru's destruction of Numenor thus continuing the Numenorean bloodline in Harad for over three long-spanned generations -- the other two major settlements of Elros' kin were in Gondor and Arnor post ~ *How about featuring the descendants of the Easterlings of Bor - those of the First Age who lived in Beleriand amongst the Eldar and other Men - who are the oldest and most ancient men in the north of Eriador (the land that Tolkien based on England) ~* 😂

Female Dwarfs have beards sooo.....

There were even the Dark Elves, which weren't evil but existed before the creation of the sun and so lived for thousands of years in darkness, making them more pale than your average elf. That's about the range of skin colour for elves: white or super white lol.

I really enjoyed Jack Reacher on Amazon. It wasn't woke and stuck fairly close to the first book plot. It's so disappointing LOTR is woke trash

Your last comment is what really sticks in my Craw about these adaptations. I thought Black Panther proved that newly adapted work can perform very, regardless of quality. There are great fantasy stories that are intentionally not mythical Britain which would be ripe for adaptation. I can name dozens that would work and those are just the ones I like. Every time I see a race swap I don't see that as representation. I see that hollywood cynically believes that white characters are the only people worth writing about.

Why do the writers insist that the only way Galadriel can demonstrate her courage is to fight in war herself?

LotR is meant to be even more specific than just a legendarium for the UK, it was meant to be for England.

$10 they had a cast before they even had a script.

For comparison, I would refer you to another fantasy adaptation by Amazon, The Wheel time. That is an interesting one because it was already working off of a world with a racially diverse makeup and a lot of strong female characters. But they had decided that the world still wasn't diverse enough and so they made radical sweeping changes even when it resulted in an incoherent plot.

Tolkiens universe is the greatest story ever told. I cannot express how much this hurts me to see them destroy his life's work. They showed this teaser early to get the wave of backlash out of the way so everybody will forget about it until September. If you all are true fans and dislike what's going on then NEVER EVER stop voicing your opinion. They expect this to pass and we will show them that this is unacceptable.

I want to see a complete recast with only Orlando Bloom as every character.

Where were you when Sauron attacked the free people of Middle earth? Sean: I was in a car dealership fighting over frame damage

Where are all of the diverse dwarves and elves during the lord of the rings? Genocide?

J.R.R.Token's The Queens of the Slay.

"There's no love in this." That sentence alone wraps up pretty much all modern media/unnecessary IP revivals

As an Englishman it is quite amusing to see an American corporation take what is essentially English myth and turn it into something completely foreign, it’s like if you were watching black panther (I would argue this is somewhat an African mythology although maybe it’s more a black American mythology) and half of the characters were white or Asian without any explanation or reason. Tolkien did actually include non English races in the world of middle earth but they lived outside of the region that LotR focuses on so Amazon are either so lazy that they couldn’t be bothered to even read LotR to make the show or are fundamentally hostile to Tolkien’s mythology.

Lord of the *genderless* “things”

Prequels, these days, are about as interesting as eating your day old puke..

Pls let this be a joke. Don't fuck up the Lord of the Rings.

This isn't Lord of the Rings. It lawd of them rangs: rangs of powah. FNT meme.

This takes place in the past right? Good! That means the minorities got wiped out, and thus, LOTR became good.

"Why Dwarven bread lines are a *good* thing."

Actually, since this show is supposed to be thousands of years before the Rings trilogy, and Tolkien felt that going forward in time isn't necessarily better, then knowing that all this woke crap will be destroyed in the next couple thousand years makes sense. ;-)

Why don't you just have the darker humans from those parts of middle earth.. enter the story? Or tell a story partially from those tribes of men's perspective? Why did they join Sauron? How did he trick them into being his army? That's actually something I would be interested in. Maybe the blue elves make an apearance. the answer is.. they are lazy. they do not want or care to actually have to come up with something creative. this is a cash grab, and their model is based on the hate clicks. They just want to ruin something beautiful like they always do. I do not think it will work out well for them. They also don't care about the money. Amazon is just virtue signalling ultimately. And they have all the money in the world to do so.

If you really like Tolkien then don't watch this series. Just read the books. The books are better than any film or cartoon.

How the fuck doesthe pre-Hobbit world not know about wonders in a time when massive dragons and mountain sized spider godlings stride the earth laying waste to everything, including the giant vampires, werewolves, angels, demons, and magic items that are quite literally everywhere? This is like a squire for King fucking Arthur complaining that he wants to see something truly epic, instead of Mystic Kings, enchantresses, knights, wizards, and magic.

I can’t (can) believe they butchered one of my favorite franchises like this.

Love how they're trying to take the fantasy out of a fantasy series.

"There is no curse in Elvish, Entish, or the tongues of Men for this buffonery."

Black Panther should be recast with a more diverse cast too. Since the untimely passing of star, Chadwick Boseman, his life spirit should be passed on to a non-binary, non-cisgender, vente, soy late, caramel, frappe chino, trans-Lion. Don’t judge!

The little girl Frodo Baggins is actually Elijah Wood after he had a "gender correction" procedure and now identifies as a 9-year-old.

Every single thing from this trailer highlights things from Tolkien’s lore they they have changed. Every character shown is a race swap or gender swap or some nonsensical attack against the LoTR universe. This is total garbage.

So this is what they're doing instead of giving the people what they want? Invincible season 2

According to the trailer this is "Before the Ring" but the show is called The Rings of Power... I hate this meme but, Tell me you didn't read the source material without telling me you didn't read the source material.

The woman climbing up the ice cliff by the waterfall is supposed to be Galadriel, I believe.

"Haven't you ever wondered what's out there? Like....black elves and...black Dwarves and....black Hobbits and....lesbian trees!"

We wuz dwarfs n shieeeeee

I'm calling it. That shot of the woman climbing an ice wall is supposed to be Galadriel during the crossing of the Helcaraxe.

6:19 the fact that you pronounced our name correctly Shawn I am impressed and it is very much appreciated.

Black elf just doesn’t sit right with me. It’s really disrespectful to the source material.

We wus dwarf kangz n sheit

Whats really odd is the fact they sent those photos to vanity fair and I dont think thats the target demographic for Lord Of The Rings nerd culture. Unless Lord of the Rings fans read vanity fair

Hollywood: But AJW, those other IP's don't have huge fan bases for us to exploit and preach down to

I will say that there is a dark elf in Tolkien's mythos. He ended up stealing the king's daughter holding her prisoner having a child with her and then laid a curse on the eleven kingdom that later caused it's ruin for some reason though I don't think amazon is planning on portraying that dark elf and his story.

So how does it feel to be in an Internet Comment Etiquette video?

To be fair, Galadriel may be on the icy mountain cliff, wearing armor, using her dagger to hold on for dear life, because she was just in a battle of some kind. Probably took a toss off the side of a mountain path while tangled up with some offscreen enemy. Galadriel in armor is still weird though. Don Lemon Elf is the weirdest however and my knee jerk reaction is to dismiss the entire show.

A coworker asked if I saw the trailer and if I was excited about the show. "I'm not interested in LotR fan-fiction" was my reply.

next upcoming projects from Amazon: - Wakanda Forever ( where the cast are mostly white and asian) - Romance of Three Kingdoms - famous chinese lore ( where the cast are mostly black and latinos) all in the name of diversity lol.....

“Evil is not capable of creating anything new, it can only distort and destroy what has been invented or made by the forces of good.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

“yaaaass queen..” I’m dead lmao ☠️

For Amazon, the golden goose is Prime. If you don't attack Prime, they won't feel it. I just dropped my Prime membership. I'm not on Twitter, but I'd love someone who is to share the tag #notprimetime to start a Prime boycott over this.

if we don't import orcs how will hobbit culture survive?

The only issue with this I have as an Actual Tolkien fan is that you give a single ounce of credit to the complete disgusting insult that is the movie adaptations. Shame…

Diversity Shire The Movie!

Frieda Vaggins, am I right?

Amazon already tried that with Wheel of Time. I couldn't even get through the first half of the first episode. It was so boring and bland.

A D&D series like American Horror Story, where each season is a new campaign with new actors. That's how you get your diversity without ruining an established epic.

Sauron will probably come out as transgender by episode 2.

Don't give it a chance! That's exactly the problem..if we keep 'give the the benefit of the doubt' they win, all they care about are the numbers. Give them the viewing numbers and That's all they give a crap about...

LoTR already has "black" people. The come from the southern kingdoms and were partially conquered by Sauron. The blue wizards went there (Africa) and to Rhun (Asia) to help those people in the same way Gandalf helps the men of the west... I want to see that story... Edit: There is a lot of room for dark skinned dwarves as well because of the eastern and southern dwarven clans.

Damn you Hollywood, stop ruining all our nice things! What a crappy time it is to be alive... Thank God for old shows and movies that would never be made today.

I’m disappointed they didn’t have someone in a wheelchair scaling a mountain.

We don't even watch any kind of new movies or shows we watch reruns and just satisfied doing so.

Great fantasy novel that's "diverse", includes disabled, black women, etc etc... "The Blade Itself" by Joe Abercrombie

You know our culture has ceased to advanced when basically all art, films and media being produced currently sucks and actually regresses in quality. Hopefully Ben Shapiro can rebuild the lost film industry with his own company.

Black Hebrew Gondorians "Suaruman was a black man" *TRUE!* "Sauron is the one true ruler!" *TRUE!*

The thing that bugs me the most is actually how they got Galadriel wrong!!

"We will make Middle Earth great again." - Sauron, apparently

I like the points you make in the videos, different from all the others on the internet. On the choices they made for the casting, the critical drinker video is the one explaining it best.

Remember this comment (it has some nerd stuff so brace yourself) The one character that looks like he belongs is that red-headed dwarf. That's Durin, which for the dwarves is a revered name given only to dwarves of such epicness and importance that they literally believe he is a reincarnation of the original Durin, who was essentially a demigod for their race. I personally *guarantee* you that Durin, who is supposed to be a reincarnation of Dwarven epicness, is made to look foolish, weak, and pathetic next to the *black, beardless "dwarve" queen.* It's as sure thing as betting on the Globetrotters to win.

Imagine that there's elf Africa and through thousands of years of evolution black elfs became a thing

The characters look weak. A fat bleep female dwarf queen? Give me a break, there are no female dwarves, they spring out of the ground per Gimli. There are no bleeps in Sweden so how could there be any in the Elven race? This whole mixing of races is anti-science. LOTR WAS my favorite franchise...

The saddest part about the abomination Amazon has made is that they could had easily created in canon lore stories about POCs by setting the stories in Harad and Rhun which were never explored storywise in the books. Imagine seeing how the people of those lands lived and center it around those that resisted and resented Morgoth and Sauron's call since both saw them as nothing more than arrow fodder since canons didn't exist yet. Imagine also since those parts of Arda were not covered in length one can then bring in lore from those regions for example the Oliphants that we saw in the movies we could see Olyphant riders and trainers using Oliphants to build structures such as a bridge and then have Rok attack them (A Rok was a mythological giant bird that hunted and ate elephants so huge it could had gone toe to toe with Smaug. But no they chose to ditch the canon lore entirely and repaint white characters instead.🙄 Its because of 💩 for brains creators like these and megacorporations supporting them that instead of having an Static Shock movie we get a repainted Clark Kent/Superman instead. This Baizuo era we live under just sucks monkey balls.

This isn't as diverse as it should be. There's not nearly enough Native Americans, western Asians and Central & South Americans. Until I see those represented in the Elvin population I won't be satisfied. Failing to cast Taylor Lautner as Elrond is a horrible missed opportunity. All joking aside, I actually think that casting would have made it far more humorous.

Wait, they want to take out the magic and make it "more realistic" DURING THE AGE OF MAGIC? THERE IS LITERALLY A FUCKING DRAGON THE SIZE OF A MOUNTAIN IN THE TOLKIEN UNIVERSE!

I don't want to see black or Maori hobbits in the same way that I don't want to see a white tribe of Wakandans in Black Panther, or male Amazons in Wonder Woman.

I just hope women's menstrual cycle is a topic in the script. I mean elves have children they must menstruate. I want a scene of galadrial washing her fufu between battles it would be so powerful and brave.

Not even worth 'stealing.' 😅🤣

When Ben Shapiro is the only one making new shit and trying to be creative and authentic I think it's safe to say Hollywood is an old money corpse of it's old self.

I'm amazed at the Lefties. They FINALLY managed to explicitly make a character's skin color the problem with that Black Elf and deformed Dwarf.

This will almost definitely become non canon horse shite.

If it ain't broke don't fix it. People were happy with the original trilogy so make it similar to that. Now people are cynical due to what they did to Star Wars and other beloved franchises.

4:56 Am I the only one that feels like it's super obvious that this shot is of a woman just lazily leaning up against a vertical surface pretending to be hanging when she's obviously just standing on solid ground? Lol, Idk about y'all, but it just seems bizarrely obvious, when you'd think an actress could at least put a little effort into making it seem as if she's hanging from this dagger against a vertical wall. Idk, maybe make it look at least a little more physically difficult. She's making it look waaay too easy. Also Sean makes good points too, she would be absolutely freezing her tits off, this would be absolutely miserable lmao. Idk if the actress, or the direction is to blame, but if I were directing, I would've made this shot out to make her look as if she's really struggling with this because... Just imagine being in that situation lol, it would obviously be fucking miserable.