But records are made to be broken, they say—and it seems likely that Amazon Studios’ Rings of Power series will soon surpass Peter Jackson’s Battle of the Five Armies as the worst vandalism of Tolkien ever committed to film. The earliest reports on the series were discouraging enough; practically from the moment the project was announced, ominous portents began to escape from Amazon Studios like flames shooting from Mount Doom.
The showrunners originally brought Tom Shippey—Anglo-Saxonist, medievalist, and one of the preeminent Tolkien scholars of his generation—in to serve as a consultant; he parted ways with the show by April of 2020. Two novice writers were hired to pen the sprawling series, even though neither had a single IMDb credit to their name. The studio hired “intimacy coaches” to help prepare actors for nude scenes.
Now Vanity Fair has given readers their first glimpse behind the scenes of the series—and it looks very much as though fans’ worst fears will soon be realized. But before considering the full range of catastrophic decisions made by the showrunners, let us pause to consider one controversial decision that may actually be defended: the introduction of characters never named or imagined by Tolkien. Granted, the invention of new characters may turn out to be a problem in fact, but it need not be on principle. It is in the nature of a great tale—the legend of Arthur, or the tale of Troy—to inspire imitators, continuators, and even (in a sense) collaborators. (Read more.)
From The Federalist:
The trailer, photos, and article all suggest “The Rings of Power” will deviate drastically from Tolkien’s appendices, not only by introducing a racially diverse cast of characters that makes no sense in Tolkien’s mythology, but also by compressing thousands of years of Middle Earth history into a few truncated storylines, creating completely new characters, and introducing hobbits (nonsensically calling them harfoots, one of three breeds of hobbits) eons before any hobbits migrated over the Misty Mountains into Arnor.
It’s easy to dismiss these complaints as so much nit-picking from Tolkien nerds, and to some extent maybe it is. But this will be the most expensive TV series ever produced, adapted from the most celebrated work of fantasy literature ever published, a work beloved by millions of people all over the world that has no equal in the English language. What happens with this series isn’t some trifling thing, it’s a major cultural event that deserves serious consideration, whatever one thinks of Tolkien’s novels or Peter Jackson’s film adaptations of them.
So when Amazon’s Lindsey Weber, executive producer of the series, tells Vanity Fair, “It felt only natural to us that an adaptation of Tolkien’s work would reflect what the world actually looks like,” in reference to casting a black elf and a black dwarven princess (without a beard!) and a black hobbit, because “Tolkien is for everyone,” it should set off alarm bells. (Read more.)
From The Imaginative Conservative:
The death-culture of Mordor, like the death-culture of the Tech Tyranny, seeks to wipe out genuine cultural diversity, the multifarious fruits of the folk cultures of the free peoples of the world, each in their own hobbit-sized shires, in order to replace it with a one-size-fits-all “multicultural” monoculture in which nobody sings their own songs but everyone listens to globally marketed “world” music. This “multiculturalism” which the Tech Tyrant is imposing upon the Shire in Middle-earth and the shires of the world is nothing but the cultural imperialism of the globalist plutocracy. It ploughs down all the beautiful and multifarious flowers of authentic local and national culture, replacing it with one brand of bland monochromatic monoculture. It is the replacement of the spectrum of colours with fifty shades of grey.
It should go without saying that those with a modicum of freedom-loving sanity and wisdom will steer clear of this new “adaptation” of The Lord of the Rings, which might be likened to one of the palantír stones, the so-called seeing stones which allow the Dark Lord to feed his propaganda to anyone stupid enough to peer into them. Denethor spent so much time staring into one of these stones that he believed the Dark Lord’s victory to be inevitable, committing suicide in an act of abject despair. It is no coincidence that the word palantír means “far-seeing” and can be translated as television, which was surely Tolkien’s intention. Choosing to watch the Tech Tyrant’s palantír version of The Lord of the Rings is playing with fire. It is taking the Denethor option. It would be much better to make a silent protest against this latest desecration of Middle-earth by picking up a copy of Tolkien’s classic and reading or re-reading it. Doing so will not only shame the devil and his globalist servants, it will lead us closer to the God to whom Tolkien points in what he described as his “fundamentally religious and Catholic work”. (Read more.)
Also from Crisis:
Dystopian fiction can offer a curious consolation in dark times. There is comfort of a sort in the knowledge that our current troubles were foreseen by others: this shows, if nothing else, the evils of our age are not as chaotic as they sometimes seem. On the contrary, they conform to a pattern that can be predicted and perhaps even evaded. Indeed, I imagine many of my readers habitually compare 21st century America to a favored dystopian world: A Brave New World or 1984 or The Lord of the World. Today, I write to propose another: J.R.R. Tolkien’s Akallabêth, the tale of the fall of Númenor.
Suggesting the Silmarillion as an analogue to contemporary politics is admittedly counterintuitive. As Tolkien repeatedly insisted, he did not write allegory at all—much less overtly political allegory on the model of Animal Farm. But this does not mean that his works have no relevance for the world we live in. Tolkien’s native intellect, his learning, and (above all) his practical faith gave him a keen insight into human nature—man’s glory and frailty, and his distressingly predictable patterns of sin. It is therefore reasonable to suspect that Tolkien’s tale of the fall of Númenor—the greatest and most glorious kingdom of men in his imagined world—might tell us something about the decline of America—the greatest power the world has yet seen. (Read more.)
From The Daily Signal:
The creators of “Rings of Power” have made it clear why they made this choice. In an interview with Vanity Fair, the show’s executive producer, Lindsey Weber, said, “It felt only natural to us that an adaptation of Tolkien’s work would reflect what the world actually looks like.”
Which world? Why, our modern world, of course.
In the views of leftists like Weber, Middle-earth—a world heavily steeped in the ancient mythology of Tolkien’s native British Isles—should resemble 2022 New York or San Francisco. Diversity must be shoved into places it doesn’t fit; original source material be damned.
The treatment of established characters isn’t much better. Galadriel, an elf depicted by Cate Blanchett in director Peter Jackson’s “The Lord of the Rings” film trilogy, has had her personality radically shifted.
Gone is the ethereal and graceful Galadriel from Tolkien’s work. She’s been replaced by a generic fantasy warrior, a carbon copy of a million other “empowered” female characters in today’s fantasy landscape. Weber and her team seem to believe that for a female character to be strong, she must be a physically imposing warrior. In other words, she must be a man. Yet, Galadriel radiates power in her film and book depictions without the need to make her a man.
Even worse, when devoted fans of a series like “The Lord of the Rings” point out issues with these adapted products, they are accused of bigotry for not acquiescing to the left’s butchering of their beloved franchises.
“Rings of Power” is far from the first series to intentionally alienate fans of its progenitor product. But it does constitute a new frontier in the radical left’s Sauron-esque invasion of popular culture.
Tolkien and “The Lord of the Rings” represent the bedrock upon which much of modern fantasy can build. George R.R. Martin, author of the immensely popular “A Song of Ice and Fire” series that later inspired the HBO show “Game of Thrones,” has said he was inspired by Tolkien to write epic fantasy.
By capturing Tolkien’s work for the left, the radicals are sending an ominous message to lovers of his creation: “We own this now. And we will remake it in our image.”
“Rings of Power” appears to be yet another soulless husk, devoid of the original love and care that Tolkien infused into his work and with which Jackson crafted his original “The Lord of the Rings” movies.
Ironically, Tolkien’s own work seems to depict the radical left’s corruption of popular cultural artifacts. In his “The Return of the King,” his Hobbit hero, Frodo, pontificates on the nature of Orcs, a race of purely evil creatures sent by big baddy Sauron to reclaim The One Ring: “The Shadow that bred them can only mock, it cannot make: not real new things of its own. I don’t think it gave life to Orcs, it only ruined them and twisted them.”
The radical left spreads its ideology not by genuine acts of creation, but by twisting and defiling things people love. Tolkien’s work will not be the last to be corrupted, but it should be a wake-up call to protect the series fans love.
Thankfully, this is a fight we’re winning. The response to Amazon’s trailer has been overwhelmingly negative, and fans are pushing back against the forced diversity and lore inaccuracies. (Read more.)
A Tolkien expert weighs in, HERE.
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