P&CE Discussion of Tolkien, LOTR, Silmarillion, and Amazon’s Expensive Commercial Attempt at Fanfic

I gave up on it towards the end of season two. But pretty much, yeah.

 

I think Desmond was introduced in season two? I remember the character.
IIRC, the season one cliffhanger is them trying to open the hatch. They find Desmond down there at the start of season two. I think it was the second half of season two when I stopped watching.

 

Possibly, it's been too long to remember.

 

https://rop-map.com/

Have an interactive map, you nerds!

 

To me it's not so much the comics as what Hollywood has done to them

“I said round about 2011 that I thought that it had serious and worrying implications for the future if millions of adults were queueing up to see ‘Batman’ movies,” Moore said. “Because that kind of infantilization – that urge towards simpler times, simpler realities – that can very often be a precursor to fascism.”

https://www.indiewire.com/2022/10/w...erhero-movies-can-lead-to-fascism-1234770828/

 

The infantilization of the movie-going audience (and by extension also the TV audience to a certain extent) is a real thing.
It's why so much of the MCU is utterly sexless (whilst also weirdly obsessed with its heroes bodies at the same time).
It's why you can have reporters ask questions like "Do movies really need to have sex in them?" to Paul Verhoeven. On that note, Verhoeven has his own ideas about this trend.
Not too long ago I even saw someone complain about Netflix shows having too many sex scenes in them.
But it's not even just about adult themes or sex.
I cannot count the amount of social media complaints about Andor (imho a wonderfully entertaining SW version of something like "l'Armée des Ombres" and other revisionist resistance stories like it) that mention it is too slow or boring. It's another sign of the increasing diminished sophistication of the audience, where they cannot even stand a show where much of the drama is merely a group of people talking.
It's why I believe that audiences in 2022 would even reject this pivotal Raiders scene:


On topic, I thought the latest Rings episode was kind of underwhelming, considering it followed a rather dramatic climax in episode six. I will say that this was perhaps the first time the Harfoots were a bit interesting. On the other hand, Numemor mulling for three episodes if they would go to the Southlands and then the Queen Regent returning home after one episode there kind of lays bare the issue of what this show is choosing to devote screentime too.

It's still a bit surreal to see true artistry devoted to very corny writing. Like that epic shot of Isildur's horse running away from the Numenorian encampment, after Elendil released it. Whenever one of those pops up (also that closing shot of Mount Doom) I think that you could make a truly great show with this show's art department/cinematographer and VFX teams.

 

We have Marty to thank for all of his filmmaking contributions and stating the obvious about Men in Tights:

For those that don't remember the origin story, this particular barney all broke out in October 2019 when Scorsese told Empire magazine that he’d tried to watch some superhero films, not much enjoyed them and decided that they were “not cinema”. That would have stuck in the craw as it was, but he went on. For Scorsese these films were built on a crass impersonality.

“Honestly, the closest I can think of them, as well made as they are, with actors doing the best they can under the circumstances, is theme parks,” he told Empire. “It isn’t the cinema of human beings trying to convey emotional, psychological experiences to another human being.”

It was a big deal. There used to be a kind of omertà around the comic book juggernauts from serious cineastes, and certainly from the old guard. Suddenly, the gloves were off.

Ken Loach called superhero films “boring”. Francis Ford Coppola, one of Scorsese’s generation, went harder, calling them “despicable”. “I hate them,” said Jane Campion last year, “I actually hate them.” If you’ve got a ouija board to hand, you can bet Cecil B Demille will drag the glass around to spell “ANT MAN IS WANK”.

https://www.esquire.com/uk/culture/film/a40653210/martin-scorsese-marvel/

 

Unfortunately the rejection of more adult themes is going way beyond just gratuitous nudity in trashy horror.
Like I mentioned, it can also be seen in how audiences now respond to stuff like Andor. Which isn't exactly a high-brow complex show, it just moves at a slightly different tempo than what they are obviously used to.

 

I watched the whole thing and mostly enjoyed it despite the definite dip in quality. But I’ve had zero desire to go back and watch it again, and I have a feeling the majority wouldn’t hold up on a rewatch.

 

As a side note, I joined Belgian in abandoning House of Dragons. I still believe that it is a very well made show. But when the closest thing to a protagonist is a guy who killed his wife out of boredom, because the other characters are even worse ... nah. (Also, the show features multiple truly awful kids, and my tolerance for watching Lord of the Flies children is severely limited.)