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My facebook has been ablaze with the War of the Rings of Power, and by that I mean Amazon putting out tons of propaganda to indicate that everyone is racist for not liking the the Rings of Power, followed by half of the people saying no that doesn't make us racist, and the other half saying they just don't like it because it's a bad show. A similar thing is going on for the Little Mermaid, too. Alas, that these evil days should be mine.
The thing that strikes me is that no one is saying the obvious. To me, and I'll guess to many others, I really don't mind diversification of media. Or, that is to say, I wouldn't mind it, if it weren't for the fact that it's now the norm, it's practically mandatory for any show that doesn't want to be cancelled by internet SJWs, it's crammed down my throat everywhere, and it's turned into a major moral issue where half the audience browbeats the other. I feel like I'm being subjected to someone else's religion.
But that woke audience always comes back to "Why are you against black people playing roles? What are you, racist?" Well, no, I honestly don't think I'm racist. But in the position I'm put in, I get that I am taking actions that a racist would. The only difference is that a true racist would be against black people being cast no matter what, and I am only against it being mandatory and moralized. But since we live in this world, where it is mandatory and moralized, does that mean that there's nothing that would really satisfy me short of black people not being cast?
I don't quite think so. Another point that the woke audience comes to is "They clearly just thought that Halle Berry was the best person to play Ariel". And really, I think the answer to that is, no, they clearly prioritize diversity casting. She is black and they want to cast lots of black people because it scores them points with the woke crowd (and possibly also because it drums up controversy, which may be good for business). And then on top of that, they thought she'd be fine for the part. I don't know how I can prove that, but it just seems evident to me that diversity casting for its own sake is something that is being given high priority. In some limited cases, it's possible to prove it, such as with Ryan Condal, the showrunner for House of the Dragon who indicated that they cast black people to play Valerians explicitly for the purpose of diversity-washing. However, I'm guessing that Condal regrets saying that outright, because it's not a good look. It gives the other side ammo and also casts doubt as to whether the people hired really would have earned the spot on merit alone.
At this point. I don't really know what it would take to convince me that most castings of black people are not just to fill a quota. But this puts me in a tough spot, because I don't really want to be racist in action, even if I know I'm not in thought.
There was a parable I heard once. I think it was supposed to be one of those "Wise King Solomon" stories.
Basically, two authors came before a judge. Both claimed to have written a novel, and wanted the other to cease publishing it. The judge ordered both authors to write a sequel, believing only the true author would be capable.
I think about that all the time. When Star Wars went to shit. When The Hobbit movies went to shit. When Star Trek went to shit. Which is not to say creative works can't successfully outlive their authors. They seem to be able to... for a time. Often with the help of people who may have known the original author, and care deeply about the themes and ethos he wove into them.
The ghouls in charge of most of America's cultural legacy seem to actively hate all the American's who came before them. They don't have the mental capacity to contemplate the themes of the original works, much less engage with them or continue them. I wrote off all my favorite franchises years ago at this point. I need to secure more of them on DVD before they get memory holed. I no longer trust the rights holders to not adulterate them, or just quietly stop publishing them to force you to consume whatever slop they are serving up now.
A lot of people think that Star Wars went to shit at the prequels, and at that point it was still under the control of George Lucas.
Two very very different kinds of shit. One was "What the fuck was that guy trying to do? Does he even know his own material's appeal at all? Is he completely talentless and just got lucky before?"
The other was, "What the fuck was that corporation doing? Did they have no plan whatsoever?"
The latter is more typical of "the ghouls in charge of most of America's cultural legacy". The former was much more rare, I can't think of many other situations where someone ruined their own legacy like that.
I think it's pretty common for creators to have inconsistent output or to not understand what makes their own work good. A few other examples that come to mind:
Jane Austen thought Pride and Prejudice was her worst book
Paul McCartney believe his more recent work is much better than The Beatles
The Wachowskis have made a few fantastic movies (The Matrix is my favorite movie of all time) but most of their movies are crap
But I have no clue what allows some creators to consistently produce good work, and others to be occasionally genius but inconsistent.
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Chester Gould introduced life on the moon to the Dick Tracy comic strip.
Of course I did have to go back some years to get an example that's well known enough.
Jack Kirby also created a lot of stinkers in his later years, ending his career with Captain Victory.
Before she was unpersoned, JK Rowling was notorious on Twitter and other places for all kinds of silly retcons that no one asked for. (That trivia tweet was sourced from her own supplemental writing.)
Most people ate up her retcons, though, even if those people also thought they were a bit on the silly side. But a lot of her retcons played into the social justice narrative, so people were championing them.
She had the incredible good timing to create a record-shattering children's book which celebrated witchcraft and poked conservative Christians at the exact moment to perfectly puncture and deflate the resurgent American Christian monoculture when it was poised to retake America.
She also had the hilarious bad timing to be on the wrong side of the same culture war she inflamed, in such a way that her children's movie about sexual tension and ideological war between gay pagan former lovers Dumbledore and Grindelwald played by Jude Law and Mads Mikkelsen totally failed to make any cultural impact.
Oh gosh, is nobody familiar with British school stories and British fantasy for kids? Whatever Americans may have made of it (and it wasn't about "celebrating witchcraft"), in the British children's fiction context it was simply another example of an established genre (see Alan Garner, The Worst Witch, and many others, including C.S. Lewis and Narnia). That it became explosively popular was astounding and yes, probably a matter of luck, but it had nothing to do with "deflating resurgent American Christian culture" or whatever.
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The problem with Lucas is he used to have people who would tell him "no". Also he didn't direct most of the original trilogy. He's a great idea man, so long as someone filters through his ideas. He definitely gave the original trilogy it's heart. But when it was 100% Lucas, his short comings were amplified enormously.
Even the prequel trilogy looks good compared to The Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker. The acting wasn't as good. The CG has not aged well. But it at least has a more coherent story from beginning to end. Not coherent in absolute terms. Just more coherent compared to the new trilogy. While hard to quantify, I also think it has more heart. There is still a sense of Lucas' creative voice coming through.
I think Lucas suffered from a bit of just losing his edge with age and success. He wrote Star Wars when he was young and hungry. He wrote the sequels when he was middle aged and had kids. Much the same happened with Stephen King and The Dark Tower. The first book is amazing, sharp, and very dark. By the end its silly as all hell. He wrote them over a span of decades, with a sizeable gap between the first and second in which the writing style changed a great deal.
To me, the difference between the prequels and sequels is kind of like the difference between The Room and Sharknado. They're both bad, but one is at least bad in an interesting way, being the bizarre fever dream of a single man, and the other is bad in a lazy corporate way with no particular vision (this is also why the Last Jedi is the best of the sequels: it may be a mess, but at least it's an ambitious mess).
I've gotten dozens of hours of entertainment over the years discussing all of George Lucas's strange choices and obvious missteps with friends. If nothing else, it is really fun to try to figure out what in God's name this man was thinking. On the other hand, I barely remember Rise of Skywalker and will probably never see it again, because "rushed production with a last minute replacement writer/director who clearly didn't want to be there" isn't an interesting enough reason for being bad to occupy any of my attention.
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I complained loudly and often about The Hobbit movies, but by God, Amazon have made me fall on my knees weeping "I am so, so sorry, Peter Jackson! I didn't know when I had it good!"
The Kili/Tauriel romance may be entirely ridiculous, but by comparison with Bronwyn/Arondir it is on the scale of grandeur of Tristan and Isolde. I thought having Bifur go around with an axe in his head was the dumbest thing I'd seen. I had no idea that Harfoots were in my future. Thranduil's elk was excessive? Slo-mo blue-eyed horsey!
Speaking of Thranduil, Jackson cast Lee Pace in the role. I shudder to think what Amazon would have done with the character.
I've wondered if that was a pun on "Bifurcation."
Here, take this upvote for your wit!
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