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Doesn't that mean that, the interpretations today, absolutely should have black dwarves et al? Our world is very different from his, from a skin tone perspective. An American interpretation should cast more black people and so on. That from your explanation seems very much in keeping to his perspective. Todays stories told in the mythological past. Like it or not America's story is intertwined with it's relationship with slavery and the fall out thereof.
Hm? No, I don't think that's what's meant. Our world and his world have the same past, after all, and in the premise of Tolkien's Legendarium, that's taken as Middle-Earth. The present diversifying more wouldn't retroactively change the distant past, whether that's pre-Roman Britain or Middle-Earth.
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An interpretation today set in today's world should have. An interpretation today set in the distant mythological past should not, because those characters were not known then. Dwarves are not Americans, nor slaves, so having black Dwarves because slavery makes no sense. He wasn't telling "today's story", he was telling the story of that time.
If you want to depict modern-day Bree, then yes of course you can have black and brown actors, because of immigration and so forth meaning that black and brown people now live in modern day UK as ordinary citizens. In Frodo's time, due to people fleeing from Orc attacks, there were migrants moving into Bree from the South (probably Dunlendings). At least one of them was a spy, and maybe a Half-Orc. So you can have new influx of strange people moving in, but they are not native to the place as yet.
Well you said he was telling tales of our world now, just SET in the distant past no? If Tolkien was an author today he would be writing stories about the places, peoples and situations of today but mythologized into the past. If he were writing today, I suspect some of the issues around today would have been in his work, just set in his created mythology. That's what an adaption is, it takes a product, re-envisages it as if it were written today (with varying degrees of success). Alternate universe Tolkien writing today where Birmingham has significant Pakistani and Caribbean populations would plausibly have written a very different book.
Very possibly. But that isn't for an adaptation to do. An adaptation is not supposed to update the work for a modern era, it's supposed to stick to the original. If the writers on this show want to do their own thing, great! But then don't claim you're doing Tolkien. Either respect what the man actually wrote, or don't use his brand to prop up your original work.
Let me paste my reply above, because I didn't do a good job before:
"No that's fair, I didn't really explain myself properly there. What I mean is that, no matter what the adaptor's plan, it will be filtered through their own lense. Even if they set out to make an authentic adaption it will be filtered through their own viewpoint and biases.
It's impossible to adapt something as Tolkien would have done if he were a television writer now. And if Tolkien had been writing LoTR today it would have been a different book, because he would have been a different person with different upbringing and set of experiences.
Does that make more sense?"
My view is that whether you set out to update an adaption or not, by the very nature that the people adapting it will be from a very different society and viewpoint, that it will be filtered through their lense no matter what. Jackson's adaptions bumped up the importance of battles and romance because that is what his viewpoint of a big budget action movie was (mixed with what the financiers thought of course).
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This is such a bold misdefinition that I'm surprised you thought you could get away with it. ONE way of adapting a "product" (yeuch!) is to do that. For example, you can do Shakespeare in modern dress. To say that that's what an adaptation IS is like saying that carbohydrates are just what food IS.
No that's fair, I didn't really explain myself properly there. What I mean is that, no matter what the adaptor's plan, it will be filtered through their own lense. Even if they set out to make an authentic adaption it will be filtered through their own viewpoint and biases.
It's impossible to adapt something as Tolkien would have done if he were a television writer now. And if Tolkien had been writing LoTR today it would have been a different book, because he would have been a different person with different upbringing and set of experiences.
Does that make more sense?
It makes more sense, though I don't agree. For example, The Northman is very close to the movie I'd expect an actual Viking to make. Tolkien is far closer to modern viewpoints.
It's true that every adaptation is made through an adaptor's viewpoint, but they can be more or less faithful. And I'm not presupposing that more faithful is good. Stanley Kubrick adapted material in an unfaithful way in The Shining and it was better than a faithful adaptation, like the TV miniseries.
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