The only sane thing to do in response to this is the same thing that SHOULD have been done when Paramount went all sue happy on folks making unofficial Star Trek stuff.
Creators should stop making things related to their works and consumers should stop consuming and giving Paramount money for the official works.
The lesson being if the rights holder for something wants to keep it all to themselves, let them, forget it exists and starve it out of profitable existence. Spend the time and money with content, creators, and consumers that don’t believe sucking up ever dime that’s not nailed down is, or should be, the ultimate goal.
Did you even read the article? This dumbass wrote a book based on LotR characters and then HE tried to sue the Tolkien estate and Amazon. This person actually probably needs mental help if they think this could have worked, it was such an incredibly bad idea that there has to be some kind of mental health crises involved.
Worth also mentioning the Tolkien estate is notoriously letigous. There are piracy sites that specifically ban Tolkiens works from being uploaded for that very reason.
Yeah wow it’s like I thought ( the right holder being able to dick around writers)
It was strikingly clear to the Court that Anderson’s work was a derivative work; that under 17 U.S.C. section 106(2) derivative works are the exclusive privilege of the copyright holder (Stallone, in this case); and that since Anderson’s work is unauthorized, no part of it can be given protection.
After he had meetings with MGM about using that script.
I don’t even like Tolkien (find his writing to be just excessive, I don’t need to know the color of the buttons on the shirt of the dead character with no name), and even I have to agree, lol.
Too many re-interpretations of authors’ works. Tolkien is highly detailed - not reflecting that (or worse, substituting your own details) in a movie or show is just hubris. If you’re so damn good why don’t you write your own shit. Oh, your name doesn’t sell instantly is why.
We've seen this with the Witcher, we've seen it with GoT, we've seen it with LOTR: super artistic production teams which have their heads so deep up their own arses and are entrenched so deeply inside that weird removed-from-reality Hollywood bubble that they legitimately think they know better how to interpret the lore some world renowned author made than the author himself. Always ends in mediocre showsand hilarious interviews with said production teams where
Oh God The Witcher. The production team was handed an incredibly strong female lead character who was smarter, more politically astute, and more feared/respected than almost any other character in the series. And they immediately tore her down and made her a petty whining brat while claiming it was about female empowerment. A pox on Netflix and the entire production team.
Didn’t the show runner say that the dumb public was to blame for the failure of the show?
Edit: he blamed dumb Americans.
Baginski said, “When a series is made for a huge mass of viewers, with different experiences, from different parts of the world, and a large part of them are Americans, these simplifications not only make sense, they are necessary.”
He has a point about simplifications when it comes to media and art being approachable by the masses (and I say this with no insult intended, simplification of anything will always have broader appeal). See popular music vs avante-guard jazz (i.e. Miles Davis, probably the most-approachable of the type!)
But holy cow what a condescending, arrogant, insulting pick.
Thing is: They are working from the basis of media that has been successful already. So the amount of "dumbing down" neccessary to achieve a somewhat broad appeal has already been done by the author of the original, so to speak. Their argument doesn't hold any water whatsoever on no level imaginable.
There is some stuff I don’t dislike about Netflix’s Witcher, but god damn, I feel like they actively set out to do the worst rewriting ever with how they treated/portrayed basically the entire Lodge of Sorceresses
My hopes were so high for the stupid thing. They couldn’t tell the story in front of them that was already loaded with allegirical social justice issues. They had to reinterpret the entire thing and just plain fucked it up. Just sad.
Game of Thrones is an odd one, because what they did was fuck up the characters. All of them. I don’t think a single character who survived to the end was left unscathed by shitty writing outside of a couple minor characters. It doesn’t really help that they obviously rushed the ending out, which only made it worse by making the actions of the characters make absolutely no sense.
My problem is that Galadriel was treated like an impatient, naive child by other characters when in Tolkien’s Lore she is already well-respected and older than most others.
Why? Because female? Bullshit, she was already strong and established by the time the events in Amazon’s LotR take place. They dumbed her down and made her look like an impulsive idiot incapable of seeing evil when that’s literally her whole character.
The showrunners did not give Galadriel the respect she deserved.
I wouldn’t say naive, but definitely reckless. And I would 100% say they portrayed her as strong in the tv series. Hell, it begins with her on an incursion on the remains of angband, which if you know the lore I’d say it’s pretty badass. Her arc in season 1 was about how she was so blinded by revenge and recklessness, that she couldn’t see the evil in front of her. Which is pretty fitting for a noldor elf. It shows that even trying your hardest to make good, your actions can and will have unintended consequences, even ‘evil’ ones. Which perfectly sets up her eventual rejection of the one ring, during the mirror scene in fellowship of the ring. She knew then she’d have good intentions using it, but she also knew more evil will come with that
Galadriel shouldn’t be blinded by revenge and recklessness, because Feanor murdered thousands of his own kin over his stolen Silmarils and Galadriel knew he would do something horrible for his own selfish reasons.
If she can see evil inside another person’s soul, surely she can see the consequences of her own actions 5 minutes before she takes said actions? Like jumping out of a boat hundreds of miles from any land mass? Or maybe she would know how and why the Queen of Numenor felt about helping her, prior to getting upset and yelling?
Nothing about her character in the Rings of Power has any respect for Tolkien’s work, because they dumbed her down and made her act incredibly stupid on multiple occasions, completely ignoring the power and wisdom she already possesses.
I don’t mean to start a discussion here, but this is your interpretation and it’s valid. But galadriel’s character has contradictory history depending on your sources (even regarding the kinslaying). And it’s debated even between Tolkien’s scholars the extend at which she can ‘sense evil’. After all, she herself was deceived by saruman after his corruption during the third age.
In your last paragraph you say ‘nothing about her character in the series has any respect for Tolkien’s work’. That’s simply hyperbole, and arguably not true, as even a surface level reading can prove otherwise. Such words are not Tolkien’s way.
Anyway, I don’t want you to change your mind, just want you to be aware of the possibility of other interpretations. Take care!
The story lines they fabricated were (mostly) formulaic, the effects were (mostly) poor, and the characters were (mostly) unlikable. Apart from that I liked it! :P
It had a few moments that I enjoyed but overall it fell flat because the characters where flat.
To me, it just seemed … dull. Like, the conversations characters were having weren’t interesting. What was happening on screen wasn’t interesting. I felt myself suddenly snapping back to reality several times each episode after my mind aimlessly drifted away from what I was watching. And I’m someone who doesn’t need Michael Bay explosions and constant action to enjoy a tv show. Really hope they turn it around and do something interesting with it. Absolute snooze fest.
Yeah. It had a few moments of character interaction that I liked but it mostly felt forced and dull. Sad really as it could have been much more than flashy.
Who is actually going to all of these Marvel movies? I thought everyone came to the same conclusion that Marvel started sucking noticeably immediately after Endgame.
Yeah even the filler shit up to endgame was questionable, I just assumed they’d stop making them after that. Now you have a TV show to watch as homework so you can understand the movies.
Do people seriously have the time to waste to just watch superhero shit endlessly? There’s only so many ways you can write the same premise.
Marvel has been writing new stories in the genre (what you’re calling “the same premise”) for like 6 times longer than the MCU has been around. And they have more story arcs to deal with than the simplified MCU stuff.
Sure it’s not all great, but I don’t think there’s any shortage of possibilities within the genre.
I said from release day that Infinity War was the better movie. Endgame is good because it’s the culmination of 10+ years of movies, it wasn’t a good movie on its own. It wasn’t necessarily bad imo, but it was a step down from IW
Have you seen what comic fans will consume over very long time periods, good or bad? It’s almost like there are plenty of marvel fans that still watch even if it’s not Oscar worthy
I don’t go to any of the movies in the theater but I watch a lot of them on my nice big TV at home.
They are a hell of a lot more interesting than the average boring TV show about Cops, Judges, Doctors, and Lawyers. Maybe there should be a superhero that combines all those like Dr Cop Judge, Attorney at Law and Private Investigator for Hire. Judge Dredd wasn’t enough.
I’m a comic fan and I’ve watched all of them, and will continue. The problem people are having is they’re expecting these movies to be like movies instead of comics, but the MCU has been thinking like comics for a long time now. Just like in comics, not every issue is going to be some enormous crossover event with huge stakes and universe-shifting impact. Most comics are character series issues, where the A plot is just some fun excuse for the hero to do cool shit and have a little bit of character growth. Comics are literally soap operas for boys and nerds, and that’s what makes them great. The same applies here. Ya’ll are attempting to compare X-Factor issue #97 to The Death of Captain Marvel, but those were never comparable things and they were never meant to be. If you go in to these films expecting X-Factor issue #97 instead, you might be able to enjoy these films for the non-serious popcorn media they’re meant to be.
I want movies, I never liked comic books. Others want comic books and weren’t huge movie fans. Disney hasn’t committed to either and it’s not working.
I know I’ve stopped caring about the MCU entirely since Endgame. I’m really not interested in this comic style storytelling, just like I wasn’t as a kid.
And that’s fine. But why assume all media has to be for you? These are comic films from a comic company; if you weren’t ever into comic books why assume you’d be into these?
Because historically they’ve been for audiences like me, and now that they’re not, they’re wondering where everyone went. I assumed I’d enjoy these because I’ve enjoyed previous marvel movies, but I can’t name a single (marvel) movie since NWH that I’ve enjoyed. It’s been a massive shift in their movies that can’t be ignored.
They weren’t originally this comic book like up until just before endgame (coincidentally when everyone started to think the quality of the content is trending down)
No, they were, it’s just that by the time people got on board we were past the issue cycle and were onto the event cycle, so people got used to the incline and expected that that was going to be how these went: endless incline in excitement. But that was all the Infinity War lead up and climax. Now we’re in the lull leading into the next build-up cycle. We’re back at the Thor through Guardians 1 stage of the cycle, basically.
Going back to watch any of the Phase 1 movies is such a better experience than any of the Phase 4 or Phase 5 movies. There doesn’t need to be endless excitement, there just needs to be decent writing, and that’s missing from anything new. Nobody cares about any of the new characters.
There’s never been a huge number of flops from marvel with people losing more and more interest in watching them. There’s no clear plan forward, as their planned “Thanos” scale villain has been in hot water irl and will likely not be able to continue to play the character.
I can’t speak to anyone else’s experience, but I personally care about the MCU Shang-Chi, Kate Bishop, Yelena, Monica, Kamala, Moon Knight, hell I even care about Stature (Ant-Man’s daughter) a little bit.
As to the “plan forward,” I dunno man, it seems weird to borrow worry by letting speculative futures impact your opinion on and enjoyment of what’s in front of you. Maybe it’s not for you, that’s okay, but it you think it could be for you, I would suggest maybe trying to focus on what’s on the screen rather than caring about what’s happening behind the screen so much.
I’m not a business analyst; I’m not in the speculating market. I’m a media consumer, so I’m going to choose to judge them on their output, not any of the factors surrounding it or the discourse about it. For me, ignoring all the outside noise, I can only think of about 3 MCU-related properties that I watched and did not enjoy myself while watching. That’s all I’m looking for out of this relationship, so as far as I’m concerned they’re still doing right by me.
That’s where we differ. I couldnt care less for pretty much any of those characters. Maybe it’s because I’m not the target demographic, but absolutely none of them connected at all with me, they were often just another marvel protagonist who follows the exact same story as all the other ones. That worked in Phase 1, it won’t work now that it’s played out.
Even as far back as Iron Man there was a plan forward. They had some idea of where everything was going, even if the viewers didn’t see it. Currently it looks like they have no ultimate endgame and don’t have any idea what’s happening next.
The on-screen product has been terrible. All of the D+ Shows have been downright horrid and I’ve given up on trying to force myself to watch them to keep up. MoM had me leaving the theater genuinely angry at how bad they fucked up all the characters.
I can’t name a single marvel property that’s landed well since NWH, and NWH was heavily carried by nostalgia. Ant-Man was some spy kids level of terrible, MoM completely ruined a ton of character development, black widow was just bad, and the list keeps going on. There is clearly some larger issues because I know it’s not just myself who feels this way about the current phase.
I’m no longer enjoying the content because of the poor writing and extremely shallow characters. And it may be that those elements were present in the original marvel films, but the tropes have been played out so much that they’re predictable.
Superhero fatigue may not be a thing (The Boys/Batman have been great), but there sure is Marvel fatigue
Don’t know what to tell you friend, my opinion is nearly entirely opposite yours. But I’m not trying to convince you to like Marvel, as I’ve hinted at before, if comics weren’t for you why assume comic movies would be? I was only trying to answer dangblingus’s question “Who is actually going to all of these Marvel movies?” Me, I am.
I’ve been entertained by all of the Disney+ series, with perhaps the exception of Secret Invasion which was pretty rough and superfluous.
I don’t see how any of the characters were fucked up in MoM personally.
NWH is easily one of my least favorite MCU properties as I think it’s an empty film with nothing but fanservice to offer, but even I will concede it has a couple moments that are so good they almost redeem and justify the whole film, so I still like it well enough to not call it “bad.”
Ant-Man wasn’t great, I’ll agree there, but Ant-Man has always been the “family” property in the Marvel deck. Yes, I know these are all “family” films to some degree, but Ant-Man has always been the only active father in the MCU, his films have been the only ones to actively involve a child, and his films have been the ones most filled with goofy gags and humor. So complaining that Ant-Man felt like Spy Kids is a big silly to me, because the Ant-Man series is very much trying to capture a similar segment that the Spy Kids films were.
I thought Black Widow was definitely unnecessary in the “how does this fit into the greater picture” sense, but otherwise was great, and again is very comic book in the sense that sometimes they just publish side origin stories mostly out of continuity. Your complaints about lacking depth feel especially hollow here, as I think Black Widow genuinely focused on adding depth to Natasha (and succeeded) while introducing Yelena in a way that made her feel full, developed, and three-dimensional.
So I’m not sure what you want from these films, but I think they may just not be for you. It’s cool you dipped your toe in the water and had fun with them for awhile, but that doesn’t mean you or anyone else was wronged just because you decided the room wasn’t for you after all. 🤷♂️
I am. I recognize that many of them are only okay movies, but they have a very high hit ratio and when they get it right it is amazing. GOTG3 and Spiderman NWH were amazing movies. Honestly even the bad movies are still okay. I have to admit several of the tv shows kind of suck and I hope they stop making them.
I think it’s okay to let this one go doesn’t seem like there is any value in his work.
I do think it’s time to open up the rights to older IPs and let the community make their own stories within universes though. I loved all the star wars EU stuff as a kid.
How can you decide that? Have you read his work? Why should only works with “value” matter?
The idea of someone destroying their own work to satisfy a copyright holder is abhorrent. Worse the copyright holders who counter sued contributed absolutely nothing to the original work they hold the copyright over - they’re just inheritors and businesses.
It just shows what a mess the copyright laws are. The writer shouldn’t have sued but he’d probably have been sued anyway because the copyright laws are a tool for right holders to exert control over other people, and go way beyond what is needed due to the influences of corporate greed and lobbying over decades.
I read his summary it was filled with sentences like “Thus begins the War of the Rings to End All Wars of the Rings.” It reeks of shitty fan fiction that should have lived out it’s life in a lost corner of the internet with all the other shitty fan fiction out there. It could easily have stayed there until humanity wipes itself out and the last servers lose power. This troll had to go a poke the bear and sue the rights holders for plagiarizing him in a prequel show loosely based off of existing Tolkien works when his novels are sequels.
As for what has value and why only things that have value matter. I think value is provided if a work of art or piece of media make you feel something, think about something new, or maybe just let you escape for a bit. What does that is going to vary based on the individual. I’m pretty sure this book only provided value to the author.
First two books in the series were "Fellowship of the King" and "The Two Trees" so...I'm not entirely convinced they were even very original stories...
After seeing Dr. Strange and not understanding the entire movie engine because I don’t have Disney+ I stopped watching MCU movies. I’d love to go see this movie now that I know it’s out but why spend time and money watching actors in front of a green screen doing things I don’t understand because I didn’t watch multiple TV shows?
I promise you that if the stuff I’ve written and published could be used by anyone, however they wanted, it would not have been published. I would have kept that shit to myself.
If anything, copyright laws encourage creativity because the person knows they can take their time to build things up. You don’t have to worry about fifteen sequels to your book being spammed by hacks trying to profit from your work
They keep trying to push Kamala Kahn, but I never found her to be a very compelling character. Even less so now that they changed her powers. I watch almost all the marvel stuff but I couldn't make it through that mini-series, and I'm not very interested in this movie either.
Maybe it was because I thought the examination of the American Muslim community was interesting and not something I’d really seen before, but I enjoyed it. It wasn’t the best show ever, but it was interesting. The examination of The Partition was also interesting.
Ms. Marvel is up there in terms of my favorite D+ series and what you mentioned had a lot to do with it. The end of the season felt extra corny and like some generic Netflix production but overall it was really fun.
Mostly because of her, I would like to check out The Marvels in theaters but I just don’t think we’ll have time and, realistically, it’s going to be streamable in, what, a couple of months? That’s probably the bigger issue - there aren’t really movies I’m so excited to see that I can’t wait that long.
Yeah, I felt like it was more about the American Muslim/Pakistani experience than it was about superheroing, which is why it probably wasn’t popular with some people like the person above. But I was fine with that because I was learning things about a culture I wasn’t very familiar with. But thinking on it, it’s kind of a departure from other Marvel stuff. A lot less action and mayhem.
As someone who comes from a Canadian Muslim family, that’s probably the thing that made me stop watching the show. It was just so over the top in terms of Muslim culture that it just seemed off. The way Islam was brought in to pretty much every discussion, no one actually talks or acts like that, at least no moderates. It’s no different from people of Christian backgrounds who I am sure aren’t talking about being Christian 24/7. It just felt like pandering.
Yeah the cultural exploration was probably the most interesting aspect of it, otherwise she just seems like a palette swapped Jubilee. They leaned pretty heavily into that. Honestly, I wish they'd just created a different Pakistani superhero to explore this, it might have been more interesting. Other countries should have superheroes too, right?
If I recall correctly, her original shape-shifting powers led to some interesting character development in the comics, which fit in with her thematically wrestling with her identity. That all got discarded when she got the power to summon purple glowing rock things instead, leaving behind the most interesting part of the character to me.
Also I recall there were a lot of "hello fellow kids!" cringeworthy attempts at appealing to zoomers in the miniseries.
Agree to disagree. I find the Kamala Kahn character to be an effervescent relief to a series that's taking itself way too seriously or trying too hard for slap stick. Does that make this particular movie great? No. The movie itself is a pretty flimsy plot. The main trope of the movie is someone makes a mistake, the group comes together to resolve the mistake, and develop themselves during that resolution. So with that said, it's not really good at delivering that, it's not Trolls bad (the original one which the plot sucks, the music is quite good) but yeah there was a lot of room for lots of character development that was just not included in what was delivered. To me the movie pulled its punches on what it could have delivered.
But in these kinds of tropes you see classic character stereotype traits, in this case Kamala Kahn plays the lighthearted comedic foil and does so quite well through the movie. Needless to say the Captain Marvel character is our person who brings the conflict to be resolved and towards the end you are left with a pretty unsatisfying result. Like the issue is indeed resolved, but it's about as exciting as how I might feel when I've completed my taxes. Hooray, I got that done. Maria Rambeau is our power character consistently pushing the accelerator for the characters to resolve the matter. And she's pretty good at it, but there was absolutely more opportunity for her to flesh that out that they kept sacking her personal past to keep that in check. Which at some point one might go, yeah we get it, she's troubled and doesn't want to talk about it. There's a degree of too much "I'm the aloof character in this movie". I will say the final fight scene is actually good for the level of just skirting the level of frenetic and follow-ability. I've gotten to a point where I just tune out superhero fights when it just becomes a lightshow and camera pandemonium (ala the most recent Ant Man movie).
Like I said, it's not a horrible movie. I went to the 10am showing of it on Friday (with one other friend) and that was $40 and that's where I would say "Do NOT go see this movie for $40". But I really enjoy the Kamala Kahn character and the level of energy the actress brings to the character. It reminds me a bit of how bubbly my twenty-two year old niece is sometimes and that serves as a nice refresher given the backdrop of generally everything else. So, I will acquiescence, there's a likely bias on my part for the character.
Again, absolutely not disagreeing with your position on the character. I think Marvel (and this touches just every so slightly on the superhero saturation) has gotten so big that not every character is going to be widely welcomed by everyone. I think there's a point that the Marvel Superhero movies get so numerous that you have to start considering sub-genres for the movies. And perhaps Marvel should pull back a bit on the distribution (it's their ship ultimately to sail and sink if need be). But I really enjoyed the Kamala Kahn character in the same way that I enjoyed the Katy character from the Shang-Chi movie. I good comedic foil is like pepper, you need just enough to flavor the food and not too much to over power the food and both of those characters have carried that role quite well thus far. But like anything, Disney has every chance to run that straight into the ground.
A US sting operation in cooperation with Thailand and Interpol caught him in 2008. He was eventually extradited and convicted in the US. In 2022 he was traded back to Russia in exchange for Brittney Griner.
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