Amazon’s Rings of Power Fiasco!
-For the Uncensored!
Something has been growing curiously on the Internet. It’s a fast evolving beast that if you don’t ride the wave of its scales, you might just be left behind. On the ground, always chasing one more fiendish experience over the other. Away from the green and the world of simple things. Lambeth bread and pipe weed.
We all know where this is going, but I wanted to restate my case for Tolkien’s work and the films before delving into the issue at hand.
I guess this is an important issue for me. The condition of Lord of the Rings as a brand itself has survived since its inception in 1937. As a reader, I was going through a lull at the time. The books that ended nonfiction for me, in my teens, were Nicholas Pelligi’s Wiseguys and Casino, both about the mafia, one from the experience of an outsider, Henry Hill, and a Jewish Casino owner, who worked for the Mafia. Two outsiders in two different locations, but ending up in a rather isolating world.
For me, the Godfather and Lord of the Rings, are two pieces of fiction that are important but perfect in their vision, execution, and expression. What Lord of the Rings did for me is to allow myself, as a writer, the opportunity of lengthy conversations, meandering chapters, and also the world. The mechanics of the language that both Godfather and Lord of the Rings understands and moves the plot along. Or detract with chapters following Frodo to visit Tom Bombadil. Or when Michael Corleone flees to Sicily so that he can avoid arrest, but also find a wife, and builds a new life, before it’s interrupted, and he has to return home. Those books for me, were the gateway to becoming an author.
I feel like an old person even though I am a video game enthusiast and manga reader. There’s a power to the written word. Lord of the Rings, to me, as a sixteen year old, was helpful thanks to the Peter Jackson interpretations from 2001-2004. Dark times in my life.
But it’s not like the movie was perfect in its adaptation, visually and direction, but Jackson had to move lines around to different characters in the film version. Tolkien himself didn’t like the idea of his works becoming films or serialized, because the books were complicated, and were based in ancient story telling motifs.
The Peter Jackson films came to me at a time when I needed them. It’s like how David Foster Wallace talks about how David Lynch came to him at a time when he needed Blue Velvet. The books, to me, have never once felt boring or at least out of place. The journey of the Fellowship have lived long and disliked by many critics, too.
Watching The Rings of Power doesn’t tell me what or who the characters are. It’s hard for me to see a Tolkien story without the imprint of the books all over the films. Tolkien set the bar for telling stories, with the likes of Frank Herbert or Michael Moorcock or JG Ballard even tried to duplicate, in darker attempts. The above authors proved darker in their attempt, but Tolkien had a far more ethereal, or mythical view of fiction..
What Tolkien did, for me, is give myself the chance as writer to explore every little place that could be explored, spend time with my characters, and make the surroundings real, even if it shouldn’t. As a writer of more than 19 published books, the world presented in the Amazon trailer, War of the Ring, doesn’t tell me what I should know.
Who or what am I looking at? I guess we haven’t seen a major release trailer that would help me relate to the story. So, since then, I have refused to comment on it online or even in print. I want to give the final trailer a chance in order for me to give my opinion. I might even give it a watch if it’s going to try and play with the lore of Lord of the Rings. But again, it’s far more profitable to just comment on something instead of opening myself up to the series, in general. Spelling its doom to people and having to readjust my position after I see it, if I’m proven wrong. A strange thing in media culture, even as I think and write, as if my opinion means something. But I guess my opinion only matters because I have read the books, and loved them as much as any other LOTR fan, and as a writer, could.
But if Amazon’s “Fellowship of Influencers” proved more damning is that an influencer, is going on about “my queerness” isn’t reflected, I don’t know if the series is going to be any good. But this promo video, which should have worked, reveals a new generations that want something else out of J.R.R. Tolkien’s work. A modern feel that’s not going to translate to the influencers in question. Well, grow up sugar tit influencers, nothing is ever going to appeal to everyone. Not a surprise because when I go to look for the video in question, I can’t find it to help prove my case. ItsaGundam commented on this in his video, regarding the issue. Probably Amazon removed it in order to not be criticized for it.
But if your representation is not “seen” then write your own stories. Stop trying to appeal or make a faux case for your identity crisis in a work published long before you were born. It’s hard for me to pretend that young movie stars gloating about “sexuality” when the story itself didn’t represent that, is annoying, best.
It’s hard for me to define what a series can be before a story trailer can tell me exactly what I am going to expect. I don’t know if I can trust the trailer, but this is not an official response on the final product yet.
I’m glad people are still curious about Lord of the Rings and find the books and movies engaging after all the years. But I see that a young crop of actors being dumb and acting like they know better. The hubris of youth, right? But I am not Nostradamus, and I don’t have a crystal ball.
If I’m not interested I probably won’t continue past one or two episodes. But I am rather perplexed by actors who need queerness from an 85 year old series that’s covered with myth and a dense language system that rivals any modern fictional world. Audiences want a story, not to be told by young celebrities what they want to see.
I do want the series to be good, but I’m rather despondent towards bad faith influencers who want LGBTQ representation that aren’t primarily focused with the story itself. I guess I care because Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien is still the star of the series, the one who stands tall over any interpretation. Shaping me as a writer, and a lover, who must defend Tolkien, because I would want that, too. If Hollywood ever got the nuts to adapt my work, but they aren’t going to do that.
. Found 02.24.2022
-Louis Bruno is the author of more than 19 books, including, The Michael Project, The Michael Project: Book 2: The Lost Children of Eve, Thy Kingdom Come, The Disintegrating Bloodline (and the original text re-released in 2019), Apocalypse Soldier, The Data Chase, Selection: The First Book of the Life and Death Saga, and Blinking Eyes: The Second Book of the Life and Death Saga, Hierarchy of Dwindling Sheep, The City of Sand, To the Moon and Back, The Villain Lives and The Villain Lives: The Divided Pinpoint, Come Home, Young One. He has a Bachelor of Arts in English from University of Phoenix. His books can be found on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Lulu. He can be found on Gab, https://gab.com/thereallouistbruno, Minds https://www.minds.com/lbruno8063/. Instagram @lbrruno8063 and @louisbrunoofficialbook. Our Freedom Book https://www.ourfreedombook.com/thereallouistbruno17. He has written for the Intellectual Conservative and Ephemere. His next series, City of Sand is out now:https://www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/louis-bruno/city-of-sand/hardcover/product-rke9jz.html?page=1&pageSize=4. Also, if you can’t subscribe so that you can get members only content, please be sure to share the articles, as well. If you do Subscribe and pay, as well so you can get my articles in your inbox every time, and access to the paid articles that some readers won’t get to see. Every little bit helps in the war against Big Tech. Thanks for reading.
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