Tag: film

Tolkien Knew

It’s easy to understand why the Prometheans hate Tolkien so much and why they want to destroy his legacy. He knew. He absolutely knew. He knew about them, their evil, and the source of that evil, as evidenced by the Dark Herald’s review of the third episode of The Rangz:

The Men who sided with the Valar during the War of Wrath got a nice off-the-cuffo from the gods. An island kingdom flowing with bounty and whatnot. And the Men were happy. For a while. However, a division rose up; there were those who remained loyal to the Valar and excepted Iluvater’s gift of death, they thought Elves were super cool too. But the vast majority of the Númenorians resented the Elves’ immortality and wanted to be immortal themselves.

Sauron was captured by the Númenororians and was imprisoned but then like an evil Joseph worked his way up to becoming the high advisor to the king. A cult of Morgoth was established complete with human sacrifice of the Elf Faithful humans with the goal of achieving immortality. Finally, the last king of Númenor launched an invasion of Valinor to steal immortality. Iluvatar Himself intervened and destroyed the entire fleet of Men by opening a chasm in the sea. Then Númenor itself was sunk beneath the waves during a night of fire and whatever that will cost a lot to CG. The Elf Faithful escaped under the leadership of Elendil, who became their king and founded Gondor.

Read this sentence again: A cult of Morgoth was established complete with human sacrifice of the Elf Faithful humans with the goal of achieving immortality.

Fascinating, is it not, that a high fantasy writer could foresee today’s transhuman global technocrats in the 1940s? It’s because their goals are no different than they were back before the dawn of recorded human history: to be like God.

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A Masterpiece of Progress

The Woke Critic explains that we’ve all got it wrong, that THE RINGS OF POWER are actually better than THE LORD OF THE RINGS, and that it is a defining moment in the history of the world.

Every generation there comes along a work of cinema or television that transcends the medium. It is no longer a movie or TV show: it is a work of art. A masterpiece. A production so profound that you wonder if it should be displayed in the galleries at the Louvre.

That magnificent day has arrived, ladies and gentlemen.

Amazon’s The Rings of Power is not only a television gift from the gods, it is better than the original cinematic The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Peter Jackson, step aside, and welcome the true heir to the Lord of the Rings throne.

Here’s why The Rings of Power is a masterpiece.

The cinemascape of the Peter Jackson trilogy was littered with strong, white males. Frodo and Sam, the ringbearers, entrusted with destroying the one ring ahead of a female, even though they were three feet tall. Aragorn, the king everyone had been waiting for, when a Queen would have sufficed. Gandalf, the magical old white male, in eternal battle with… other magical old white males. The Rings of Power has brought Middle Earth into the 21st Century. No longer is this a world of men. Indeed, it is a world of women. All the main characters have estrogen in abundance.

Take Galadriel, for instance, a side character in the trilogy. Now she is the driving force through the whole saga. Strong, independent, and utterly brilliant. Where men err, she is right. Always right. Every idea, every solution works. Men who do not follow her lead… lead themselves to the grave. She can cut through oceans like an ocean liner, climb mountains like Sly Stallone and dunk more shots than Michael Jordan.

Frodo and Sam. No. Now we have Nori Brandyfoot and Poppy Proudfellow. All the same characteristics, quirks and mannerisms as the iconic duo, but now completely female. Why have male characters when we can have female characters? This is 2022, after all. It is much more progressive to have two women in such roles. Like Galadrial, they are never wrong and never weak. A true inspiration for humankind.

Bronwyn, another female character brutally ignored by the men in the village. Not for long, however. When all the males laugh at her expense, she is the one who has the last laugh. She quickly shows them that she was right about the orcs all along and assumes the leadership role. Another inspiring moment for everyone watching.

Fear not, dear viewer. There are white male characters. Such as this one. He arrives on the screen in a burning scrapheap and his prospects do not improve much from there. He screams gibberish at young ladies and looks like he just walked out a homeless shelter. A true lesson in progression.

White males, your time is up. This not a world of men. It is a world of women.

The Rings of Power is not just a television production, but a message to the world that racism is over. Future generations will look back and say this was the defining moment where everything changed.

It’s hard to argue with that. Impossible, really. Sadly, it appears that most of us are missing this masterpiece of progress, as I took a pair of polls, on both SocialGalactic and Gab, in order to see how many people in the greater community are watching this triump of post-racist consciousness. Now, given that I am arguably one of the top-five living epic fantasy writers – which isn’t that impressive given how few novelists are capable of writing epic-length works – one would expect that my readers would be far more inclined to watch The Rings of Power than the norm. This is especially true given that we have a strong Tolkien contingent that obsessively reads the published notes, visits Hobbit museums, and subscribes to the Forge of Tolkien.

  • SG: 237 did not watch, 6 watched, in part or in full
  • GAB: 1,339 did not watch, 35 watched in part, 37 watched both episodes.

This is pretty astonishing for a very high fantasy-friendly crowd. Yes, the polls are unscientific and self-reported, but even so, the numbers are less than one-quarter of what I would have assumed. And it tends to support the Samba.tv numbers that indicate the public rejection of the production is going to be a catastrophe for Amazon Studios. I would not be at all surprised if the second season is cancelled, or if it isn’t, a complete reboot is ordered for Season Three.

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Black Doctor Who

The 14th Doctor is confirmed to be black and is generally assumed to be gay.

Ncuti Gatwa will take over from Jodie Whittaker as the Time Lord in Doctor Who, the BBC has announced. The 29-year-old will become the 14th Doctor on the popular BBC show, after Whittaker announced last July she will be leaving the role.

Queer As Folk and It’s A Sin writer Russell T Davies is returning as the programme’s showrunner after departing the show in 2009.

The only real surprise is that the BBC didn’t go with a blind black lesbian in a wheelchair as the Doctor, just to make absolutely sure that no one will watch it. But a gay black “Rwandan-Scottish” lead should suffice to kill it off.

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The Hate is Real

“Evil cannot create anything new, they can only corrupt and ruin good forces have invented or made.”

JRR Tolkien

This is the response – entirely justified – with which Tolkien fans have greeted the trailer for The Rings of Amazon. The trailer is bad. It’s so bad that I tapped out after only 36 seconds, which will most likely be the only 36 seconds of this wicked, ill-conceived desecration of a literary treasure that I ever see.

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And Morgoth Smiled

The Dark Herald explains why there is no chance that the Amazon demolition of The Silmarillion is not going to make the execrable Disney Wars trilogy, the abysmal Godfather III, and the tedious final season of A Game of Thrones all look like entertaining cinematic masterpieces in comparison:

Christopher Tolkien was the good son of a great man; he steadfastly protected his father’s legacy and works. But he is gone now. The estate now belongs to Tolkien’s grandchildren and ALL of them are trust fund babies who act like trust fund babies. They want their other friends with money to stroke their asses and tell them how brave they are being for letting Bezos bastardize and soil their grandfather’s work. They are completely blind to the fact that this pile of fetid garbage is going to stain people’s memories of his masterpiece.

This whole catastrophe started with Jeff Bezos saying he was determined to have his own Game of Thrones. Which means that this abortion is going to be a derivative work of George R.R. Martin, not JRR Tolkien. The producers are denying this with tears and oaths but the fact that they hired an Intimacy Coordinator (AKA Sex Arranger) tells you what books this show is based on.

The truth is, this show isn’t based on any of Tolkien’s books. What Amazon has the rights to are the background notes. No joke, that is what they own the rights to and that is what Bezos has spent hundreds of millions on.

While the contract they had with Christopher Tolkien had some very strict limits with regards to what they couldn’t do with regards to JRR Tolkien’s overall story arc, it had a major loophole in that they could create new characters. And boy, did they ever.

In addition, they have undeniably altered established characters significantly. Galadriel, Commander of the Northern Fucking Armies. No, I’m not kidding they got her that wrong.

It’s not just the SJW wokery. It’s the complete disrespect for the source material and the author.

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The Woke of the Rings

As bad as the converged The Wheel of Time has been, Amazon’s upcoming abuse of The Silmarillion promises to be even worse:

First, the Tolkien Estate did not do this willingly. They got hurt in arbitration with Warner Brothers and part of the settlement is that they had to allow a Lord of the Rings. Although, they did get to maintain a right of absolute veto over everything. And when Amazon was up against Christopher Tolkein, he used it. He kept this hideous abortion in development hell for years, probably with the hope that Amazon would give up and the rights would revert.

But then he died and the horrifying travesty moved forward.

The creators that have been handed this project have no experience as being the guys in charge but they have years in the business working for… Bad Reboot.

Whatever hope you might have had can be abandoned now.

Inclusivity, diversity, new characters, and LGBT representation. It’s all going to be there. And it’s all going to be awful.

On the plus side, ARTS OF DARK AND LIGHT remains completely unconverged.

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China’s New Nevsky Film

From Infogalactic:

Alexander Nevsky is a 1938 Soviet historical drama film directed by Sergei Eisenstein. It depicts the attempted invasion of Novgorod in the 13th century by the Teutonic Knights of the Holy Roman Empire and their defeat by Prince Alexander, known popularly as Alexander Nevsky (1220–1263).

The picture was released in December 1938, and became a great success with audiences: on 15 April 1939, Semen Dukelsky – the chairman of the State Committee for Cinematography – reported that it had already been viewed by 23,000,000 people and was the most popular of the films made in recent times.

After 23 August 1939, when the USSR signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, which provided for non-aggression and collusion between Germany and the Soviet Union, Alexander Nevsky was removed from circulation. But the situation reversed dramatically on 22 June 1941 after the German invasion of the Soviet Union, and the film rapidly returned to Soviet and western screens.

From Global Times:

Korean War film breaks records, has implications for today’s China-US competition

One day after the Chinese war epic film The Battle at Lake Changjin about the Korean War (1950-53) debuted on Thursday, its box office surpassed 516 million and broke 10 film records as of press time. Observers said the movie’s success shows the national feeling displayed in the film echoes the rising public sentiment in safeguarding national interests in front of provocations, which has great implications for today’s China-US competition.

The overall box office for the movie has surpassed 516 million yuan as of press time, one day after it debuted around the country on Thursday, according to data compiled by Lighthouse, a box office tracker and film big data platform owned by Alibaba Pictures.

The film leads the box office as it smashed ten box office records on Friday, including “the premiere day box office record,” “single day box office record,” and “cumulative box office record in the National Day holiday” as a historical film.

The film also reports a record in “the premiere day box office record” and “single day box office record in the past three years,” “the single day box office record during National Day holiday,” and “single day box office record,” as a war film.

Besides that, the film also reported a record in the number of screenings on the premiere day in the National Day holiday.

The film tells the story about how Chinese People’s Volunteers (CPV) soldiers held their ground amid fierce cold and the enemy’s more advanced weapons during the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea (1950-53).

A movie-goer who watched the film on premier day commented on Chinese social media Sina Weibo that after watching the film, they indeed had the feeling that Chinese people are not, and have never been, afraid of the US.

The CPC is clearly preparing the Chinese people for direct conflict with the US military. And it’s not a great mystery as to the proximate cause, in light of this breathtakingly hypocritical statement by the US State Department:

In a threatening statement on Beijing’s “destabilizing” military moves that was published on Sunday, the US State Department warned China against even diplomatically and economically pressuring Taiwan in its own interests. In the statement, United States spokesperson and former CIA intelligence officer Ned Price warned China that the US was “very concerned” by its “provocative military activity near Taiwan, which is destabilizing, risks miscalculations, and undermines regional peace and stability.”

“We urge Beijing to cease its military, diplomatic, and economic pressure and coercion against Taiwan,” Price wrote.

Claiming the US had “an abiding interest in peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait,” Price said it would “continue to assist Taiwan in maintaining a sufficient self-defense capability” and affirmed that its commitment to Taiwan was “rock solid.” “We will continue to stand with friends and allies to advance our shared prosperity, security, and values, and deepen our ties with democratic Taiwan,” the statement concluded.

And just in case you’re still not capable of connecting the dots, Global Times was kind enough to explain the purpose of the PLA’s now-daily flights over the island of Taiwan.

The PLA has done an excellent job! This can be seen as a form of the National Day military parade in the Taiwan Straits, which used to be held at the Tiananmen Square in Beijing. It is a clear and unmistakable declaration of China’s sovereignty over the island. This is apt given the 72nd anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, greatly encouraging people nationwide, and highlighted and emphasized to a new height the special significance of the National Day.

The 38 and 39 warplanes dispatched in two consecutive days to the exercise during the day and night near the island of Taiwan were not a guard of honor. They are fighting forces aimed at actual combat. The increase in the number of aircraft showed the PLA Air Force’s operational capabilities. The warplanes that gathered over the Straits were possibly dispatched from different airports, showing the strong ability of the PLA to form a wartime air attack.

According to statistics from Taiwan island, the PLA has sent warplanes into the island’s “airspace” in 198 days so far this year. Such a number reflects that the PLA has carried out wide-ranged and profound operations to familiarize itself with battlefield conditions, with a large number of PLA Air Force units having experience flying close to the island. Once the order to attack is given, the PLA’s pilots will fight as “experienced veterans.”

At this point, it would be surprising if China didn’t publicly demand Taiwan’s submission before the end of the year. While it could all be for show, the time it has taken to prepare for this massive, multi-stage propaganda campaign tends to indicate otherwise. Unfortunately, the fact that the US refuses to back down and stay out of what is an internal Chinese matter makes it much more likely that there will be at least a few unnecessary shots fired before the inevitable plays out.

UPDATE: The PLA upped the ante again today.

China has flown 52 aircraft into Taiwan’s airspace in its single largest mission to date – marking a dramatic escalation of tensions around the South China Sea island. Taipei said 34 J-16 fighters accompanied 12 H-6 nuclear-capable bombers, two Su-30 jets and other military planes into its ‘air defence identification zone’ on Monday.

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Conservatives would rather complain

 Than actually develop a technological and artistic counterculture:

The culture leans sharply left, and in our current, highly-polarized political climate that means conservatives in the arts tend to be treated as outsiders at best and pariahs at worst. Listen to the personal experiences of conservatives in Hollywood, for example, whether “above the line” (the stars, producers and directors) or below it (the rest of the crew), and you will understand why most keep their politics in the closet to avoid bad vibes, ostracism, and/or outright hostility. The left, of course, dismisses complaints of blacklisting and bias as paranoid whining, but they are very real indeed.

The publishing world is not exempt from this state of affairs. When conservative author Dinesh D’Souza’s new book The Big Lie: Exposing the Nazi Roots of the American Left appeared at Number seven on The New York Times bestseller list, despite actually having outsold all fourteen of its competitors on the list, D’Souza called out the Times on Twitter: “In what alternative universe do Jeff Flake’s 7,383 book sales for this week (BookScan data) top mine at 11,651? Thanks @nytimes fake list!”

This was far from the first time conservative authors had called foul about their books’ rankings on the Times’ all-important bestseller list. Cortney O’Brien at Townhall pointed to another noteworthy recent example: Gosnell: The Untold Story of America’s Most Prolific Serial Killer, by co-author couple Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney. A horrifying exposé of the dark(er) side of the abortion industry, the top-selling Amazon release was perceived by some as an attack on the left’s sacred cow of abortion rights. The New York Times did have the book at Number 13 on its “Combined Print & E-Book Nonfiction” list, but did not place Gosnell at its deserved Number four slot among bestselling nonfiction titles.

“It’s not only an insult to the people who have bought this book,” McElhinney said “but an insult to the readers of the New York Times who buy the newspaper and think they are getting the truth about book sales across America but instead get false facts disguised as a neutral list.”

A Times spokesman insisted that the “political views of authors have no bearing on our rankings, and the notion that we would manipulate the lists to exclude books for political reasons is simply ludicrous.”

Ludicrous? The Times says its list is based on “surveys” of “a wide range of retailers who provide us with specific and confidential context of their sales each week. These standards are applied consistently, across the board in order to provide Times readers our best assessment of what books are the most broadly popular at that time.”

Notice how there is not a single mention of any writer, musician, artist, or publishing company that doesn’t subsist on parasitizing the Left in this conservative call for conservatives to “create great art, and secondly, create alternative distribution channels to disseminate it”. No mention of Chuck Dixon. No mention of Owen Stanley. No mention of Castalia, Arkhaven, or UATV. Conservative culture consists of nothing but talking about how bad the Left is; it is a literally negative culture.

Now, perhaps the author just hasn’t heard of any of those people and organizations who are already doing what he is calling for. But from what I’ve seen over the last five years, conservatives would rather cry about being prevented from editing Wikipedia than edit Infogalactic. They’d rather complain about Neil Gaiman than read John C. Wright. And they’d rather criticize the Devil Mouse’s demolition of Star Wars than invest in making alternatives.

So, we’ll just keep working, and building, and publishing great stories about the Good, the Beautiful, and the True until the day that conservatives start complaining about how we aren’t listening to their very helpful advice.

Oscar fades

Forget seeing these movies. I’ve never even heard of them. Literally no one has ever even mentioned on of them. The Dark Herald explains why the Oscars are dying with an increasingly converged Hollywood, tracing it all back to THE ENGLISH PATIENT at Arkhaven:

The Oscars have been heading in this same direction for a while and this year they finally arrived.  I didn’t see a single one of the nominees this year and I don’t know anyone who did.

Here is the list of nominees for Best Picture for the 2021 Academy Awards:

THE FATHER

David Parfitt, Jean-Louis Livi and Philippe Carcassonne, Producers

JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH

Shaka King, Charles D. King and Ryan Coogler, Producers

MANK

Ceán Chaffin, Eric Roth and Douglas Urbanski, Producers

MINARI

Christina Oh, Producer

NOMADLAND

Frances McDormand, Peter Spears, Mollye Asher, Dan Janvey and Chloé Zhao, Producers

PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN

Ben Browning, Ashley Fox, Emerald Fennell and Josey McNamara, Producers

SOUND OF METAL

Bert Hamelinck and Sacha Ben Harroche, Producers

THE TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7

Marc Platt and Stuart Besser, Producers

NO NOMINEE

NO NOMINEE

No impact. No idea.  And no desire to see any of these art house flicks. 

And in case you are wondering about the last two entries.  The Oscars couldn’t come up with enough nominations to fill their ballot this year, that’s why the last two slots are blank.  So why couldn’t the Oscars come up with enough bodies to fill the seats?  Covid gets blamed but the fact of the matter is that there were enough theatrical releases during the nominating period to fill the slate. 

However, there weren’t enough qualified films to do so. The standards for being nominated this year became a lot more stringent. Which is to say, Woke.

Of course, it’s also because there isn’t a single homogeneous market anymore. Hollywood is learning what happens when a host becomes too weak to support its parasites.