What i fucking hate is this idea that any close friendship between men has to have an element of Eros to it. It poisons everything. I have close, longlasting friendships with other men. I dont want to fuck them, i dont feel attracted to them. They are my friends, some of whom have been my friends for 35 fucking years.
Well, it's stupid--but it's a long held tradition of either people or at least the West. A lot of American sermons for the past few centuries, has been based around the idea of taking a piece of Scripture and using it to base your sermon around. And that comes in two forms. One is where you are original to the text to support your sermon. The other is where you tweak the text or reinterpret the text to support your sermon. People have gotten used to the idea that you can subvert Scripture to support a theological or moral point. To be fair, those pastors have a passion for the Gospel, are generally trained to understand the text, and generally come from a well-meaning point.
Progressives do not. They are more than happy to subvert a work to try and make a moral point. The problem with this though, is that they're going to hit a wall. As I said before, this isn't Harry Potter. You can do this sort of stuff with Harry Potter and get away with it, because Liberals and Progressives generally understand the moral basis of Harry Potter. Personal freedom and wuve. LotR is different. It works from a different moral matrix. If you do not have an understanding of that moral matrix, then you cannot replicate LotR's style. It is so interwoven within Tolkien's writing style, it simply doesn't work without it. That reverence for all the good in the world; a man's personal freedom, the powerful authority of the righteous king, the loyalty of friends and warriors to a cause or people, the compassion to help others and do no harm, the beauty of that which is wholesome, and the cosmic concept of karma (justice).
Understanding those concepts, how they're written into Tolkien's work, and how they affect the reader is the BASE REQUIREMENT to understand the massive undertaking you need in reaching Tolkien's level. That's the foundation of your building. Then you need actual talent, passion, and hard work to make that complete that project. I do not believe, both because of the current direction that has been released thus far and the environment within the media industry, that anyone in charge of anything has such an understanding.
At best, this will be just as horrible as the Hobbit. The worst I expect it will be, is as bad as the He-Man reboot from this past year. And we can probably reasonably expect it to be a go-between in all of these. I mean, let's look at the tight-lipped character caste:
- Beldor -- Poulter (now Robert Aramayo) is said to be playing Beldor, an optimistic, intelligent and political savvy protagonist who is nonetheless more reserved than his on-screen counterparts. Beldor will often be the straight-man in pairings with more out-sized personalities and, while young, will possess a gravitas that belies a character who could be far older.
- Tyra -- Kavenagh is said to be playing Tyra, a wide-eye characterful young teenage woman with a strength and maturity beyond her years. Tyra will provide a mix of dramatic and comedic elements.
- Oren -- Mawle is said to be playing Oren, a villain who can also evoke a deep sense of pathos built around a wounded and fallen nobility. Though the character is middle-aged, Oren will possess a certain degree of physicality and project a sense of timelessness.
- Eldien -- She is described as a complex, unique and formidable young woman in her mid-20s who possesses an eternal quality and a strong physical component.
- Brac -- the irascible and cantankerous half of a dramatic duo
- Eira -- a warm and maternal woman
- Aric -- a charismatic character with a strong physical role
- Calenon -- a ruggedly-handsome and brooding soldier hero
- Loda -- an earthy man who doesn’t give his feelings away easily
- Kari -- a self-sufficient single mother and village healer with a secret
- Hamson -- a kind and loving family man with health issues
- Cole, a charismatic but mercurial young man who has the weight of the world on his shoulders.
My best guess is that they're going to try and "Game of Thrones this shit". Amazon fucked Game of Thrones into the ground, so now they need a new fantasy genre to rape. And they've set their sights on the one with the largest brand name. So at the very least, you can expect this to be a lot like the last few seasons of Game of Thrones. Just with less talent and maybe not as cynical, but probably with more LGBT and Feminist bullshit shoehorned in whenever the writers think they can get away with it. I expect it will probably be less obvious than other works of late, but who knows.
I personally expect this show to crater, but Amazon is not going to want to lose their money--or rather, not accept that they wasted their money, so they're probably going to support it like that cancer-ridden-asshole that is Star Trek Discovery.