This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I guarantee that if I was given the same budget I'd be able to create something which pleases the core fans. Hell, I'd be able to do it on a quarter of the budget. It isn't exactly hard to do either - mostly you just have to avoid purposefully and deliberately insulting the people who liked the property you're working on, and treat it respectfully. Even Disney is capable of doing this - X-Men '97 didn't have many of these issues to the best of my knowledge.
With a "living" IP, I would agree, but I think the main problem with LOTR is that its core fans consider it to be "dead" IP. JRR Tolkien was the writer, and outside of reorganizing and cleaning up his notes and drafts for publishing, fans don't (well, I don't, and I assume most others are like me) think anyone is allowed to fill more than the the tiniest gaps in JRR Tolkien's writing. LOTR was verbose enough that the gaps that were filled by the movies were small enough to not feel insulting. The Hobbit could have been a nice single movie with very little filling in required, but they HAD to stretch it to 3 movies and so HAD to stretch the gaps and fill them in, which fans hated. But the material Rings of Power is adapting is a couple of pages written at the zoom level of a history textbook. Making anything substantial out of it, let alone tens of hours of television, requires filling in a lot. Especially if you consider the studio needs to bring in recognizable characters from the movies to keep interested those who didn't read Tolkien but liked the movies.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link