On 1/16/2022 at 5:57 PM, Cult Icon said:

This clip is from the 2001/2002 Polish Witcher (the Renfry story from the Last Wish, also in Season 1 of the Neflix show).  I am watching the Polish witcher now and it's far more authentic:

 

 

 

 

This scene is really good.

 

I remember hearing that the Witcher writer (Sapkowski) didn't like this show. Do you know why?

I was addressing the fact that whilst that meme presented Jackson's LotR as a universally beloved and admired adaptation, this was not the experience at the time and there were quite a few dissenting voices, especially among the purists who were devoted to the source material. It has little to do with "wokeness" (a term that did not even exist back then).

1 minute ago, Enrico_sw said:

 

This scene is really good.

 

I remember hearing that the Witcher writer (Sapkowski) didn't like this show. Do you know why?

 

Sapkowski has never publicly criticized the show, this is mainly based on what haters of the adaptation claim online.

I don't think he cares particularly much, like GRRM before him, this adaption will have made him a lot of money.

Especially since he didn't make all that much out of his CDPR deal.

3 minutes ago, SympathysSilhouette said:

I was addressing the fact that whilst that meme presented Jackson's LotR as a universally beloved and admired adaptation, this was not the experience at the time and there were quite a few dissenting voices, especially among the purists who were devoted to the source material.

 

This is true, but that's not what cult icon's post was about.

 

3 minutes ago, SympathysSilhouette said:

It has little to do with "wokeness" (a term that did not even exist back then).

 

IMHO, the decay of American entertainment today has everything to do with Wokeness (also with the fact that creatives are creatively bankrupt, but this is linked, since the only concept they use nowadays is taking an old beloved franchise and make it as woke as they can).

 

What do you think of this particular point?

5 minutes ago, SympathysSilhouette said:

 

Sapkowski has never publicly criticized the show, this is mainly based on what haters of the adaptation claim online.

I don't think he cares particularly much, like GRRM before him, this adaption will have made him a lot of money.

Especially since he didn't make all that much out of his CDPR deal.

 

I was talking about the Polish show. I'm pretty sure I heard him saying that it was bad (here at the end of this video he says the Polish movie is "shitty"). As for Netflix show, Cult Icon posted some video where he said that the Netflix show has little to do with his books.

 

CDPR gave him quite a lot of money back after the initial deal (because, even if the made a huge mistake with cyberpunk, CDPR is still one of the best and gaming company). See here:

https://www.polygon.com/2019/12/20/21032021/the-witcher-author-cd-projekt-legal-battle-royalties-new-contract

18 minutes ago, Enrico_sw said:

 

This is true, but that's not what cult icon's post was about.

 

 

IMHO, the decay of American entertainment today has everything to do with Wokeness (also with the fact that creatives are creatively bankrupt, but this is linked, since the only concept they use nowadays is taking an old beloved franchise and make it as woke as they can).

 

What do you think of this particular point?

 

I think the anemic quality of much of the U.S. based entertainment is more to do with the fact that all of the IPs are now owned by a very small number of companies. All of those companies are very risk-averse. Thus you get utterly sexless, uninspired films, like much of the MCU franchise.

 

It's also how you get a situation where immature "movie critics" ask Paul Verhoeven if a movie really needs to have sex in it.

Art literacy is a lost skill, so you also get morons criticizing directors who have protagonists who are evil or unsympathitic, because they have somehow lost the ability to differentiate between the text and the moral world view of the text's creator.

 

I think audiences have been infantilized by decades of stupid entertainment catering to nothing more than the lowest common denominator and they wouldn't recognize real cinema if it bit them in the ass.

14 minutes ago, Enrico_sw said:

 

I was talking about the Polish show. I'm pretty sure I heard him saying that it was bad (here at the end of this video he says the Polish movie is "shitty"). As for Netflix show, Cult Icon posted some video where he said that the Netflix show has little to do with his books.

 

CDPR gave him quite a lot of money back after the initial deal (because, even if the made a huge mistake with cyberpunk, CDPR is still one of the best and gaming company). See here:

https://www.polygon.com/2019/12/20/21032021/the-witcher-author-cd-projekt-legal-battle-royalties-new-contract

 

Sapowski had to sue to get the extra money. His original deal prior to Wild Hunt's release wasn't that great.

9 minutes ago, SympathysSilhouette said:

 

I think the anemic quality of much of the U.S. based entertainment is more to do with the fact that all of the IPs are now owned by a very small number of companies. All of those companies are very risk-averse. Thus you get utterly sexless, uninspired films, like much of the MCU franchise.

 

It's also how you get a situation where immature "movie critics" ask Paul Verhoeven if a movie really needs to have sex in it.

Art literacy is a lost skill, so you also get morons criticizing directors who have protagonists who are evil or unsympathitic, because they have somehow lost the ability to differentiate between the text and the moral world view of the text's creator.

 

I think audiences have been infantilized by decades of stupid entertainment catering to nothing more than the lowest common denominator and they wouldn't recognize real cinema if it bit them in the ass.

 

 

All of this is true.

 

But don't you think there's a link with the politicization of the entertainment industry?

 

As you say, Hollywood has become an oligopoly (which is something I strongly dislike). It's the reason why they all use the same strategy (making everything woke). Don't you think it's a problem? And even if you personally think it's not, surely you can see how a huge chunk of the audience thinks it is, which at least makes it a "general" problem (even if it's not the case for you).

IMO, woke is the new name of pointing the fingers at scapegoats. "Straight white males" have become Hollywood scapegoats, which is a huge mistake. It's a mistake because finger-pointing and bullying a category based on arbitrary criteria (like race or gender) is an irrational response to all sorts of cognitive bias.

 

You can believe that "some" men, "some" white ppl have made bad things (which is true), but it doesn't mean that "straight white males" is a consistent group and that it's systemically the guilty part in everything bad. Thinking like this can lead to many hardships. It's not because an ideology calls itself "good" that it actually is good

14 hours ago, Stromboli1 said:

 

This is true.

 

And the other interesting thing is that "oppressed categories" (another fallacious concept) are becoming more numerous every day, which makes them eat themselves alive.

 

Let's hope they realize how destructive the circle is before they drag entire societies within it

14 minutes ago, Enrico_sw said:

 

 

All of this is true.

 

But don't you think there's a link with the politicization of the entertainment industry?

 

As you say, Hollywood has become an oligopoly (which is something I strongly dislike). It's the reason why they all use the same strategy (making everything woke). Don't you think it's a problem? And even if you personally think it's not, surely you can see how a huge chunk of the audience thinks it is, which at least makes it a "general" problem (even if it's not the case for you).

 

Honestly I have never watched a movie and thought "I wish the lead wasn't black".

I have watched a lot of movies and thought "fuck me, this is poorly written" or "the director cannot even properly frame a shot", or "who edited this, a crazy person?"

 

As for the supposed "left-wing" nature of Hollywood, that is bullshit. Or if it is true, then it's a shared ideology that as shallow as a puddle. Everyone in that town is interested in one thing: making money. Hence why they pander to China to an embarrassing degree. Hence why they don't care if they have to tolerate a serial rapist like Weinstein in their midst, as long as they can make money off him.

I don't think they personally care much about representation (the leaked Sony emails confirmed this). But it's in vogue right now to appear to care about that stuff, so they pretend to care. But it's pretty clear that this is not something that preoccupies the people in charge of the studios.

Also, for all of the supposed woes of the white male lead, a great number of the top ten biggest grossing movies of 2021 starred white men:

 

1. Spider-man: No way home - white male lead

2. Shang-chi - Asian lead

3. Venom - white male lead

4. Black Widow - female white lead

5. F9 - diverse ensemble

6. Eternals - diverse ensemble

7. No Time to Die - white male lead

8. A Quiet place II - white male lead

9. Ghostbusters: after life - largely white ensemble

10. Free Guy - white male lead

 

3 minutes ago, SympathysSilhouette said:

Honestly I have never watched a movie and thought "I wish the lead wasn't black".

 

Nobody has ever thought that. I certainly haven't. But what I've frequently thought is "they are mocking me by hiding their shortcomings with gender swapping the hero of our beloved franchise"? I don't care about the color or gender of a person, as long as the story is good.

 

The problem is that they made it about race, and gender. Not us. So, they shouldn't shift the blame.

 

I found that Ellen Ripley in Alien was great. This was never about gender or race.

 

Nowadays, Hollywood says it's about gender/race. That's what we reject (Remember Brie Larson saying that her movie was not for qtraight white males?). Woke is the smokescreen, but it still exists.

 

So, they can't shift the blame. Once again, Hollywood are the ones obsessed with race and gender (not us). We merely pointed out the fact that storytelling should not be about this. And now Hollywood call us names for that.

 

You see, we don't disagree that much.

12 minutes ago, SympathysSilhouette said:

As for the supposed "left-wing" nature of Hollywood, that is bullshit. Or if it is true, then it's a shared ideology that as shallow as a puddle. Everyone in that town is interested in one thing: making money. Hence why they pander to China to an embarrassing degree. Hence why they don't care if they have to tolerate a serial rapist like Weinstein in their midst, as long as they can make money off him.

I don't think they personally care much about representation (the leaked Sony emails confirmed this). But it's in vogue right now to appear to care about that stuff, so they pretend to care. But it's pretty clear that this is not something that preoccupies the people in charge of the studios.

 

If your point is that "it's all about the money", I agree that it mostly is. It's also about peer pressure and group-think.

 

These people aren't virtuous, but they claim to be. Then, they shift the blame by generalising their own vices. They say "weinstein is a pig, so that means all men are pigs" (they call it "patriarchy", but it has no basis whatsoever. Patriarchy is a myth).

10 minutes ago, SympathysSilhouette said:

Also, for all of the supposed woes of the white male lead, a great number of the top ten biggest grossing movies of 2021 starred white men:

 

1. Spider-man: No way home - white male lead

2. Shang-chi - Asian lead

3. Venom - white male lead

4. Black Widow - female white lead

5. F9 - diverse ensemble

6. Eternals - diverse ensemble

7. No Time to Die - white male lead

8. A Quiet place II - white male lead

9. Ghostbusters: after life - largely white ensemble

10. Free Guy - white male lead

 

 

That's exactly what I don't want to do. I don't want to make statistics on people's gender or race.

 

My point is precisely the opposite: Hollywood should stop generalizing and judging people on the basis of their gender and race. Nothing more, nothing less.

BTW "No time to die" is a great example. It's not a "white male lead" movie as you pointed out. It's an execution of a beloved hero, because his crime was his gender and race. This is exactly what I denounce. Executing someone on the basis of his gender and race: that's Hollywood.

 

Like Luke Skywalker. Like John Connor. Like many others.

I feel it a bit dreadful to hear Brie Larson calling this guy (homeless man) an oppressor and herself a victim, just because he's a man and she's a woman.

 

This guy doesn't deserve compassion, because Hollywood decided that his gender and skin color is a problem? Is it what they call justice?

 

2 hours ago, Enrico_sw said:

I found that Ellen Ripley in Alien was great. This was never about gender or race.

 

 

 

It's interesting that you use her as an example, that character was originally meant to be a man.

2 hours ago, Enrico_sw said:

BTW "No time to die" is a great example. It's not a "white male lead" movie as you pointed out. It's an execution of a beloved hero, because his crime was his gender and race. This is exactly what I denounce. Executing someone on the basis of his gender and race: that's Hollywood.

 

Like Luke Skywalker. Like John Connor. Like many others.

 

If you are referring to Daniel Craig's Bond dying, I'm pretty sure that has more to do with Craig being done with the role!

33 minutes ago, SympathysSilhouette said:

 

It's interesting that you use her as an example, that character was originally meant to be a man.

 

And so what? She's a beloved character.

 

That proves that the narrative that says "male audience is mean, disgusting and we should re-educate them" is completely wrong and fallacious.