Off Topic Discussion Megathread

[Kolsykol]

I think the series is going to flop. Inclusion is fine. For me, that is a non issue. I just don't think that they are going to manage to tell a good story. To be completely fair though, the LOTR movie trilogy basically is THE bar, and very few, if any, attempts to meet it or rise above it are going to end well. I've seen some decent movie series since then, but nothing will ever take the crown that the LOTR movie trilogy proudly wears.

It's strange, because it doesn't rly look particularly bad.
But I also don't feel anything at all from the trailers.
They try to hype it up like the most epic thing ever but I just have a non-reaction and can't get excited for it at all.

I don't have an issue with inclusion and all that either, but I do when it doesn't make sense or goes against the established lore in the setting.
It makes it feel soulless and too artificial imo, it's why I stopped caring about and lost interest in Star Wars too because it felt like nothing mattered anymore because they kept retconning etc ( not in regards to inclusion and all that, but the lore and story ).

Lagertha and the Shield Maidens in Vikings is an example of this too.
I liked Lagertha a lot and thought she was a cool character, but the Shield Maidens are ultimately more mythology than reality.
Especially the depiction of them in media.
People just REALLY want them to be true, and they went really overboard with it in later seasons imo to a point where it both detracted from Lagertha herself as a character and also made the show feel less real and immersive.
I can buy Lagertha as being the exception, especially with her and Ragnar altogether being kinda steeped in mythology.
But when you've got basically an army of them running around it becomes too much.
Granted this is probably one of my least issues as far as historicity goes in later seasons, but still.
At some point things just reach a level where it takes you out of it.

If you're gonna deal with history or an already established setting I think you need to have more care about it, if you're dealing with something totally original tho it's whatever.
I wouldn't really think twice about a 50/50 gender split in an army in FFXIV for example or the fact that races aren't as demographically tied.
You'll see people in FFXIV with a variety of different skin colors running around in all regions.

Glad I already don't care about Lord of the Rings or I might be really disappointed right now.

I love the trilogy movies but yeah, I didn't like the Hobbit movies at all and have had no interest in the games.
I am not too attached to it either.

I kinda feel the same about LOTR as I do with DnD, it's just kinda bland and generic.
Partly because so many other fantasy settings took so much inspiration from them so it has been overdone so much.