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Im still waiting for a real link to battle for middle earth rts link from you,i have no idea where the real version is for pc. Please help me i want buy it
What you are going through is what a lot of us have gone through with our Star Trek franchise. Star Trek TNG and TOS mean something deep to me and my childhood, but what they are doing with the franchise now especially Discovery retcon attempts. I understand entirely with what you are feeling and where you find yourself sitting with current society. They try to make us feel bad for loving our passion franchises.
"When it comes to fans, it is a fan's right to have whatever opinion they want to have, and people are going to be upset... I don't necessarily consider that toxic. I just consider that passion." - Henry Cavill
@@eyeuehhejehe3122 He’s the guy who played Superman in the DCEU and Geralt in Netflix’s version of The Witcher. He’s known for being an A-List actor whose actually very involved in nerdy stuff. He nearly missed the call from his agent to play Superman because he was raiding in WoW.
@@eyeuehhejehe3122 He is the epitome of what it is to know the lore of a fantasy setting, build upon it with enormous passion for the original lore and, as the quote made it clear, accepts and is happy about it that different opinions exists of his own damn work. Yeah, if you like him based on that quote, you'll fall in love with him after you get to know more what he's done and who he is as a person.
@@eyeuehhejehe3122 he played Superman in the recent DC films, Gerald of Rivia in Netflix’s Witcher series, and will be in upcoming war hammer 40k. He respects fans and is known to be an avid PC gamer. He is one the bros and has not been corrupted by Hollywood.
Or on the extreme end... anyone who is white / male and / or strait~ Any on of those thing's brands you as an extremist bigot in the ideologically possessed eye's.
When a corpo says to the customers something like: "if you want a faithful look to the IP, read the book five more times, we must do our own spin" It tells me he is a greedy monster. He can go and eat dirt
True. how else are you going to write a sequal after the last words were "happily ever after"? Not to steal a joke from Nostalgia critic "what are they going to do next Cinderella 5 tax season?"
Toxic producers and their toxic PR mercenaries in corporate media deluding themselves to be journalists and critics. Some of them paid to be toxic, most just gravitating naturally to money and power.
"The Shadow that bred them can only mock, it cannot make: not real new things of its own." -direct quote from Tolkien. (Some people have tried using "hah! that wasn't even real Tolkien quote!" to disregard people using the paraphrase.)
@@theminister1154 Don't think me a puritan or something like that. I happen to like some lore breaking Tolkien IP. Shadows of War and Shadows of Mordor are about as lore breaking as you can get but I still enjoy playing them to no end. The nemesis system was great. Too bad the developer trademarked it because gaming in general could benefit from that sort of mechanic. But when it comes to "muh rangz" movies/books? They BETTER get it right. No sympathy to be found for The Devil in my house.....
@@ITBEurgava This is normally where I would quip something like: "Yes. My Rings. They are mine. Tolkien gave them to me...." But it's late, I'm tired so color me sarcastic. Just being silly....
@@theminister1154 the original devteam for lotro was, in fact, great...the experience, unfortunately was soured by greedy publishers and their insistence on paywalling literally *everything*
He deserves an Oscar just for that one scene at the mound of burning orcs when he kicks an orc head and falls to his knees and screams. The fact he stayed in character even though he broke his toes is just epic!
@@paha4209 Yeah I remember that too, which is also a testament how into the roll he was. Also if you watched The Making of videos (like a couple of hours long vlog) when he wasn't on camera and waiting for his call he went fly fishing in costume :) :)
Especially when he sees all the blackwashing when he specifically wrote the story for the Europid people and to celebrate European heritage and European physical beauty.
@@ivanasukjadic1423 Tolkien DID have non-white races in Arda. Except Amazon completely ignored those and race - swapped a few members of all the races that were canonically white. So instead of getting entire non-white cultures, Amazon sprinkled a few random non-white individuals here and there and called THAT diversity. Except Middle-Earth ISN'T Dungeons and Dragons. Or Forgotten Realms. Or Krynn.
@@Han-rw9ev yeah, its their thing. Same with Cleopatra, instead of writing about the MANY ACTUAL black African queens, they decided to steal a greek/macedonian queens name and slap it on a black woman..
@@ivanasukjadic1423 I agree. Suspension of disbelief goes straight out the window. I just can't help it. Witcher, LoTR, Vikings etc. The day there's a black emperor of ancient China on screen I'll feel the same way. This stuff can be just as important as the architecture or clothes or dialect used.
The problem I see it is that many companies seem to be buying up the IP to use the setting to tell their own stories. And most of the time, these stories don't match the world that they take place in. Even those without a keen eye would realize something is wrong or doesn't make sense while fans make the Confused Jackie face
More like they hijack popular ip's and inject their propaganda and fill it with "the message". Until it doesn't resemble what they bought in the first place. I hope these companies burn to the ground.
@@angryhermit4291 This is the thing. People are receptive to new good works. For all intents and purposes The Witcher was a new IP when it debuted in the west. And we see how that went. The problem wasn't that it was new, its that the show writers have no respect for what is established and want to force their vision and work, but they suck. Or Guardians of the Galaxy. Who had heard of them before the first movie?
Yes, you are what they decide to call a "toxic fan." That said, you're not ACTUALLY a toxic fan. You're just a fan, who actually appreciates the work that's gone into something and actually holds respect and reverence for the work. Sure, there are certainly toxic observers out there, people who would see nothing they follow be changed or experimented with even if it was done with respect and thoughtful consideration (I've literally heard people complain about being able to jump in the Doom remakes). But there is nothing wrong with people realizing that there is a consistency to something, especially when it's as timeless as Tolkein's works have proven to be. As far as I can tell, no one has actually said that Tolkein's works cannot be allowed to be changed (the Peter Jackson movies were actually different from the books, and Tolkein fans adored it in spite of and even because of the changes). It's the fact that they are against them doing it for malicious - and political - purposes that are crossing the line for so many people, and so the term "toxic fan" gets thrown around to delegitimize any legitimate criticism.
Can you explain what you mean by "toxic" here? I can't see how anything about your Doom example is inherently "toxic" in the way I've understood it, so I'm just wondering if I'm missing something.
@@TheChabowski Yeah, I'm kinda being facetious, but I'm trying to draw a line as an example between someone who wants to keep something consistent, vs someone who is just against change in general, over all, under any circumstance, because it messes with the purity of it. Even if the changes are done for a good and respectable reason. Like, sure you couldn't jump in Doom, but that doesn't mean that Doom was "a game where you couldn't jump." If you add a jumping mechanic in Doom, it doesn't suddenly change Doom as a property (though it can break some of the older levels.) Whereas changing the historic events of a story like Lord of the Rings for the express purpose of having an alternate narrative is clearly a much bigger thing to be concerned about. So by "toxic" I'm kind of trying to point out a group that goes very far beyond rationality and discussion in pursuit of their own personal goal.
I read the red book for the first time at 7 in 73. I saw Star wars in the theaters at least 20 times in 77. The Jennifer salke Tolkien is worse. She has exceeded her dark master Kathleen Kennedy in both vitriol and incompetence. Yes I realize this is quite a statement.
It just occurred to me, that it is more entertaining to watch The Rings of Power criticism,... than The Rings of Power. So The Rings of Power has been actually providing everyone a pretty good stream of quality entertainment!
It takes a great volume of hubris to hold another’s world, it’s characters and events, in your hands and claim the stories you will create are superior without regard to its original ideas. Fans recognize that hubris, and I believe THAT is the core of what upsets them so greatly.
A "toxic fan" is probably best defined as someone who cares about the lore and canon of his or her particular fandom, and will speak out against those attempting to destroy their fandom with a callous, often ideologically motivated, cash grab. Frankly, the term should be a badge of honor.
I can't believe you didn't even mention black Aragorn in Magic: The Gathering, here. (Nevermind how there's no downside to the "The Ring Tempts You" mechanic... -_- )
You literally personified my passion and personal experience with the Lord of the Rings. When I joined the Army and reread the books, they definitely struck a chord with me that only as an older man who has seen things could. Tolkien is a treasure and his works should be treated as such. It is painfully clear who is a true fan and who is not. It is also sad to see something that should bring people together in their love of his work only get politicized and bastardized by those who have NO BUSINESS touching it.
I remember discovering Tolkien one day in our school library when I was about 12. I was browsing the scifi section where I'd read just about everything form Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke and the other early scifi greats. I saw this weird looking red book with strange writing on the back and, of all things, a map inside! I went home and studied the map and devoured the book which turned out to be The Two Towers. I had never been struck so forcefully by an imaginary world. It was a singular experience. Soon I figured out there were two other books in this series. At that time, linked trilogies were fairly rare so I hadn't even considered that I was reading something out of sequence. I was able to find the other two books checked in eventually and read them in sequence, including Towers a second time. Then I read The Hobbit. At that point there was a pause of several years until The Silmarillion was published in 1977. I toyed with the alphabets and languages of middle-earth and also played any games based on the series. The messages of heroism, resilience, sacrifice, and persistence stuck with me and I'm sure they played a part in my career and life in general... a very positive part. So, LoTR matters. It is fantasy, but like ancient mythology, in encapsulates and magnifies positive human truths. I think that is one of the reasons why the new content, written with a completely different philosophy and post-modernist world view is so jarring. These new philosophies being inserted are extremely toxic and teach tribalism, bigotry, and have an overall tone of hopelessness which destroys all joy which stems from the original theme and settings of the world of Tolkien. After hearing what Rings of Power was doing to middle-earth, I took a complete pass and didn't watch one moment of the series. And that is really telling as if there should be a target audience for this, it would be someone like me who really, really loves Tolkien's saga of middle-earth. The lackluster, depressing themes of "wokeness" and what passes as social justice suck the life and fun out of everything they touch. No, you are not a toxic fan... just a true fan who can sense an ugly campaign run by those who hate success and beauty. I am completely with you my friend.
The cancelled "The White Council" video game is the biggest missed oppertunity in history. It was a planned Single-Player RPG where you would explore the open world of Middle Earth and do missions for the White Council as any race you liked. Literally the best possible idea for a game and it went to development hell.
I'm sorry you had to make this 😅 But I'm also glad it turned into a bit of a mod shoutout for those epic mods For anyone interested in the mods, come ping me in the discord
As someone who has been a lifelong fan of LotR back when my mom read the Hobbit to me as a bedtime story, and who spent my 3rd grade summer vacation reading the Fellowship, it's definitely got a special place in my heart. And after Rings of Power and the announcements for this new game, it's clear that I'm not the target audience. I'm not mad, and I'm not even disappointed. I'm just confused on how specifically disregarding the fans of the series to target a newer, unrelated audience make sense from a business perspective.
You are not a toxic fan. They are toxic "creators". Toxicity by its definition would have to worsen the body of content/culture/etc. That's them, not us. As a fellow LotR diehard, these LotR videos hit me in the feels but at least we have each other to grieve.
Corporations make a new IP instead of hijacking beloved franchises and running them into the ground with terrible, unfaithful writing challenge: Impossible
I felt this way about Star Wars. I’m older than Upper Echelon but it truly is part of growing up in the corporate world we live in. At the end of the day all you can do is make new stuff you own and popularize it. We outnumber the haters but unfortunately the mass market is far larger than the number of passionate nerds. So you have a right to grieve.
Imagine, if you will, that the Tudor family had bought the copyright to all of Shakespeare's library of works after his death. Then insisted that their lackluster prequel to Hamlet or second rate sequel to Romeo and Juliet be held in as high regard as the original works.
I'm sorry but that flashbang of War Thunder ads is just hilarious with how many creators are sponsored by them now. They are _really_ pushing that marketing lately lol.
Even if you sign up for Lotro VIP. They still give you each month, 500 coins equivalent to $5 a month to get expansions if you save for enough time. There's an incentive
The fact that there are hundreds of people who have completed formal academic degrees based on Tolkien lore, a huge fan base of dedicated Tolkien lore fanatics, and books upon books covering and expanding on the lore, and STILL Amazon went their own way, outside of lore.... is telling. That means they are lazy. It would have been EASY to find people who could vet their lore, or who could help them tell stories that already fit into the lore (because there is so much untapped lore available)... but no, they had to just make it up. Why? Because that is easier. Because they are NOT fans and do not care enough to engage people who are.
WHYYYYY????? I will never understand... WHY did Amazon pay millions and millions of dollars for a story/ characters/ setting that they KNOW works, just to go and change it. Then get mad at fans who want to hear lore accurate stories from that universe that THEY BOUGHT! It makes absolutely NO SENSE, and it hurts my head thinking about it. WHY BUY LOTR RIGHTS WHEN YOU DONT USE THE SOURCE MATERIAL... I need a nap.
With what you were saying about your concerns over being a toxic fan: I remember a statement which stuck with me recently, which was that being a critic of something used to mean loving something and wanting it to be the best version of itself. That term has warped over time, but please remember that it’s okay to like a property and still have doubts or concerns in favour of making it achieve its full potential.
The real solution to a lot of these issues would be to fix our copyright system so influential works like Tolkien can actually enter the public domain. Yeah studios like Amazon could still make this “in name only” shovelware, but it would keep studios from making the monopoly they currently have. It would prevent the messed up licensing network Amazon’s dealing with, and that way fans could make their own, passionate stories and games in that world.
Nah, you're not the crazy one. They're desecrating it on purpose too. It's easy to assume ineptitude, but they tell us straight to our faces what they care about (and it's not the lore, is it?).
This is what I have the biggest problem with in media today~ They all tell us to our faces exactly what they are doing and why... yet people still say "it's not a thing." It's a fucking clown world.
You’re not a toxic fan when you passionately and eloquently support a beloved work that is being wilfully disrespected by those who do not care for its lore and characters. And neither am I.
Entertainment is in a rather ironic state right now: the share holders and investors don't want to take the risks to get their rewards, so nothing new gets made, only IPs that have an already existing and large enough fan base to profit from get new ... "stuff" seems like the proper term. Meanwhile said fan base is considered to be the biggest problem of the IP, so the people who work on the new additions seem to do anything and everything possible to get rid of the fans as quickly as possible, to "make room for the new fans" or whatever. And at the end, both fans, investors and generally everyone will lose, except for the people in charge of the project for some reason.
Bring back the Battle for Middle Earth RTS games. I'm so sad EA shut down the servers. One of the best rts games ever created BFME one and BFME2. I'm loving the gameplay.
This is a meaningless fluff statement that reads like a 14 year old's deep and rebellious thoughts lol. Then again, that's the majority of people who watch this hack.
Oh my fucking god, I can't believe I'm not the only one who used the LotR Risk pieces to actually play other games. I made an impromptu version of Warhammer with them once and just kinda aped the rulebook I'd seen my brother play with a few times and it was so fun. Core memory unlocked.
To me, it feels kinda like trying to order that classic pizza you really enjoyed back in the day. Now when I try to order it, nobody can make it like they used to. Worse, they're putting pineapple and broccoli on it, insisting they know what's best for me. Just make me the goddamn pizza.
in a world where bad press gets mutated into a positive sales metric by calling it "impressions" there's really no other way to treat this than straight up ignoring it even exists.
If you are on Old Fan who Cares about the Lore and wants them to do the same, they yes. They consider anyone who does not agree with their "Interpretation" and "Modernization" of an IP to be Toxic.
That tangent at 4:21 felt very familiar to me as a longtime fan of the SMT series with how the series is being handled these days after the original creators stepped down, especially with how the fanbase is these days.
True, wich one was your favourite. The one with where you can build everywhere, or the one, where you have those building spots? Personally I liked both.
@@onepunchman7294 i haven't played 2 so I can't honestly answer, I'm interested in the idea of build anywhere in a RTS but I don't know how that works in practice 😅. But I'd like to try it. Are they added to steam? I'd love to play the games again, it was a bonding moment for me and my brother
one thing i'd like to see become standard in shows where multiple scenarios happen in multiple locations, where characters need to travel from point A to point B.. is to show us a real time accurate to scale map of where each scene is happening and the time/date. a lot of shows gets so messed up coz even their own writers don't seem to keep track of what tf is actually going on, where/when it's happening. leading to many inconsistencies
With the old mmo between Amazon and Tencent, they were actually working with a different company, Leyou. Tencent then bought them out and refused to honor the contract and agreement AGS had with Leyou and kept forcing new negotiations to a point where the title was just cancelled. So it's a bit more than just dealing with Tencent. Rather, Tencent tore down the house that was being built and demanded a new one on their terms.
Their definition of "toxic fan" is more or less how we define "fan." That is: we don't view IP as a coat of paint that can go on any story the writers want to tell, we view IP as an actual source of inspiration to tell the stories that can *only* be told in the context of that IP (or, at the very least, offer a way to tell a familiar story through the lens of that IP). Many modern, highly-narcissistic writers cram the story they want to tell (and whatever characters exist in that story) into whatever IP they can get their hands on, regardless of the fit. When anyone points out that this is a waste of an IP (or, for that matter, the viewer's time), they get salty and call that person a "toxic fan." The truth is: they're toxic writers.
What's funny is that New World wasn't even their first attempt at getting into the gaming market. It's just that no one remembers their TF2/Overwatch clone.
My man, as a Star Wars fan who is apparently "toxic" for wanting Disney to actually treat the IP and lore with respect, I hate to say it, but it's unfortunately better to just get to that point of apathy.... I'll have all the old stuff still, while absolute schlop gets put on others' plates.
7:26 You got that right. Amazon has the rights over the Lord of the Rings, but not over the Silmarilion. So they tried to make a prequel to the Lords of the Rings that is explicitly not the Silmarilion...
I'm getting the feeling that Amazon wants use Tolkien's legacy and fame to attract a huge audience towards Prime and their products, but also far enough from the original IP that they could possibly create their own brand of LOTR and keep 100% of the money from it
At this point, we should just be grateful we got the original film trilogy and even the hobbit trilogy when we did. If Peter Jackson hadn’t made the Lord of the rings trilogy, when he did, we would have never, and I mean, *never* have gotten a faithful to the book adaptation. Hollywood’s not changing its tune anytime in the near future so you just better hope your favorite work of fiction doesn’t get the rings of power treatment.
Check out a game called "Crucible", a title Amazon released a couple years ago, flopped so hard, they disable 2 of 3 game modes, then they unreleased it and put it back into closed beta. Then shutdown.
"Toxic Fan" => "We don't know how to ESG our products in a good way, but we still wanna make money, so we'll call you bad until your inner quality control is overwhelmed by any guilt we can trigger." It's just studio gaslighting for getting around "the customer is always right". A franchise is the relationship between the content and the audience. Owning the rights to the content does not grant ownership of the old relationship (between the audience and the content thus far), and it doesn't make disrespect classy. Their incompetence doesn't make us toxic.
The argument I always get is: ‘dOnT yOu kNoW wHaT aDApTaTiOn mEanS?!’ To which you ask them why words like *REWRITE* and *REIMAGINE* exist. There’s no argument after that.
I really liked War in the North. It wasn't the best game but player co-op was so much fun. My favorite moment was when first meeting the great eagle, Beleram he thanks the player for saving him and one of the dialogue options was basically "holy shit, you can talk?"
A "toxic fan" is someone who basically says: "You're having fun the wrong way. You're not enjoying what 'I' think you should be enjoying." So basically, if you allow people to have fun with technically wrong adaptations, you're all fine. And it is of course your right to point out if something is not according to the source material.
As a board gamer (and this also applies to video games but to a smaller extent) I agree with their initial statement: gameplay and mechanisms should always come before the story because if the mechanisms are bad, unresponsive, boring, story wouldn't be able to fix that. But that's not what they had in mind with that statement.
In the lands of Morwoke. In the fires of Mount Equity. The Dark Lord Amazaun forged in secret a television show. In it he poured his Money, his Hair, and his Will to diversify all Fun. One Woke to break them all.
Tearagorn is the perfect spokesman for preserving Tolkien's world and lore, similarly to how the cliche old native American man sheding a single tear after being pelted by a bag full of garbage.
Fun fact about the crying Native American man picture: they didn’t actually get a Native American man. They got an Italian. And then dressed him up like that. Wish it was a joke.
@@Toberumono I probably wouldn't have remembered it on my own but I do recall hearing something to that effect talking to my family about it 1-2 decades ago. Certainly is something hollywood would have done back then no doubt. Crazy memories. As propaganda I have to admit It was actually sort of effective, at least on single digits years old me; I remember feeling so ashamed that people would do something like that. Come to think of it, littering/litterers bother the crap out of me still to this very day! Huh, maybe I should meme some Tearagorn propaganda into existence..
Substitute LOTR for The Old Republic, and I feel your pain! Disney has access to hundreds of stories, characters, plots, and ideas from The Old Republic books and games, and they have barely dipped their toe into it.
The current issue with Lord of the Rings is sadly a classic story. There have been countless examples of IPs where after the original owners and any family members who had a strong emotional connection to the original creator of the IP died, it ends up in the hands of people who only see the estate as a way to make a quick book. It isn't a coincidence that after Christopher Tolkien passed away the brand started to get a massive push for further monetization. Tragically these situations end in one of two ways, either the license lapses into the public domain and they no longer bother milking the cow dry (look at Sherlock Holmes), or a series of massive flops results in the estate selling the rights to the IP and it ends up at the mercy of whoever bought it (Look at what happened to Buck Rodgers).
Only a casual LOTR fan here You're not a toxic fan, but an extremely passionate one for something you deeply deeply love 🙂 And that's a win, for whatever franchise you support
As a life long LOTR fan whose older sister is a life long LOTR fan I feel qualified to say that it is not toxic to point out real problems with a which you have done. Especially when one of those problems is blatant SJW diverse racial inclusion just to appease a small audience instead of doing something that not only doesn't break the lore but also adds something interesting to the world of LOTR. How RoP handled different races is perhaps its biggest missed opportunity because they could have explored parts of Middle Earth that don't get much attention or have much lore. Or they could have made something up and made it really interesting so even if it isn't cannon, we all can enjoy it.
The whole concept of a "toxic fan" bewilders me tbh, when was it a bad thing to be passionate and have an opinion? Don't get me wrong, fans can have bad takes, but that is allowed last time I checked.
Hi! Ephrim Tolkien here, I want you to know I hear you, and I appreciate your input. To address your concerns directly, we've made Aragorn black. You're welcome! "Stones sink because they only look down, boats float because they look up" - JRR Tolkien 2022
unlike starwars our LOTR characters wont be coming back 40 years later to ruin everything. They are forever preserved the way they are and that is something to truly be grateful for no matter what happens to the license. We grew up with LOTR so it means something to all of us i think
You gotta understand they amazon and these companies activly do not hire people who read or KNOW the source material. This was the case with Disney, who went out of their way to hire people who did not know She-Hulk, and then bragged how they didnt read the comics either, or anything. I can 100% bet people who worked on Woke of Power did not read or just SKIMMED the source material / watched the movies only at 2.5 speed.
4:30 You are justified and correct. You are also EXACTLY what they mean when they say 'toxic fan' they find anything that would cherish or protect the original work to be toxic.
Your problem, as many of "hardcore" lore enthusiasts is... LIVING IN A FREEZE FRAME. You don't want franchise to move on or lore to change. Why? Because it was like that when you're were young.
Imagine when AI finally is done torching copyright to the ground and anyone can have an AGI spin their prefect take on a franchise MMO, populate it with lifelike agentic NPCs, and invite whoever wants to partake.
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Im still waiting for a real link to battle for middle earth rts link from you,i have no idea where the real version is for pc. Please help me i want buy it
@@Greenhead24
A.O.T.R Mod on Moddb/Tutorial Tab/First link.
@@MJ-92 ok i will take a screenshot of this and check it out thanks
What you are going through is what a lot of us have gone through with our Star Trek franchise. Star Trek TNG and TOS mean something deep to me and my childhood, but what they are doing with the franchise now especially Discovery retcon attempts. I understand entirely with what you are feeling and where you find yourself sitting with current society. They try to make us feel bad for loving our passion franchises.
"When it comes to fans, it is a fan's right to have whatever opinion they want to have, and people are going to be upset... I don't necessarily consider that toxic. I just consider that passion." - Henry Cavill
Dk who henry is but alr like him
@@eyeuehhejehe3122 Dude played the witcher. Not the game, the series.
@@eyeuehhejehe3122
He’s the guy who played Superman in the DCEU and Geralt in Netflix’s version of The Witcher.
He’s known for being an A-List actor whose actually very involved in nerdy stuff. He nearly missed the call from his agent to play Superman because he was raiding in WoW.
@@eyeuehhejehe3122 He is the epitome of what it is to know the lore of a fantasy setting, build upon it with enormous passion for the original lore and, as the quote made it clear, accepts and is happy about it that different opinions exists of his own damn work.
Yeah, if you like him based on that quote, you'll fall in love with him after you get to know more what he's done and who he is as a person.
@@eyeuehhejehe3122 he played Superman in the recent DC films, Gerald of Rivia in Netflix’s Witcher series, and will be in upcoming war hammer 40k. He respects fans and is known to be an avid PC gamer. He is one the bros and has not been corrupted by Hollywood.
When these people say "toxic member of the fanbase" they mean anyone who doesn't walk in lockstep with them.
Or on the extreme end... anyone who is white / male and / or strait~
Any on of those thing's brands you as an extremist bigot in the ideologically possessed eye's.
Bfme2!!
Yes because toxicity totally doesn't exist in a fandom like the Sonic or Halo fandom lmao.
@@CantRead1 There is quite a bit of difference between what they consider a toxic member of the fanbase, and what normal people consider.
I don't know why it carries on because once you insult your fans and they go away the twitter mob won't buy anything
When a corpo says to the customers something like: "if you want a faithful look to the IP, read the book five more times, we must do our own spin" It tells me he is a greedy monster. He can go and eat dirt
>proceeds to buy five more LotR books instead of the game
True. how else are you going to write a sequal after the last words were "happily ever after"? Not to steal a joke from Nostalgia critic "what are they going to do next Cinderella 5 tax season?"
I have a stupid question: What does "IP" stand for? Sorry in advance for the dumb question. :)
@@JulieMoran1832 intellectual property
There's probably more toxic entertainment producers than toxic fans.
Toxic producers and their toxic PR mercenaries in corporate media deluding themselves to be journalists and critics. Some of them paid to be toxic, most just gravitating naturally to money and power.
Evil can not create.
It can only corrupt.
"The Shadow that bred them can only mock, it cannot make: not real new things of its own." -direct quote from Tolkien.
(Some people have tried using "hah! that wasn't even real Tolkien quote!" to disregard people using the paraphrase.)
@@theminister1154 Don't think me a puritan or something like that.
I happen to like some lore breaking Tolkien IP.
Shadows of War and Shadows of Mordor are about as lore breaking as you can get but I still enjoy playing them to no end.
The nemesis system was great. Too bad the developer trademarked it because gaming in general could benefit from that sort of mechanic.
But when it comes to "muh rangz" movies/books?
They BETTER get it right.
No sympathy to be found for The Devil in my house.....
Muh rangz?
@@ITBEurgava This is normally where I would quip something like:
"Yes. My Rings. They are mine. Tolkien gave them to me...."
But it's late, I'm tired so color me sarcastic.
Just being silly....
@@theminister1154 the original devteam for lotro was, in fact, great...the experience, unfortunately was soured by greedy publishers and their insistence on paywalling literally *everything*
The biggest impediment to the complete prostitution of our fandoms is the lore and those who hold it dear to there hearts.
Well said
This includes the original Dev team of Lord of the rings online by the way. Absolute fanatical Tolkien fans.
Obligatory "their" but I agree.
@@nevabeensmart don't ruin a good comment by being the Grammer nazi.
@@nevabeensmart 🙋♂️
Viggo - one of the best actors of our time. And fk Oscars for stealing an award from him.
Amazon is as close to sociopathic metastasis as humanly possible.
He deserves an Oscar just for that one scene at the mound of burning orcs when he kicks an orc head and falls to his knees and screams. The fact he stayed in character even though he broke his toes is just epic!
@@DarkKitarist don't forget the dagger scene where by mistake a dagger flew at him and he had to reflex parry it.
@@paha4209 Yeah I remember that too, which is also a testament how into the roll he was. Also if you watched The Making of videos (like a couple of hours long vlog) when he wasn't on camera and waiting for his call he went fly fishing in costume :) :)
Imagine if Tolkien came back, seeing Amazon Rings and then the new Gollum game. He would spawn Balrogs on spot to take him home.
Especially when he sees all the blackwashing when he specifically wrote the story for the Europid people and to celebrate European heritage and European physical beauty.
@@ivanasukjadic1423 Tolkien DID have non-white races in Arda.
Except Amazon completely ignored those and race - swapped a few members of all the races that were canonically white.
So instead of getting entire non-white cultures, Amazon sprinkled a few random non-white individuals here and there and called THAT diversity.
Except Middle-Earth ISN'T Dungeons and Dragons. Or Forgotten Realms. Or Krynn.
@@Han-rw9ev yeah, its their thing.
Same with Cleopatra, instead of writing about the MANY ACTUAL black African queens, they decided to steal a greek/macedonian queens name and slap it on a black woman..
@@ivanasukjadic1423 I agree. Suspension of disbelief goes straight out the window. I just can't help it. Witcher, LoTR, Vikings etc. The day there's a black emperor of ancient China on screen I'll feel the same way.
This stuff can be just as important as the architecture or clothes or dialect used.
@@1985NEVETS dont worry, there is at least one title that they wont touch with their corrupted blackwashing hands: Tarzan
In words of Kratos "keep your expectations low and you will never be disappointed"
"my expectations were low but holy shit !"
My expectations were sufficently low after Wheel of Time fml
Also quoted by Robin Williams, Chris Titus, and George Lucas, but yeah, video game bro said it too.
One of the times Kratos was wrong about something. Even with bare minimum of expectation you can be disappointed.
i don't know why Amazon consistently chooses to be either malicious or stupid, but they are consistent.
Talmud
The problem I see it is that many companies seem to be buying up the IP to use the setting to tell their own stories. And most of the time, these stories don't match the world that they take place in. Even those without a keen eye would realize something is wrong or doesn't make sense while fans make the Confused Jackie face
More like they hijack popular ip's and inject their propaganda and fill it with "the message". Until it doesn't resemble what they bought in the first place. I hope these companies burn to the ground.
They can't create. So they steal from others
They're buying up the IP because fandom is disinterested in new stories, and the familiar brands are lucrative.
@@troubadour723 I wouldn't say there disinterested in New stories. It's just that the stories they try to force down our throats isn't good.
@@angryhermit4291 This is the thing. People are receptive to new good works. For all intents and purposes The Witcher was a new IP when it debuted in the west. And we see how that went. The problem wasn't that it was new, its that the show writers have no respect for what is established and want to force their vision and work, but they suck.
Or Guardians of the Galaxy. Who had heard of them before the first movie?
If you're a toxic fan, all the people that want to protect the spirit of these amazing universes are toxic. It's big money vs true passion imo
Yes they do call you toxic and despise you because you have *standards* and won’t just consume product and get excited for next product
Yes, you are what they decide to call a "toxic fan." That said, you're not ACTUALLY a toxic fan. You're just a fan, who actually appreciates the work that's gone into something and actually holds respect and reverence for the work. Sure, there are certainly toxic observers out there, people who would see nothing they follow be changed or experimented with even if it was done with respect and thoughtful consideration (I've literally heard people complain about being able to jump in the Doom remakes). But there is nothing wrong with people realizing that there is a consistency to something, especially when it's as timeless as Tolkein's works have proven to be. As far as I can tell, no one has actually said that Tolkein's works cannot be allowed to be changed (the Peter Jackson movies were actually different from the books, and Tolkein fans adored it in spite of and even because of the changes). It's the fact that they are against them doing it for malicious - and political - purposes that are crossing the line for so many people, and so the term "toxic fan" gets thrown around to delegitimize any legitimate criticism.
Real toxic fans exist.
They are like lottery winners. You know they exist but you never hear about real ones.
Can you explain what you mean by "toxic" here?
I can't see how anything about your Doom example is inherently "toxic" in the way I've understood it, so I'm just wondering if I'm missing something.
@@TheChabowski Yeah, I'm kinda being facetious, but I'm trying to draw a line as an example between someone who wants to keep something consistent, vs someone who is just against change in general, over all, under any circumstance, because it messes with the purity of it. Even if the changes are done for a good and respectable reason.
Like, sure you couldn't jump in Doom, but that doesn't mean that Doom was "a game where you couldn't jump." If you add a jumping mechanic in Doom, it doesn't suddenly change Doom as a property (though it can break some of the older levels.)
Whereas changing the historic events of a story like Lord of the Rings for the express purpose of having an alternate narrative is clearly a much bigger thing to be concerned about.
So by "toxic" I'm kind of trying to point out a group that goes very far beyond rationality and discussion in pursuit of their own personal goal.
I think when they say toxic fan, they just mean people that don't just buy whatever it is they're selling
@@dethtreeorigin Yeah, the term "toxic fan" is just a code for "Don't listen to this person's opinion, it's inherently invalid, because I've decided."
Bro, this is exactly how I felt when they wrote my beloved Star wars characters into oblivion.
I read the red book for the first time at 7 in 73. I saw Star wars in the theaters at least 20 times in 77. The Jennifer salke Tolkien is worse. She has exceeded her dark master Kathleen Kennedy in both vitriol and incompetence. Yes I realize this is quite a statement.
Star-wars.. the easiest layup in history~
Hollywood~ : "Woke finds a way!".
It just occurred to me, that it is more entertaining to watch The Rings of Power criticism,... than The Rings of Power.
So The Rings of Power has been actually providing everyone a pretty good stream of quality entertainment!
It takes a great volume of hubris to hold another’s world, it’s characters and events, in your hands and claim the stories you will create are superior without regard to its original ideas. Fans recognize that hubris, and I believe THAT is the core of what upsets them so greatly.
A "toxic fan" is probably best defined as someone who cares about the lore and canon of his or her particular fandom, and will speak out against those attempting to destroy their fandom with a callous, often ideologically motivated, cash grab.
Frankly, the term should be a badge of honor.
I can't believe you didn't even mention black Aragorn in Magic: The Gathering, here. (Nevermind how there's no downside to the "The Ring Tempts You" mechanic... -_- )
What else do you expect from grand wizards of the coast?.
What should we really expect from a company with an ocean of money and a thimble full of talent.
Hopefully Mass firings.
You literally personified my passion and personal experience with the Lord of the Rings. When I joined the Army and reread the books, they definitely struck a chord with me that only as an older man who has seen things could. Tolkien is a treasure and his works should be treated as such. It is painfully clear who is a true fan and who is not. It is also sad to see something that should bring people together in their love of his work only get politicized and bastardized by those who have NO BUSINESS touching it.
I remember discovering Tolkien one day in our school library when I was about 12. I was browsing the scifi section where I'd read just about everything form Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke and the other early scifi greats. I saw this weird looking red book with strange writing on the back and, of all things, a map inside! I went home and studied the map and devoured the book which turned out to be The Two Towers. I had never been struck so forcefully by an imaginary world. It was a singular experience. Soon I figured out there were two other books in this series. At that time, linked trilogies were fairly rare so I hadn't even considered that I was reading something out of sequence. I was able to find the other two books checked in eventually and read them in sequence, including Towers a second time. Then I read The Hobbit. At that point there was a pause of several years until The Silmarillion was published in 1977. I toyed with the alphabets and languages of middle-earth and also played any games based on the series. The messages of heroism, resilience, sacrifice, and persistence stuck with me and I'm sure they played a part in my career and life in general... a very positive part. So, LoTR matters. It is fantasy, but like ancient mythology, in encapsulates and magnifies positive human truths. I think that is one of the reasons why the new content, written with a completely different philosophy and post-modernist world view is so jarring. These new philosophies being inserted are extremely toxic and teach tribalism, bigotry, and have an overall tone of hopelessness which destroys all joy which stems from the original theme and settings of the world of Tolkien. After hearing what Rings of Power was doing to middle-earth, I took a complete pass and didn't watch one moment of the series. And that is really telling as if there should be a target audience for this, it would be someone like me who really, really loves Tolkien's saga of middle-earth. The lackluster, depressing themes of "wokeness" and what passes as social justice suck the life and fun out of everything they touch. No, you are not a toxic fan... just a true fan who can sense an ugly campaign run by those who hate success and beauty. I am completely with you my friend.
The cancelled "The White Council" video game is the biggest missed oppertunity in history. It was a planned Single-Player RPG where you would explore the open world of Middle Earth and do missions for the White Council as any race you liked. Literally the best possible idea for a game and it went to development hell.
The greatest TV bomb in world history.
Dude. I'm with you 100%.
“Evil cannot create anything new, they can only corrupt and ruin good forces have invented or made.”
― JRR Tolkien
I'm sorry you had to make this 😅
But I'm also glad it turned into a bit of a mod shoutout for those epic mods
For anyone interested in the mods, come ping me in the discord
As someone who has been a lifelong fan of LotR back when my mom read the Hobbit to me as a bedtime story, and who spent my 3rd grade summer vacation reading the Fellowship, it's definitely got a special place in my heart. And after Rings of Power and the announcements for this new game, it's clear that I'm not the target audience.
I'm not mad, and I'm not even disappointed. I'm just confused on how specifically disregarding the fans of the series to target a newer, unrelated audience make sense from a business perspective.
Even if you put the lore and the fans aside, that show is just B A D.
You are not a toxic fan. They are toxic "creators". Toxicity by its definition would have to worsen the body of content/culture/etc. That's them, not us.
As a fellow LotR diehard, these LotR videos hit me in the feels but at least we have each other to grieve.
You're not a toxic fan your a loyal member of the fanbase. You're a person who cares about the sorce matrial, thats what matters.
Corporations make a new IP instead of hijacking beloved franchises and running them into the ground with terrible, unfaithful writing challenge: Impossible
I felt this way about Star Wars. I’m older than Upper Echelon but it truly is part of growing up in the corporate world we live in.
At the end of the day all you can do is make new stuff you own and popularize it. We outnumber the haters but unfortunately the mass market is far larger than the number of passionate nerds. So you have a right to grieve.
Imagine, if you will, that the Tudor family had bought the copyright to all of Shakespeare's library of works after his death. Then insisted that their lackluster prequel to Hamlet or second rate sequel to Romeo and Juliet be held in as high regard as the original works.
I'm sorry but that flashbang of War Thunder ads is just hilarious with how many creators are sponsored by them now. They are _really_ pushing that marketing lately lol.
Even if you sign up for Lotro VIP. They still give you each month, 500 coins equivalent to $5 a month to get expansions if you save for enough time. There's an incentive
I feel you on this subject. Old man indeed. Feels bad man.
The Lord of the Rings pinball machine by Stern Pinball is also a worthy alternative to Amazon slosh.
The fact that there are hundreds of people who have completed formal academic degrees based on Tolkien lore, a huge fan base of dedicated Tolkien lore fanatics, and books upon books covering and expanding on the lore, and STILL Amazon went their own way, outside of lore.... is telling. That means they are lazy. It would have been EASY to find people who could vet their lore, or who could help them tell stories that already fit into the lore (because there is so much untapped lore available)... but no, they had to just make it up. Why? Because that is easier. Because they are NOT fans and do not care enough to engage people who are.
WHYYYYY????? I will never understand... WHY did Amazon pay millions and millions of dollars for a story/ characters/ setting that they KNOW works, just to go and change it. Then get mad at fans who want to hear lore accurate stories from that universe that THEY BOUGHT! It makes absolutely NO SENSE, and it hurts my head thinking about it. WHY BUY LOTR RIGHTS WHEN YOU DONT USE THE SOURCE MATERIAL... I need a nap.
With what you were saying about your concerns over being a toxic fan: I remember a statement which stuck with me recently, which was that being a critic of something used to mean loving something and wanting it to be the best version of itself. That term has warped over time, but please remember that it’s okay to like a property and still have doubts or concerns in favour of making it achieve its full potential.
The real solution to a lot of these issues would be to fix our copyright system so influential works like Tolkien can actually enter the public domain. Yeah studios like Amazon could still make this “in name only” shovelware, but it would keep studios from making the monopoly they currently have. It would prevent the messed up licensing network Amazon’s dealing with, and that way fans could make their own, passionate stories and games in that world.
So far the shovelware isn’t all we get when things come into the public domain.
Nah, you're not the crazy one. They're desecrating it on purpose too. It's easy to assume ineptitude, but they tell us straight to our faces what they care about (and it's not the lore, is it?).
This is what I have the biggest problem with in media today~
They all tell us to our faces exactly what they are doing and why... yet people still say "it's not a thing."
It's a fucking clown world.
Henry Cavill said it best. It's not being toxic at all. It's called being passionate for the things you love.
You’re not a toxic fan when you passionately and eloquently support a beloved work that is being wilfully disrespected by those who do not care for its lore and characters. And neither am I.
Entertainment is in a rather ironic state right now: the share holders and investors don't want to take the risks to get their rewards, so nothing new gets made, only IPs that have an already existing and large enough fan base to profit from get new ... "stuff" seems like the proper term. Meanwhile said fan base is considered to be the biggest problem of the IP, so the people who work on the new additions seem to do anything and everything possible to get rid of the fans as quickly as possible, to "make room for the new fans" or whatever.
And at the end, both fans, investors and generally everyone will lose, except for the people in charge of the project for some reason.
Bring back the Battle for Middle Earth RTS games. I'm so sad EA shut down the servers. One of the best rts games ever created BFME one and BFME2. I'm loving the gameplay.
being "toxic" just means that you don't do what they tell you to do. "toxic" means that you are not obedient and submissive to those with power.
This is a meaningless fluff statement that reads like a 14 year old's deep and rebellious thoughts lol. Then again, that's the majority of people who watch this hack.
Oh my fucking god, I can't believe I'm not the only one who used the LotR Risk pieces to actually play other games. I made an impromptu version of Warhammer with them once and just kinda aped the rulebook I'd seen my brother play with a few times and it was so fun. Core memory unlocked.
Bro BFME (all iterations) is like the perfect game. So glad to see ppl didnt forget about it. Gem of my childhood. We grew up with it
To me, it feels kinda like trying to order that classic pizza you really enjoyed back in the day. Now when I try to order it, nobody can make it like they used to. Worse, they're putting pineapple and broccoli on it, insisting they know what's best for me. Just make me the goddamn pizza.
in a world where bad press gets mutated into a positive sales metric by calling it "impressions" there's really no other way to treat this than straight up ignoring it even exists.
if a corporation says you are the bad guy, congrats you are a certified good one
If you are on Old Fan who Cares about the Lore and wants them to do the same, they yes. They consider anyone who does not agree with their "Interpretation" and "Modernization" of an IP to be Toxic.
That tangent at 4:21 felt very familiar to me as a longtime fan of the SMT series with how the series is being handled these days after the original creators stepped down, especially with how the fanbase is these days.
"Toxic" doesn't mean anything. It's just a pretentious way of saying "bad," and just as subjective.
Yo battle for middle earth lets go! So underrated I wish I could get another copy of the game 😭
True, wich one was your favourite. The one with where you can build everywhere, or the one, where you have those building spots? Personally I liked both.
@@onepunchman7294 i haven't played 2 so I can't honestly answer, I'm interested in the idea of build anywhere in a RTS but I don't know how that works in practice 😅. But I'd like to try it. Are they added to steam? I'd love to play the games again, it was a bonding moment for me and my brother
I've got a copy of the second game with its dlc somewhere in my hard drive
@@SabreAran Sadly you can only buy that from second hand or pirate it. EA has no longer the license to these titles.
@@onepunchman7294 sigh....... I'll dust off my pegleg and hook, hope my parrot is still alive
one thing i'd like to see become standard in shows where multiple scenarios happen in multiple locations, where characters need to travel from point A to point B..
is to show us a real time accurate to scale map of where each scene is happening and the time/date.
a lot of shows gets so messed up coz even their own writers don't seem to keep track of what tf is actually going on, where/when it's happening.
leading to many inconsistencies
How every old school Star Wars fan feels...
As arch warhammer says - gatekeep gatekeep gatekeep these people cant be trusted with these ips
With the old mmo between Amazon and Tencent, they were actually working with a different company, Leyou. Tencent then bought them out and refused to honor the contract and agreement AGS had with Leyou and kept forcing new negotiations to a point where the title was just cancelled.
So it's a bit more than just dealing with Tencent. Rather, Tencent tore down the house that was being built and demanded a new one on their terms.
Their definition of "toxic fan" is more or less how we define "fan." That is: we don't view IP as a coat of paint that can go on any story the writers want to tell, we view IP as an actual source of inspiration to tell the stories that can *only* be told in the context of that IP (or, at the very least, offer a way to tell a familiar story through the lens of that IP).
Many modern, highly-narcissistic writers cram the story they want to tell (and whatever characters exist in that story) into whatever IP they can get their hands on, regardless of the fit. When anyone points out that this is a waste of an IP (or, for that matter, the viewer's time), they get salty and call that person a "toxic fan."
The truth is: they're toxic writers.
What's funny is that New World wasn't even their first attempt at getting into the gaming market. It's just that no one remembers their TF2/Overwatch clone.
10:18 When you say "established titlles" and everyone thinks about a company with that name.
Its not lotr it's rings of power
Dont you ever get that wrong this pile of garbage has nothing to do with lotr
It's a fan fiction they probably don't even have the rights
🙌🙌*gif of Michael Scott slamming hands on desk and yelling "THANK YOU"*
My man, as a Star Wars fan who is apparently "toxic" for wanting Disney to actually treat the IP and lore with respect, I hate to say it, but it's unfortunately better to just get to that point of apathy....
I'll have all the old stuff still, while absolute schlop gets put on others' plates.
7:26 You got that right. Amazon has the rights over the Lord of the Rings, but not over the Silmarilion.
So they tried to make a prequel to the Lords of the Rings that is explicitly not the Silmarilion...
I'm getting the feeling that Amazon wants use Tolkien's legacy and fame to attract a huge audience towards Prime and their products, but also far enough from the original IP that they could possibly create their own brand of LOTR and keep 100% of the money from it
At this point, we should just be grateful we got the original film trilogy and even the hobbit trilogy when we did. If Peter Jackson hadn’t made the Lord of the rings trilogy, when he did, we would have never, and I mean, *never* have gotten a faithful to the book adaptation.
Hollywood’s not changing its tune anytime in the near future so you just better hope your favorite work of fiction doesn’t get the rings of power treatment.
I deadass completly forgot Amazon did a LOTR show, i even watched it too lol
Nana Nana \
Slay Jude
That was absolutely brutal. An extremely well deserved.
Amazon did make a mess and took a lot of liberties, but Wizards of the coast said "hold my beer." And made Aragorn black.
subverting expectations is easier than meeting them, that's why they insist on doing that instead
Check out a game called "Crucible", a title Amazon released a couple years ago, flopped so hard, they disable 2 of 3 game modes, then they unreleased it and put it back into closed beta. Then shutdown.
Just saying, they've already failed super hard before, at games.
"Toxic Fan" => "We don't know how to ESG our products in a good way, but we still wanna make money, so we'll call you bad until your inner quality control is overwhelmed by any guilt we can trigger."
It's just studio gaslighting for getting around "the customer is always right".
A franchise is the relationship between the content and the audience.
Owning the rights to the content does not grant ownership of the old relationship (between the audience and the content thus far), and it doesn't make disrespect classy. Their incompetence doesn't make us toxic.
The argument I always get is:
‘dOnT yOu kNoW wHaT aDApTaTiOn mEanS?!’
To which you ask them why words like *REWRITE* and *REIMAGINE* exist.
There’s no argument after that.
I really liked War in the North. It wasn't the best game but player co-op was so much fun.
My favorite moment was when first meeting the great eagle, Beleram he thanks the player for saving him and one of the dialogue options was basically "holy shit, you can talk?"
A "toxic fan" is someone who basically says: "You're having fun the wrong way. You're not enjoying what 'I' think you should be enjoying."
So basically, if you allow people to have fun with technically wrong adaptations, you're all fine. And it is of course your right to point out if something is not according to the source material.
As a board gamer (and this also applies to video games but to a smaller extent) I agree with their initial statement: gameplay and mechanisms should always come before the story because if the mechanisms are bad, unresponsive, boring, story wouldn't be able to fix that. But that's not what they had in mind with that statement.
"Bitter old man in a young man's body"
-Same unfortunately
Amazon's version of LotR is the same as putting a swoosh on sandals and calling them Nikes.
In the lands of Morwoke. In the fires of Mount Equity. The Dark Lord Amazaun forged in secret a television show. In it he poured his Money, his Hair, and his Will to diversify all Fun. One Woke to break them all.
Literally every other franchise destroyed by Hollywood: First time?
Tearagorn is the perfect spokesman for preserving Tolkien's world and lore, similarly to how the cliche old native American man sheding a single tear after being pelted by a bag full of garbage.
Fun fact about the crying Native American man picture: they didn’t actually get a Native American man. They got an Italian. And then dressed him up like that. Wish it was a joke.
@@Toberumono I probably wouldn't have remembered it on my own but I do recall hearing something to that effect talking to my family about it 1-2 decades ago. Certainly is something hollywood would have done back then no doubt. Crazy memories.
As propaganda I have to admit It was actually sort of effective, at least on single digits years old me; I remember feeling so ashamed that people would do something like that. Come to think of it, littering/litterers bother the crap out of me still to this very day!
Huh, maybe I should meme some Tearagorn propaganda into existence..
Substitute LOTR for The Old Republic, and I feel your pain! Disney has access to hundreds of stories, characters, plots, and ideas from The Old Republic books and games, and they have barely dipped their toe into it.
The current issue with Lord of the Rings is sadly a classic story. There have been countless examples of IPs where after the original owners and any family members who had a strong emotional connection to the original creator of the IP died, it ends up in the hands of people who only see the estate as a way to make a quick book. It isn't a coincidence that after Christopher Tolkien passed away the brand started to get a massive push for further monetization. Tragically these situations end in one of two ways, either the license lapses into the public domain and they no longer bother milking the cow dry (look at Sherlock Holmes), or a series of massive flops results in the estate selling the rights to the IP and it ends up at the mercy of whoever bought it (Look at what happened to Buck Rodgers).
Only a casual LOTR fan here
You're not a toxic fan, but an extremely passionate one for something you deeply deeply love 🙂
And that's a win, for whatever franchise you support
As a life long LOTR fan whose older sister is a life long LOTR fan I feel qualified to say that it is not toxic to point out real problems with a which you have done. Especially when one of those problems is blatant SJW diverse racial inclusion just to appease a small audience instead of doing something that not only doesn't break the lore but also adds something interesting to the world of LOTR. How RoP handled different races is perhaps its biggest missed opportunity because they could have explored parts of Middle Earth that don't get much attention or have much lore. Or they could have made something up and made it really interesting so even if it isn't cannon, we all can enjoy it.
The whole concept of a "toxic fan" bewilders me tbh, when was it a bad thing to be passionate and have an opinion? Don't get me wrong, fans can have bad takes, but that is allowed last time I checked.
You should see what is happening with the Magic The Gathering Lord Of the Rings set.
This is the same thing that happened to Star Trek.
Strangely enough, both franchise are in the hands of former Bad Robot employees.
There's no such thing as a toxic fan unless you're down to building an altar to the main lead actor out of toenail clippings.
Hi! Ephrim Tolkien here, I want you to know I hear you, and I appreciate your input. To address your concerns directly, we've made Aragorn black. You're welcome!
"Stones sink because they only look down, boats float because they look up" - JRR Tolkien 2022
unlike starwars our LOTR characters wont be coming back 40 years later to ruin everything. They are forever preserved the way they are and that is something to truly be grateful for no matter what happens to the license. We grew up with LOTR so it means something to all of us i think
You gotta understand they amazon and these companies activly do not hire people who read or KNOW the source material.
This was the case with Disney, who went out of their way to hire people who did not know She-Hulk, and then bragged how they didnt read the comics either, or anything.
I can 100% bet people who worked on Woke of Power did not read or just SKIMMED the source material / watched the movies only at 2.5 speed.
4:30
You are justified and correct.
You are also EXACTLY what they mean when they say 'toxic fan' they find anything that would cherish or protect the original work to be toxic.
Show me someone who enjoyed Amazon's LOTR, and I'll show you someone who ate a lotta paint chips as a kid.
Your problem, as many of "hardcore" lore enthusiasts is... LIVING IN A FREEZE FRAME.
You don't want franchise to move on or lore to change. Why? Because it was like that when you're were young.
Imagine when AI finally is done torching copyright to the ground and anyone can have an AGI spin their prefect take on a franchise MMO, populate it with lifelike agentic NPCs, and invite whoever wants to partake.
Can’t have a story of destructive evil without TenCent being in there somewhere.