Keely McKinley

Pretty movie with a horrible problematic premise. A excuse to openly objectify and sexualize women but this time we get to pretend to care about women while We do it. The kind of movie that uses feminism as an excuse to make a sexist movie. Openly evaluates women through the male gaze and markets itself as being elevated. Filming treats women like shit. Does not treat women as people at all but masquerades as a movie that sheds light on sexism, while telling a story from a sexist perspective. Just an excuse to make the same old sexist shit under the guise of feminism. Utter shit. Our value is based on how appealing we are to men, happiness is being appealing to men. Female characters do not feel like people. The worst kind of hot garbage. Absolutely ridiculous, cannot hate it it enough.

Middle earth looks incredible with this giant budget! I am not hung up on it not being the exact same style as Peter Jackson, I like seeing origins and more middle earth. I love it so much. I LOVED Peter Jackson’s LOTR. I have all the extended editions and saw them all collectively over 10x in theatres. I was raised in the books, I’ve read them all and the Silmarillion. I’m really discouraged by the fans who are so I flexible with their deifinition of middle earth that they refuse to enjoy a beautiful high budget show about it. It doesn’t have to be the same as everything that came before it! It’s objectively a beautiful fantasy show that is fun to watch. Do I wish all the elves spoke sundar in or Quenya when they spoke to each other? Of course I do! But it’s not going to get in the way of getting to see my favorite fantasy world produced in gorgeous detail by so many talented artists and artisans. Seems like the people that hate it are either super duper conservative/ have a problem with it all just not being men and white people/ or just take Peter Jackson’s version way too seriously. It’s just such a shame that they don’t know how to have fun.

I never read the books so I can’t speak to the accuracy of the show in relation to them. I would argue that watching the show for the sake of itself has been a wonderful experience. The way that they depict magic is beautiful and fresh. The attention to detail in the costuming is wonderful and the acting is really good. This show has made me laugh and cry and it’s very hard to stop watching. I haven’t seen a fantasy show of such quality put women front and center like the show does. It’s the best thing I’ve seen in a long while and here is to many more seasons!

The concept is really great and it was fun to watch but the screenplay writing is often lazy. I get very frustrated with characters doing things that don’t make any sense just to move the story forward. Sometimes the story doesn’t follow its own rules about the magic and that’s irritating too. Like I said, fun to watch, but more care needs to be put into moving the plot along in ways that make sense.