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But there’s no reason to believe it will help you attract a wide audience because audiences these days have terrible taste.

Amen to that. Look at the stuff that passes as "good tv" these days too. Just gross.

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Many of the films that make big money appeal to the least common denominator or overpowering eye candy or they rely upon star power to entice viewers (who afterwards, ask themselves why they watched that horrible movie that they went to see because their favorite actor was in it).

TBH I do not watch many movies there days. I don't really watch much of anything these days. Most of it (be it a movie or a TV show or a streaming show) isn't offering me anything I want to see. That is not necessarily a commentary on their quality--I just have zero interest in watching whatever it is, regardless of the quality.

The upcoming (Amazon) Rings of Power is a good example. I am a HUGE Tolkien nerd. Stephen Colbert only thinks he is. Yet I seriously doubt that I will watch Rings of Power. Why?

1) Because they are attempting to be woke about it, based upon the trailer and the commentary of the people making it (we think it should look like the real world (they say)--uh, no, the POINT is it ISN'T the real world. It is a freaking ENGLISH (language and culture) fantasy story written by a man well-versed in Anglo-Saxon and Germanic culture.

If someone was trying to do the same for Hindu or Chinese fantasy/mythology, I am sure there would be a major stink.

2) It looks like they have very little actual lore to work with (as they can only use stuff from LotR and its appendices)--which means they cannot use anything from the Silmarillion or the various other texts put together for Cristopher Tolkien (HoME, Beren and Luthien, Tale of Hurin and all of the "historical" stuff). So they have created a "young" Galadriel (hey, she is only several thousand years old at that point, so ya) who is galivanting around having adventures. Please.

Anyway, rant complete. As TC observes, the only sense of taste many people have these days resides in their mouth.

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founding

Well, audiences certainly have their share of terrible taste. Luckily, our friendly resident critic at the B must have missed the line where they were handing that out.

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