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+--- Thread: Serkis has abandoned the playbook for "LOTR: The Hunt for Golem"? (DIY rebellion) (/thread-20944.html)
Serkis has abandoned the playbook for "LOTR: The Hunt for Golem"? (DIY rebellion) - C C - Jul 26, 2026
Heh. Normally, you could pretty much bet that Serkis or whichever director would eventually buckle under the criticism. But filming has already began in New Zealand, so it may not be possible to backtrack. So I guess he gets gonad compliments for waiting till the late stage to confirm what is registering as a deep horror and outrage for establishment elites.
OTOH, none of this means that the story and production values will be quality level. Going with canon in regard to the cast doesn't mean positive discrimination standards do not rule the roost elsewhere. However, the two primary writers are ones that Peter Jackson has worked with in the past, albeit some nepotism (Fran Walsh is Jackson's domestic partner).
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JON DEL ARROZ
https://youtu.be/McV_jFe-bNs
VIDEO EXCERPTS: We finally have a little bit of good news coming out of the Lord of the Rings film camp. Something I wish didn't exist to be honest. I think they should leave it as it is. Leave J.R.R. Tolken alone. Because Hollywood, as we know, just absolutely bastardizes every single property that they get their hands on.
Andy Serkis with his recent history in films, I didn't expect anything different to come out of this. I expect The Hunt for Golem to be a complete travesty.
[...] But there is some decent news about it today. I got to give him some props for going against the Hollywood norm and rejecting the one playbook the establishment has. It's the Netflix playbook, and it's obnoxious and he's actually signaling that he's going to be doing something different. Thank God.
[...] So, Andy Serkis is directing The Lord of the Rings, The Hunt for Golem, as we know. And the BBC asked him directly why he announced a cast that is entirely white. Now, this is really funny coming from the BBC, a British organization, as the BBC is basically importing new population groups into its entertainment industry to replace the old white hegemony. It's a social crime that historic England was predominantly white.
He didn't reach for the answer that most franchise executives give today. He gave a different one, and it's splitting the media because the media wants to make this a troublemaking thing for him. The cast so far includes Anya Taylor-Joy, who's pretty good for an elf; Kate Winslet; Jamie Dornan; Leo Woodall; and Lee Pace alongside returning stars Elijah Wood and Ian McKellen. No Black actors have been announced.
Wow. The same thing drew criticism from Peter Jackson's original trilogy for decades from the media and lands at a moment when the rest of the franchise landscape has settled into a predictable script. Get asked about diversity, you respond by promising more of it and frame any pushback as bigotry. You guys have seen this in how many different franchises now? Are there any that have been left alone at all in this regard?
Amazon's Rings of Power built two full seasons based on that formula. [...] Serkis did not run that play. He pointed instead to Tolken's actual source material. He said Tolken himself was influenced a lot by Norse mythology. There was a lot of that feeling. The Shire feels very much like a very white community, you know. [laughter]
Wow. Wait, white culture exists, and it's allowed to exist? Lock Andy Serkis up for wrong-think, guys. He's just become a right-wing extremist, as you might say. [laughter] He's a toxic fan, right? He's all the things that are absolutely terrible.
Now, this is something that we see all the time, and we just saw it with the Odyssey, how Christopher Nolan just trashed the Greek heritage. There was not one Greek actor in any major role. He did things the completely Hollywood way and is getting accolades for it from the critics and is going to win a ton of awards for it.
This anti-Western racism is what Hollywood is propagating in very non-subtle terms in everything, and you're not allowed to talk about it without heavy backlash. They always champion, quote, "diversity". But if everything is forced to conform to the same formula, is it actually diverse at the pattern or blueprint level? No, it's not.
So Serkis says that canon-wise hobbits do not want people coming in from beyond their borders. Wow, based hobbits! He pressed on this further. He laid out his actual approach to casting the film. He said it would be handled only where relevant, not as a mandate applied to check a box regardless of the story.
Wow. That's refreshing, and it's some good news. And I've got to applaud Andy Serkis for pushing back at the media tyranny on this...
Serkis gets it ... https://youtu.be/McV_jFe-bNs
RE: Serkis has abandoned the playbook for "LOTR: The Hunt for Golem"? (DIY rebellion) - Magical Realist - Jul 26, 2026
Believe it or not there is a heart to every well-intentioned tyranny, even Hollywood's usually unquestioned palette for diversity and inclusion. It's NOT that they are self-hating white males trying to destroy the original message of the work. They are just saying "Hey, where it doesn't matter and doesn't affect the plot in any way, why not change it up with a female or a black or even an LGBT character?" A film maker knows his best work will be whatever is accessible to the greatest number of people. Which is why all this knee-jerk pushback against that mindset always comes off as racist and sexist and driven by its own agenda--one which wants to force the creative hand of the director in the same way they complain Hollywood is doing.