I Am A Swede

IMDb has 72 star reviews, of which thirty-six (!) are 10/10, fourteen are 9/10, thirteen are 8/10, six are 7/10 and three are 6/10. They use words like "Amazingly mesmerizing", "Stunning", "Spectacular", "Awesome", "Top Notch", "Mind blowing", but not a single review with less than 6 stars is featured. Do you expect me to believe that all of the lower scoring reviews (and I'm absolutely sure there have been some of those) were being made by right wing incels or trolls? Or could the complete lack of negative reviews have anything to do with the fact that Amazon owns IMDb, and that they are censoring the reviews? 🤔 I have no problem with people enjoying this show, that's their prerogative. But I do have a problem with this attempt by the showrunners and Amazon trying to label all those of us who have objections to what they are doing as trolls, racists, misogynists and any other -ist you can think of. Are there some of those among the critics? There probably are, and that sucks, but we're not all that. And it sucks even more that all our valid criticisms are being summarily dismissed like this. We wanted to love this show, and we would have been their biggest supporters if they had done right by Tolkien. But they haven't, and now that we're objecting to what they are doing they simply insult us and call us names.

I think it's safe to say that opinions have been somewhat divided after the premiere. They've been either absolutely glowing, praising the show (and Amazon) to the heavens, or completely scathing. I have found though that a much larger percentage of the negative reviewers actually present reasons for their dislike (terrible writing, stiff acting, unlikeable characters, a dull and slow moving show), and even offer some positive (some beautiful scenery, nice music), while the positive reviews mostly just seem to declare the show amazing, magnificent, breathtaking and an overall marvelous experience. They don't seem to have found a single flaw. Yet, it is the negative reviewers who are labeled trolls and have their reviews deleted. Funny that.... I don't have access to Amazon Prime so I haven't seen it, except for the few glimpses offered in reviews on Youtube, and I agree that some of the scenery does look spectacular. But beautiful scenery can't make up for bad writing, bad acting or bad pacing, and those three are the most common denominators in the reviews I've seen. Since I haven't watched the show I can't weigh in on those points. But I have to say that some of the casting looks awful. Celebrimbor looks like Regis Philbin's younger cousin. None of the elves I've seen look anything like elves. Where's the grace, the poise, the elegance? And the hobbits, sorry, Harfoots...... What I can gather from the reviews and the plot summaries the show pays just as little respect to Tolkien's actual writings as expected, but even without taking that into consideration there are things that defies belief. Do the writers actually realize how far apart Middle-Earth and Valinor are? It's an entire ocean between them, not something like the English Channel. Yet they still have Galadriel jump from her ship just as its about to land in Valinor and start swimming (!) back towards Middle-Earth. That's almost like trying to swim over the Atlantic Ocean! And for the love of everything that's holy, please, please, please don't make Meteor Man be Gandalf! Please!!! 🙏 (The Istari don't land in Middle-Earth until well into the Third Age)

A while ago we got that list of top 10 episodes people felt defined Emmerdale. () Well, in honour of the show's upcoming 50th anniversary I thought I would choose the top 10, not episodes, but storylines, that I feel have been important during the years. I'm sure you all will have your own lists, but this is mine:

Yes! And then he could come and rescue The Woolpack from the Dingles! (I'm sure Henry and Amos are spinning in their graves right now)

Being a 30-minute show hasn't done that for Emmerdale. According to the cast list on Wikipedia Emmerdale currently has 61 (!) regular characters, and 25 recurring characters. I know that Wikipedia might not be absolutely correct, but at least it gives an indication.

Some sort of incestuous love triangle? After all, we are talking about Dingles here....

Trailers for Disney's new live action re-make of Pinocchio I guess it was only a matter of time..... This feels almost sacrilegious. You can't improve on perfection, so why even try? It's almost like doing a re-make of Casablanca or Gone with the Wind. And I don't even think it looks all that good either. When everyone else is a human, having Honest John and Gideon still be a fox and a cat looks strange. And I guess that seagull is going to be some sort of wisecracking sidekick for Jiminy. We must get some silly jokes in there somehow.....

I'm sure we're all positively giddy with excitement over these spoilers for the 50th anniversary month..... 12 early spoilers for Emmerdale's 50th anniversary episodes

^^ Thank you. Unfortunately it already has disappointed me to the extent that I have no plans to ever watch this. I was hopeful when the news first broke, but it has been downhill ever since. I can still remember being very excited after the Hobbit films, but in hindsight I think it was the sheer spectacle that wowed me. But for all the problems those movies had (and let's face it, they had quite a few) at least they didn't change Tolkien's story. They added a lot, and turned a really rather short story into three mega-epics. But when you look closely they didn't change the characters, or the story. This show is doing exactly that, changing established characters, and distorting the world that Tolkien wrote. I first read The Lord of the Rings before I was 10, and The Silmarillion shortly thereafter. I go back to Unfinished Tales frequently, and I love diving into The Book of Lost Tales and the other parts of The History of Middle-Earth. This is a fantasy world that is so close to my heart and has been for almost 4 decades. Watching Peter Jackson's movies (especially LotR) I had the feeling that those involved shared my love for the source material. Yes, there were changes, some of which were fine, and some of which I disliked, but the overall feeling was a feeling of respect for Tolkien and his work. I get nothing like that from the people involved in this show. I was disappointed by what they turned the Chronicles of Narnia into (I still haven't even watched The Voyage of the Dawn Treader) and I was appalled by what they did to The Dark Is Rising, which is probably the worst adaptation of anything I have seen up to this point, but this is on another level. It will, in all likelihood, still be a success, but I will not be a part of it.

Novak Djokovic unable to travel to New York for US Open

A new teaser trailer was released today. I'm going to say something nice, and admit that some of the visuals look good. But at the same time, with the budget it has it should look good. If this was a new show, set in a newly invented fantasy world, with other names, then I could even get a little excited. But, alas, it isn't. This is supposed to be Middle-Earth and Númenor, and the characters created by J.R.R. Tolkien. But there is nothing, absolutely nothing in this trailer that has anything to do with anything he created, except for the names. Such a pity.....