Why was 🧝Legolas in The Hobbit?

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

Oh, that's interesting, I didn't know that. Thanks.

I don't have any objection to that either; especially when I think of people like Anna May Wong, who ended up being relegated to B movies, instead of the A's she deserved. I said something about Warner Oland in another thread; I didn’t mention that several earlier Charlie Chan movies starring Chinese actors didn't do well; that they only became popular after casting a Swede, I guess says something about societal attitudes of the time.

 

[CirdanLinweilin]

Oh, that's interesting, I didn't know that. Thanks.

I don't have any objection to that either; especially when I thinks of people like Anna May Wong, who ended up being relegated to B movies, instead of the A's she deserved. I said something about Warner Oland in another thread; I didn’t mention that several earlier Charlie Chan movies starring Chinese actors didn't do well; that they only became popular after casting a Swede, I guess says something about societal attitudes of the time.

Welcome. Interestingly, Gong Li portrayed a Japanese woman in Memoirs of a Geisha, so, I'd call that range.

Also, Liu Yifei, has her own skills in martial arts as well, so that's cool, she is starring as the titular character Mulan.

Jet Li, is well, Jet Li. Which means he's pretty awesome, and I love me some martial arts!

Donnie Yen. I feel like a stupid American. Please forgive me everyone, I drew a blank.

He portrayed Chirrut Imwe in Rogue One, and his skills were amazing in that movie.

Huh, I didn't know that about the Charlie Chan movies, that says something.

CL

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

No more on topic than previous posts, but re your Skynet reference:

We know what Tolkien thought about the appropriation of his Shadowfax name for a hovercraft: what do you suppose he would think of this?

https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2018-palantir-peter-thiel/

 

[CirdanLinweilin]

No more on topic than previous posts, but re your Skynet reference:

We know what Tolkien thought about the appropriation of his Shadowfax name for a hovercraft: what do you suppose he would think of this?

https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2018-palantir-peter-thiel/

I assume it would start with a fierce pen and fiercer words.

This sounds like the exact thing Tolkien was against. We all know how he felt about industrialization in his day, he called the Oppenheimer project "Babel Builders".

This illustrates perfectly how the Palantir was extremely dangerous in the un-rightful hands. Heck, Aragorn could only handle it and at that...barely.

Basically, this, if anything, justifies how the Palantir affected Saruman and Denethor in the most negative way possible and how power can corrupt.

A lot of times I think...we humans should never have the power of technology we do.

Look at the Hobbits for example, in their ignorant bliss.

Just my .2

CL

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

Ha. Looked at that way, maybe the name is more appropriate than I thought!

I was just checking for more about Anna May Wong; turns out one of the reasons she couldn't get lead roles in A pictures was due to the "miscegenation" rule in the Hays Code: a "white" actor could not kiss an actor in "yellow-face". So she couldn't play a romantic lead.

 

[CirdanLinweilin]

Ha. Looked at that way, maybe the name is more appropriate than I thought!

I was just checking for more about Anna May Wong; turns out one of the reasons she couldn't get lead roles in A pictures was due to the "miscegenation" rule in the Hays Code: a "white" actor could not kiss an actor in "yellow-face". So she couldn't play a romantic lead.

Yeah...


Well, darn.

Poor girl, wish she had a better shot than she got.....

CL

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

Yep.

There's still a ways to go, but at least things have changed somewhat.

The studios assumed for years that a superhero movie with black actors would flop.

Then came Black Panther.

 

[CirdanLinweilin]

Yep.

There'sstill a ways to go, but at least things have changed somewhat.

The studios assumed for years that a superhero movie with black actors would flop.

Then came Black Panther.

She's lovely!


CL

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

She's lovely!

Most definitely.

And talented.

Lots of images on line.

 

[CirdanLinweilin]

Most definitely.

And talented.

Lots of images on line.

I'll have to go seeking, thanks!

CL

 

[Ithilethiel]

I agree, here's my addition - Why does Legolas look older than he becomes 60 years later?

(Sure, actors age, so I'm just nitpicking, but he just felt off aesthetically during the two movies.)

CL

And why oh why did his eye color change? Glam lenses anyone?

Ha. Looked at that way, maybe the name is more appropriate than I thought!

I was just checking for more about Anna May Wong; turns out one of the reasons she couldn't get lead roles in A pictures was due to the "miscegenation" rule in the Hays Code: a "white" actor could not kiss an actor in "yellow-face". So she couldn't play a romantic lead.

I loved her in, Daughter of the Dragon but once again there was that big Swede playing Daddy Fu Manchu. She was also good in, Shanghai Express but that was a Dietrich vehicle all the way. Still she was exotic and impressive with her screen time. So glad at least things have changed for the better in this respect in Hollywoodland.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

Yes, both the Hayes Code and the old studio system are long gone, for better and/or worse, depending on your point of view. There are still inequalities, but things are changing.

BTW-- the Beatles weren't schlock, IMO, but a genuine breakthrough in pop/rock, at a time when it had become moribund, through the machinations of real schlockmeisters pushing manufactured "teen idols" of limited talent on the public with payola schemes and other devices. See Fabian for an example. This after The Day the Music Died, at the end of the 50's.

Their popularity and influence certainly wasn't limited to teenage girls, or the English-speaking world. Example:

I promise my next post will be on topic -- or at least on Tolkien!

 

[Alcuin]

This is still off-topic, but…

Following World War II, you’d expect that the music of the victorious soldiers, sailors, and airmen would have continued to dominate airwaves and dancehalls. It didn’t. Sure, Frank Sinatra, Doris Day, and a host of others continued to appear in concert halls and on television, but their musical genre was quickly replaced among children born after the war.

This is usually ascribed to rebellion by the Baby Boomers. Not so! During World War II, a heavy tax was placed on venues that offered musical entertainment. If a nightclub had a traditional band – big bands, like Benny Goodman or Duke Ellington – they were forced to pay that heavy tax, the Cabaret Tax. It was set at 20% of the revenues of the club in 1941, raised to 30% in 1944, and not reduced to 10% until May 1960. It was finally repealed altogether in 1965.

A 20% tax – even a 10% tax – can kill a nightclub. And kill ’em it did.

However, if you ran a little establishment that served beer, for instance, and had a rock-n-roll band but no dance floor, that wasn’t taxed! Roadhouses and small clubs were immune from the tax. But they couldn’t house a big band: all they could site were small, cheaper, rock-n-roll bands: a couple of guitars and a drum set in the corner.

The United States government taxed big bands into retirement and replaced them with what we have today. See here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here, just for starters.

Yes, government can and does alter social norms. For the worse, usually.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

I was going to point out that the tax wasn't the whole of it, but some of the articles in the links you provided did that for me.

I will say that the role of jazz in popular music was a bit of an anomaly, a moment in time, really, as the primal urge of jazz is toward experimentation, "progression", if you like (or don't like), whereas the tendency for audiences of popular music is toward the familiar.

Artie Shaw recorded "Begin the Beguine", had a hit, and was ready to move on, but his audience demanded it at every performance. He soon became sick of it.

In fact, this is one thing that made Glenn Miller so popular; people came to hear his songs played exactly like the records they bought, and that's what he gave them.

I even experienced a little of that myself, playing in a band out of high school: kids at dances didn't want to hear solos or changes, they wanted to hear their records being covered.

Years later, I was talking with someone at a party, asking if she'd heard this or that band, when she stunned me by irritatedly snapping "I only listen to music I've already heard!"

Popular music, like other artforms, seems to go in cycles: a new form appears, innovative and creative, is copied and exploited by followers and imitators, and finally becomes worn out, clichéd, and predictable, until new innovators come along. This happened in the example I mentioned in my previous post, but also post-war, especially in the early 50's, to which the term "pap music" was often applied. And it happened when the experimentation of the 60's became the bloated Arena Rock of the 70's. Then came the rebellion of Punk and New Wave.

I believe I have that Smithonian set, BTW. Yeah, it's pretty awful.

Rats. You made me break my promise already, Alcuin!

 

[Ithilethiel]

I was going to point out that the tax wasn't the whole of it, but some of the articles in the links you provided did that for me.

I will say that the role of jazz in popular music was a bit of an anomaly, a moment in time, really, as the primal urge of jazz is toward experimentation, "progression", if you like (or don't like), whereas the tendency for audiences of popular music is toward the familiar.

Artie Shaw recorded "Begin the Beguine", had a hit, and was ready to move on, but his audience demanded it at every performance. He soon became sick of it.

In fact, this is one thing that made Glenn Miller so popular; people came to hear his songs played exactly like the records they bought, and that's what he gave them.

I even experienced a little of that myself, playing in a band out of high school: kids at dances didn't want to hear solos or changes, they wanted to hear their records being covered.

Years later, I was talking with someone at a party, asking if she'd heard this or that band, when she stunned me by irritatedly snapping "I only listen to music I've already heard!"

Popular music, like other artforms, seems to go in cycles: a new form appears, innovative and creative, is copied and exploited by followers and imitators, and finally becomes worn out, clichéd, and predictable, until new innovators come along. This happened in the example I mentioned in my previous post, but also post-war, especially in the early 50's, to which the term "pap music" was often applied. And it happened when the experimentation of the 60's became the bloated Arena Rock of the 70's. Then came the rebellion of Punk and New Wave.

I believe I have that Smithonian set, BTW. Yeah, it's pretty awful.

Rats. You made me break my promise already, Alcuin!

And unfortunately, the true innovators who birthed the original new sound are eventually lumped into the group of copycats who instead of honoring the sound by taking it into even more inventive directions chose only to exploit it.

I think that is what has happened with the Beatles with generations not there at the beginning of the craze. We cannot appreciate the unique qualities of their music as out parents and grandparents did. Can you imagine turning on the radio and expecting more Fabian but instead hearing, I Saw Her Standing There or I Want to Hold Your Hand? It must have been mind blowing.

None of us can truly know what is was like to experience, "the now" 50 years later unless ofc we were there. We can appreciate it but we can't really judge or understand it properly.

Ok, enough preaching to the choir. Time for more Tolkien. But it was a great convo that began about Legolas. The elf strikes again!

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

I wish I could say I wasn't there.

But I was.

Yeah. I'm old.

Otherwise, you're right. My little sister, about three years old at the time, was constantly dragging around a Life magazine with their picture on the cover, yelling "Beelies! Beelies!".

She grew up to become a musician.

 

[Alcuin]

I wish I could say I wasn't there.

But I was.

Yeah. I'm old.

Beats the alternative.

I remember it, too. I was a small child, but I thought the antics of the teenagers were ridiculous: they looked silly even to me.

Old, indeed! Why, I remember having to catch, kill, skin, and cook our own mammoths for lunch at school. And we only had 30 minutes, and had to dodge the saber-toothed tigers. Kids have it so easy nowadays…

 

[CirdanLinweilin]

Beats the alternative.

I remember it, too. I was a small child, but I thought the antics of the teenagers were ridiculous: they looked silly even to me.

Old, indeed! Why, I remember having to catch, kill, skin, and cook our own mammoths for lunch at school. And we only had 30 minutes, and had to dodge the saber-toothed tigers. Kids have it so easy nowadays…

I'm a betweener, I was born in '96.

I don't know what the absolute heck people are doing nowadays.

I'm a young adult curmudgeon!

People my age and younger have it too easy.

CL

 

[Ithilethiel]

I'm a betweener, I was born in '96.

I don't know what the absolute heck people are doing nowadays.

I'm a young adult curmudgeon!



People my age and younger have it too easy.


CL

Me too CL...my mom says I'm an old soul.

Like the guy whose parents had to get a court order to get him out of the house! OMG...don't even get me started on that...

 

[CirdanLinweilin]

Like the guy whose parents had to get a court order to get him out of the house! OMG...don't even get me started on that...

You have got to be kidding me...


You aren't kidding are you?



CL