I think this is the result of the Overton window having been dragged so far to the left. Almost everything made in the West (and it's leaking into the East too for sure) is either:
'Soft' woke: There's some diversity and girlbossing, but it's fairly understated and isn't being aggressively, radically pushed in your face. It's not sufficiently offensive, nor does it shit on the male leads too hard, that it provokes the ire of more than a minority who will be written off as terminally online reactionaries even by people ostensibly leaning to the right. To use a LOTR comparison, think back to Arwen's expanded role in Fellowship of the Ring, or there being a smattering of black Northman villagers in The Hobbit films.
'Hard' woke: What we're more familiar with and which a lot more people are shitting on & walking away from. To continue the LOTR examples, think about the decision to have Arwen show up to the Battle of Helm's Deep in The Two Towers (later Jackson thought better of it, but there's still a split-second shot of Arwen being at the relief of the besieged Rohirrim that wasn't cut in time) or the entirety of Rings of Power.
It's pretty damn difficult to find fiction of any sort with a consistently competent and respected straight white male lead, traditional gender roles, truly realistic levels of diversity, etc. in this day & age. And since even right-wingers who are at least marginally aware of and playing into the culture war want, nay, need entertainment so they can shut their brains off and pry their eyes away from the man-made horrors beyond our comprehension invading every facet of existence, they will concentrate all their ire against 'hard woke' while making excuses for watching/reading/playing/whatever 'soft woke'.
So now we have even supposedly right-leaning critics like Critical Drinker and Ryan Kinel making excuses for stuff like last year's Prey, or this. For my own part, I'm content to stick to untainted classics (like say, the physical copies of the LOTR trilogy and the Silmarillion which I picked up in a garage sale) for my entertainment, because that's really the only way you can avoid wokedom's ever-present tendrils across modern entertainment.
To play a bit of a flipside with LOTR. The entire "I am no man" scene would be decried as "hard woke" from every corner possible if it came out today, and would probably dominate the discussion of RotK over anything else. That's another consequence of the Overton Window moving as it did. Nothing isn't political, and all choices in media are considered outright stances, to the point where both sides are locked in purity spirals to their death.
Not that I disagree with anything you said, simply offering a lament that even things that were once good cannot be trusted to be innocuous.
That scene got weakened by the movies not having time to go into the background of Glorfindel's prophecy (second narrative casualty of cutting the golden Noldorian), and the Arnor blades. It is debatable whether using the original identity reveal before the stab would restore nuance to the Witch-King's character, or mess up his radiating dread. But I certainly hate that Eowyn is stripped of her unique motivations when she is grouped with girl-boss characters from other media.
Also weakened by not having the background of Merry's Westernesse sword, that he obtained in Barrow-Downs. The blades had been forged specifically to fight against Angmar, and was enchanted to be able to harm the Witch-King. He was essential in breaking the spell that surrounded the Nazgûl, and just like Éowyn, he was a part of Glorfindel's prophecy, since as a hobbit he was not technically a part of mankind.
That is certain. I'm in a similar boat myself: if I could, I would certainly love to live in a time where we don't have to obsessively ponder whether X element in Y show is a sop to people who want to use my guts as a skipping rope in-between games of soccer with the heads of my family and friends. The dawning realization since Gamergate kicked off almost 10 years ago that that time is gone, buried and will probably not come back for the rest of my own lifespan, is one of my more personal motives to detest the left and all that they stand for.
Ah well. As a quote from one of my favorite fictional characters from a fairly recent work of fiction goes, "In the best of all possible worlds they would just leave us in peace. But they won't."
I've recut my personal copy to remove those two seconds, and it makes my annual rewatch much more enjoyable.
Done right, it's an Achilles Heel moment, a monkey paw twist, a genie's revenge. The armor of immortality has a crack in the wording of its conveyance, and this is an enjoyable twist for the audience, if the reveal is done tastefully.
Taking off the helmet ruins all of that by providing a window of opportunity for the ring wraith to strike back. Cutting straight to the sword thrust instead allows the audience to understand that "no man" is taken literally instead of figuratively, and it turns a bad moment into a good one.
The real issue with this movie is that at the end of the day, much of fast-consumption pop-culture is just garbage, regardless of what social trends are in vogue. Tolkien warned us about Disney being part of the denigration of culture, but normie conservative only take notice when the hostility is this overt. It's not even about this specific movie beating current Disney is good or mediocre, but that excessive copyright law aids the funneling of hundreds of billions to these pests.
I think this is the result of the Overton window having been dragged so far to the left. Almost everything made in the West (and it's leaking into the East too for sure) is either:
'Soft' woke: There's some diversity and girlbossing, but it's fairly understated and isn't being aggressively, radically pushed in your face. It's not sufficiently offensive, nor does it shit on the male leads too hard, that it provokes the ire of more than a minority who will be written off as terminally online reactionaries even by people ostensibly leaning to the right. To use a LOTR comparison, think back to Arwen's expanded role in Fellowship of the Ring, or there being a smattering of black Northman villagers in The Hobbit films.
'Hard' woke: What we're more familiar with and which a lot more people are shitting on & walking away from. To continue the LOTR examples, think about the decision to have Arwen show up to the Battle of Helm's Deep in The Two Towers (later Jackson thought better of it, but there's still a split-second shot of Arwen being at the relief of the besieged Rohirrim that wasn't cut in time) or the entirety of Rings of Power.
It's pretty damn difficult to find fiction of any sort with a consistently competent and respected straight white male lead, traditional gender roles, truly realistic levels of diversity, etc. in this day & age. And since even right-wingers who are at least marginally aware of and playing into the culture war want, nay, need entertainment so they can shut their brains off and pry their eyes away from the man-made horrors beyond our comprehension invading every facet of existence, they will concentrate all their ire against 'hard woke' while making excuses for watching/reading/playing/whatever 'soft woke'.
So now we have even supposedly right-leaning critics like Critical Drinker and Ryan Kinel making excuses for stuff like last year's Prey, or this. For my own part, I'm content to stick to untainted classics (like say, the physical copies of the LOTR trilogy and the Silmarillion which I picked up in a garage sale) for my entertainment, because that's really the only way you can avoid wokedom's ever-present tendrils across modern entertainment.
To play a bit of a flipside with LOTR. The entire "I am no man" scene would be decried as "hard woke" from every corner possible if it came out today, and would probably dominate the discussion of RotK over anything else. That's another consequence of the Overton Window moving as it did. Nothing isn't political, and all choices in media are considered outright stances, to the point where both sides are locked in purity spirals to their death.
Not that I disagree with anything you said, simply offering a lament that even things that were once good cannot be trusted to be innocuous.
That scene got weakened by the movies not having time to go into the background of Glorfindel's prophecy (second narrative casualty of cutting the golden Noldorian), and the Arnor blades. It is debatable whether using the original identity reveal before the stab would restore nuance to the Witch-King's character, or mess up his radiating dread. But I certainly hate that Eowyn is stripped of her unique motivations when she is grouped with girl-boss characters from other media.
Also weakened by not having the background of Merry's Westernesse sword, that he obtained in Barrow-Downs. The blades had been forged specifically to fight against Angmar, and was enchanted to be able to harm the Witch-King. He was essential in breaking the spell that surrounded the Nazgûl, and just like Éowyn, he was a part of Glorfindel's prophecy, since as a hobbit he was not technically a part of mankind.
That is certain. I'm in a similar boat myself: if I could, I would certainly love to live in a time where we don't have to obsessively ponder whether X element in Y show is a sop to people who want to use my guts as a skipping rope in-between games of soccer with the heads of my family and friends. The dawning realization since Gamergate kicked off almost 10 years ago that that time is gone, buried and will probably not come back for the rest of my own lifespan, is one of my more personal motives to detest the left and all that they stand for.
Ah well. As a quote from one of my favorite fictional characters from a fairly recent work of fiction goes, "In the best of all possible worlds they would just leave us in peace. But they won't."
Cheers to that man.
I've recut my personal copy to remove those two seconds, and it makes my annual rewatch much more enjoyable.
Done right, it's an Achilles Heel moment, a monkey paw twist, a genie's revenge. The armor of immortality has a crack in the wording of its conveyance, and this is an enjoyable twist for the audience, if the reveal is done tastefully.
Taking off the helmet ruins all of that by providing a window of opportunity for the ring wraith to strike back. Cutting straight to the sword thrust instead allows the audience to understand that "no man" is taken literally instead of figuratively, and it turns a bad moment into a good one.
The real issue with this movie is that at the end of the day, much of fast-consumption pop-culture is just garbage, regardless of what social trends are in vogue. Tolkien warned us about Disney being part of the denigration of culture, but normie conservative only take notice when the hostility is this overt. It's not even about this specific movie beating current Disney is good or mediocre, but that excessive copyright law aids the funneling of hundreds of billions to these pests.