Edit: I just learned that parody is part of fair use, so the first part of my comment is redundant.
~~I think that parody would be a far better defense than fair use.~~ But I otherwise agree that those gore movies based on children cartoons would probably be legal even before the original works had become public domain. At most, they might've required a tiny misspelling to be 100% legal and safe to sell.
I mean, South Park already had a gore parody of Mickey Mouse[1] decades before Steamboat Willie went public domain. In fact, South Park's Mickey Mouse has traits from later movies, still copyrighted in 2024, like the eye shapes and the lack of a tail.
That's why I'm unimpressed by these low quality gore parodies. What's actually going to be more exciting are the sincere animated adaptations that could be made from public domain stories, like del Toro's Pinocchio.
The most interesting aspect of Fan-baiting, is how Hollywood executives have weaponized actors and other people involved in movies for profit. They're basically using them as shields against the fans, with promises of leading roles and paychecks.
Recent examples of this are Rings of Power, Ariel, Pinocchio, She-Hulk, and several other shows and movies. Look beyond the racism, which is a vocal minority, and look at how they use these said vocal minorities, to counter valid criticism. Look at how Hollywood utilized Moses Ingram (Reva Sevander) from Kenobi as a shield, to dismiss the very valid criticism of how her character was written and directed, by grasping on to the few racist comments. Suddenly, if you criticized her character, you were a racist.
Think about every single time a show comes out, and a handful of tweets, screenshots from places like 4chan, or some Discord servers, are used as excuses to invalidated any and all criticism a show is getting. All the while the controversy generates buzz, with the media acting like ravenous dogs putting out article after article for weeks and months (look at Batgirl's cancellation and how they milked it for a month without knowing if it was a good movie or not), all the while having the actors take a stand as shields, and the fans who act like knights in shining armor, come to their defense, oblivious to the exploitation by the Hollywood executives.
Again, is there "isms"? Without a shadow of a doubt. Is it the majority of the criticism these shows and movies get? Not even close.
Now think about the professional critics, and Youtubers and such, and how they walk on egg-shells. Look at how shows are getting perfect scores because of their diverse cast, all the while being panned by the fans who are actually consuming the shows. You can't voice your criticism without fear of getting cancelled, getting your access revoke, or worse, people actively going after your job.
> I think what people resent isn't the fact that there are black elves, it's the forcing of it, and that everything is scrutinized at a microscopic level for alleged "racism" (e.g. [1])
Who exactly _forced_ Amazon to do this? That article is just another opinion on the internet. If this is the thought police I think Amazon's gonna be OK no matter how they cast the elves.
What's funny to me is the in-advance-defensiveness when people wanna complain about "woke" casting. Witness the ridiculous discussion about Pinocchio in this discussion driven by the anti-woke complainers, because nobody otherwise cares about a stupid Disney movie for kids. Getting offended at how Pinocchio is portrayed, and they call minorities sensitive LOL
>> If you made him Dutch and portrayed by Chris Hemsworth you'd have to include in your movie all kinds of extra exposition and world building to set the background for the story.
> That's exactly my point.
> A black fairy is not an issue because she is black, but because it's a plot hole that the original story don't have.
I just watched a couple trailers for the new Pinocchio movie and they included a scene with the fairy.
She's dressed in glowing white sparkly clothes, has translucent sparkly wings, a wand with a star on the end that is clearly a magic wand, is surrounded by sparkles, transfigured Pinocchio, and it looks like she travels in some sort of amorphous flowing light blob.
The amount of extra exposition and world building needed to let the audience know that the character is a fairy is zero.
> What would happen if a Chinese company made a movie where Martin Luther King is an Albanian immigrant who came to Italy with the Vlora ship in 1991 to become a supporter of immigrants rights and got killed by a mobster in a fight over a pool game?
You're not very good at arguing your case. I see where you're trying to go with this, but that analogy sucks.
Look, Disney just ruins everything. I grew up with the A.A. Milne books for Winnie the Pooh. As a child, I had a picture in my mind for all of the characters, appearance, voice, manner. Disney's Winnie the Pooh is not it, and they have such cultural dominance that their vision can seem to overwrite the original.
I've had to just learn to not sweat it. Blade Runner 2049? Excellent movie, but I do not consider it canon. The original had a sense of humor and hopefulness that 2049 just absolutely lacked.
My Disney+ shows that I'll have access to Pinocchio on September 8th. Not sure if you have already seen it, but if not, give it a watch with an open mind. You might like it.
> It’s quite clear that that is YOUR problem. It’s funny when people like yourself claim “I’m not X” while then clear laying the case.
if you don't see a problem in changing someone else's literature and culture (I am Italian and have read Pinocchio since I was a kid) than you probably don't know what respect for different cultures is.
I would never think of a movie were Kunta Kinte is Dutch and is portrait by Chris Hemsworth.
> Contrast Galadriel who acts like a self righteous dickhead with Aragorn who was reluctant to accept his calling spent and three movies proving himself to be worthy of honor and love
You mean three books, right?
The difference here is that Aragorn was written by Tolkien, this show wasn't and has completely betrayed the original material.
Race or gender swaps are not a big issue, but they become one if the purpose is the swap for the swap just for marketing purpose.
Elves are almost eugenetically born all the same, want to add some diversity? Go for humans.
Wanna piss off the audience so that the debate will create more engagement? do exactly what shouldn't be done, because it's out of character.
Another example is the new Disney's Pinocchio, were the Blue Fairy is portrait by a black woman. The problem is not that she is black of course. but that the original story is set in Italy, Tuscany, mid 1800, were no black woman was ever seen and she is also described as "il viso bianco come un'immagine di cera" that translates to "her face as white as a wax image".
It becomes clear that the black blue fairy was put there to check a box and not because she serves some need to modernize the story, which is exactly the same that Collodi wrote 140 years ago.
EDIT
it's the same reason why people cricized film directors that casted Scarlett Johansson for every role or the god awful Ghost in the shell live action where, not only the story was orribly mutilated, but the setup was very very far from the original Japanese one, completely ruining the experience.
It's not about the colour of the skin or the gender of the actors, of course, it's about expectations. I expect Black Panther to be black, Thor to be white and blonde, Ghost in the shell to be set in futuristic Japan etc.
Hacker Cinema
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Edit: I just learned that parody is part of fair use, so the first part of my comment is redundant.
~~I think that parody would be a far better defense than fair use.~~ But I otherwise agree that those gore movies based on children cartoons would probably be legal even before the original works had become public domain. At most, they might've required a tiny misspelling to be 100% legal and safe to sell.
I mean, South Park already had a gore parody of Mickey Mouse[1] decades before Steamboat Willie went public domain. In fact, South Park's Mickey Mouse has traits from later movies, still copyrighted in 2024, like the eye shapes and the lack of a tail.
That's why I'm unimpressed by these low quality gore parodies. What's actually going to be more exciting are the sincere animated adaptations that could be made from public domain stories, like del Toro's Pinocchio.
[1] https://southpark.fandom.com/wiki/Mickey_Mouse
The most interesting aspect of Fan-baiting, is how Hollywood executives have weaponized actors and other people involved in movies for profit. They're basically using them as shields against the fans, with promises of leading roles and paychecks.
Recent examples of this are Rings of Power, Ariel, Pinocchio, She-Hulk, and several other shows and movies. Look beyond the racism, which is a vocal minority, and look at how they use these said vocal minorities, to counter valid criticism. Look at how Hollywood utilized Moses Ingram (Reva Sevander) from Kenobi as a shield, to dismiss the very valid criticism of how her character was written and directed, by grasping on to the few racist comments. Suddenly, if you criticized her character, you were a racist.
Think about every single time a show comes out, and a handful of tweets, screenshots from places like 4chan, or some Discord servers, are used as excuses to invalidated any and all criticism a show is getting. All the while the controversy generates buzz, with the media acting like ravenous dogs putting out article after article for weeks and months (look at Batgirl's cancellation and how they milked it for a month without knowing if it was a good movie or not), all the while having the actors take a stand as shields, and the fans who act like knights in shining armor, come to their defense, oblivious to the exploitation by the Hollywood executives.
Again, is there "isms"? Without a shadow of a doubt. Is it the majority of the criticism these shows and movies get? Not even close.
Now think about the professional critics, and Youtubers and such, and how they walk on egg-shells. Look at how shows are getting perfect scores because of their diverse cast, all the while being panned by the fans who are actually consuming the shows. You can't voice your criticism without fear of getting cancelled, getting your access revoke, or worse, people actively going after your job.
> I think what people resent isn't the fact that there are black elves, it's the forcing of it, and that everything is scrutinized at a microscopic level for alleged "racism" (e.g. [1])
Who exactly _forced_ Amazon to do this? That article is just another opinion on the internet. If this is the thought police I think Amazon's gonna be OK no matter how they cast the elves.
What's funny to me is the in-advance-defensiveness when people wanna complain about "woke" casting. Witness the ridiculous discussion about Pinocchio in this discussion driven by the anti-woke complainers, because nobody otherwise cares about a stupid Disney movie for kids. Getting offended at how Pinocchio is portrayed, and they call minorities sensitive LOL
>> If you made him Dutch and portrayed by Chris Hemsworth you'd have to include in your movie all kinds of extra exposition and world building to set the background for the story.
> That's exactly my point.
> A black fairy is not an issue because she is black, but because it's a plot hole that the original story don't have.
I just watched a couple trailers for the new Pinocchio movie and they included a scene with the fairy.
She's dressed in glowing white sparkly clothes, has translucent sparkly wings, a wand with a star on the end that is clearly a magic wand, is surrounded by sparkles, transfigured Pinocchio, and it looks like she travels in some sort of amorphous flowing light blob.
The amount of extra exposition and world building needed to let the audience know that the character is a fairy is zero.
Here's a photo [1].
[1] https://www.instyle.com/news/cynthia-erivo-blue-fairy-live-action-pinocchio-disney
> What would happen if a Chinese company made a movie where Martin Luther King is an Albanian immigrant who came to Italy with the Vlora ship in 1991 to become a supporter of immigrants rights and got killed by a mobster in a fight over a pool game?
You're not very good at arguing your case. I see where you're trying to go with this, but that analogy sucks.
Look, Disney just ruins everything. I grew up with the A.A. Milne books for Winnie the Pooh. As a child, I had a picture in my mind for all of the characters, appearance, voice, manner. Disney's Winnie the Pooh is not it, and they have such cultural dominance that their vision can seem to overwrite the original.
I've had to just learn to not sweat it. Blade Runner 2049? Excellent movie, but I do not consider it canon. The original had a sense of humor and hopefulness that 2049 just absolutely lacked.
My Disney+ shows that I'll have access to Pinocchio on September 8th. Not sure if you have already seen it, but if not, give it a watch with an open mind. You might like it.
> It’s quite clear that that is YOUR problem. It’s funny when people like yourself claim “I’m not X” while then clear laying the case.
if you don't see a problem in changing someone else's literature and culture (I am Italian and have read Pinocchio since I was a kid) than you probably don't know what respect for different cultures is.
I would never think of a movie were Kunta Kinte is Dutch and is portrait by Chris Hemsworth.
Would you?
Also: my favourite roman emperor is
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septimius_Severus
He was black.
But in the small village in Tuscany of 1800 depicted in Pinocchio there were no black people, I can assure you.
> Contrast Galadriel who acts like a self righteous dickhead with Aragorn who was reluctant to accept his calling spent and three movies proving himself to be worthy of honor and love
You mean three books, right?
The difference here is that Aragorn was written by Tolkien, this show wasn't and has completely betrayed the original material.
Race or gender swaps are not a big issue, but they become one if the purpose is the swap for the swap just for marketing purpose.
Elves are almost eugenetically born all the same, want to add some diversity? Go for humans.
Wanna piss off the audience so that the debate will create more engagement? do exactly what shouldn't be done, because it's out of character.
Another example is the new Disney's Pinocchio, were the Blue Fairy is portrait by a black woman. The problem is not that she is black of course. but that the original story is set in Italy, Tuscany, mid 1800, were no black woman was ever seen and she is also described as "il viso bianco come un'immagine di cera" that translates to "her face as white as a wax image".
It becomes clear that the black blue fairy was put there to check a box and not because she serves some need to modernize the story, which is exactly the same that Collodi wrote 140 years ago.
EDIT
it's the same reason why people cricized film directors that casted Scarlett Johansson for every role or the god awful Ghost in the shell live action where, not only the story was orribly mutilated, but the setup was very very far from the original Japanese one, completely ruining the experience.
It's not about the colour of the skin or the gender of the actors, of course, it's about expectations. I expect Black Panther to be black, Thor to be white and blonde, Ghost in the shell to be set in futuristic Japan etc.