Way back in ’95 we had Mr. Tuvok, a Black Vulcan — and I’m sure Gene Roddenberry would have had no problem with it.
We had a Black Inspector Javert in BBC’s Les Miserables — and I’m sure Victor Hugo would have had no issue with it.
We had dashing musketeer Cyrano de Bergerac played by Peter Dinklage — I’m sure Edmond Rostand would have agreed.
Heroes and saints are remade, all the time, to fit changing tastes and sensibilities.
When Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, all of a sudden Jesus was depicted with short hair, no beard, and Roman clothes. Old-school Christians probably thought it was an outrage—
“Jesus Wasn’t Roman!!!”
I’m not going to pretend to be an authority on comparative religion, but the “How Dare You Depict [God / Demigod / Hero] Dressed In [Ethnic Group / Tribe] Garb!” thing must have happened thousands of times since the Stone Age.
Why are there so many different versions of Merlin’s life? Sometimes he is the Lady of the Lake’s apprentice, and sometimes not. Sometimes he has a wife, and sometimes not. Sometimes the Lady of the Lake is named Viviane, and sometimes she is named Nyneve. Sometimes Nyneve is the equivalent of Morgan, and sometimes she isn’t…
That’s because somebody, over a thousand years ago, did not stay true to the “source material” of Merlin — whatever that was. Believe it or not, one individual had to invent Merlin at some point, in spoken or written form, but the character really took a life of its own; then the original author / creator passed away, and other storytellers wrote about that increasingly popular character.
But what is Merlin’s real backstory?
Well… what is the Joker’s real backstory?
Think about it. A thousand years from now they’ll ask, “Did the Joker become the Joker after falling into a chemical mixing vat, like Nicholson, or because of relentless mocking and bullying, like Phoenix?”
Indeed, which is it?
That character became enormously popular, and many authors wanted to tell stories about him. And they did. And so the character changed.
Cesar Julio Romero Jr. is not Joaquin Phoenix.
And this whole “respecting the source material” debate. Let’s talk about that.
Name one thing that was adapted into another media without changing a single detail of the original story.
The Lord of the Rings? — No.
The Watchmen? — No.
Batman v Superman? — No.
American Gods? — No.
Game of Thrones? — No.
The Name of the Rose? — No.
The Walking Dead? — No.
Dune? — No.
The Whisperer in Darkness (2011) is an excellent Cthulhu movie, but the whole ending — the part with the airplane — is made up, and not at all from Lovecraft’s story.
“Canon” is an institutional hoax that comes straight from the Church Fathers. In A.D. 363, they had a whole bunch of texts about Jesus — and they all sat down together to decide which texts were true and which were false. It was basically guesswork.
Which of James Bond’s countless missions are canon? All of them since 1953?
Agent 007 must be at least 95 years old by now, right?
And then there is something else.
Sooner or later, cultural material fall into the public domain.
This is the biggest thing, actually.
ANYONE can write a Frankenstein story, a Merlin story, a Lancelot story, a Dorian Gray story, a Captain Ahab story or a Dr. Faust story. Anyone can take those characters (and countless others) and gender swap them at will, make them Philipino or Innu, and decide that they have an identical twin, evil or otherwise. You can even decide that Lancelot is Captain Ahab’s father, and that they’re both cyborgs from planet Yuggoth.
We had a slew of Sherlock Holmes shows because the earlier works of Arthur Conan Doyle entered the public domain in 2010. Benedict Cumberbatch played a modern-day Sherlock, with text messages and all. Elementary had an Asian female Dr. Watson.
One day that’ll happen to Gandalf and Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser and Harry Potter, too.
Like it or not, Tolkien will enter the public domain in 2043. Anyone will be able to make a TV show, a graphic novel, a musical, a cooking show or whatever, and not follow the source material if they don’t want to.
Chinese Gandalf will happen. Latina Galadriel will happen. Moroccan Han Solo will happen. It’s not a question of if, only a question of when. Turkish Han Solo and Chewbacca already happened, a very long time ago — but that’s a whole other story.
Until 2043 the Tolkien estate will keep micromanaging J.R.R.’s writings, and it will lead to ludicrous situations.
Get this. Someone develops a TV show about Moses and the Israelites escaping from Egypt, but they don’t have the rights to the Book of Exodus; all they can use is what Mark, Matthew, Luke and John said about Moses in their books.
Absurd, isn’t it?
You want to be mad?
Be mad at the Tolkien estate ALSO.
The Amazon show can’t touch what is in The Silmarillion — it has to invent a whole bunch of material. The Tolkien estate is damned if they do and damned if they don’t. They should just relinquish the whole thing — it’s going to happen in twenty-one years anyway. Might as well do it now. Pull the Band-Aid. There — done!
But what about our money!!!
Yes of course.
I read on a forum that Amazon could have easily made a Second Age show set in the East / Rhûn, with the Haradrim (Black), the Easterling (Asian), the four Dwarven clans of the Red Mountains, and a few remaining Elves (Avari). That’s diverse.
But there’s something much, much better—
Take Professor M.A.R. Barker’s 5 Tékumel novels, and make a 5-season TV show about that.
There are no White people on planet Tékumel. Zero.
Perhaps you could add just one White Tsolyáni princess, or just one White Yán Koryáni archer… and… it’ll spark a loud, angry, nasty fan outrage.
Chí, I say.
By Lord Vimúhla, that’s a show I’d certainly watch.
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