The Thread of Middle-Earth by Hammers

[Plynkes]

You've hit a rich seam of form lately it seems, H.


I can't say I like the design of those Haradrim (they look like they're from some kind of Middle Earth Mad Max movie), but your treatment of them is magnificent.

[Pattus Magnus]

That’s some beautiful painting!

[Hammers]

You've hit a rich seam of form lately it seems, H.


I can't say I like the design of those Haradrim (they look like they're from some kind of Middle Earth Mad Max movie), but your treatment of them is magnificent.

I really like them. Very remote and exotic.

I do have a problem with some of the decisions Peter Jackson made about human races under the sway of Sauron; they were not to be based on any recogniceable culture of our age. This is of course something GW picked up on.

The stories that Tolkien wrote is a a mythicak pre-history with a distinct Nort Western European point of view. I don't find the stories racist even if xenophobia cetainly is expressed in the stories.

 It is quite obvious that corsairs of Umbar took inspiration fron the barbary states of North Africa, the haradrim from moors and saracens of North Africa and the Middle East, and the tall, black skinned men are sub-Saharan Africans.

You've got to ask yourself what's more offensive: to be depicted as fighting for the wrong side or to be not be represented in any way at all.

[Freddy]

Great job on those desert dwellers!

[Plynkes]

I really like them. Very remote and exotic.

I do have a problem with some of the decisions Peter Jackson made about human races under the sway of Sauron; they were not to be based on any recogniceable culture of our age. This is of course something GW picked up on.

The stories that Tolkien wrote is a a mythicak pre-history with a distinct Nort Western European point of view. I don't find the stories racist even if xenophobia cetainly is expressed in the stories.

 It is quite obvious that corsairs of Umbar took inspiration fron the barbary states of North Africa, the haradrim from moors and saracens of North Africa and the Middle East, and the tall, black skinned men are sub-Saharan Africans.

You've got to ask yourself what's more offensive: to be depicted as fighting for the wrong side or to be not be represented in any way at all.

For the Easterlings and the Haradrim I would have been happy with either a look based on historical peoples, or something more culturally sensitive that wasn't directly inspired by such. That aspect of it wasn't something I ever really gave a thought to. But for me the key was that the designs needed to be good, whichever path they chose. And I think they failed at that rather badly. I always felt like they'd barged in from some other fantasy movie that had a completely different design aesthetic. They simply didn't fit.


Anyway, that's enough moaning about Jackson's Tolkien from me. Even though I loved his LoTR trilogy, I occasionally find myself nitpicking the details that irk me. It's a bad habit.