Quoted:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFcMItNRQx0

The Love Boat theme.  

Quoted:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFcMItNRQx0

The Love Boat theme.  

Quoted:
This! THIS! 10000x THIS!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXIoEmyofoQ

LOTR, Star Trek, Star Wars, Dr. Who, the list of victims of cultural vandalism goes on.

As he says,      OFF!

Quoted:

They clearly do not want our money or our views. They're making stuff for themselves, and the stuff they are making shows them to mentally and emotionally be toddlers.

Quoted:
These people with their demented obsessions to gay all the things...

https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/102941/AB98F068-20DA-4263-9061-E14B64487877_jpe-2485144.JPG

Quoted:
LOL          new trailer                         https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eECuocwv-lMhttps://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/459941/DCE20548-9C2B-42F7-8C57-A4B0FCEF51C2_jpe-2499849.JPGhttps://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/459941/F3540E1C-D3D9-44C5-9B32-29601C146E33_jpe-2499851.JPGhttps://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/459941/637749C6-C686-42D8-A30E-2271F1B999D3_jpe-2499850.JPG

Quoted:
LOL          new trailer                         https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eECuocwv-lMhttps://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/459941/DCE20548-9C2B-42F7-8C57-A4B0FCEF51C2_jpe-2499849.JPGhttps://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/459941/F3540E1C-D3D9-44C5-9B32-29601C146E33_jpe-2499851.JPGhttps://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/459941/637749C6-C686-42D8-A30E-2271F1B999D3_jpe-2499850.JPG

Quoted:
This cultural appropriation is getting out of hand.

Amazon insiders say its $1 billion 'Lord of the Rings' series will determine the company's streaming future: 'If we can't make it successful, why is Amazon Studios even here?'
Elaine Low, Eugene Kim, and Alison Brower
Aug 23, 2022, 8:07 PM

   Amazon Studios spent an estimated $1 billion on its "Lord of the Rings" prequel, "The Rings of Power."
   How success will be measured by Amazon is hard to say, but recruiting Prime members is paramount.
   "If it's not the highest-performing thing Amazon has ever done, it's a failure," said one company insider.

Amazon is facing a moment of truth as it braces to premiere the $1 billion "Lord of the Rings" prequel series, "The Rings of Power," that will set its future course as a streamer.

Amazon Studios, founded in 2010, has made its mark with critical hits like "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" as well as broader fare ("Jack Ryan," "The Boys"). But in the mid-'10s the tech giant's founder raised the stakes: Jeff Bezos wanted Amazon's own "Game of Thrones."

And, to put it in Tolkien terms, the company has not yet closed its fingers, Gollum-like, around its precious: a major watercooler show that lures global viewers en masse.

"There's no doubt that Amazon has had success," Rich Greenfield, media analyst at Lightshed Management, told Insider. "[But] they haven't had a culturally defining show. There has been no massive breakout where everyone is talking about it."

With "Rings of Power," Amazon has given Hollywood something to talk about. No single season of television has ever cost as much. On top of the $250 million deal to secure the rights from JRR Tolkien's estate in 2017 — Amazon outbid rival big spenders HBO and Netflix — it's been widely reported that the studio spent north of $460 million on production in New Zealand. Add tens of millions of dollars in marketing, promotions, and global red-carpet events and you arrive at the $1 billion total estimated by industry observers — with four more seasons planned.

The show is expected to be a hit, but if it somehow misses the mark, several sources told Insider the studio may face an existential crisis.

"The reason why it's going to succeed is because the executives at Amazon need it to succeed. If it doesn't succeed, there's going to be a big question from [CEO] Andy Jassy and the board," said one former senior Amazon Studios exec. "If we can't take this piece of IP and make it successful, why is Amazon Studios even here?"

"It has to succeed," this person added. "There's no option."
How Amazon measures success in streaming

Even within the studio, development and production of the series — a saga set millennia before the events of "Lord of the Rings" — have been kept close to the vest, according to two current company insiders. Word from those who've seen episodes is positive, and several industry insiders predicted to Insider that Amazon will find a way, regardless of actual viewership, to sound the trumpets of victory.

There's an art as well as a science to analytics, the former exec said, adding that Amazon data wonks, who typically know within the first week if a project is going to trend well, will be looking to spin "Rings" numbers into the sunniest possible story.

"If it's not the highest-performing thing Amazon has ever done, it's a failure," said a second former Amazon Studios insider. "But the outside world may not ever know."

Amazon, like other streamers, reveals very little audience data — even to its own creators. (Nielsen measures viewership of Amazon Prime Video and other streamers like Disney+, but only through TV sets, meaning it misses out on mobile and desktop views.) One former showrunner of a buzzy Amazon original said that hard viewership or membership growth numbers were never provided by studio execs, just the note that "We're very, very pleased."

"Then you have to read between the lines," this person added. A request to make the second season of a show just like the first one, for example, signals it performed well with viewers.

So what constitutes a triumph at Amazon Studios is hard to say, although recruiting new Prime members is always paramount. Picking up a few awards has also been part of the equation, as Bezos famously touted in 2016: "When we win a Golden Globe, it helps us sell more shoes." (The former Amazon exec said Hollywood kudos don't appear to be as high a priority for Jassy, who succeeded Bezos in July 2021.)

One internal measure for success is PVC, or Prime Video consumption — essentially, of all the streams on Amazon in a certain period, what percentage a particular project represents. This number should be high for "Rings" because the service won't premiere other content that might compete — "If I'm an employee at Amazon Studios, on any team, you need it to succeed," the first former exec said, adding that the company will "find every point of marketing they can leverage." Amazon this spring tapped former Warner Bros. Pictures marketing head Sue Kroll, who steered the campaign for Peter Jackson's "The Hobbit" trilogy, to oversee the marketing of "Rings." (Ukonwa Ojo, who spent just under two years as CMO for Amazon Studios and Prime Video, exited in June.)

The company also looks at how many new members a show attracts. With the US streaming market reaching saturation, there's more potential subscriber growth in other regions, which explains why Amazon threw splashy premieres not only in Los Angeles, with Bezos and Jassy in attendance, but also in Mexico City and Mumbai.

Other core measures include whether a show awakens 30-day dormant Prime members (who haven't streamed content in 30 days), the first former exec said, and what percentage of viewers complete the whole series.

Reuters reported in 2018 that the studio's internal metrics evaluated the cost of a series, viewership, and Prime membership growth to determine a key measurement: cost per first stream. The lower that cost, the more efficient — and valuable — the show. Cost per first stream remains a key metric, especially among top leadership, the first former exec said, and that number is likely to be "astronomical" for "Rings" even if audiences flock to it.
Filmed entertainment was 'a plaything' for Amazon — until it decided to become a Hollywood player

Amazon Studios didn't always have such grand ambitions. "It started as a small thing, a plaything, born out of general disdain for Hollywood," the second former insider said. "It was born out of a very Seattle, very tech-company mentality that 'Hollywood is stupid and bloated and we're smart and lean and data-driven. If it fails, it's not a meaningful amount of money to us anyhow.'"

But "House of Cards," the 2013 show that put Netflix on the map as a destination for original programming, prompted Amazon to rethink its studio business and its attitude toward Hollywood, this person said. The company began scaling up content budgets and ambitions, moving away from "indie, quirky, coastal" fare, as the first former exec described it, and hiring former Fox International Studios head Sharon Tal Yguado in 2017 to oversee the hunt for Bezos' "Game of Thrones."

"The Rings of Power" landed at Amazon because of Bezos' broad enthusiasm for a global tentpole and his specific desire for this one. And his top leadership, the group known internally as the S-team, lined up behind it. At an internal all-hands in 2019, per a recording leaked to Insider, Jeff Blackburn — who left the company in early 2021 only to boomerang back within months as SVP of Global Media and Entertainment — was rhapsodic about the project and its Hollywood bona fides, calling it a "premium, huge tentpole."

"Story begins with character," Blackburn said on the 2019 recording. "The writing team in the writers room for 'Lord of the Rings' is absolutely the dream team of writers in Hollywood right now. I've been down there, Jeff [Bezos] met them, they are incredible, they come from 'Star Trek Beyond' and 'Westworld' and 'Game of Thrones' and 'Breaking Bad.' These folks have done it before, and they're taking this vast story in Middle Earth, and they're building something really incredible."

For Amazon Studios chief Jennifer Salke, who joined the company in 2019, Bezos' "desire to be ambitious — ?and for us to be ambitious with our content — has always been clear from the moment I got here," she told Vanity Fair in February. "['Rings'] fit perfectly with that big ambition, to take on something that would require the whole company working together to execute."

"I hope we do Tolkien's work justice," Bezos told Time magazine in an email. "It goes beyond making a commercially successful show."

But Bezos isn't running day-to-day operations at Amazon anymore. "How is Andy [Jassy] now going to measure the success and value of the investment they've made when the IP wasn't acquired to please him in the same way?" the second former insider asked. "They took this enormous swing for a certain master who's gone now."

Given the significance and complexity of the project, said a third former Amazon Studios employee, setting up "Rings of Power" for success is akin to "launching a rocket."  

As if to illustrate the point, the LA premiere featured an army of drones depicting images from the series — as well as the Prime Video logo — in the night sky.
How Prime Video affects Amazon's bottom line, even if a $1 billion project doesn't

Amazon won't suffer a heavy blow to the balance sheet if "Rings of Power" isn't a juggernaut. A company with a $1.4 trillion dollar market cap, it spent a cool $8.5 billion to acquire MGM earlier this year, pointing to longer-term ambitions in entertainment.

But Amazon Studios will take an ego hit if Tolkien's elves can't help the division meet its viewership and subscriber expectations, whatever those may be. Salke is about to hit her five-year anniversary as Amazon Studios chief. Neither she nor her boss — Mike Hopkins, SVP of Prime Video and Amazon Studios — were at the company for the project's inception, but Salke has overseen its execution.

"I think Jen's position there is very, very secure but all the senior leaders are probably not sleeping well right now," said the second former insider. "It's a high-stakes moment for them."

On Amazon's most recent earnings call, leadership digital content consumption is projected to rise this quarter, largely thanks to "Rings" and "Thursday Night Football," which the streamer will air exclusively for the first time starting September 15. Earlier this year, the company hiked annual Prime membership fees by $20 — to $139 a year — so any new members will bring a meatier boost to the bottom line. According to a Morgan Stanley survey, Prime Video is the second most-cited reason that people sign up for Prime (58%), after two-day shipping (73%).



"It feels to me like this has the potential to be something that actually drives gross adds — meaning people come to Prime or sign up for Prime to get to 'Lord of the Rings' — because of the scale of this production," said Greenfield.

And if awakening a dormant viewer also means activating a dormant shopper, there's potentially more revenue to be gained from current members. "I think there's still a lot of people who don't regularly use Prime [Video] who may have it," Greenfield said. "I don't think Prime is where people start their evening, the way they do Netflix … Between ['Rings'] and Thursday Night Football, these are two huge properties to get people who may already have Prime to start using it more regularly."
Why a win for 'Rings of Power' won't lead to more big, spendy series

No matter how well "Rings" works for Amazon, don't look for another entertainment company to make a 10-figure bet on a single streaming project anytime soon. Margins are slim enough; Disney, for one, recorded a loss of $1.1 billion related to streaming expenses in its most recently reported quarter.

"We've already been living in this distorted entertainment environment where everybody's a winner and nobody makes money," said the second former Amazon Studios insider. "Amazon and Apple [studio divisions] are not independently financially accountable … Disney+ is a loss leader, Peacock is a loss leader, Paramount+ is a loss leader. That's happening without everyone making a bunch of 'Lord of the Rings,' and they're already feeling the strain."

"I don't think anybody can sustain a heartbeat where 'Lord of the Rings' or 'House of the Dragon' are the new normal," this person added. "There's no business in that."

Do you work at Amazon Studios? Got a tip?
Contact reporters Elaine Low via email ([email protected]) or Eugene Kim via the encrypted-messaging apps Signal or Telegram (+1-650-942-3061) or email ([email protected]).

Quoted:
Why are Asians always excluded when they race swap characters?

Quoted:

Because Asians are "white adjacent".

No, I'm not kidding.

https://medium.com/projectinclude/we-need-to-talk-about-what-it-means-to-be-white-adjacent-in-tech-f91fbcce7a42

Quoted:
In major cinema (independent films and films pretty much no one has even heard of don't count) this century can y'all recall ANY significant black characters in the source material that were race swapped for whites or a significant female character in the source material that was gender swapped for a male?

Any at all?

Quoted:
In major cinema (independent films and films pretty much no one has even heard of don't count) this century can y'all recall ANY significant black characters in the source material that were race swapped for whites or a significant female character in the source material that was gender swapped for a male?

Any at all?

Quoted:
https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-lord-rings-power-billion-dollar-prequel-streaming-hollywood-2022-8?op=1



My reply to amazon's streaming services existing or not:

https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/030/124/cast.jpg

If you lot are so bigoted and stupid that you think you can do better than Tolkien, you shouldn't be in the business. Go dig ditches.



I can't see how they could think this. If they were being honest with the dislike count on the original video AND all the dislikes were true, and not bots, if you add them all up, it would be OVER 5 million dislikes, to 130k likes ... out of 31 million views.