What is it with Michael Bay and racial stereotypes?

[Set Harth]

The passage in question is not from Bilbo's POV.

 

[Hound of UIster]

The Hobbit was supposedly written by Bilbo. So yes the stuff revolving around Gollum would be inaccurate. Note the details of the Riddle Game that he changed.

 

[RAMA]

He's not a racist, he just isnt capable of defining characters very well. Hence, the simplest avenue is the best.

RAMA

 

[Set Harth]

Note the details of the Riddle Game that he changed.

If The Hobbit is written by Bilbo, how do you know he changed anything? You'd only be seeing the final result. The only changes in that chapter that I know of were made by Tolkien in the 1950s to smooth over discrepancy with LOTR.

 

[Hound of UIster]

Gandalf pretty much says so in lotr.

 

[The Wormhole]

Stereotypes provide cheap humour, which seems to be the only kind of humour Michael Bay can pull off. I don't think he's actively trying to be racially offensive or offensive in general. This is just the only humour he knows and it's what he goes with.

The guy is more suited to epic action sequences with huge splosions. And whatever else you may think of him, it's undeniable that yes, he pulls those off reasonably well. Unfortunately when it comes to fleshing out the rest of the story, he knows nothing other than hot girls, ethnic stereotypes, and immature sex jokes. Whatever, his movies do pull in several million dollars so it's a format which obviously works for him.

 

[Enterprise is Great]

Bay doesn't really care about putting anything of depth out. He just wants to make loads of money and date hot chicks. Some of those Hollywood types are just in it for money and hot chicks. They don't care about putting out movies with well developed characters, strong plots and good acting they just want to make movies that appeal to the largest number of people as possible.

 

[Set Harth]

Gandalf pretty much says so in lotr.

If you're referring to this:

Now it is a curious fact that this is not the story as Bilbo first told it to his companions. To them his account was that Gollum had promised to give him a present, if he won the game; but when Gollum went to fetch it from his island he found the treasure was gone: a magic ring, which had been given to him long ago on his birthday. Bilbo guessed that this was the very ring that he had found, and as he had won the game, it was already his by right. But being in a tight place, he said nothing about it, and made Gollum show him the way out, as a reward instead of a present. This account Bilbo set down in his memoirs, and he seems never to have altered it himself, not even after the Council of Elrond. Evidently it still appeared in the original Red Book, as it did in several of the copies and abstracts. But many copies contain the true account ( as an alternative ), derived no doubt from notes by Frodo or Samwise, both of whom learned the truth, though they seem to have been unwilling to delete anything actually written by the old hobbit himself.

The incident as described in The Hobbit matches what is described as the true account in the above passage, which was detailed on the preceding FOTR page. Also, we are told that the creation of the alternative account in the Red Book did not involve deleting anything written by Bilbo. Thus it seems that what appears in the text of The Hobbit is actually not the same as what Bilbo wrote.

 

[Hound of UIster]

No the true account is only in the latter editions. In the first edition and Bilbo's version, the story of him winning the game and Gollum abiding by his promise aka the cover story is whats written.

 

[Set Harth]

In the first edition and Bilbo's version, the story of him winning the game and Gollum abiding by his promise aka the cover story is whats written.

And that's not what appears in The Hobbit. So Bilbo's account is not the same thing as the text of The Hobbit.

 

[Hound of UIster]

It was what appeared in the Hobbit.

It was just edited later to conform to lotr.

Which establishes that the Hobbit is very much biased due to its authorship and shouldn't be trusted to be completely accurate and that details that do not conform to those in LOTR such as Gollum's appearances are more likely due to authorial biases creeping in.

 

[Thestral]

Or put more simply: outside-universe, Tolkien's ideas were evolving between writing the books and he settled on some stuff later. Which is kinda interesting in its own right.

 

[Skywalker]

Basically, Tolkien changed the scene for the Special Edition.

 

[Set Harth]

It was what appeared in the Hobbit.

It was just edited later to conform to lotr.

Since the changes occurred before my lifetime, I've apparently only seen the later versions of the text on any occasion when I've looked at the book. Thus I can neither confirm nor disprove the above assertion. However, my citation of the passage regarding Gollum's appearance came from the later version. For some reason, even after the text was edited in the name of consistency with LOTR, that part remained.

Which establishes that the Hobbit is very much biased due to its authorship and shouldn't be trusted to be completely accurate and that details that do not conform to those in LOTR such as Gollum's appearances are more likely due to authorial biases creeping in.

No, it establishes no such thing. What was established was that the version of the account written by Bilbo was not the same thing as the true version described in LOTR and the text of later editions of The Hobbit. Because the description of the contents of Bilbo's memoir given in FOTR does not match the version of The Hobbit which was updated to fit with LOTR, The Hobbit is not the text of Bilbo's in-universe memoir. Thus any "authorial biases" reflected in the current version of the text would not be those of Bilbo. The passage quoted from FOTR indicates that the true account was added to the Red Book by characters who spent a significant amount of time in an open-air setting with Gollum and whose "authorial biases" would thus tend to reflect Gollum's actual appearance. If there's an issue of authorial alteration here, the author in question would seem to have been Tolkien.

 

[Hound of UIster]

It established that the Hobbit was not accurate. That Bilbo intentionally lied about what happened with Gollum. Thus the discrepancy between LOTR and the Hobbit in regards to the appearance of Gollum can also be chalked up to its author fudging the details.

 

[Set Harth]

It established that the Hobbit was not accurate.

No, it established that Bilbo's in-universe memoirs were not accurate. These memoirs and the real-world text of The Hobbit are not necessarily the same thing. In other words, the contents of the "There And Back Again" which you can hold in your hand are not necessarily the same as the contents of the in-universe "There And Back Again". Since the later version of The Hobbit - which was said to have been changed for the sake of consistency with LOTR - agrees with LOTR's depiction of the incident, while both disagree with the version which according to FOTR is written in Bilbo's memoirs, we know that Bilbo's in-universe memoir is not the same thing as the accurate current text of The Hobbit. Even if we were to treat the current text of The Hobbit as an in-universe document, we know that Bilbo did not change the account in his memoirs, so it would be an in-universe document in which the relevant material was written by others.

Thus the discrepancy between LOTR and the Hobbit in regards to the appearance of Gollum can also be chalked up to its author fudging the details.

This is likely true if "its author" means Tolkien. Furthermore, Bilbo would have no particular reason to lie about Gollum's appearance.

 

[Sindatur]

So wait...Michael Bay is gonna desecrate a Tolkien Book?

I hope he ignores the Final Stand

 

[zakkrusz]

Better Question: What is with people being over-sensitive about race in their FICTIONAL entertainment?

 

[Nerys Myk]

Better Question: What is with people being over-sensitive about race in their FICTIONAL entertainment?

Uh, because they often give an inaccurate impression of the people they portray and get transferred from fiction to reality by those "entertained" by them.

 

[Hound of UIster]

No, it established that Bilbo's in-universe memoirs were not accurate. These memoirs and the real-world text of The Hobbit are not necessarily the same thing.

The memoirs and the Hobbit novel are the same in Tolkien's Legendarium.

while both disagree with the version which according to FOTR is written in Bilbo's memoirs, we know that Bilbo's in-universe memoir is not the same thing as the accurate current text of The Hobbit.

The latter edition of the novel is derived from subsequent editions of the fictional Middle Earth histories. Those include the corrected events and according to the real life author himself those corrections mostly involved the true events of the Riddle Game. The erroneous description of Gollum could have been kept in there while what happened in the Game would have been revised.

Furthermore, Bilbo would have no particular reason to lie about Gollum's appearance

Artistic embellishment.