Quote Originally Posted by Ionathus View Post
Interesting! That's one that I've never seen, only absorbed some vague opinions on it through passive osmosis. The impression I got was that most discussion of the film focused on its utterly bonkers (if anything I've heard is true) allegory to real-world race issues, which overshadowed or influenced all potential discourse about its quality as a film in itself. Visually, it looks like an interesting world. But it makes perfect sense why a film that makes such bold storytelling choices as "the orcs represent black people" would become a lightning rod for other reasons, and have its non-storytelling qualities overlooked.
Huh. That's... interesting. I also got a very Shadowrun feel from the film, and thought it was very good for that reason.

If folks looked at the Orcs and Elves in that film, and drew some kind of direct correllary to any particular modern world racial groups, they brought that correlation to the game with them, and it exists entirely inside their own minds. Which... you know... speaks volumes about those people that they would make that correlation in the first place.

I guess the moral is that no matter how fantastic your setting, and how completely and obviously disconnected it is from the "real world", some people just can't let go and just enjoy the fantasy (and you know, just take it at face value for what it is). Yes. There was racial conflict in the film (or maybe more correctly "species conflict"). But it included fantasy races that simply don't exist in our world. If folks applied their own real world stereotpes to that... it's on them.

It was actually a quite good film. Bit tropish in spots, but what good film isn't? I would strongly recommend watching it and not being scared away cause you heard something bad about it.