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Bright: The Apotheosis of Bad Worldbuilding (Patreon)

Published:
2018-01-31 07:17:47
Edited:
2018-07-25 19:19:41
Imported:
2026-06

Content

I never want to think about orcs again.

Files

Bright: The Apotheosis of Lazy Worldbuilding | Video Essay

We're broken people now. Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/loosecanon Full "Orc Cop" song by Rap Critic: https://soundcloud.com/mastaartisan/orc-cop-right-movie-theme-parody/ Rap Critic on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCL3wRHKYmH4vJreoTw28jZQ

Comments

Thomas Terlecki

My wife and I just watched this video and we have more questions. Orcs are clearly coded as black, but black people are also filling the black stereotypes. Which race in this universe is responsible for the jazz->rock n roll->soul->funk->hip hop music lineage? Is black culture black and orcs are stealing it or is it orcish and black people are stealing it? Was Eminem orcish, white or an elf?

Matthew Maddock

I did not like this film, but I think it was attempting some interesting stuff with Orc stereotypes. Like, lots of academia around orcs, especially in Tolkien, is on the dichotomy of them being slaughtered by the good guys, but having individuality and personhood. For example the scene at the camp in Two Towers shows that there are orcish dialects and in Return of the King the chat between two orcs about finding some good boys and working a farm is just so tonally dissonant from the Legolas / Gimli head counting game. Again, in Bright, the same issue. Lots of group shots / racial stereotyping, but also the creation of an individual saviour god in the form of a Jesus / Odin Orc. He is killed and revived, and later hanged while trying to save Will Smith. Someone somewhere must have some idea that they were trying to say something interesting with that imagery, and it just got lost to shit like “fairy lives don’t matter”...

Suede

Aaaw yeah, he's an orc but he's also a cop! Been waiting on this one!

Aaron

Do you post these 2 days earlier strictly as a bonus, or is it part of the Hakka dance ritual required to get content-ID to play nice?

Volker Zimmermann

I'm pretty convinced by now that the "fairy lives don't matter today"-scene really needs to be interpreted as a dog whistle. In turn, this also explains the outrage and defensiveness of Bright fans towards any kind of criticism, even if this criticism is somewhat balanced.

Nyntynyne

I had not heard of this movie before. This video was a lot to process.

Kevin Lyda

The Tolkien quote is interesting considering his friendship with CS Lewis. Though Googling around I see it's been discussed a lot.

Cold Hearted Complaints

This was an excellent video, and really timely for me because I was just about to start trying to break down Crash. Lot of great insight, really well done Lindsay!

DiceProphet

I am ashamed to say that I enjoyed this intensely nihilistic and poorly-written movie in that same way I enjoy many shitty, mindless popcorn flicks. That being said, this pretty much hits every point on why it's so terrible. *slinks away into shame and exile like Gollum*

Allan

Except dog whistles are a unhelpful concept which are usually applied to justify calling someone nasty names based on the thinnest and weakest of convoluted justifications, and almost never lead to productive discussion

Volker Zimmermann

Ok, maybe dog whistle is the wrong term - what I meant is that the comment does not make any sense inside the universe, but is in fact breaking the fourth wall and addressed directly to the viewers. It's kind of a "wink, wink, nudge, nudge" addressed to people who are pissed off at the Black Lives Matter movement, but cannot act on their opposition because of social taboos.

Jackie

You tore this movie a new one. I loved every second of this video. I wonder if one day, Will Smith will say that Bright was a career mistake for him, the way he did with Wild Wild West.

Volker Zimmermann

I might be going out on a limb here, but I believe that while the Orcs in Bright are somewhat racially coded as oppressed black people, it is also possible to see them as a white oppression fantasy. They can be interpreted as a stand-in for white people who think that *they* are the ones who are oppressed, especially male white teenagers. I cannot remember seeing one orcish woman in Bright. Also, the Orcs don't really have black skin, their "base" skin is in fact white, and then they have these colored patches that resemble maybe tattoos(?) Lastly, who are the people who keep the Orcs down? The racist cops are remarkably diverse, and interestingly enough the nastiest of them is an asian woman. The Elves are the rich & beautiful. So just by elimination, the Orcs could be interpreted as a stand-in for white male teens who think of themselves as downtrodden and ugly. On top of this, the metal ("orcish") music also points to a subculture that is almost exclusively white.

Robert Bracey

I did not hate it as such. I enjoyed parts, especially the heavy Shadowrun references. The initial set-up though slow gets you to an interesting point, the car crash, where you cannot move more than X distance away from the pursues.

William Gross

One of the reasons I like your reviews, is even when you are thoroughly gutting a film, you don't go overboard into "it's the worst thing evaaaar" hyperbole unless it really deserves it. I didn't like this film, like at all, but this is the kind of "take down" that someone who likes a film can respect and engage with because you don't skip over stuff that worked or that was simply unrefined.

Jennifer Miller

I am forever gonna feel dirty playing Skyrim...

teacupful

There's record of his opinions in collections of Lewis' and Tolkien's letter and diaries, too. Tolkien wasn't one to mince words with his writing buddies, and never loved Narnia. Also wasn't a fan of Lewis finally converting-- but to Protestantism, not to Catholicism! And still, they were close friends.

teacupful

I avoided reading or watching anything about Bright when I saw you would be tackling this, so every thirty seconds was a loop of exclaiming, "YIKES." Will Smith cast as the ... casually racist white man?? I especially appreciate the way you wove in comparison with and criticism of Tolkien's work. Learning to accept ANY criticism of Tolkien-- not intellectually, but emotionally-- was one of the first and biggest barriers I had to cross to start honestly examining my own internalized racism. As a 13/14 year old, Tolkien was both a creative and religious revelation. In the midst of an American evangelical culture at the height of its Harry Potter witch hunt, discovering a Christian writer who valued fantasy-- not as allegory or a religious tool, but for *its own sake*-- who referred to writerly world-building as the natural imitation of God... that was life-changing. It took a lot of reading and more time that it should have for me to detach my identity and my emotional/spiritual esteem for Tolkien from very apt criticisms of the period-typical racism he reflected (and which the genre has destructively perpetuated, as you point out). My relationship to his work is all the richer for it, and I wish I'd had access to video essays like yours to hasten me on the journey. (Then again, we're close to the same age... it's possible we are the product of parallel, if not entirely similar trajectories.)

Zac Millner

i am so glad i watched this instead of watching bright. lindsay youre the fucking greatest i live for these vids <3

Lindsay Nelson

Thank you for a great explanation of coding vs. allegory with regard to authorial intent. I get so tired of the knee-jerk "Stop reading so much into it, they're space aliens / fairies / talking animals, they don't HAVE race or gender" reactions, when coding of characters as female / male / queer / of a particular race or class is usually super obvious, regardless of whether that's what the creator intended or not.

Tim Bradley

Never heard of this film before, but enjoyed the analysis nonetheless. Which, truth be told, is not so far from my response to your Saving Mr Banks and Rent videos. The value for me isn't from the specific context, but in the way your essays capture wider areas of study as part of the discussion. Here, I was most close to the material on racial coding of Orcs within the LOTR series, and appreciated your perspective on how we can not remain blind to that fact without letting it dominate the discussion of a series with other things to say - with the lens being this films failure to offer that wider purpose (as well as being produced in a different era, of course.) Anyway, thank you, and keep doing what you're doing. Even when I have no idea what the film is, your format and your skills make it a worthwhile experience, at least for me.

A looming creature of darkness

Any thoughts on the Dragon Age games? They're pretty in love with their fantasy race coding. There's a reason they call it Racism Age. There has been a loooot said about Dragon Age 2 and gay coding, too. It was pretty heavy-handed. Rather X-Men-ish in a lot of ways. The writers definitely give a lot more shits about worldbuilding than anyone did with Bright, anyway.

teacupful

Upon second viewing + reflection ... dang, I'm trying to think of a single "worldbuilding"-based fantasy that included racially-coded strife (intentionally coded or not) that wasn't "explained" through a historical or personal conflict (dwarves murdering Thingol, etc). SciFi, yes-- we don't get a "mutants fired first" backstory to explain the hatred in the X-Men universe, awkward as its one-to-one allegory could be (at least, not in the God Loves, Man Kills Claremont era, I can't speak for later stuff), although there are plenty of examples to the contrary, like Ender's Game. It's almost like ... the fantasy genre is dominated by white authors ... infusing their worlds with the assumption that groups-based hatred and prejudice MUST be rooted in *something* sympathetic ...

David Majors

I know you live and die by Transformers, and at this point, I SHOULD KNOW BETTER. But arrghhh, you just had to sneak Skids and Mudflap in. I'd done a great job repressing them from my memory. But seeing touches of your brand of exasperated comedy is nice, too.

Reutermo

Great video as always. I do wonder about that tolkien quote though. Do he seriously mean that stuff like trees literally taking a stand against big deforestations and a industrial society isn't meant to be seen as an allegory?

Xats

I just assumed they used the Shadowrun way for explaining the additional races but like 40 years earlier. But as it stands the history should be really different.

Jesse Rome

I was one of those who thought the critical hate for Bright was overblown. Didn’t think it was a great movie, thought it was dumb but enjoyable. I have a soft spot for fantasy in the modern world. This essay is going to make it hard for me to ever watch it again and not notice all the stuff I ignored the first time. Way to ruin something I sort of liked, Lindsay.

Heartlessfang

Omg. You said the thing. You said the thing several times. I feel like the last time I heard it was the Sister Act review you did years back. Anyway, love the video as usual. Was recommended this movie from a buddy for the lore and the modern fantasy thing, but the grittiness really didn't grab me. Though the video made me think of a book series I've loved for years from Patricia Briggs where the Fae (faries and whatnot) revealed themselves to the world in the 80's and how that similarly affected werewolves and other magical races in contemporary times.

Jennifer Miller

I hated Dragon Age 2. It forces you into a relationship with Anders, and his "confession" of love is literally just sexual assault. But, that's just my two cents.

josey (bog unicorn)

You have to actively choose to flirt with Anders to enter a romance with him. Like, there are lots of reasons to dislike DA2 and Anders as a character, but this is a disingenuous way of putting it.

Deep In Bear Country

Thank you for the Berenstain Bears drop in the section on coding. I hosted a live show about that very book and navigating the subject was tricky, considering the heavy coding that was obviously intended to be positive by the authors.

teacupful

What you're describing seems like it would fit better under the umbrella of "very reasonable interpretations of the text" than "allegory", in the literary sense and in the sense Tolkien meant it. Allegory as exemplified by Pilgrim's Progress or George Macdonald's fairy tales (and Narnia, as it is usually interpreted-- notably, Lewis himself offered the alternative description "supposal", since he wasn't telling a story in which a lion *represented* Jesus so much as crafting a Jesus!AU Multiverse in which the gospel narrative was supposed to have actually unfolded on Earth) is defined by author intent and deliberate, representational symbolism. Reader interpretation wouldn't impact whether or not a story was allegory, by Tolkien's definition. Lindsay does say as much, briefly. I'm wildly speculating, but I do think the modern acceptance of "death of the author" might have something to do with many readers rejecting, ignoring, or feeling confused by Tolkien's disavowal of allegory. His definition is rooted in the idea that author intent is related to a story's meaning, and by extension that meaning is, at least in part, objective. The further an audience drifts from that perspective-- I'm thinking of fandom metas and fictions, in particular-- the more the concept "allegory" can be mistaken for "symbolism", intended or unintended. I hesitate to throw the word around, but the "postmodern" assumption that stuff like meaning and symbolism in narrative are shaped by a creator's experiences/culture/privilege/place in time/etc (+ can be unintentional and are essentially subjective) also diverges from Tolkien's worldview, I think. It's not conjecture to say that, for Tolkien, objective values of "good" and "beautiful" were definable and ... well, real. That assumption of moral objectivity is definitely laced through his work from beginning to end.

Lindsay Ellis

I imagine it will surprise no one that Ward was written as white (and described as such) in the script. Also, I only recently learned how reverently evangelicals hold Tolkien, which is wild to me, but also makes a certain amount of sense (considering how sexless middle earth is). I don't remember ever having a reckoning with the race elements though, as it was always there and part of the discussion. To my memory it was more the question of "Is Jackson going to lean into that? Oh...yep. Yep he is. Okay. There we go." I do agree however that an ability contextualize is imperative for having a rich and nuanced relationship to anyone's work. I don't think it's fair to judge historical figures by modern morality, which itself is in constant flux. It's really annoying to have to write around that and explain "I don't think Tolkien is a bad person" - which really speaks to just how much we are unable to contextualize people who lived in different time periods. Your personal journey speaks to great maturity - I wish it were more common.

Lindsay Ellis

Credit to X-men because while *stuff* does happen, the root of the anti-mutant bigotry tends to be "hmmm I dunno" and speculative about how they're GOING to do bad things in the future (i.e. those immigrants are going to rape our white women and take our jobs), which is more reflective of how bigotry operates in the real world.

Lindsay Ellis

"I do think the modern acceptance of "death of the author" might have something to do with many readers rejecting, ignoring, or feelings confused by Tolkien's disavowal of allegory. " I think this hits the nail on the head. Tolkien himself wrote that preface three years before the original "Death of the Author" essay was written, let alone popularized. "Death of the Author" is a fairly recent concept, and Tolkien would have never had much interest in the idea. I honestly do agree with Tolkien's idea that "allegorical" kind of has to be a statement of authorial intent, or it's not allegory. Tolkien would probably argue (wrt, for instance, the trees rising up) that while this is reflective of his worldview, it contains no allegory because it doesn't refer to either an event (like, that one time in English history the trees fought back) or to another story (a Biblical text describing same).

teacupful

"Mutant bigotry" juxtaposed with the rest of the superpowered Marvel 'verse worked kinda similarly, I think-- teetering between an almost unintentionally incisive metaphor for the arbitrariness and absurdity of racist fear ("this guy is fine because his power's came from a patriotic space accident, but THIS guy was ... born different") and actual worldbuilding fail (all of Civil War, or pick your poison).

BlackDove

When I heard the concept of Bright, "What if Lord of the Rings but also Bad Boys?", I was instantly intrigued. Normally fantasy films all follow mostly the same vein, having one be a more modern take is rare. Problem is the film is just boring. And poorly written. I hope that, at the very least, its supposed success with audiences leads to similar, better written projects. Lord of the Rings but also Mad Max anyone?

Allyson Cygan

Well thanks for making me want a Legolas and Gimli buddy cop movie!

SpookyQuill

44 minutes?! Hold on, I need to go get some chocolate cake from the fridge first.

Eleanor K.

I'm so happy you got RC to do the fictional tie in for the movie

Orellien

The thing about Dragon Age and themes of racism is that it doesn't try to code the Elves, Dwarves or Qunari as a specific race. There's definite racial issues in there, particularly regarding Elf-Human relations (with the Elves getting pretty much roundly subjugated because Humans don't like sharing land with non-Humans). It's similar to how a lot of sci-fi/fantasy goes into issues of racism: It's a lot easier to deal with racism as this conceptual thing than it is to make explicit connections with real-world racial groups.

Holly

"If you want to play up this "I'm a bad dude with no friends" angle, don't give him a family." You can actually see a practical application of this sentiment in the GHOST IN THE SHELL franchise. In the original comic, the Puppet Master case is the culmination of the Major's existential crisis, which is weakly outlined by her friends that barely appear and that she keeps at arm's length, as well as a boyfriend who she is not super close with and is written out after maybe two chapters. (Also Batou snarkily drops the detail that she rarely dates anyone for more than a month.) Compare that to the 1995 film, where she lives alone in a bare apartment (echoed by the bachelor pad the brainwashed garbageman lives in) and Batou is the only person she is even kind-of friends with. Her life is her job, and her job is stupid and meaningless. In the comic, the Major's life kinda sucks. In the film, her life is completely empty. Her frantic chase after the Puppet Master makes more sense and is more meaningful in the latter setup.

Orellien

The closest I can think of is Dragon Age, where the Elves are subjugated by the humans, either forced in ghettos called Alienages or forced to live in the wilderness and not set down roots. The history is a touch complex (because they did good worldbuilding), but the most recent Elven nation was conquered in an explicitly religious war after a bit of border and political tension... Don't get me wrong, there were causus belli all over the place, but it was much more similar to the lead-in to the Mexican American War, which... yeah, history makes it pretty clear that it was a US war to seize territory and nothing more.

William Winters

Fridge-magnet worldbuilding 'works' because it invites people who don't know much history to come up with their own solutions to what the writers didn't want to figure out. Shrek must be like blackface! Sure, there were orcs at the Alamo, downtrodden orcs would have been all over the landgrab that was Texas. I can say stuff like that with my buddies while we're drinking and watching and it passes the sniff test, and we don't really examine it once we've sobered up.

Ghost

Thank you for another insightful and interesting video! I was just so disappointed in Bright, as they could have had Shadowrun the movie, but noooo....my dreams will have to wait again.

Meg Elison

Just a heads up: Coates' name is not pronounced the way the spelling would suggest. Check out the IPA, or watch a video of him saying his own name. (You are fabulous, and this is meant kindly. Thank you for your work.)

Nicholas Theron Pace (edited)

Comment edits

2026-09-14 06:00 Disclaimer: I only got 5 mins into this because it's a work day, AND I did not see Bright. But this movie didn't hire a screenwriter? Wow!
2018-01-31 19:29

Wifey

This was great! Could you please talk about Max Landis in a video though..? I hate him and want to see him get ripped apart.

Natalie Bear

it threw me so back when you said that, too

Alejandro

I think she is telling us about how she feels about Max landis

Jas T

(thank you for not mentioning *blank* *blankis*)

Step Hen

I didn't know much about Bright outside the controversy of the executive producer Max Landis but thank you for this. My theory is why millions saw this poorly thought-out film was because Will Smith is in it. No, seriously. My brother loved Bright and Suicide Squad because Will Smith in those films.

Jade Dale

I agree that Fantasy races have coding from our world,and I've often wondered what that indicates about elves specifically. They seem more a collection of positive stereotypes then a cultural reference. They are often described as beingng pretty,smart and wise. There's even a degree of "elf hate" derived from how perfect they supposedly are. What does elven perfection say about real humans? I certainly think it has troubling implications for trans folks who are trying to "pass".

Petty Officer No Class

I thought the Khajit were supposed to be people from mid eastern countries

Matt Laboe

It's also spelled incorrectly in the video. It's just one i at the end.

Jasmine Krause

Really interesting and insightful as always Lindsay! It's really interesting to see how the movie industry in the U.S.A tries to allude to and discuss racism without the knowledge of why it's an issue in the first place and how it came to be.

Greg Bishansky

I mostly stayed away from this movie due to the presence of "Son of a Director". I didn't expect it to be anything good, but wow... this sounds just awful in the squandered potential, which is the worst thing that can happen to a project like this. I love the urban fantasy genre. I am a huge fan of "Gargoyles", and that is a great example of this sort of genre done right. Because if any urban fantasy series weaved it's fictional characters and events into actual history, that show did... what with their Demona being weaved into the historical Macbeth's story (as opposed to the Shakespearean version), and the presence of even obscure historical figures like Finella, King Kenneth, and Constantine III.... and that was the cartoon that Disney wanted targeted to kids aged 6 through 11. What's Bright's excuse?

Will Kirwan

So I liked this movie and still do in a slocky way. But the world building does suck and that was always my main problem with it. One of my coworkers brought up a good question: Would this have work if it was a mini or tv series? I think the answer would no because it's base is so poor.

Imogen Geier

I think there's probably a reason Ellis isn't vocally going after him here. It's kinda hard to make a "takedown video" on a sexual predator, even putting the potential fallout aside.

Will Kirwan

I'm not trying to excuse Bright but Gargoyles was a tv show meaning it had a lot more time for world building. I was also wondering how you did paragraphs in your comment. Every time I hit enter on patreon it submits the comment.

Imogen Geier

On the other hand, it actually really annoys me when a non-escapist story like Harry Potter or the shitty chickentooth show just says, "Oh, yeah, racism doesn't exist—it's all bigotry against [white or white-coded minority] now." If you want to tell a realistic story about fantasy bigotry, it's really not helpful to ignore how real bigotries develop. If racism vanished, why? At least Discworld gives some lip service to explaining why "human racism" went away, and it's a comedic setting, so we can forgive more. It's really obnoxious erasure and oversimplification anywhere else. But Bright is worse. EDIT: Oh, and arguably, Bright does this too, since they basically just ignore sexism in the movie. Apparently acknowledging that was too big a strain. I wonder why? Maybe if they'd had a screenwriter...

Will Kirwan

I also wanted to bring something else that was a product of bad coding, runic letters are used in a lot of White Supremacy gangs, so orcs=blacks + whites?

teacupful

I got a chuckle from "sexless", because it's true. Then I wrote a few thousand words on how the elevation of Tolkien and C. S. Lewis to evangelical mascot status typifies the paradoxical, culture-as-theology garbage fire that is American evangelicalism (I experienced private Christian elementary school, the ultra-right home school community, and undergrad and Theology grad studies at Wheaton College, IL-- which is just a femur and a torn veil short of housing a Tolkien/Lewis reliquary-- so it's an intimate topic). At page three had to admit this, uh, isn't really the venue for that. Suffice to say: the activity of compassion will always been more uncertain, painful, and less ego-satisfying that a curated vocabulary or a checklist of good deeds. Evaluating context is work. Forgoing social reassurances that the thing you like is okay to like is lonely work. Centering someone else's needs, perspective is work. That's why a tumblr tag of #i'm white, appended to reblogs of essays by women of color, might begin as a few folks' attempting to signal their culpability/role as listener and become, almost instantaneously, a self-congratulatory bumper sticker that co-opts a woman of color's time and labor and turns it into a blog decoration. I am terrified by how easy it is to curate activism. Amer. evangelicalism and progressivism are prey to the same disease, in that sense: they often pretend goodness (their brand) is an identity. But kindness is daily, hourly vulnerability. For Frodo, doing good means giving up every valuable thing with no promise of restoration or recognition or salvation-- and in the end it isn't his will or good intentions that succeed, but mercy met with grace (or non-divine accident). Likewise, the Christian faith, in any iteration, is nothing without willingness to sacrifice. All told, I was motivated to let go of my idealized, idolized conception of Lord of the Rings and Tolkien, to risk alienation from something I loved, by ideals vivified in my teenage heart by the very same writer, same story. Within and outside the church, the concept of Christian "sacrifice" is almost always framed in terms of giving up arbitrary stuff, even wholesome stuff-- sex, good movies, cussing, alcohol. It's never, "my comfortable belief that I'm right/not racist" or "my political identity" or "my idealization of American" kindling on the altar. Tolkien's racism leaked into his works, indisputably, and a reader has the right to decide his work isn't worth the emotional labor of navigating those faults. Influential isn't irreplaceable. But for me, I see an author who understands that doing right is a confusing, fraught, unending fight with no promise of reward. I've learned to trust that commitment to fighting, to vulnerability, over tailored vocabularies and nominal faith. ... it goes without saying that Bright has none of the above, right? I think you covered that.

Taylor Crowe

>Were Mexicans one of the Nine Races? NEW HEADCANON CONFIRMED Also I'm hoping this movie helps build momentum for a Shadowrun TV seires or something.

De

This used to bother me to. You have to hit shift and enter.

Pavel A

Why didn't they just pick up Shadowrun instead?

JM

I'm gonna self-identify as a Visigoth an say I actually like this movie, given that it was free...

Paul Grodt

Yeah, but, ummmmm, it's a really pretty movie...there's that!

Andrew Kozma

It's strange that BRIGHT seems to take so much from the Shadowrun RPG except for the recent divergence (i.e., in the last fifty years magic shifted in the world and revealed orcs, trolls, dwarves, elves, etc.).

Andrew Kozma

Also, that was an awesome video essay.

Anastasia

This is an excellent essay, as always! I haven’t seen Bright, but just based on the clips and your explanations - there seems to be this odd, unacknowledged coded antisemitism? Or am I completely off-base?

Katelyn Pringle

"Because if you use the actual language of casual language of casual racism, you run the risk of offending casual racists, which is a huge demographic. So you use the language of cartoon casual racism, and never have to run the risk of having the audience question whether they are seeing themselves in the bad guy." This is my favorite line of the video. It makes you remember that in so many movies, the statement that's trying to be made is less important then the studio's bottom line.

Lilli

I saw the coded anti-semitism too! The whole "they're to blame for the dark lord 2000 years ago" thing, very in line with the whole "jews killed jesus" genre of anti-semitism.

Graphite Shores

When writing a world, a lot of writers tend to think logically about it...which is why racism in fantasy settings tends to be about the 'historical conflict' or the 'personal conflict', rather than 'putting groups of people next to each other makes the bigger group want to dominate the other groups because they fear being subjugated themselves'. I am writing my own fantasy world filled with war and conflict, and it's mostly about religion and nationality than 'This is the evil race' or 'A long time ago this race did something bad'.

Amelie Marandet

Thank you for the great commentary and the good summary, which will help me never have to watch that film ever. The premise of that film, minus how racial allegory it is charged, is something that I could have dreamt up when I was 14 and obsessed by LotR but also highly selfconscious of how I was idealizing and mythologizing the lives and the strives of that world, yet felt either betrayed, or participating in betraying of a real modern world that felt more alienated, less cohesive, disenchanted. I felt some kind of hypocrisy or dissociation projecting myself into fantasy world from the comfort of a modernity i was trying to run from. Beyond the failed racial allegory, I think there was also here potential, in the juxtaposition, to reveal how petty, daily, common we'd make those "amazing" adventures, and legends if translated in our current world of messy democracy, alienating capitalism and dislocated narratives - and revealing also the classist undertones, the antidemocratic pureblood aspects of the ideals such fantasy world. Like a "you want elves ? you want orcs, well here's your orcs". but it's more an interesting visual piece or thought experiment that doesn't really work as a narrative.

LeftOn4ya

Ents came from his disappointment of a MacGuffin - In The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien: Letter 163, Note 41 Tolkien said “…my bitter disappointment and disgust from schooldays with the shabby use made in Shakespeare of the coming of 'Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill’: I longed to devise a setting in which the trees might really march to war.” This reminds me of when Andy Stanton wrote WALL-E the thought of "the last robot on earth" exited him and making it a trash compactor was funny so had to come up with the idea of how that would come to be so the idea that Humans would eventually make the earth environmentally unlivable was just a means to that end. In both Tolkien and Stanton’s mind it was not the Author’s intent to tell an allegory on the woes of not being more environmentally conscious, but their worldview may have jaded the ideas they found exiting. In “Bright” I could give the “writer” a benefit of the doubt that thoughts of Fantasy races with human races just exited him, but unlike others he (and possibly Will smith’s ad-libs) were trying to make a statement on racism, albeit a crappy statement ala “Crash” as Lindsay pointed out.

LeftOn4ya

Dang it - now you made me rewatch Nostalgia Chick's Sister Act just to see what "the thing" was. (anyone reading this will have to rewatch it as well)

Kat S.

bright is just lame the once and future nerd

Matt Eldritch

God, this movie looks hideous with all the dim lighting and drab colours, I could never watch this for long. Speaking of colours and such, I made this title card for my let's play channel for one of the episodes of the Guardians of the Galaxy game and I was inspired to do so by your video about the movies. I loved how you used a video filter to make it look like something out of the seventies and I wanted to borrow that for my art. <a href="https://www.facebook.com/whatsspiderfan14playing/photos/a.1950225271896435.1073741832.1652541381664827/1954130964839199/?type=3&theater" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.facebook.com/whatsspiderfan14playing/photos/a.1950225271896435.1073741832.1652541381664827/1954130964839199/?type=3&theater</a>

Amelie Marandet

I need to find myself some packets of urBaN g4ngstA FlAvA to put in my risotto

Emily Daenzer

I love the music supplied by rap critic. It didn't really register until the end credits but once I realized it was him I had to watch it again.

Brian S

I really hated the movie , and your autopsy made me hate it that much more. By the way, if there's no screenwriter, who's credited with the terrible dialogue?

teacupful

I love both comparisons you made here because they also support this idea that a creator's beliefs and limitations can be writ largest in scifi/fantasy worldbuilding. Stanton didn't set out to make a grand commentary on environmental degradation, but you have to believe that it is *possible* for humans to overrun the world with garbage and escape on Big Corporate Spaceship to imagine a world like WALL-E's. Tolkien's trees aren't just beings, they're (eventually) *angry* beings, because he thought pointless destruction of wilderness was something that merited anger. Shallow understanding of racism, translated into a central plot or an entire universe = shallow storytelling, shallow fantasy racism.

Matthew Morris

I thought Max Landis was the screenwriter for this mess?

Rhiannon M

"was" being the operative term in that sentence.

DaNerdJones

I'm curious to see how they're going to salvage this one

Björn Apel

Kind of sad, that Lindsay never makes a connection to the closet comparison to Bright, which is Shadowrun. A very detailed and popular Pen 'n Paper RPG which plays in the our near future. One day magic comes back and some of the normal human become fantasy races (Goblinization), because they always where those races (1/10 of all humans became orcs). This created chaos, but then things become "normal" again. Since it is the close future, our history still exists, but there is also a new cultures.

Petty Officer No Class

Ah that's a good point. I know a lot of Arabic people so I recognized that speech pattern. And the fact that they are merchants made me think of the old Arabic states habing a big merchant class. I probably didn't pick up on the Romano thing because it's not a culture I've seen much of

Wifey

Yeah, that's very true.

Marion Poliquin

I watched Alien Nation outside on a bed of fallen leaves, drunk on beer and high on mushrooms and it still sucked.

SuperDezzy

Keep putting out these video essays. Especially with regards to fantasy and science-fiction. Your analysis of worldbuilding and storytelling helps to keep me thinking about the important details of setting and plot when designing adventures and settings in my tabletop RPG projects.

Deconstruction Interactive

I was literally going to make the same comment as Keith above! On the note of RPGs, there is the Shadowrun universe, where Orks(sic) and elves exist alongside humans in a futuristic cyberpunk world. In Shadowrun: Dragonfall, a video game set in the universe, one of the adventures deals with exactly the theme of racism against metahumans (all humanoid races except for humans), but neatly connects individual motivations of some NPCs with the systemic structures that enable this racism. I think you illustrated this approach brilliantly when talking about Roger Rabbit in your video. Thanks for pointing that out! On a different note, I do think it's possible to create a world where White people are racist against both Mexicans and Orcs, but I agree that would require a much more complex world than Bright builds.

Thomas Dobbertin

Glad to see I'm not the only one who thought of Shadowrun when watching this ^^

Alice Vollan

I am really glad you made a video about this, since I have been thinking about writing a modern fantasy book, with a world building that is 'similar' to this. Modern world with fantasy characters in it, but while watching this movie I realized that there was something about it that didn't quite work, and it was the world building. So, to start I am now re-drawing the world map, and giving every country a new name, and figuring out how history would have changed, and which race would be where. Most of what I've decided to keep that is from the world we know is political systems, and technology, but even then I have to make changes because magic. Wish me luck, this is going to take time, but I'm having fun!