Science
Comments: 419 +- Idle: Iran Tries To Pacify Protesters With Lord of The Rings Marathon on Thursday June 25, @12:28PM
Posted
by
samzenpus
on Thursday June 25, @12:28PM
from the chip-the-glasses-and-crack-the-plates-that's-what-Ahmadinejad-hates dept.
from the chip-the-glasses-and-crack-the-plates-that's-what-Ahmadinejad-hates dept.
Iranian state television's Channel Two is playing a Lord of the Rings marathon in an attempt to keep people inside watching hobbits and not protesting in the streets. Normally, people in Tehran are treated to one or two Hollywood movies a week, but with recent events the government hopes that sitting through a nine-hour trilogy will take the fight out of most of the protesters. Perhaps this was not the best choice in films if you want your people not to believe that "even the smallest person can change the course of the future."
If the rich could pay the poor to die for them, what a living the poor
could make!
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Drivel (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Drivel (Score:4, Interesting)
LoTR is allowed in Iran? I thought it was too secular, or blasphemous, or something.
Re:Drivel (Score:5, Insightful)
Most Iranians love Americans, love Hollywood, etc. They just hate our government.
In that respect, they're a lot like most Americans...
Re:Drivel (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the Iranians hate their own government more than the US government, by a lot.
Re:Drivel (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Drivel (Score:5, Interesting)
Most Iranians love Americans, love Hollywood, etc. They just hate our government.
In that respect, they're a lot like most Americans...
Well, I am an Iranian and I'd say using the word "love" carries a bit of exaggeration. I think Americans are as cool and any other nationalities including Israelite. Actually, my best friends where I live are Americans, not because I love them but because we have common concerns. Also "hate" is exaggeration. I personally see Obama's administration a legitimate thing and his policies seem much wiser than Bush's. And AFAIK most educated Iranians agree with me on those things. In fact as someone else has put, I mostly hate my own governors than those of any other country.
Re:The Grotesquely Ugly Truth (Score:5, Funny)
No country operates in a vaccuum. Period.
Well, except for Moonistan.
Re:Drivel (Score:4, Informative)
with relation to Islam, yes it is.
Also, i recall an interview with Peter Jackson in which he described reconciling his worldview with Tolkien's in the context of remaining faithful to the artistic vision of LoTR. He (in my view) misapplied a Tolkien quote dismissing allegory by claiming that LoTR couldn't have Christian or theist themes buried in it. My guess is that if Tolkien considered it (which is likely given his rigor elsewhere) he may have perceived God as a universal entity and had no reason not to include theism in his fantasy. I also find it hard to believe that Tolkien hated allegory all that much given his life long friendship with Lewis, an admitted writer of allegory. One might say that allegory was the majority of Lewis' work. Yet I've not seen any criticism of Lewis' allegory in their correspondence.
Re:Drivel (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Read the Silmarillion (Score:5, Insightful)
Gee, a mythology where a theological figure falls from grace? That ONLY happens in Christianity!
Re:Drivel (Score:4, Funny)
Hmmmm. (Score:5, Funny)
Well, speaking for myself, I wanted to kill people on the exit from 2 out 3 of those movies, so this may not achieve the intended effect.
Wonderful! (Score:5, Funny)
Lord of the rings in the original farsi! Can someone tape it for me?
Re:Wonderful! (Score:4, Funny)
Everyone knows that Tolkien was Klingon. Just like Shakespeare.
No TV and Beer make Homer Something Something (Score:3, Funny)
Since beer is already off the list for Iranians, that leaves only one option.
This may not be a bad thing. (Score:3, Funny)
Freedom! (Score:5, Funny)
Where is my vo... Ooh! Legolas!
Re:Freedom! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Freedom! (Score:4, Funny)
What will happen (Score:5, Funny)
"A day may come when the courage of men fails ... But it is not this day! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good earth, I bid you stand, men of ... Iran! Allahu Akbar!"
Re: (Score:3)
"Akbar"
Wait, is it "Lord of the Rings", or "Star wars"?
Re:What will happen (Score:5, Funny)
Either way It's a Trap!
Re:What will happen (Score:4, Funny)
They're probably redubbed that bit to:
"The filthy British and American orcs have us pinned down with their green-hued protests, but we must rise up and smite them all, even if it means our deaths!"
Re:What will happen (Score:5, Insightful)
It is when it runs counter to how they want things done. But when they see an opportunity to use Hollywood and Western culture to their advantage, they won't shy away from it. In the end, they are just politicians. Highly corrupt, brutal politicians, but politicians nonetheless.
Wrong movie (Score:5, Funny)
They should have showed 300 instead.
American meddling huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
So the tyrants of Iran are blaming this whole mess on the American media, then they're tying to placate the protesters with American media? A movie trilogy about a bunch of people banding together to overthrow an evil tyrant no less. Nobody could draw parallels between things like the dark riders and the police riding motorcycles beating people with clubs.
The sense of irony is weak with the Iranian dictatorship...
Re:American meddling huh? (Score:4, Funny)
So the tyrants of Iran are blaming this whole mess on the American media, then they're tying to placate the protesters with American media? A movie trilogy about a bunch of people banding together to overthrow an evil tyrant no less. Nobody could draw parallels between things like the dark riders and the police riding motorcycles beating people with clubs.
The sense of irony is weak with the Iranian dictatorship...
Or the Iranian leftist media just managed to *WHOOSH* the evil overlord.
nitpicking (Score:5, Funny)
Come on; it doesn't matter which U.S. state the film was made in; the point is it's all American media.
Re:nitpicking (Score:5, Funny)
Typical American lack of geography. Everyone knows that New Zealand is a state of Australia.
A little trick they learned from us (Score:5, Funny)
After they saw how they lost sleeper cell after sleeper cell here in the US:
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/after_5_years_in_u_s_terrorist [theonion.com]
.
.
Eagles? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Eagles? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Eagles? (Score:4, Funny)
The Eagles didn't want to get involved because it didn't directly effect them at first. Once they saw that the Humans, Dwarves, Elves, Ents and Hobbits had done most of the hard work and it looked like Orcs would probably be after their eggs pretty shortly they turned up to help out. Oh sure they helped out in a non-combat way up till that point, saving Gandalf and providing equipment. However they demanded a hefty price that set back the Shire years technology wise and really helped boost their own post war economy putting them in a very favorable position while the rest of Middle Earth tried to rebuild. They really fell out of favour with the rest of Middle Earth in the years after Sauron was defeated because they just wouldn't shut up about how they defeated Sauron all by themselves.
That wasn't very subtle was it?
Re:Eagles? (Score:4, Funny)
Would those be African or European eagles?
Re:Eagles? (Score:4, Interesting)
The history is a little more complex than that: http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/s/sauron.html [glyphweb.com]
Iran hopefully welcomes ... (Score:4, Funny)
their new hobbit overlord.
Oh wait! That's North Korea ... my bad!
This will cause trouble... (Score:5, Funny)
From what I've heard, most people voted for a Star Trek marathon, not LOTR. The Guardian Council denies anything is wrong with the vote count, despite the official count being 17 billion votes for LOTR vs -8 for Star Trek.
I wonder if this is going to cause any trouble...
Play them in reverse order (Score:4, Funny)
That way, Frodo starts out near-death from exposure to the outside world, but ends up happy at home, blissfully ignorant of what's going on outside the shire, while his ancient and powerful Supreme Leader takes care of all that messy 'freedom' stuff....
On the other hand ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Perhaps this was not the best choice in films if you want your people not to believe that "even the smallest person can change the course of the future.
On the other hand, it does reinforce the notion that brown people are a fallen race of brutes that are incapable of even the most basic language, let alone organized self-government. If the Iranians start believing that canard, then there goes the revolution.
Then again, JRRT's solution is that a nice little white dude from England will come fix it up for you because he's so damned pure of spirit and incorruptible by evil (hah). Of course, he will bring with him some elves and dwarves (also white), a wizard with the surname "the white" and some other random white dude that claims the right to be King because his daddy was King and he has a nice looking sword (that apparently being a perfectly good reason to assert your right to absolute authority).
Somehow, I don't think the Ayatollahs want that conclusion sinking in either.
Re:On the other hand ... (Score:4, Informative)
The idea is ridiculous. Tolkien wasn't racist.
Not only that, Persians are white caucasians. Check it out. [wikipedia.org] Please be gone with your weird racial ideas.
Re:No Extended Version? (Score:5, Funny)
It's probably in pan-n-scan too.
JIHAD!
Re:No Extended Version? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Can't have it both ways (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh yea. Blatantly rig an election, and people tend to get pissed off. It's about more than just lining up in front of the cute little box. They had substantially more votes than people in more than 10(?) districts, and the race which was predicted to be very close, turned out to be a complete landslide. Every observer called the election rigged, even some of the internal ones.
And you're wondering why they're pissed?
Re:Can't have it both ways (Score:5, Funny)
Every observer called the election rigged, even some of the internal ones.
Russia has recognized the elections as fair.
In completely unrelated news, Russians have been campaigning for a return to the methods of Stalin [reuters.com]. Not a joke.
Re:Can't have it both ways (Score:5, Informative)
http://iran.whyweprotest.net/news-current-events/2327-green-brief-8-a.html [whyweprotest.net]
1. The event of the day was the protest held at Baharestan Square in the late afternoon. Although the exact number cannot be fully known, my sources claimed somewhere between 5,000-10,000 people tried to join the rally. Things got violent when security forces that had been waiting there for hours moved in as soon as a small crowd had managed to gather. They used force to brutalize the protesters and scatter them faster then they could regroup. Police were also patrolling the areas around Baharestan and people were attacked even as they fled Baharestan and go to the outer edges of the area. This continued for at least two hours.
2. Force was utilized without discrimination; however, media reports about a complete massacre cannot be confirmed by my more reliable sources. What I can confirm is at least 3 people were killed; the police used batons to beat people quite viciously - leaving dozens injured, not just in Baharestan but also in the areas around Baharestan. Shots were also fired and at least 2 of the fatalities were as a result of gunfire. Tear gas was also used to disperse them. We cannot confirm the use of axes on protesters. It could have been isolated incidents. But a wide-spread use cannot be confirmed. There were reports of killings at Lalehzar as well. Lalezhzar is a park in Tehran which has been completely taken over by security forces and is being used as a quasi-de fact base. Pictures are scarce and videos cannot be confirmed at this point either. The police were checking cell phones throughout the area as well as in other parts of the city and deleting images or videos or confiscating the phone altogether.
3. The area was surrounded also by vans and cars belonging to the security forces. Injured protesters and those protesters the police could hold onto were promptly thrown into these vehicles and moved to undisclosed locations. It has been suggested that Evin prison is being used to house most of the prisoners, but the sheer number of protesters easily could mean that make-shift prisons have been built around Tehran to house these people. Some sources indicated as well, but this cannot be confirmed right away. Most shops around Baharestan were closed so people had nowhere to hide. Cell phone service was also jammed so no help could arrive for those stranded and the vicious and wide-spread beatings and arrests could continue.
4. The security forces were being heavily helped by helicopters. They flew all over the city and informed security forces of places where people had gathered. Security forces arrived in minutes and dispersed crowd. However, people were extremely persistent. Gatherings and small rallies took place in several places and the quicker they were dispersed the quicker more sprang up. This continued late into the night until people dispersed on their own. The sheer tenacity of the protesters is heartening and many twitter sources indicated that no matter what happens they will go to streets and protest. Hezbollah e Ansar were also spotted from time to time. Plainclothesmen also did their part of the arrests as they drove around the city in motorcycles.
5. There were also other arrests in Iran today. At least 70 university professors and other professionals held a meeting today with Mousavi at the end of which, all of them were arrested as they exited the meeting area. Reports also confirm that Mousavi's chief lawyer, Ardsher Amir Arjman has also been arrested. There is no real confirmation of whether Mousavi has been arrested or he's free. However, there are strong indications and SOME sources that claim he is currently under house arrest. For a partial list, please click here: List
Re:Link (Score:5, Informative)
Try this one: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/06/24/tehran_seven/index.html [salon.com]
P.S. Is Slashdot's CSS just going to get weirder and weirder until the site can't used at all? Now the comment field is about 3cm wide.
Re:Link (Score:5, Funny)
Calling it optimized is a bit much. Maybe it accidentally works better there, or something like that.
Sex sells... (Score:5, Funny)
and scantily clad women.
You've said it!
You should see some of the new burqas and chadors they are shipping to the stores. Sexy as hell.
You can almost see the eyebrows.
Re:Sex sells... (Score:5, Informative)
Oh dude, you have no idea. [ahiida.com]
Re:Hey MPAA! (Score:4, Informative)
Iran is not a signatory to WIPO. They do not respect copyrights of works produced in other countries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_and_copyright_issues