The Fantastic Four Movie Reboot Unveils Its Cast

[Ihateregistering1]

Skin color is relevant when you're transferring a visually realized character (i.e. a comic book character) into another visual medium (i.e. film).

If the movies were the comics, or were trying to be the comics, then I might have some sympathy for this position. Since they are clearly not trying to be the comics, I can't say this argument means anything to me. The movies are not a thing they're not trying to be.

That...may be the weirdest argument I've ever heard. Everything that gets translated from one media to another changes certain things, some large and some small, that doesn't mean it's "not trying to be the (comic/book/video game, etc.)".

When you are making a film called "The Fantastic Four" based on a comic book called "The Fantastic Four", featuring four primary characters with the same names as those in the comic book (and presumably the same powers and personalities), you very clearly are trying to "be the comics".

 

[JimB]

That...may be the weirdest argument I've ever heard. Everything that gets translated from one media to another changes certain things, some large and some small, that doesn't mean it's "not trying to be the (comic/book/video game, etc.)."

By definition, a translation is not trying to be the thing it's translating. It's trying to be a translation of the thing it's translating. If it wanted to be the comic, then Johnny Storm would be played by some Aryan dude. The movie has elected not to do so because it wants to be something different from the comic it is translating. What its motivations are is a question I obviously can't answer, but if the movie is trying to be the comic, then by casting Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm, they have already failed.

Movies and comics have different needs. This movie has decided it can best fulfill the needs of being a movie by casting Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm.

 

[Whytewulf]

Skin color is not character. It is not even a character trait. It is a biological marker. Since the character of Heimdall is imaginary, he has no biological markers, and therefore his skin color is irrelevant.

Aren't they all imaginary?

I think you all are forgetting one thing.. Not everyone who sees these movies gives a flying flip about race. I understand there is a certain loud "purist" group, as you said, that wants everything to be like the original comics, but that's just not gonna happen, get over it. Its over 50 years later and things have changed. It's time to update these a bit with how society really is. These franchises are just that, franchises, they need to use their money making names. They also want to try and get a fairly wide audience. But in the end, why do we care? Why can't it just be the best actor for the role, isn't that what we all want anyway? Unless it's a historical figure or pivotal to the plot, I don't get it anymore. [/quote]

For those that ask about them being siblings

I don't know a lot about genetics, but I suppose it is possible that if the mother is black and the father is white (or vice versa) that one child could be born black and the other could be born white. Or, is that not actually possible? I ask because I genuinely do not know.

It's very possible to have mixed race siblings one same race parents. Or quite simply what if their parents were of mixed race? Black Mom, White Dad, can create various baby shades. They don't have to go the adoption route or the divorced parents route. I surely hope they don't explain it, and just say they are siblings. If they make jokes about it in the movie, it's just going to be weird.

As for the casting, they could be young, but then we have no idea what the plot is. And its in Ultimate it works. My only Question is Jamie Bell seems a bit small for the role? How much CGI will be involved.

 

[immortalfrieza]

The only real problem I have with this is that the previous movie wasn't released all that long ago, and I would have rather they continue on from there instead of rebooting it, especially since the Silver Surfer survived and I would've liked to see what was going to happen next with him. However, as long as it's good I don't really care, after all they could have continued on from Spider Man 3 instead of rebooting it and it turned out that Amazing Spider-Man blew all the Ramini movies completely out of the water in every way possible, same for Man of Steel and the Reeves movies, so this might just as well do the same.

As for Johnny Storm being black, as long as Michael B. Jordan is there because he beat out any of the white/asian/whatever actors auditioning for the role and not just thrown in to be the movie's token minority character I don't have a problem with it, otherwise I do.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

Another reboot? So soon? Christ, its sad to say this, but I hope the comic book-movie craze dies out soon before its bled completely dry.

Also.....I know I know, obvious stuff. But I wonder how many people will kick off over a black Human Torch? Anyone remember what happened with Idris Elba being (briliantly) cast as Heimdall?

I honestly don't know, I suspect it will be bigger due to The Invisible Woman and the Human Torch being siblings in the comics.

Now if both of them were black the backlash may have been lessened somewhat, and they wanted to get really affirmative action then Mr. Fantastic would have been a better choice and one I would have applauded.

Right now, between the apparent age and the sibling deal I have low hopes for this and expect it to be some soulless hackjob that was greenlit in order to keep the rights from reverting back to Marvel.

 

[JimB]

Skin color is not character. It is not even a character trait. It is a biological marker. Since the character of Heimdall is imaginary, he has no biological markers, and therefore his skin color is irrelevant.

I'm the one who said that, not Ihateregistering1.

 

[Whytewulf]

Skin color is not character. It is not even a character trait. It is a biological marker. Since the character of Heimdall is imaginary, he has no biological markers, and therefore his skin color is irrelevant.

I'm the one who said that, not Ihateregistering1.

Sorry about that quoting got all messed up, will fix.. or try to.

 

[Grabehn]

I kinda like the guy that they chose as the Thing, he's a pretty good actor even though I always forget his name, but the Invicible Woman is white and the Human Torch is black... So I'm out (I doubt this needs any explanation).

 

[Ihateregistering1]

That...may be the weirdest argument I've ever heard. Everything that gets translated from one media to another changes certain things, some large and some small, that doesn't mean it's "not trying to be the (comic/book/video game, etc.)."

By definition, a translation is not trying to be the thing it's translating. It's trying to be a translation of the thing it's translating. If it wanted to be the comic, then Johnny Storm would be played by some Aryan dude. The movie has elected not to do so because it wants to be something different from the comic it is translating. What its motivations are is a question I obviously can't answer, but if the movie is trying to be the comic, then by casting Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm, they have already failed.

Movies and comics have different needs. This movie has decided it can best fulfill the needs of being a movie by casting Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm.

Hmm, interesting idea. However, if you go by that logic, then isn't the concept of "whitewashing" essentially false?

If they decided to reboot "Blade" and cast Henry Cavill as Blade, can't they simply say "we decided we can best fulfill the needs of the movie by casting Henry Cavill as Blade"? Now, obviously, people will still throw temper tantrums and scream about whitewashing and racism, etc., but it's now essentially on them to prove the Director's decision wrong.

I like it.

 

[immortalfrieza]

Oh cool, if everyone's ok with them changing the fundamental characteristics of the franchise they might as well add a new fifth character and call it the Super Five. Because fuck trying to accurately adapt source material.

'
Actually... with the Fantastic Four that wouldn't be unheard of. Bad, but not unheard of.

Be careful what you sarcastically wish for...

 

[Baresark]

Eh, prepare for the worst, hope for the best. I would love to see a great movie with my favorite super family. I also would have loved to see a Surfer movie, but they had to go and fuck that shit up. Truth be told, Surfer belongs in the Marvel produced movies more than ever, seeing as how they are doing all the cosmic stuff with Thanos (a major villain in Silver Surfer before anywhere else(though he was originally a very B-List Avengers villain)) and Guardians of the Galaxy...

My hopes and dreams shattered. It's honestly more difficult to do that stuff without him, IMO... I'm rambling about Surfer because he is my all time favorite Marvel character....

I hope they do a decent job. I can stand a reboot at this point as pursuing the previous films with more followups is a terrible idea.

 

[Baresark]

Ugh... this warrants a separate post.

The race thing:

It sucks that Fox feels the need to shake things up with essentially great characters. As people should have noticed by now, their adaptations of the Marvel movies have always been abysmal. They licensed a tiny subset of characters from a vast universe and those characters are prohibited from interacting with anyone but each other. It makes it all less fantastic (no pun intended). No one should be surprised that they are doing this to essentially draw more interest to the movie. And I fully expect them to eek out a half assed film every 6-7 years in order to not lose the money making licenses they have, and never ever pay the fans and properties the respect it or they deserves. It comes as no small surprise they are going to cast someone completely inappropriate in a main role. I don't mean inappropriate like he won't do a good job, I mean inappropriate like someone who is completely wrong looking for the role. This is why I like classical theatre better than movies a lot of the time. They can look at someone, say that they are great and read the part really well, and then say that they aren't giving that part to the actor because they don't look the part. It's literally just more honest. Political correctness doesn't ever play into it because it's an actual art form. Not like movies made for the masses. It becomes inappropriate for their to be a team of all white people. As a white guy, I'm not going to sit here and scream subjugation, it's literally not true. The purist in me wants to rage that they would not cast someone who was appropriate for the role (I can safely say that the best of the previous movies as the actor, Chris Evans, played his role the absolute best by far out of the whole cast).

That said: He may play the Human Torch role exceedingly well. And I mean that in a way that transcends his skin color (not in the blatant racial favoritism that the hard hard progressives use for everything). It's kind of fun to see it shaken up a bit in a major way. You can compare this to the Heimdall situation all you want, but it's vastly different. Heimdall was a secondary character in the Thor comics. They clearly made a big deal out of Idriss Elba and intentionally wrote a larger part for him (though it wasn't nearly as big as people made it out to be in either movie(Cough*MovieBob*Cough)). It's good to see them add something with a reasonably talented up and comer like this guy. Shake it up and have fun with it.

I refer to my previous point: You cannot have any faith in them to produce a good Fantastic Four movie. They simply aren't going to do it. I would rather them just try to make a decent movie with characters that are like the Fantastic Four and happen to have the same names. The other alternatives are that they will shovel complete shit to us and all of us fans will accidentally keep funding sequels because we want to see it done right, or they will keep making the same kinds of movies as the previous FF movies. I'll take this any day of the week, because they aren't going to release the licenses for either FF or Xmen anytime soon.

 

[JimB]

Oh cool, if everyone's okay with them changing the fundamental characteristics of the franchise they might as well add a new fifth character and call it the Super Five.

Which fundamental characteristic are we talking about? Johnny Storm's level of melanin? Is that what you're saying is so fundamental a change they may as well add more characters and change the name?

Hmm, interesting idea. However, if you go by that logic, then isn't the concept of "whitewashing" essentially false?

Only if movies are made in a vacuum divorced from the culture of the people making them, which they aren't.

If they decided to reboot Blade and cast Henry Cavill as Blade, can't they simply say, "We decided we can best fulfill the needs of the movie by casting Henry Cavill as Blade?"

Sure. Then I can ask, "Really? There aren't enough white super heroes? We really needed to take Blade away from black people? That's what really needed to happen?"

So what, it's okay to just randomly change the races of the character because apparently it's archaic for them to be white?

Yes. It is exactly okay to do that. Fox owns the movie rights to the character, and has the authority to make that decision. You and I do not. The fact that we have read comic books does not give us the right to decide what Johnny Storm's race must be in a movie.

 

[Storm Dragon]

but you know hollywood.
black people are either funny, scary or opressed.

You forgot old, wise, and possibly magical.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

You know what could twist this around a bit; Susan Storm is the one that's adopted and not Johnny. That would be interesting; at least it would be to me.

When you adapt something and make a change that isn't necessary whatsoever, usually you have to explain why you made that change. Or at the very least, it should be a change that the majority of fans agree is an improvement.

If you're expecting them to answer anything other than "Because we wanted to/thought it would be cool" then I'd suggest packing a lunch and a comfy chair because you'll be waiting a while for them to say anything different.