The Fantastic Four Movie Reboot Unveils Its Cast

[KissingSunlight]

Without going into the political correctness of the issue, they demonstrated to the public that they had no interest in the source material to get it right. Seriously, how can you mess up casting characters who are brother and sister? As one of the few people who liked the previous Fantastic Four movies, I am really disappointed by this casting. You don't have to be completely faithful to the source material. Just don't show blatant disregard to it.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Don't have a problem with Heimdall as the asgaurdians are a alien race who mankind only saw part of.

This could be problematic but easy enough to write off the trouble is will it be worth seeing or is this just another fuax failure like the Xmen...

 

[cthulhuspawn82]

The big problem with the miscasting is that it shows us this movie is not being made by people that love the source material, they just want to make money on a popular idea (i.e. marvel super heroes) Johnny Storm is black so they can grab the urban market, and the whole cast is young so they can get the young crowd in.

The movies being made by Marvel are being made by people who love the source material. They would never butcher it to make a buck, though sometimes they come close. That's why the Marvel produced movies are so good. A movie produced by suits that have no affinity for the source material can do nothing but flop.

 

[Dragonbums]

Honestly, I've hear people make an argument stating that if "race doesn't matter then it shouldn't matter if the lead for 12 years a slave is black" which was the dumbest fucking thing I've read all year, and once again, the majority catered to demographic of white dudes completely miss the mark and the point about how one point of race swapping is irrelevant and the other form is.

The Human Torch being black/white/asian/latino/etc. means fuck all because the human torch is identified as the guy who can cover his body with flames and fly. That's fucking it.
The human torch is also a fictional character. So race swapping him shouldn't mean a damn to anyone.

12 years a slave however is the retelling of actual events by things that actually happened to people.
Yes, the lead for 12 years a slave is very much connected to his race and skin tone because it's not made up shit. It's something that actually happened.

Race swapping the guy from 12 years a slave with a white dude is a slap in the face because it's an utter lie of a real story and is a disrespect to the history of black Americans.

Oh SURE there were white slaves PRESENT however one needs to remember that the perception of that time was "if you even had a drop of black in your blood you were black" that means if you saw a "white" slave back then, damn good chances are that person has a descendant that was black. Hence why they are slaves.

Regardless, it just comes to show how disgustingly racist fans of the comic book industry is. They like to pretend they aren't with their smokescreen of "oh well it's not necessary" and whatever bullshit they can come up with, but it's very much still a segregated thing.

They don't want comic books to expand demographics to be inclusive. They just want everything all white and pretty. The "others" can separate themselves to the minority category.

 

[Dragonbums]

Awful casting, Hollywood.

The young age of everyone involved, including accomplished scientific and family man Reed Richards, and the black Human Torch, noticeable because his sister is as blond and white as they can get, are just two huge elephants in that room that will resonate on anyone that notice it, and the movie will have to overcome.

I mean sheesh dude, you can just say the kid is adopted. It's not that hard at all.

 

[Dragonbums]

Does anyone else want to see Micheal Jordan as Mr. Fantastic? I haven't seen any of his acting but he looks to be more suited to it than the two interchangeable white guys.

Remember Space Jam?

That's all I'm gonna say on that matter.

 

[Dragonbums]

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.

So you were also fine with e.g. the Avatar movie casting white kids? After all, they're just imaginary characters so skin color is irrelevant.

Missed the point completely. Heimdall in the Thor movies was a fucking alien not based on anything on planet Earth. The dude could've been purple with gold eyes and it would make sense in movie casting.

Avatar: The Last Airbender was specifically based off of various Asian countries with influences from Eskimos and other polar indigenous tribes.

To cast every single one of them as white when there were plenty of Middle East, Asian, and Indigenous people to work with was a disrespect to the culture as a whole. Especially when all the ethnic characters for the most part just happened to be the bad guys.

 

[hermes]

Awful casting, Hollywood.

The young age of everyone involved, including accomplished scientific and family man Reed Richards, and the black Human Torch, noticeable because his sister is as blond and white as they can get, are just two huge elephants in that room that will resonate on anyone that notice it, and the movie will have to overcome.

I mean sheesh dude, you can just say the kid is adopted. It's not that hard at all.

I am not saying it is hard, I am saying they have to make it work.

If they decide that he/she is adopted or they are half brothers, it is something the script should address at some point. To change something like the race of half a couple brothers and act like the backstory or the dynamic of their relationship would not be affected at all would break the suspension of disbelief for some people. At that point, they should just go with them being totally unrelated, but that is also a pickle because they share the same last name. And it does seems unnecessarily contrived that, in a team of 4 people that are mostly unrelated (so there is no restrictions for making some, or all of them Asian, Latino, black or even Eskimo, if they want), they decided to change one of the two people that are written to be blood related. As people has said here, if they casted Jordan as Reed Richards, there would be a lot less detractors.

The same happens with the age issue. They need to try, really hard, to make me believe 26 years old Teller is a super scientist, physicist, astronaut and family man. The same way they tried (and failed) to convince me Jessica Alba was a lead scientist/astronaut in the previous one, and Denise Richards was a world renowned nuclear physicist in James Bond. Even when considering one can be a super model and a scientist at the same time, there is the fact they would be too young to be accomplished in all those fields. If they tried with a more traditional casting (like calling an actor that actually looks like a smart in his mid 30s), they wouldn't have to try so hard not to sell me the characters.

At this point, we don't know. As far as we can tell they are all perfect for their parts and give award winner performances, but if the movie doesn't address these issues about the characters and their relationships, I still don't think its going to work.

 

[Dragonbums]

Awful casting, Hollywood.

The young age of everyone involved, including accomplished scientific and family man Reed Richards, and the black Human Torch, noticeable because his sister is as blond and white as they can get, are just two huge elephants in that room that will resonate on anyone that notice it, and the movie will have to overcome.

I mean sheesh dude, you can just say the kid is adopted. It's not that hard at all.

I am not saying it is hard, I am saying they have to make it work.

If they decide that he/she is adopted or they are half brothers, it is something the script should address at some point.

Americans aren't stupid. There is no real need to address that in the film, and it only serves to take away screen time. If they are going to throw a hissy fit because they didn't address the "issue" then either A) The majority American demographic get a wakeup call that not every family is comprised of same race nuclear family unit. B) Americans really are that stupid or C) they just want something to complain about so they can add to their list of movies I will never see with a sidenote of (not because he's black honest.)

 

[JimB]

Eh, I'll concede on that point.

...Damn it. I wanted to go into greater detail about how Spider-Man is selfish and craven. Now I don't have an excuse to do that, and my urge to be a smarty-pants has blueballs. I'm gonna go take a cold shower or something.

What about my comments require in depth knowledge of film making?

I provided an example later in the same post you're responding to. You keep saying things about how this choice can't and won't achieve its goals, which means you must know both why the choice was made and how either the script or the actor will fail to rise to the goal set by that casting choice.

Or else you're talking out of your ass.

The change itself is a meaningless one, as in there is no reason for said change, yet it potentially causes canon problems with the whole sibling status thing.

And that is what I was talking about with the "you act like you have specific knowledge" bit.

What? I never said this was fact, just that it was a potential problem that they might address.

The very first thing you said in this quote tunnel is where you said it's a fact. You said, without room for interpretation or disclaimers, that the change is meaningless. Please do not insult my intelligence by pretending that is not intended as a declaration of fact.

Yeah... I don't think the current Mandarin is anything close to a racist stereotype.

So they altered the color of the character's skin? Why aren't you raging against that, and telling me how the default Mandarin is the color of someone with end-stage cirrhosis?

a selection made usually automatically or without active consideration due to lack of a viable alternative

God, there are so many things I want to say to this, but I have places to be, so I'm just going to ask, what about Johnny Storm's character required Stan Lee to invent him as a white man to such a degree that no other race (or combination of races, which I only bring up because I think people forget how many people are not racially pure) was a viable choice?

 

[JimB]

Regardless, it just comes to show how disgustingly racist fans of the comic book industry is. They like to pretend they aren't with their smokescreen of "oh well it's not necessary" and whatever bullshit they can come up with, but it's very much still a segregated thing.

"Oh wow, comic fans must not like how they're changing an important aspect of a character they like so they must be racist for even thinking to criticize such a progressive and equalizing improvement. If they say they just don't like the pointless change, that must mean they are just trying to cover their racist, racist views with a more believable argument and don't actually believe what they're saying."

I will let Dragonbums speak for himself, but I believe his point is that you keep framing your argument exclusively in terms of how it's bad for him to be black rather than how it's good for him to be white. That you would rather attack his blackness than defend his whiteness heavily implies that you don't actually think his whiteness matters to the integrity of the character or is defensible, and just have a problem with blackness on account of it being black. It's difficult to avoid a conclusion of racism from that sort of behavior, and the only reason I haven't gone at you from that angle is that I am willing to be charitable and assume you're motivated only by some fear of change or maybe by a sense of offended entitlement that anyone could possibly disagree with you about what is foundational to the character.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

Does anyone else want to see Micheal Jordan as Mr. Fantastic? I haven't seen any of his acting but he looks to be more suited to it than the two interchangeable white guys.

Remember Space Jam?

That's all I'm gonna say on that matter.

..... >.>

his name literally is michael jordan. for getting your jimmies rustled to the max about this I thought you might realize that...

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0430107/

OT: I think the cast is a bit young, but I have no problem with michael playing human torch, I like him alot as an actor and think he can pull it off. I honestly can't say how I feel about racial casting one way or the other, I typically prefer a character who plays the role well (like I didn't mind cumberbatch as khan in the new star trek, even if his ancestry wouldn't put him as the pale british guy he is. at least probably not.) and typically tend to not care about the race too much, unless it's really a defining part of the character.

curious, dragonbums, would you be this upset if black panther was played by a white guy? (not the exact same scenario, but still, raceswapping a popular character nonetheless.)