The Fantastic Four Movie Reboot Unveils Its Cast

[JimB]

Who said it had to be broadly relatable?

The more relatable a concept is, the more likely an audience is to buy it as being a truthful story told honestly.

Peter Parker isn't exactly an everyman

what

Are you kidding me with this? No, seriously, are you just messing with me now? Spider-Man has always been about a more or less average person (that he's brilliant enough to invent webshooters is, more often than not, glossed over as being an ugly necessity to give him an extra spider power), one defined more by personal failures than by triumphs, a schlub whose life is pretty much made of personal problems. He has super powers, but within the context of the world he exists in, his powers are extremely weak, outmatched by almost everyone he faces. Hell, his biggest power, when you think about it, isn't strength but an ability to yell "Yikes!" and duck when someone tries to punch him. One of his super powers is to cringe when someone throws a truck at him, and he only got those powers because of an accident. He was not meant to be a superhero, not born or destined to be one. He's just a guy who got shoved into a life he didn't ask for.

Peter Parker is an average person who is constantly placed in un-average circumstances. That is the very definition of an everyman.

They're both pretty damn important aspects of a character, but it's less of a hassle to update a character's background than it is to do their appearance.

You must have burst a blood vessel when in the last two movies, Johnny had a buzzcut instead of a wavy haircut and his sister was played by a Latina woman.

Keep in mind, nothing at all is gained from it either other than adding a check to some imaginary racial quota.

I do not accept that premise, and have argued with you already about what I think is gained in this thread, so I'm not doing this again.

Because I'm not writing a goddamn research paper. I'm just making some reasonable points and all you have to refute is "sources?" without providing any sort of meaningful counter argument.

They are only reasonable if it is okay to start from a preconceived notion and from there go looking for ways to interpret the facts to fit that narrative. It isn't. That is called "confirmation bias," though I hesitate to use the term here because I think it unfairly dignifies what you're doing, which is essentially just making shit up and insisting you're right because the burden isn't on you to prove yourself right but rather on me to prove you wrong. That is not how logic works, nor evidence, nor facts.

Again, they're meaningless changes that only serve to further muddle the canon when the original was perfectly serviceable.

Make up your mind, Alek_the_Great. Are they meaningless, or do they muddle canon? You can't simultaneously argue irrelevancy and relevancy.

Let's just say a lot of people weren't happy to see the character devolved into nothing but a figurehead.

Tough shit for them.

And again, I'm arguing they should be recognizable.

Alek_the_Great, I am trying very hard to remain patient and calm as I say this: I fucking know what you are arguing. I know that. You have said it over and over and over. I have also said in the past that I think movie-Bane is recognizable as comic-Bane, so I'm leaving this tangent because you seem to have nothing to say except to ignore my points in favor of repeating shit you have already said.

That [the changes won't work] is not the argument though. You can make any change work, the Constantine film for example, but there's still going to be a lot of fans unhappy with the portrayal.

So it's not important that you think the changes will work. Changes are inherently bad in and of themselves, though less so when they're about history and personality and more so when they're about appearance.

I have absolutely no sympathy for this stance. If you want everything to be the same forever, then lock yourself in your room and only read the stuff you're already read before so you'll never have to fear being exposed to scary new ideas and interpretations.

Whoa, what? I never said something was bad if you couldn't make a movie out of it.

Ahem:

If the source material itself wouldn't work in movie form, then there wouldn't be fans of it in the first place.

That is completely insupportable crap. It's only possible to be a fan of something that can be translated to a movie?

Usually, if something isn't able to be translated into a movie, it's either not done at all or it's done badly.

I specifically asked you if it's only possible to be a fan of something that can be turned into a movie, and you said if a thing can't be turned into a movie, then that thing is not done at all or is done badly.

But this Johnny Storm is still a spinoff, thus a white Johnny Storm is still the default.

I cannot think of any new ways to say that the word "default" does not mean "original." Please quit treating them as if they're synonymous. They're not, and it's a pretty disingenuous fucking argument if you have to change the meanings of words to make them suit your argument.

 

[titankore]

Putting the race thing aside because it's already been discussed to death, the thing that really gets my goat about this casting is that fact that Reed Richards is WAY TOO YOUNG.

Seriously, Richards is supposed to be an experienced, middle aged scientist, not a baby-faced twenty-something. I hate Hollywood's obsession with making all their heroes young and pretty. This shouldn't bug me so much, but Mr. Fantastic is my favorite FF member and it pains me to see this.

It would have been awesome to see an older and wiser Mr. Fantastic. I am in complete agreement with you. Young blood is good and all, but sometimes you need someone with a few year on em.

They could be going for the Ultimates version of Reed Richards being a completely undisciplined young genius. It could turn out well if they have the youth element used and not just toss him older Richard dialogue.

Also I am glad to see some more diversity in casting practices, now we need a freaking Black Panther movie!

 

[Karadalis]

MY question about the whole race change thing is that:

Will they portray him as a stereotypical black wanna be gangsta now, or a fast talking eddy murphy alike?

Because THAT would be more insulting then simply changing skin color and not tell why...

 

[Atmos Duality]

Why...such a young cast...?

Because the target audience for a by-the-numbers superhero action-schlock movie is 12-24, as hack Hollywood standards dictate.

Goddammit Hollywood. Stop this blackwashing of characters just to get your black actors in. Heimdall and Hogun in Thor portraying NORSE GODS were bad enough.

To be fair to Idris Elba, I really can't think of anyone else who could have done Heimdall that well.

Agreed. I really liked his performance and portrayal of Heimdall; he managed to pull off "loyal, vigilant, wise" without coming across as condescending and bland (e.g. current Will Smith).
Or worse, like the usual Hollywood "Black guy = Whacky/angry/gung-ho and loud" crap.

As for skin color and tokenism...if race/gender/etc isn't a central part of their character, I really don't give a fuck.
Or for changing the character....they're Norse gods. GODS. They can look however they bloody want! Even in the original myths, they had more than a few instances of changing form (Loki got PREGNANT at one point, FFS).

Elba's performance as Heimdall was one of the only performances I really liked in the Thor films (Heimdall and Loki).

Mostly because Thor is pretty damn bland in his own movies; He worked much better when he had the Avengers to play off of than his posse of rejected Fellowship of the Ring characters. It's probably why Heimdall just stuck out to me more.

 

[Karadalis]

As for skin color and tokenism...if race/gender/etc isn't a central part of their character, I really don't give a fuck.
Or for changing the character....they're Norse gods. GODS. They can look however they bloody want! Even in the original myths, they had more than a few instances of changing form (Loki got PREGNANT at one point, FFS).

Pish posh...

You wanna see some messed up shape changing gods look no further then greek mythology... thats some batshit crazy stuff going on there.

Anyways... i would argue that in Johnny Storms case being "white" was a big part of his character... he was so white infact he made mashed potatoes look tanned.

My worry is that they do a complete 180 degrees and the character at the end of the day will come out exactly as a clusterfuck of black stereotypes and tropes.

But alas.. its fox and holywood.. what could possibly go wrong?

 

[Atmos Duality]

As for skin color and tokenism...if race/gender/etc isn't a central part of their character, I really don't give a fuck.
Or for changing the character....they're Norse gods. GODS. They can look however they bloody want! Even in the original myths, they had more than a few instances of changing form (Loki got PREGNANT at one point, FFS).

Pish posh...

You wanna see some messed up shape changing gods look no further then greek mythology... thats some batshit crazy stuff going on there.

I know. Oh good grief do I know.
Even outside of the regular Greek pantheon, there's plenty of fucked up stuff afoot.
(Pasiphae or Medea, anyone?)

Anyways... i would argue that in Johnny Storms case being "white" was a big part of his character... he was so white infact he made mashed potatoes look tanned.

I'm not nearly familiar enough with the character Johnny Storms to comment, so I won't.

My worry is that they do a complete 180 degrees and the character at the end of the day will come out exactly as a clusterfuck of black stereotypes and tropes.

But alas.. its fox and holywood.. what could possibly go wrong?

I'd bet anything that's the reason behind the casting, actually. When a film has no identity or purpose beyond "it needs to be done, because business", marketing demographics and their bucket of associated tropes become the default means for hacks to create.
Like using a cheat sheet to get around some especially bothersome homework you don't care about.

 

[Atmos Duality]

I liked Idris Elba too, but it kind of starts getting questionable when Heimdall was often referred to "The Whitest of the Gods" in Norse mythology, that was basically his title.

You call it questionable; I call it amusingly ironic.
(Like in Blazing Saddles, when Mel Brooks dressed up in redface as an Apache Chief and said "They darker than us!")

 

[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.

 

[Something Amyss]

I liked Idris Elba too, but it kind of starts getting questionable when Heimdall was often referred to "The Whitest of the Gods" in Norse mythology, that was basically his title.

Far as I can tell, they didn't literally mean his skin.

What amazes me (and this isn't aimed specifically at you, it's just the jumping off point) is the fact that virtually nobody complains when Jesus, a Palestinian Jew of at least possible real-world origins is white. To the contrary, people tend to have a fit when Jesus is portrayed as anything other than a white dude. And on a similar note, people got offended when black people from The Hunger Games were portrayed by black people in the movies. But virtually nobody took issue with the casting call for the main character asked for white people, despite her being described as olive-skinned. She's still more explicitly non-white than Heimdall is.

This seems like a weird sticking point with Alba as a movie adaptation of a fictional version of a mythological being (which actually seems a little redundant). And it really only seems to work the one way. Heimdall, or that completely made up guy who's Asian in the movie? That's a problem.

It gets even weirder with Gods because we anthropomorhise them to look rather conveniently like us. Back to the Jesus example, there are followers of black Jesus, Asian Jesus, Hispanic Jesus, and I've seen depictions of Native North American Jesus. I assume the same is true of (at least a sizable chunk of) Christians in the Middle East (though their version would be more accurate to the quasi-historical Jesus), Polynesian locales, etc.

But this is more academic than anything else. Personally, I'm inclined to agree with this:

You call it questionable; I call it amusingly ironic.
(Like in Blazing Saddles, when Mel Brooks dressed up in redface as an Apache Chief and said "They darker than us!")

Though I'm sure this one was more intentional.

 

[Lilikins]

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

You forgot old, wise, and possibly magical.

long story short, be happy its not a horror movie or we'd know the outcome of 1 cast character in the first 10 minutes?

(and before racism comes into play...dont even get me started...I think Ive seen 2 or 3 horror movies in my entire life where this hasnt been the case.)

 

[JimB]

Sure, Peter Parkers has plenty of aspects that are relatable, but that doesn't make him an everyman.

Alek_the_Great, the definition of "everyman"--and I invite you to look it up yourself if you don't believe me--is an ordinary person who is thrust into extraordinary situations. Peter Parker is an ordinary person, and hell, even Spider-Man is pretty ordinary as far as superheroes go, since his power level is way down on the low side and mostly involve shrieking before something just misses his head. He is the Frodo Baggins of superheroes, just some dude who was in the wrong place at the wrong time when important shit was happening and is now compelled almost without choice to participate in them.

You want some fucking sources? Here's a fucking source:

http://www.writersdigest.com/writing-articles/by-writing-genre/script-writing/turning-a-novel-into-a-screenplay

Now before you start arguing, "See they said you don't have to be faithful to the characters!" They're referring to changes that are done for format and structure.

I'd argue this article isn't terribly relevant, since novels are self-contained stories and comics are stories that never end, so when the article talks about adaptations of novels needing to serve the story, it doesn't really apply. Even so, though, I wasn't talking about general theory. I was talking about specific knowledge of the making of the upcoming film, which you keep acting like you have.

Nowhere does it say "it's okay to make a character black because reasons."

Doesn't say it isn't, either. So what?

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.

I guess that's one way to see it.

I cannot be too upset that they did not get a magical Chinese wizard with the world's longest fu-manchu mustache and skin as yellow as a chronic drunk's. If that means he gets turned into a figurehead, then I'm fine with it.

I'm just arguing that if you're going to adapt a character, make them look like the one you're adapting.

I know that you are arguing it. I disagree, and think that anyone who prioritizes appearance over substance is very badly missing the point.

If you had actually read it, you would see I was referring to the movie's quality, not the original property.

I did read it. The pronouns you used and the structure of your sentence mean the word "it" was referring to the subject of the sentence, not the object. If you meant something else, fine, I'll accept that you made an error, but the words you actually said did not.

A spinoff does not change a character's default.

Okay, fuck this, I'm tired of telling you that original and default are different words, so I'm going to let you take the helm here, Alek_the_Great. Please define the word "default," and then explain how that definition relates to Johnny Storm.