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Kilkrazy wrote: I don't think it was a deliberately racist decision to make a fim based on Egyptian mythology and cast white actors. The real ancient Egytians were Hamites, I believe, descended from Caucasian, so they would presumably have looked relatively 'white' though no doubt ruddier of skin than people from the most northern climes.
Egyptian pictorial art shows them with terracotta colour skin, but this is thought to be partly artistic convention, to demonstrate rude health.
Naturally there were black skinned people from the south, the Nubians, who founded some of the pharaonic dynasties.
It's impossible to know quite how white, red or black the general population or the noble population might have looked after all this mixing.
The long and short of it is that Egyptian gods usually had animal heads anyway, and maybe Hollywood should have found enough Arabic looking or black actors to play everyone, then used the CG to put the gods' heads on to them. They could have done it to the white actors, and maybe people wouldn't have noticed the pale arms and legs so much.
I agree it was likely, as someone mentioned earlier, a decision to pack as many big names into the film as possible and hope for instant success rather than an evil plot to "whitewash" history.
Depending upon the period, the noble class in Egyptian society ran from black Nubian to olive skinned Arabic to white Greek. The Ptolemaic dynasty in particular were Greeks and Cleopatra in particular, being the last Ptolemaic Pharaoh, would have been fairly "white" but not the white of the anglo-saxon peoples that you see in the film. In any of the dynasties, there is no evidence that Egypt was ever homogenous to the extent where you would see exceptionally dark or exceptionally light-skinned people throughout the nation.
I get that it's a high-fantasy, adventure film but that doesn't mean that they couldn't have tapped actors who would have fit the bill more. Heck, even the extras are mostly caucasian.
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Kilkrazy wrote: I don't think it was a deliberately racist decision to make a fim based on Egyptian mythology and cast white actors.
Deliberate? I think that is arguable. Do I think the producers had a meeting and said "no darkies in our film!" and made their casting decisions that way? No, absolutely not. However, if the producers turned down a darker-skinned actor for say, Gerad Buttler because Buttler typically brings in $50 million worth of viewers (random numbers pulled out of my back side) versus what a lesser known actor could bring to the box office, then the casting was a business decision--with racist undertones. The belief that American audiences don't want to see certain groups of people in certain roles, the fracturing of the genres of movies ("that's a black movie, that's a gay/lesbian movie" and therefore neither of those are "mainstream" movies) certainly suggests that there are racial elements involved in these decisions.
Heck, in the porn industry there are different rates involved for shooting inter-racial scenes and actresses can be stigmatized for shooting those scenes. I think the porn industry is an extreme, but I think it also gives an insight into the biases prevalent throughout the entertainment industry.
Kilkrazy wrote: The real ancient Egytians were Hamites, I believe, descended from Caucasian, so they would presumably have looked relatively 'white' though no doubt ruddier of skin than people from the most northern climes.
I'd wager a good 90% of the potential movie-going audience isn't aware of these historical facts, and so they are irrelevant. Most people think Egypt and they think black or brown people, not white people unless they are thinking of Charleston Heston playing Moses.
Kilkrazy wrote: The long and short of it is that Egyptian gods usually had animal heads anyway, and maybe Hollywood should have found enough Arabic looking or black actors to play everyone, then used the CG to put the gods' heads on to them.
I'd watch the heck out of that movie. My favorite scenes from Star Gate involved the Anubis guards. Give me a setting similar to Wargods of Aegyptus or even the Age of Mythology games and my butt would be planted in a theater seat so fast it would make the popcorn vendor's head spin.
agnosto wrote: Trailers make it look terrible and the fact that it's full of white people even breaks from mythology. Sure, at one point Northern Egypt was settled by people of Greek extraction but that didn't mean brown and black people didn't exist at all.
It's sad that they even released a statement when people started panning the movie:
“We recognize that it is our responsibility to help ensure that casting decisions reflect the diversity and culture of the time periods portrayed. In this instance we failed to live up to our own standards of sensitivity and diversity, for which we sincerely apologize. Lionsgate is deeply committed to making films that reflect the diversity of our audiences. We have, can and will continue to do better.”
Let's see:
The way the Egyptians pictured the god, Set:
The way Hollywood pictured it:
Sad, really.
I'm pretty sure that's Anubis.
Also, how come the Anubis in the film doesn't have a Jackal's head? That's not right at all.
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Kilkrazy wrote: I don't think it was a deliberately racist decision to make a fim based on Egyptian mythology and cast white actors. The real ancient Egytians were Hamites, I believe, descended from Caucasian, so they would presumably have looked relatively 'white' though no doubt ruddier of skin than people from the most northern climes.
Egyptian pictorial art shows them with terracotta colour skin, but this is thought to be partly artistic convention, to demonstrate rude health.
Naturally there were black skinned people from the south, the Nubians, who founded some of the pharaonic dynasties.
It's impossible to know quite how white, red or black the general population or the noble population might have looked after all this mixing.
The long and short of it is that Egyptian gods usually had animal heads anyway, and maybe Hollywood should have found enough Arabic looking or black actors to play everyone, then used the CG to put the gods' heads on to them. They could have done it to the white actors, and maybe people wouldn't have noticed the pale arms and legs so much.
Indeed. Egypt was at the center of ancient crossroads and trade routes, and was conquered countless times by invaders. They were a real melting pot, and we really can't make any claims one way or another, so really any claims that its racist or bad casting are stretching it.
Plus, as was mentioned, Egypt has been conquered countless times by various people groups. Egyptians today are not the same as they were even 2,000 years ago, let alone 6,000+ years ago. So really worst case scenario is this movie misrepresents a people and culture that have long since become extinct. You are not allowed to become offended in place of extinct cultures and people groups.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/03/01 00:42:55
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Cato Sicarius, after force feeding Captain Ventris a copy of the Codex Astartes for having the audacity to play Deathwatch, chokes to death on his own D-baggery after finding Calgar assembling his new Eldar army.
agnosto wrote: Trailers make it look terrible and the fact that it's full of white people even breaks from mythology. Sure, at one point Northern Egypt was settled by people of Greek extraction but that didn't mean brown and black people didn't exist at all.
It's sad that they even released a statement when people started panning the movie:
“We recognize that it is our responsibility to help ensure that casting decisions reflect the diversity and culture of the time periods portrayed. In this instance we failed to live up to our own standards of sensitivity and diversity, for which we sincerely apologize. Lionsgate is deeply committed to making films that reflect the diversity of our audiences. We have, can and will continue to do better.”
Let's see:
The way the Egyptians pictured the god, Set:
The way Hollywood pictured it:
Sad, really.
I'm pretty sure that's Anubis.
Also, how come the Anubis in the film doesn't have a Jackal's head? That's not right at all.
So it is, my bad, and I think he does have a jackal head at some points. From the previews it looks like the people can change back and forth from person to god....
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/03/01 01:42:20
Six mistakes mankind keeps making century after century: Believing that personal gain is made by crushing others; Worrying about things that cannot be changed or corrected; Insisting that a thing is impossible because we cannot accomplish it; Refusing to set aside trivial preferences; Neglecting development and refinement of the mind; Attempting to compel others to believe and live as we do
LordofHats wrote: I'm curious how anyone managed to justify to anyone else a $140 million budget for this movie. It looks so bad from the get go.
Yeah, the first I saw was a billboard on the side of bus, and I knew this movie would tank. It didn’t matter if the movie was actually good or not. Big flashy effects films built around mythology… that was a marginal concept a few years ago, and whatever appeal it had was killed by the very mediocre Titans movies.
Exactly like you I’m left wondering how this got greenlit. Apparently it was a dream project for Proyas, but it’s not like that guy has delivered huge hits, so I don’t think the studio was willing to take him on name alone. And there’s no real stars in the film – the idea of a Gerard Butler star vehicle is kind of hilarious. So did someone actually think that just putting a bunch of CGI gods up on the big screen would recover $140 million? Incredible.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Grey Templar wrote: You are not allowed to become offended in place of extinct cultures and people groups.
While I’m sure some people are feigning offense on behalf of an extinct culture, that isn’t the only reason to be so bored by packing this movie with white people.
They make a load of movies in India. Just imagine if some of the Bollywood guys decided to make a film that drew on Egyptian mythology. And then packed that film with Indians pretending to be Egyptian gods, and ordinary peasants who were also played by Indians. It shouldn’t be too hard to figure out how ridiculous that would look to most audiences. And it shouldn't be that hard to figure out how boring it would get when that kind of nonsense kept happening to film after film.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2016/03/01 04:00:42
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
Indeed. Egypt was at the center of ancient crossroads and trade routes, and was conquered countless times by invaders. They were a real melting pot, and we really can't make any claims one way or another, so really any claims that its racist or bad casting are stretching it.
Oh, please. The claims of bad casting are not a stretch at all. It was bad casting.
The movie is supposed to be about the Gods of Egypt. The implication that the deities of that region were all pasty Caucasians is ridiculous. It was lazy casting that likely had racial undertones behind it because Hollywood does have some pretty ingrained racism built into its framework.
We have members on here who still worship Norse gods. To borrow sebster's fine example of Bollywood, if a Bollywood production made a move about the Norse gods and cast all the roles with Indians I am sure there would be some eye rolling and likely some outrage from folks who still worship those deities.
Another exmample, some people in the US freak out when Jesus isn't portrayed as white despite most historians agreeing that if Jesus existed he would be a quite a bit more brown than most Western art depicts him.
White Egyptian gods are a stupid idea, its boring as sebster said, and that sort of miscasting has a long history in Hollywood that should have been abandoned decades ago.
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How many people of appropriate skin color do you think would be qualified for this part?
Really I think most of the reason for Hollywood having lots of white people is because, well, lots of white people live in America.
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Cato Sicarius, after force feeding Captain Ventris a copy of the Codex Astartes for having the audacity to play Deathwatch, chokes to death on his own D-baggery after finding Calgar assembling his new Eldar army.
Grey Templar wrote: How many people of appropriate skin color do you think would be qualified for this part?
Really I think most of the reason for Hollywood having lots of white people is because, well, lots of white people live in America.
Um, right. Sure.
Maybe lots of white actors in Hollywood, but even then, it's not like it's 9:1. I can think of several non-white actors who could've been in this. I don't think it was racism that motivated the casting, I think it was laziness and a rush to squeeze some big names in.
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angelofvengeance wrote: This is like Shyamalan casting all the characters in The Last Airbender bad. lol.
Believe me, the skin color of the actors in that movie were on the bottom of reasons that movie was bad.
Self-proclaimed evil Cat-person. Dues Ex Felines
Cato Sicarius, after force feeding Captain Ventris a copy of the Codex Astartes for having the audacity to play Deathwatch, chokes to death on his own D-baggery after finding Calgar assembling his new Eldar army.
Grey Templar wrote: How many people of appropriate skin color do you think would be qualified for this part?
Really I think most of the reason for Hollywood having lots of white people is because, well, lots of white people live in America.
"Hollywood" pulls in actors from all over the world, so I don't think the casting was due to a lack of available actors. Butler is Scottish, and he made the cut.
Kilkrazy wrote: I don't think it was a deliberately racist decision to make a fim based on Egyptian mythology and cast white actors. The real ancient Egytians were Hamites, I believe, descended from Caucasian, so they would presumably have looked relatively 'white' though no doubt ruddier of skin than people from the most northern climes.
This is hopelessly outdated theory. Modern scholarship points strongly to African origin of the ancient Egyptians. They had tropically adapted African bone structure.
Indeed. Egypt was at the center of ancient crossroads and trade routes, and was conquered countless times by invaders. They were a real melting pot, and we really can't make any claims one way or another, so really any claims that its racist or bad casting are stretching it.
Even if we might not know exactly how ancient Egyptians looked, it is pretty damn sure that they didn't look like northern Europeans!
Plus, as was mentioned, Egypt has been conquered countless times by various people groups. Egyptians today are not the same as they were even 2,000 years ago, let alone 6,000+ years ago.
Yes, which is exactly why modern northern Egyptians look much paler than their ancestors. Ancient Egyptians were much darker, and that phenotype is still clearly visible in the modern southern Egyptians.
So really worst case scenario is this movie misrepresents a people and culture that have long since become extinct. You are not allowed to become offended in place of extinct cultures and people groups.
First, they're not extinct, their descendants still exist, second this is really about Hollywood discriminating against non-white actors (who also are real people who exist.)
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2016/03/01 19:52:33
Kilkrazy wrote: I don't think it was a deliberately racist decision to make a fim based on Egyptian mythology and cast white actors. The real ancient Egytians were Hamites, I believe, descended from Caucasian, so they would presumably have looked relatively 'white' though no doubt ruddier of skin than people from the most northern climes.
This is hopelessly outdated theory. Modern scholarship points strongly to African origin of the ancient Egyptians. They had tropically adapted African bone structure.
Indeed. Egypt was at the center of ancient crossroads and trade routes, and was conquered countless times by invaders. They were a real melting pot, and we really can't make any claims one way or another, so really any claims that its racist or bad casting are stretching it.
Even if we might not know exactly how ancient Egyptians looked, it is pretty damn sure that they didn't look like northern Europeans!
Plus, as was mentioned, Egypt has been conquered countless times by various people groups. Egyptians today are not the same as they were even 2,000 years ago, let alone 6,000+ years ago.
Yes, which is exactly why modern northern Egyptians look much paler than their ancestors. Ancient Egyptians were much darker, and that phenotype is still clearly visible in the modern southern Egyptians.
So really worst case scenario is this movie misrepresents a people and culture that have long since become extinct. You are not allowed to become offended in place of extinct cultures and people groups.
First, they're not extinct, their descendants still exist, second this is really about Hollywood discriminating against non-white actors (who also are real people who exist.)
If being white was good enough for Jesus it's good enough for everyone else!
LordofHats wrote: I'm curious how anyone managed to justify to anyone else a $140 million budget for this movie. It looks so bad from the get go.
Yeah, the first I saw was a billboard on the side of bus, and I knew this movie would tank. It didn’t matter if the movie was actually good or not. Big flashy effects films built around mythology… that was a marginal concept a few years ago, and whatever appeal it had was killed by the very mediocre Titans movies.
Exactly like you I’m left wondering how this got greenlit. Apparently it was a dream project for Proyas, but it’s not like that guy has delivered huge hits, so I don’t think the studio was willing to take him on name alone. And there’s no real stars in the film – the idea of a Gerard Butler star vehicle is kind of hilarious.
OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN did fairly well though (And Eckhart was in OLYMPUS too!).
It has a sequel launching...Friday?
And 300 did well too.
So, not *too* crazy to think that someone thought that they'd be...attractive stars, helping boost box office?
When was he an A-list actor? I know he was pretty popular after 300, but that was because of 300. I don't recall him leading and carrying any big, star-vehicle movies.
When was he an A-list actor? I know he was pretty popular after 300, but that was because of 300. I don't recall him leading and carrying any big, star-vehicle movies.
Because Butler does more indie/small budget movies than he does big, flashy Hollywood blockbusters. Some of his best roles are from low budget stand-outs such as Rockn' Rolla, Machine Gun Preacher, Phantom of the Opera, Olympus, Dear Frankie, etc...
I'm just over the moon that he's no longer wasting his time & talent on chick flick BS crap!
Same with Eckhart, who's biggest 'blockbuster' role has been The Dark Knight.
Edit: The only reason I'm not going to see Gods in theaters, is because I can't go to many movies anymore due to all the concussions I've suffered over the years. Instead of Gods, I'm going to see London has Fallen this weekend.
If Gods had maintained it's original release date of early April, I'd have probably been able to see both.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/03/01 23:05:28
Yeah, given who was behind the movie and the flimsy MYTHOLOGY! (ish) premise, I can't imagine what kind of idiots bankrolled this. I guess they looked at the 300-400 million takes of Clash and Wrath of the Titans and said, "Hey, we can also do a terrible CGI myth butchery!"
I have to admit, the casting bugged me. Not so much on color (though it seems a particularly poor marketing choice in the current climate), but the accents. A Scottish Egyptian god? British? Really? At least Zane in the Mummy wasn't rocking a ridiculous southern drawl....
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/03/01 23:14:14
My point is that none of the movie blockbusters are good for egyptian mythology.
Never said they were. We're talking about entertaining films with an Egyptian mythology theme, not educational experiences. Your comment was a non sequitur.
Somebody who wants to watch an entertaining film with a particular theme like Rome, Egypt or Greece is not going to go out and buy a textbook. Automatically Appended Next Post:
When was he an A-list actor? I know he was pretty popular after 300, but that was because of 300. I don't recall him leading and carrying any big, star-vehicle movies.
just got back from the movie...
for a $5 matinee, it was a fun flick...
i think this is as close as we will get to seeing aspect of Tomb Kings and Wargods of Aegyptus on the bid screen for quite a long time, so i enjoyed it...
seeing the Gods transform, and their different themes was really cool...
there are mortals and gods of every color in the film, so it wasn't like everything was whitewashed...
i don't think there was a single frame in the whole film that wasn't enhanced, so i can see where the budget went...
the production design was amazing!!!
so many cool things to look at...
it has really fired me up to paint...
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