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No see, it is clear, but to me it just reeks of her trying to hard.

 trexmeyer wrote:

 Monkey Tamer wrote:
Only in America do people complain about more ScarJo. My mother works in theater. It's acceptable for an originally white character to be played by someone else, but if a white person is cast in a previously non-white role people lose their minds. If Jada Smith was playing the lead role nobody would say a thing.

That's a disingenuous assessment to make. I'd still be complaining. Primarily because I'm an advocate for Native American and Asian rights. They endure racism that is oft ignored in light of the overblown claims of racism against African-Americans and Arabs. Asians are horribly underrepresented in Hollywood and when they do appear it's all too frequently in a comic role as a male or femme fatale Dragon Lady. Even that stupid recent TV show, Fresh off the Boat I think, portrays them as being ignorant of basic American culture.

At least a few flicks, ie the Last Samurai (only Americans complained about this, the Japanese greatly applauded the representation of their culture and language), The Wolverine (aside from the idiocy of having Wolverine feth the Japanese female lead), and Letters from Iwo Jima have shewn Asians in a positive light.

I guess part of this is dear to me because I have and have had many Chinese or Korean friends, to include a former lover. I'm sick and tired of seeing them typecast as two dimensional characters or flat out ignored. They're people for feth's sake and deserve to be represented in the media.

Then explain all of the movies and television shows where Asians were positively portrayed either as part of the main cast, or as supporting actors/actresses.

I would say that supposed racism against Asians in Hollyweird is just as overblown as it is for black Americans.





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 welshhoppo wrote:
For everyone complaining about Scarlett Johansson being the lead.


Hollywood doesn't make films for the enjoyment of people who are into the source material. The majority of people who see films have no intrest in the book/comic/anime that the material was based off. I had no idea there was more than one Spiderman, but I've seen Spider-Man so on so forth.

I would not be surprised if this film has nothing to do with the source material, because 90% of the people who will watch the film will have no idea what the anime is about.

This times 1000


The same hubbub was stirred up when Star Trek: Into Darkness was released, with Cumberbatch playing Khan Noonian Singh. Fans and former Trek alumni accused J.J. Abrams of "whitewashing" the character. Nevermind the fact that Montalban was a white Spanish-born Mexican national in makeup playing a Sikh in the Original Series, and was sans the make-up in The Wrath of Khan (thus appearing white).

To be fair though, Cumberbatch was still a poor choice to replace Montalban. He's a great actor, and his acting in the role was great, but it just wasn't..."Khan", like...everyone else mostly matched up fairly well with their original characters, but they might as well have gone with a different villain entirely for as much as Cumberbatch's portrayal resembled anything of that portrayed by Montalban in the 60's and 80's. Even disregarding ethnic concerns, the body build, bearing, attitude, and presence of the Cumberbatch to Montalban was very different, similar in name only, unlike say, the two Scotty's or Bones's or Kirks. Cumberbatch would have made a stellar Vorta or Romulan however.

 Vaktathi wrote:
To be fair though, Cumberbatch was still a poor choice to replace Montalban. He's a great actor, and his acting in the role was great, but it just wasn't..."Khan", like...everyone else mostly matched up fairly well with their original characters, but they might as well have gone with a different villain entirely for as much as Cumberbatch's portrayal resembled anything of that portrayed by Montalban in the 60's and 80's. Even disregarding ethnic concerns, the body build, bearing, attitude, and presence of the Cumberbatch to Montalban was very different, similar in name only, unlike say, the two Scotty's or Bones's or Kirks. Cumberbatch would have made a stellar Vorta or Romulan however.

Yeah i found cumberbatch too British, to play a genetically engineered super race. I can understand the opposition against Scarlet Johanssen but the decision is made in the boardroom, as the big movie companies think that normal viewer needs to be held by the hand.
If they change the tachikoma's i would be more upset

 Jehan-reznor wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
To be fair though, Cumberbatch was still a poor choice to replace Montalban. He's a great actor, and his acting in the role was great, but it just wasn't..."Khan", like...everyone else mostly matched up fairly well with their original characters, but they might as well have gone with a different villain entirely for as much as Cumberbatch's portrayal resembled anything of that portrayed by Montalban in the 60's and 80's. Even disregarding ethnic concerns, the body build, bearing, attitude, and presence of the Cumberbatch to Montalban was very different, similar in name only, unlike say, the two Scotty's or Bones's or Kirks. Cumberbatch would have made a stellar Vorta or Romulan however.

Yeah i found cumberbatch too British, to play a genetically engineered super race. I can understand the opposition against Scarlet Johanssen but the decision is made in the boardroom, as the big movie companies think that normal viewer needs to be held by the hand.
If they change the tachikoma's i would be more upset

They could have still made him an ubermensch, just not Khan. Could even have referenced how he was left behind when the Botany Bay left or something.

See, the Khan thing is a great example. It was so silly to cast Cumberbatch and it would have made more sense to cast a minority. They could not find a high profile Asian actor? When Hollywood does unforced errors like this, its hard to defend.

Or, they could have tried not to shoehorn Khan in the movie in the first place...Man, that was one of the most disappointing movies.

Hollywood definitely has a race and gender problem. There has been multiple studies supporting that there is an inbalance. Asian Americans have been poorly represented, and the younger generation is starting to speak out about it. I‘m glad that we got to a point where Master of None and Fresh off the Boat exists, but we still live in a world where Deadline thought the article referenced was a good idea: http://www.vulture.com/2015/03/13-worst-quotes-in-deadlines-awful-article.html.
Please note that Deadline modified the article after the outcry.

Unfortunately the Kelvin's captain int he first movie would have made a much better Khan actor. He plays bad guy well.

or Idris Elba, just because...Idris Elba!

I speak Japanese. Rinko Kikuchi was really good in Babel. She was of course playing the role of a Japanese girl doing Japanese girl things in Japanese in Japan. Not surprisingly, her speaking ability in a foreign language might be less natural.

Of course the new film doesn't necessarily portray a Japanese person in Japan, and certainly won't involve speaking Japanese, so a Japanese actress isn't automatically the first choice.

I'm finding it hard to think of good actresses for this type of roll who haven't done five movies just like it.


Michelle Yeoh?
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000706/

I was thinking of her too. I think she would make an awesome Major Kusanagi, but I suspect the studios would consider her too old to make a sexy enough leading lady.

Not too old for me.

Nor me. Many a good tune is played on an old violin.

She is malaysian though, not japanese. if Memoirs of a Geisha is any indication, have asians from another country play japanese can be even worse.

Michelle Yeoh was born in Malaysia of Chinese parents.

My point still stand. Geisha had chinese play japanese, and that didnt go over well.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Nor me. Many a good tune is played on an old violin.

indeed. Indeed.


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 hotsauceman1 wrote:
She is malaysian though, not japanese. if Memoirs of a Geisha is any indication, have asians from another country play japanese can be even worse.

That assumes it has Japan as its location.


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 hotsauceman1 wrote:
My point still stand. Geisha had chinese play japanese, and that didnt go over well.

Where did it not go over well?

Japan is confirmed as the location, IIRC. They're filming in New Zealand, of course.

 Frazzled wrote:


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 hotsauceman1 wrote:
My point still stand. Geisha had chinese play japanese, and that didnt go over well.

Where did it not go over well?

Japan, I assume, and probably China. There is a mutual burning hatred between the two. Think England and France, back before Germany got her big ideas.

I'll say it again, ScarJo is a fine choice for the role. It's the story and script that will cause this project to sink or swim. I'm hopeful.

 Frazzled wrote:
I'm finding it hard to think of good actresses for this type of roll who haven't done five movies just like it.


Michelle Yeoh?
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000706/

For some reason, the Japanese get touchy about casting a Chinese actress to play a Japanese character. Remember the controversy around Memoires of a Geisha?


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Oops. Ninja'ed. By a cChinese ninja.

 Laughing Man wrote:
Japan is confirmed as the location, IIRC. They're filming in New Zealand, of course.

Hopefully they will do a sequel set in NZ and filmed in Japan. Bits of Hokkaido look like rural NZ.

They could recruit some Japanese actors to play Kiwis.

Can white people still play villains without an uproar?

 TheMeanDM wrote:
So filming has begun...and Scarlett Johanssen is the female lead....nice!!!

http://movieweb.com/ghost-in-shell-movie-2017-scarlett-johansson-photo/

‘Ghost in the Shell’ First Look at Scarlett Johansson

Shooting has officially begun on the live-action adaptation of ‘Ghost in the Shell’ under the direction of Rupert Sanders.

Good. She's hot.

 Monkey Tamer wrote:
Can white people still play villains without an uproar?

As long as they're British

 feeder wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
My point still stand. Geisha had chinese play japanese, and that didnt go over well.

Where did it not go over well?

Japan, I assume, and probably China. There is a mutual burning hatred between the two. Think England and France, back before Germany got her big ideas.

I thought it was overblown racial politics, but didn't watch the movie 'cause I thought it sounded boring (not because of offense).

Then I saw it a few years later, and it was really, really idiotic. The accents were atrocious to the point where they distracted from the movie. Taking the Europe parallel, imagine watching some historical drama about france during WWII, where everyone's speaking english 'cause, well, hollywood, but half the "french" cast is speaking with german accents 'cause they couldn't bother to half-ass a french accent. Then imagine the politics behind that on top of the laziness

One movie blundering around and getting backlash from it isn't an excuse for another movie being stupid in a different way.

 spiralingcadaver wrote:

I thought it was overblown racial politics, but didn't watch the movie 'cause I thought it sounded boring (not because of offense).

Then I saw it a few years later, and it was really, really idiotic. The accents were atrocious to the point where they distracted from the movie. Taking the Europe parallel, imagine watching some historical drama about france during WWII, where everyone's speaking english 'cause, well, hollywood, but half the "french" cast is speaking with german accents 'cause they couldn't bother to half-ass a french accent. Then imagine the politics behind that on top of the laziness

One movie blundering around and getting backlash from it isn't an excuse for another movie being stupid in a different way.

And there was the distinct lack of any ninjas. Me and my brothers got sent out of the room when my mum was watching Memoirs of a Geisha. Apparently she didn't find our game of "Spot the Ninjas" as funny as we did. I believe it was during a scene in which it was raining and one of us said that the raindrops were actually ninjas that she finally had enough.
A similar thing happened when we noticed the similarity between the captain in Titanic and Captain Birdseye

As much as I like ScarJo in certain roles.. I just don't think she has the presence/impact for this kind of character.

The major in GiTS is an absolute hard-ass. Uncompromising, she is the school-mistress of your nightmares (but still can be soft of course). ScarJo is much to soft, vapid and doe-eyed to come even close to something like Linda Hamilton in T2, which I think is what this role needs if we're to take her seriously.

Hardly new in Hollywood, but this is a casting just based on looks and ScarJo's box office pull.

Or.. maybe I will be proven completely wrong, cause I would have said exactly the same thing about Keanu Reeves before I saw him in the Matrix.

Would have preferred Kate Beckinsale, Famke Janssen (Jean Gray in original X-mens), there is a good list here and I think almost any of them would have been a better choice
http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/female-action-stars/32799/the-25-best-female-action-stars-in-modern-cinema

Or.. you know, they could have chosen a fething oriental actress(!) Can't name any names, but a couple of years living in asia there is no shortage of people that would have worked. But, without a big name director on board that can produce and finance the films themselves and tell the suits in the studios to GTFO of the creative process, unfortunately that wasn't likely to happen.

Yeah, Scarjo doesn't look right to me. She's too soft looking. You can tell she was cast more for money than for fitting the role, much like Emilia Clarke as Sarah Connor in Terminator Genesis, or Matt Smith as Skynet.