Author Topic: Doctor Strange  (Read 4902 times)

Offline Nicklab

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Doctor Strange
« on: December 5, 2014, 09:08 AM »
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Offline McMetal

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Re: Doctor Strange
« Reply #1 on: December 5, 2014, 11:52 AM »
Hey, if it prevents him from being in any of the new SW movies, I'm all for it.
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Offline DSJ™

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Re: Doctor Strange
« Reply #2 on: April 13, 2016, 03:05 AM »

Offline BillCable

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Re: Doctor Strange
« Reply #3 on: April 13, 2016, 07:49 AM »
Looks pretty wild.  Can anyone tell if it's Cumberbach saying the line about not believing in fairy tales?  It'd be a crime if they made him drop his British accent for the role.  But then he sounds normal British when he says "Why are you doing this?"...

Gonna get a lot of Matrix/Inception griping, I think.
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Offline McMetal

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Re: Doctor Strange
« Reply #4 on: April 13, 2016, 09:39 AM »
Looks cool but it seems to me if you are going to film an origin story about Dr Strange you would at least need the Ancient One and Baron Mordo. If they can't even be bothered to cast those roles properly, why even bother to make Strange a middle aged white dude? Go ahead and turn him into an elderly Russian paraplegic or an albino Eskimo or whatever daffy mashup those obsequious writers can dream up.

Sorry, I know it is a tiresome rant at this point, I just will never understand the need to change things for no reason whatsoever. There was nothing about his backstory that was offensive or out of place for a modern setting.

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Offline BillCable

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Re: Doctor Strange
« Reply #5 on: April 13, 2016, 10:29 AM »
Looks cool but it seems to me if you are going to film an origin story about Dr Strange you would at least need the Ancient One and Baron Mordo. If they can't even be bothered to cast those roles properly, why even bother to make Strange a middle aged white dude?

It is tiresome.  And it's been explained.  These characters were invented back when racism made diversity impossible.  Disney/Marvel is using this opportunity to correct that error.  They also hope to appeal to a wider, diverse audience for better financial success.  So when the opportunity presents itself to cast someone as something other than a white male, they take it.

Strange, Stark, Thor - those characters are iconic.  Casting against ethnicity doesn't fly as well in those cases (see Johnny Storm in Fan4astic).  So you pick your battles.

If Mordo being black gets your panties in a bunch, I feel kinda bad for you.
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Offline McMetal

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Re: Doctor Strange
« Reply #6 on: April 13, 2016, 03:49 PM »
Yeah, but if you're playing that game, how do you justify taking one of the few prominent Asian roles in the MU and re-casting with an impossibly WASPY white woman like Tilda Swinton? If the idea is to champion diversity, why replace a non-white actor with a white one? That just doesn't make sense to me. (I wont even go into the whole ageism thing)

That's where I am coming from with the whole change for the sake of change complaint. If it serves to drive the narrative in some way, that is one thing, but this example just seem capricious at best.

I do respect there are different, valid opinions on this, I just struggle to understand their (Hollywood's) logic sometimes.
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Offline JediJman

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Re: Doctor Strange
« Reply #7 on: April 13, 2016, 04:27 PM »
Exactly.  I am not against bringing more diversity into the roles, but eliminating an Asian role and adding an African American doesn't scream increased representation to me.  It's just some BS Director's way to make the movie their own and drive PR by getting people to react.  I don't get why this is prioritized over positive PR for finding a great likeness to the original source material, especially when you're making these B-List off shoot movies like Strange. RDJ is the perfect likeness of Tony Stark...that seemed to work out pretty well for everyone.  I can't wait to see the new Heroes for Hire starring Melissa McCarthy as Power Man and her lesbian lover Kevin Hart (in drag) as a Mexican Billionaire Iron Fist.
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Offline Nicklab

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Re: Doctor Strange
« Reply #8 on: April 13, 2016, 05:43 PM »
There was an issue that popped up recently during the whole #OscarsSoWhite issue leading up the Academy Awards.  Notably, that while there may be a lack of award worthy roles for African American actors, there are far fewer for Asian actors.  And when it comes to Asian actors who work regularly in American film and television in notable roles, there's a much smaller group to draw from.  So Asian actors may have more of a bone to pick about how roles are cast.

I tend to agree with Bill about the general casting issues.  It seems important to try casting a lead actor who resembles a comic character.  Casting a character like Thor, and you need someone who LOOKS like Thor who can fill the role.  As for supporting roles?  I think there's a lot more leeway that allows filmmakers to cast the actor who would work best in the role, rather than trying to cast someone by racial/gender/age demographics.  Something like this popped up in a film that's currently in theaters that deals with drone warfare.  Helen Mirren wound up with the role of a general in the British military, even though the role was originally slated for a male actor.  The filmmakers felt that she was the best fit as an actor.
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Offline BillCable

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Re: Doctor Strange
« Reply #9 on: April 14, 2016, 08:08 AM »
Yeah, but if you're playing that game, how do you justify taking one of the few prominent Asian roles in the MU and re-casting with an impossibly WASPY white woman like Tilda Swinton? If the idea is to champion diversity, why replace a non-white actor with a white one? That just doesn't make sense to me.

I'm not sure if this was a business decision or an artistic one.  On the one hand, Tilda Swinton is an Oscar-winner that just about any director would kill to work with.  But on the business side - one thing Marvel has been openly cautious about is casting Asians in stereotypical/racist Asian roles.  There's legitimate beef with how Marvel portrayed Asians back in the 1960s and 1970s.  And that's why The Mandarin wasn't played by an Asian guy.  Marvel very may have concluded that Asian audiences would rather see a white or Indian person cast in a formerly racist Asian role than someone who is actually Asian.  That might be more agreeable than seeing an Asian in the token wise monk role in an otherwise mostly-white cast.
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Offline JediJman

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Re: Doctor Strange
« Reply #10 on: April 14, 2016, 10:42 AM »
Are Asians really offended by an Asian-monk character in a movie?  I'm not trying to be flippant - I'd really like to know what different groups actually find offensive.  I'm not offended when I see a white cowboy.  If you expect to see a certain race/ethnicity for a character and they use someone white, I would think that's even more offensive, right?  It's too bad we have to put so much effort into things like this.  I'm not a big Strange fan, but I always thought the ancient one was pretty cool from what little I read (versus being an offensive stereotype).
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Offline Jeff

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Re: Doctor Strange
« Reply #11 on: April 14, 2016, 10:55 AM »
I'm not offended when I see a white cowboy.

You might be though if the only time a white guy showed up in a movie was when the movie needed a cowboy...  :-\

It's a fine line Disney is trying to walk - you don't want to take away minority roles... but at the same time they have to be careful with stereotypes.  This 'wise old master' one is a good one.  Do you go "Mr. Miyagi" and cast to type or do you do something different?  Either way some segment is going to be upset in today's outrage culture.

I really like the way Marvel is doing things - you nail the look of the main guy (Thor, IM, Strange, Cap, etc) and then you play a bit with the smaller roles to make the movie world look more like today's real world and less like 60s' comic book world.  That was kind of one of the very few things that Man of Steel got right with Fishburn/Perry White I thought.
« Last Edit: April 14, 2016, 10:55 AM by Jeff »
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Offline BillCable

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Re: Doctor Strange
« Reply #12 on: April 14, 2016, 01:22 PM »
Are Asians really offended by an Asian-monk character in a movie?  I'm not trying to be flippant - I'd really like to know what different groups actually find offensive.

I'll defer to Disney, whom I sure has a stack of research 4 feet tall on the subject.  But you have to understand they're dealing with source material that was pretty offensive...



So might Asians be offended to be cast as the token wise monk?  Possibly.  Even if that monk is a cool character.
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Offline JediJman

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Re: Doctor Strange
« Reply #13 on: April 15, 2016, 12:02 PM »
Well, that's the Mandarin and we're talking about the Ancient One.



The movie is supposedly sticking to the comic origin, where Strange travels to Asia to learn mystical powers from the Ancient One.  Rather than have an Asian play the guy from Asia (!), we're getting a rich white guy travelling to Asia where a powerful white woman will teach him the secret mysteries of an Asian culture.  I have to think it's a lot more offensive to write an Asian out of an Asian role, but whatever.
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Offline Phrubruh

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Re: Doctor Strange
« Reply #14 on: April 15, 2016, 12:28 PM »
Why didn't they just get Michelle Yeoh to play the ancient one? She was amazing in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
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