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The Witcher on Netflix 2: Man of steel and silver


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12 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Hopefully movies like Black Panther can furnish us with a new generation of African (+American/British/Euro) actors who can bring a similar look and feel as Elba. Michael B Jordan and Chadwick Boseman would both be great as well, with a few more years of grizzle on their faces. A bit too young and pretty to be Geralt for now. They need to be ruggedly handsome. Some people might say Henry Cavill isn't ruggedly handsome, but I would say that in MoS when he had his full beard he was pretty much exactly that. And that's what Elba is too.

Michael Clarke Duncan would have made for a good Letho (assuming he's a book character and not limited to the games).

Elba definitely has grizzled down. Luckily we have Luther back in screens soon and I hope the TV  version of the dark tower will try and find a way to keep him as he was perfect for the role.

I agree that films like get out and black panther are exposing us to more black actors with talent. Atlanta is also proving to be a good source for on the rise film stars too.

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16 hours ago, red snow said:

Elba definitely has grizzled down. Luckily we have Luther back in screens soon and I hope the TV  version of the dark tower will try and find a way to keep him as he was perfect for the role.

I agree that films like get out and black panther are exposing us to more black actors with talent. Atlanta is also proving to be a good source for on the rise film stars too.

Not to mention all of Spike Lee's films, and shows such as Dear White People, Empire, etc. There is no shortage of talented, young but deeply experienced, black actors available.  Not to mention older actors of color too.

 

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1 hour ago, Zorral said:

Not to mention all of Spike Lee's films, and shows such as Dear White People, Empire, etc. There is no shortage of talented, young but deeply experienced, black actors available.  Not to mention older actors of color too.

 

I still need to see spike Lee's new film. 

Basically there are loads more options than just Idris Elba although I understand everyone (including myself on occasion) always thinking of him first when fancasting Various roles.

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On 10/13/2018 at 3:15 AM, red snow said:

I love Idris Elba too although it sometimes feels as if he is the only black actor in existence as it's always him people pick whenever there's thought of let's have a black actor play bond, Dr who, etc, etc. There are other great actors who are also black. Elba is damn good though and also seems a great guy based on his documentary and chat show appearances.

They really need to give Elba another crack at the dark tower though as he could still be great in that with a better screenplay. Let someone else have a crack at other potentially iconic roles.

Maybe he's like Tom Hardy? Any time you need a grizzled tough guy (albeit with a weird accent?), people are like, "Oh, Tom Hardy." I do think Elba, unfortunately, represents an age of actor in Hollywood that is severely underrepresented.

As people noted above, so many great actors are being noticed--but I think they tend to be young. Michael B. Jordan (I love Creed as much as Rocky, which I never thought I'd say), or Tessa Thompson who is just the best in any role she plays. I watched Thor Ragnarok with no knowledge of what it was, and when she stepped out of that ship, drunk, I damn near cheered. Also, Annihilation--so good.

Part of this feels gross though, doesn't it? Seeing if you can name actors of color. I think it's useful for some (of us) to step outside of the box. So much representation is white/male. I feel like just the mental exercise of trying to imagine something different is incredibly useful for people who have their points of view stuck in that white male framework. I used to get up in arms with casting decisions that seemed "affirmative action-y" (I was also a terrible human 15 years ago...I probably still am), but what really helped me change was when I started exploring my reactions. "A black Indiana Jones? Why would that make me mad?" Once I explored those ideas, and I tried embracing them, I realized how easy it was to step aside from those types of biases.

Anyway, this whole conversation just reminds me of small steps, in conjunction with large, that were necessary for me to see my blind spots. I love Elba though. He's just one of those actors. Literally any role you could cast him in sounds good to me. Rooster Cogburn? Check. In fact, Jeff Bridges owned that role for me until I just thought of Elba. Stallone won't do Creed 2 (I think he came around on this)? Elba as Rocky. Final Fantasy VII the movie, Cloud Strife? Omni-Slash Elba. Dirty Dancing? HE'S like the wind. I could do this all day! 

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On 10/13/2018 at 6:35 PM, Rorshach said:

Also, for not seeing Idris Elba as Geralt. That would have been amazing.

 

On 10/13/2018 at 8:15 PM, red snow said:

I love Idris Elba too although it sometimes feels as if he is the only black actor in existence as it's always him people pick whenever there's thought of let's have a black actor play bond, Dr who, etc, etc. There are other great actors who are also black. Elba is damn good though and also seems a great guy based on his documentary and chat show appearances.

This is a fair point and I want there to be much more opportunities for other actors as well, but that doesn't stop me from wanting him in everything because its specifically him being great

31 minutes ago, Simon Steele said:

As people noted above, so many great actors are being noticed--but I think they tend to be young. Michael B. Jordan (I love Creed as much as Rocky, which I never thought I'd say), or Tessa Thompson who is just the best in any role she plays. I watched Thor Ragnarok with no knowledge of what it was, and when she stepped out of that ship, drunk, I damn near cheered. Also, Annihilation--so good.

Anyway, this whole conversation just reminds me of small steps, in conjunction with large, that were necessary for me to see my blind spots. I love Elba though. He's just one of those actors. Literally any role you could cast him in sounds good to me. Rooster Cogburn? Check. In fact, Jeff Bridges owned that role for me until I just thought of Elba. Stallone won't do Creed 2 (I think he came around on this)? Elba as Rocky. Final Fantasy VII the movie, Cloud Strife? Omni-Slash Elba. Dirty Dancing? HE'S like the wind. I could do this all day! 

I adore TT to the point that it makes me root for her even as a villain. There's a lot of off screen stuff contributing to that as well, but her on screen presence alone is enough, her and Chris Hemsworth are going to drag me to Men in Black when I really wasn't expecting to want to see another of those.

As for Elba - can we just clone him so he has enough time to appear, at least as a minor role, in everything?

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On 10/13/2018 at 1:26 AM, Zorral said:

this fantasy world that harks to medieval and Renaissance era middle and eastern Europe is chock a block with Turks.  And Mongols.  And Jews. And Africans.  And all kinds of people of color because, you know, the Turkish Empire, the early Polish Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and all along, the Holy Roman Empire.  All of which had armies and slaves of every kind of person of every color. 

As someone who actually lives in a place which was a part of Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires, the answer is no, not really. The empires you listed had a plentiful supply of local serfs, and no need to import foreign slaves (except for Ottomans).  Even in the Ottoman Empire, most of the nobility who held local administrative and military posts were local converts to Islam, while the foreigners were either high-ranking administrators (usually of Turkish descent), Jannissaries (usually of Slavic descent - same as the local population), or Sephardic Jews. The field labor was done by local serfs, same as in Poland or Austria. Major cities and ports such as Istanbul were a different story of course, but trying to force medieval Eastern Europe into the globalized 21st century mold simply does not work.

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7 hours ago, karaddin said:

 

This is a fair point and I want there to be much more opportunities for other actors as well, but that doesn't stop me from wanting him in everything because its specifically him being great

I adore TT to the point that it makes me root for her even as a villain. There's a lot of off screen stuff contributing to that as well, but her on screen presence alone is enough, her and Chris Hemsworth are going to drag me to Men in Black when I really wasn't expecting to want to see another of those.

As for Elba - can we just clone him so he has enough time to appear, at least as a minor role, in everything?

Tessa Thompson does seem to shine in everything she's been in. She was a highlight in season 2 of westworld as well. That sounds like a good pairing for the next men in black film.

Elba cloning does sound like a good idea. One of the MCU's few casting errors was not giving Elba a more prominent role. Heimdall means we can't get him as anyone else. DC/WB should keep this in mind.

With the casting coming along I'm guessing they'll be filming the show soon?

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8 hours ago, Gorn said:

As someone who actually lives in a place which was a part of Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires, the answer is no, not really. The empires you listed had a plentiful supply of local serfs, and no need to import foreign slaves (except for Ottomans).  Even in the Ottoman Empire, most of the nobility who held local administrative and military posts were local converts to Islam, while the foreigners were either high-ranking administrators (usually of Turkish descent), Jannissaries (usually of Slavic descent - same as the local population), or Sephardic Jews. The field labor was done by local serfs, same as in Poland or Austria. Major cities and ports such as Istanbul were a different story of course, but trying to force medieval Eastern Europe into the globalized 21st century mold simply does not work.

Well, demographic studies don't exactly agree with this.

Not to mention the Kazaks -- and the Chinese that were imported by the Mongols during their period of conquest to do the administrative organization, record keeping and accounting -- but no, the Chinese presence would quickly have been overwhelmed by the local populations, but those populations were a really big variety. Slavery always played a large part.  The hunger of the Ottoman empire for slaves was enormous and always growing, and they came from everywhere.  Which is how Africans (and Islam) got to southeast Asia, particularly through the Kaliphates , and later the Divan, that ruled Egypt,* which jealously guarded for great profit the sea trade routes to the "Indies".

Of course, Columbus's voyages in the other direction ended up playing hell with that monopoly.

* Interestingly, to me at least, Egypt was the only power that the Mongols in their 13th early 14th century heyday in this part of the world were not able to conquer.  Their soldiers actually defeated Mongol armies, and held them at bay.

 

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I'll second that. The slave trade into the Ottoman Empire was pretty enormous in the 16th and 17th centuries, funneled mostly from Africans, captives on the steppe and eastern Europe, and captives from raids in the Mediterranean. 

12 hours ago, Zorral said:

Interestingly, to me at least, Egypt was the only power that the Mongols in their 13th early 14th century heyday in this part of the world were not able to conquer.  Their soldiers actually defeated Mongol armies, and held them at bay.

So did the Hungarians in the late 13th century, when they starved out and then completely wrecked a major Mongol incursion. 

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This is true of the central part of the Ottoman Empire (especially Istanbul), and present-day Turks are visually and genetically different from the Turkish peoples in Central Asia due to mixing. However, the slave trade did not significantly affect the Balkans provinces (other than them being a source of slaves), where serfdom the primary source of physical laborers.

This discussion has gone off-topic in two major ways. First, Eastern/Central Europe is a distinct geographical and cultural entity to the Mediterranean (to which the Ottoman Empire belongs). Second, while there wasn't much diversity in terms of skin color of the inhabitants of Eastern Europe, there was a major amount of diversity in terms of cultures, and this is reflected in the Witcher universe. It is a fantasy world where dwarves, elves and other intelligent non-humans exist (each with their distinct cultures separate from human culture), and focusing the discussion on human skin colors as an evidence of its diversity (or lack of it) is misguided.

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I find all these complaints about Fringilla and Yen very funny, as for the former for whatever reason I imagined her as brown if not black when reading the books and was very disappointed then to see her depicted as white in the games, while for the latter, I faced uproar whenever I said she should look like a late teen.

I promise you though, I am not the casting director.

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2 hours ago, All Souls Bass said:

He needs to look a lot more "weathered". As is, he kind of looks like Thranduill from the Hobbit movies.

And yeah, it does look pretty wig-ish.

It could very well happen in the series instead of starting the show already full of scars.

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