The Last Fox X-men Thread - no spoilers

[Slurktan]

4 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

The Avengers was also way too white, and introducing Wakanda has only slightly balanced things out given Black Panther is still the only non-white powered human. The future holds promise, with Monica Rambeau, Kamala Khan and Shang Chi, but so far only Shang Chi is confirmed. So there is a way to go yet. Hopefully Tom Holland is the last iteration of Peter Parker we get, and the next phase of Spider Man is Miles Morales picking up the mantle.

 

Or they could just have Peter Parker be a black kid.  Or an Asian kid and literally nothing about his story would change at all.  But yeah.

As for this movie, I just got back from watching it.  It wasn't terrible to me actually I always love MacAvoy and Fassbender in their roles regardless of how shit the movie.  I quite liked that Professor X was kind of the villain.  My real biggest problem with it is Sophie Turner.  She is an awful actress unfortunately.

I also wish there was another Xmen movie coming, not where they fight Mr Sinister or anything like that, but just where it is shown how they got and where the weird wasting disease comes from that turns a healthy pretty ripped Michael Fassbender into frail Ian McKellan in roughly 7-10 years. 

[The Anti-Targ]

1 minute ago, Slurktan said:

Or they could just have Peter Parker be a black kid.  Or an Asian kid and literally nothing about his story would change at all.  But yeah.

 

Sure, they could do that in the next PP reboot. But since the Marvel comics already did their bit to bring diversity to the spider people, Sony might as well just pick up and run with that. And that way even the simpletons of the world will have no cause for complaint. Though I imagine they'll still complain that the white guy is being replaced.

[Heartofice]

5 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

If they cast a short, stocky, hairy, dark skinned person he would physically meet as many of the visual characteristics of Wolverine as Jackman, yet somehow skin colour is a deal breaker.

Wolverine generally is pretty dark skinned so clearly that wouldn’t make a difference.  But of course race is about more than just skin tone, there are lots of other facial characteristics that tend to define it.  If you’d decided to cast Kevin Hart or Jet Li as Wolverine the reason they wouldn’t look like him wouldn’t be just because their skin was a different colour.

Im sure you are just trying to make some vague well meaning political point here about diversity or something. If you want to make make Wolverine Chinese for diversity reasons then say so,  but don’t deny reality by pretending it’s as small a change as changing the colour of his hair.

[The Anti-Targ]

2 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Wolverine generally is pretty dark skinned so clearly that wouldn’t make a difference.  But of course race is about more than just skin tone, there are lots of other facial characteristics that tend to define it.  If you’d decided to cast Kevin Hart or Jet Li as Wolverine the reason they wouldn’t look like him wouldn’t be just because their skin was a different colour.

Im sure you are just trying to make some vague well meaning political point here about diversity or something. If you want to make make Wolverine Chinese for diversity reasons then say so,  but don’t deny reality by pretending it’s as small a change as changing the colour of his hair.

I already did say so. I was also hoping not to be vague.  But I also oppose this reality that demands changing the race of a character be a huge deal. I would like to change and challenge this reality rather than just go along with it. It's a learned, culturally established reality. So it's not an immutable law of the universe.

And, well I dunno some people get really hot about a hair colour change, so I wouldn't say hair colour is widely regarded as a small change. Again, if there is something iconic or essential about a character's hair colour it's going to get heated comments from people. I say, don't change what essentially defines a character but everything else is open to change. For many characters their race is not an essential defining characteristic, except that people tend to see race as essential because of our own social programming. But objectively there's nothing about most characters that requires them to be a certain race.

 

[Heartofice]

11 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

I already did say so. I was also hoping not to be vague.  But I also oppose this reality that demands changing the race of a character be a huge deal. I would like to change and challenge this reality rather than just go along with it. It's a learned, culturally established reality. So it's not an immutable law of the universe.

And, well I dunno some people get really hot about a hair colour change, so I wouldn't say hair colour is widely regarded as a small change. Again, if there is something iconic or essential about a character's hair colour it's going to get heated comments from people. I say, don't change what essentially defines a character but everything else is open to change. For many characters their race is not an essential defining characteristic, except that people tend to see race as essential because of our own social programming. But objectively there's nothing about most characters that requires them to be a certain race.

 

By rights you could have a Wolverine character and completely change his or her appearance, and if his (or her) character was the same then you could justifiably say 'This is Wolverine'. If you wanted to do that then you could. It has happened with other characters, sometimes they don't look like their comic counterparts.

But movies are also a visual medium, and when you adapt a comic character there is an attempt to make them visually look how they do in comics, to be accurate. Making Wolverine black or asian would be a very noticeable deviation from his appearance in the comics, in the same way that making him blonde would be.. in fact it would be moreso. If you wanted to do that then it might well work, I'm not disputing it. What I am disputing is this odd, reality bending idea, that it wouldn't be a huge deviation, and a bigger change than casting a tall guy or a blonde guy. 

[sifth]

7 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Sure, they could do that in the next PP reboot. But since the Marvel comics already did their bit to bring diversity to the spider people, Sony might as well just pick up and run with that. And that way even the simpletons of the world will have no cause for complaint. Though I imagine they'll still complain that the white guy is being replaced.

I'm all for diversity, but I think instead of making "the black Spider Man" or the "Lady Spider Man" Marvel and just about every major comic should focus more on creating more diverse IP's from the start. I mean I think it says a lot about how creatively bankrupted Marvel is this days, when the only chance at diversity is to take an established character and change his skin color. Having a character be a different race from the very beginning is more interesting IMO. However people are scared to take risks these days and always try to take the easy way.

[Myrddin]

The true commentary on DP is that people would rather argue about the height of an actor who won't be cast for years rather than go see the film. 

[HexMachina]

Just to circle back to my question that was overlooked, how would Momoa as Wolverine work anyway given his role as Aquaman and place within DCEU?

[Heartofice]

4 minutes ago, HelenaExMachina said:

Just to circle back to my question that was overlooked, how would Momoa as Wolverine work anyway given his role as Aquaman and place within DCEU?

It probably wouldn't work. There are a few actors who've been characters in different universes or franchies, like Chris Evans and Ryan Reynolds, but mostly when those previous franchises died off. 

[Myrddin]

20 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

It probably wouldn't work. There are a few actors who've been characters in different universes or franchies, like Chris Evans and Ryan Reynolds, but mostly when those previous franchises died off. 

So, Momoa is free then.

[HexMachina]

18 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

It probably wouldn't work. There are a few actors who've been characters in different universes or franchies, like Chris Evans and Ryan Reynolds, but mostly when those previous franchises died off. 

Yeah thats what i meant, i knew there were examples of swapping comic franchises but couldnt think of any that occurred while both were still running. That is a terribly structured sentence but hopefully makes enough sense

[Heartofice]

2 minutes ago, Myrddin said:

So, Momoa is free then.

Lol. I thought Aquaman did pretty well? I'm sure he's going to be employed for a bit longer.

[Kalbear]

Been thinking about this a bit, and I think that race-swapping is a smidgen more complex than what some have been giving it credit for. 

Let's take Wolverine. Here's a guy who has apparently been alive for 150 years. Now, make him African-American. His entire character changes in profound ways. He is a person who is likely either been a slave or was descended directly from slaves. He has gone through the entire reformation/Jim Crow/Civil Rights movements (yes, even if he was Canadian, he was still going to be affected by those things). He can't just be turned African-American, because it isn't just about skin color. 

Same with someone like Captain America - you can't just have a WW2 era guy in the age where there was racial segregation of troops be all of a sudden the face of the US Army and the fight against fascism without a whole lot of effects elsewhere. Similarly, having a super serum experimentation where the results may not be well known has a MASSIVE difference in view when you're talking about an African American getting experimented on with sketchy results possible. 

And maybe that's fine. Maybe it's even good - a story asking what Wolverine's life would be like as a black person is an interesting story - but it's not remotely the same one that has been in the comics before, and glossing over that would be really, really bad. 

IMO, this is one of the reasons Miles Morales works so well - because while he has similar villains, similar powers, he isn't Peter Parker. He does have familial and societal considerations that Peter Parker, on the virtue of him being a white man, doesn't have. Other characters have easier shifts - there's nothing saying that Thor can't be played by, well, anyone, given that he's an alien being. Vision certainly doesn't have baggage like that. Scott Summers, though, has some weird story elements that might not work well as AA - an orphan abandoned by his father plays very differently when he's African American. 

[red snow]

they actually did a story where the original captain america was african american because that's who they trialed the serum on first.

Miles Morales was launched quite effectively as he wasn't replacing Peter Parker (he did but not the "primer". I think this prevents people hating the new character as the original is still present.

[Kalbear]

12 minutes ago, red snow said:

they actually did a story where the original captain america was african american because that's who they trialed the serum on first.

I think that's awesome! And I also think that very much changes how he would view the government, the world, pretty much everything. And that's okay! That's good! But it does mean more than just 'and we'll cast this guy' and make it the same story. 

12 minutes ago, red snow said:

Miles Morales was launched quite effectively as he wasn't replacing Peter Parker (he did but not the "primer". I think this prevents people hating the new character as the original is still present.

Yep, though there will always be people who hate regardless. People hated the replacement of Thor, of Iron Man, of Cap - even when they were literally different people taking the mantle over. My point is less about whether or not you can stop people from hating (you can't) and more about there being some actual reasons to be deliberate about changing the origin of some of these heroes - because like it as not, a lot of their origin comes from them being white men, and changing that is going to (or at least should) have some effects to their story. 

[Darth Richard II]

7 hours ago, Myrddin said:

So, Momoa is free then.

Eh, Aquaman made a billion dollars, has the lowest second weekend drop off of any comic book movie, ever, and has like 2 sequels and a spin off planned already.

[red snow]

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

I think that's awesome! And I also think that very much changes how he would view the government, the world, pretty much everything. And that's okay! That's good! But it does mean more than just 'and we'll cast this guy' and make it the same story. 

Yep, though there will always be people who hate regardless. People hated the replacement of Thor, of Iron Man, of Cap - even when they were literally different people taking the mantle over. My point is less about whether or not you can stop people from hating (you can't) and more about there being some actual reasons to be deliberate about changing the origin of some of these heroes - because like it as not, a lot of their origin comes from them being white men, and changing that is going to (or at least should) have some effects to their story. 

To be honest I'm surprised the character didn't stick around because, like you say, that background gives him the potential to be a "villain"/someone with legitimate reasons to be upset. There were several test subjects died before he survived. I think it was when Marvel were being a lot more adventurous with stories and trying to be relevant whereas they play it safer these days. I guess the falcon is far less controversial in that sense. But a tv show/film about the pre captain america would make an interesting project. 

I agree that these changes need to be thought about and explored beyond the surface. Particularly with characters whose origin is firmly in the past. It could generate interesting new angles. On the iron fist thread there was an excellent argument for why IF could have been 3rd+ generation Asian-american and how this would have been a novel "fish out of water" story where a guy who has lost touch with his heritage is thrown into some crazy "oriental magic monk" stereotype. That would have been much more entertaining than "young donald trump gets super powers"

The good thing with marvel's stock at the moment is that they have a good shot at launching any franchise so they could use any non white guy character and have a chance of making them A-list. Shang chi is a good example although I'm really curious if what they'll actually do with that character. I guess the eternals could be whatever they want them to be (although the rumours of Angelina Jolie, keanu reeves and richard madden is a bit monochrome). There's a lot if gold to be mined in the marvel IP and I'm sure there are characters who will work much better in screen.

 

[Rhom]

11 hours ago, HelenaExMachina said:

Yeah thats what i meant, i knew there were examples of swapping comic franchises but couldnt think of any that occurred while both were still running. That is a terribly structured sentence but hopefully makes enough sense

Thanos and Cable.

Which oddly May find themselves in the same universe soon.

[The Anti-Targ]

13 hours ago, sifth said:

I'm all for diversity, but I think instead of making "the black Spider Man" or the "Lady Spider Man" Marvel and just about every major comic should focus more on creating more diverse IP's from the start. I mean I think it says a lot about how creatively bankrupted Marvel is this days, when the only chance at diversity is to take an established character and change his skin color. Having a character be a different race from the very beginning is more interesting IMO. However people are scared to take risks these days and always try to take the easy way.

Agreed. But the thing is all of the most popular characters come from a period in our cultural history where every hero was white. And for reasons that aren't so much to do with race. And for movie adaptations of comic books the diversity has to start there. It's extremely difficult to bring diversity into the MCU in a leading character who is original to the MCU and has no connection to the comics. I don't like using the word bankrupt, but that's pretty much what it is. Creatively the Avengers and X-men franchises are largely maxed out for characters that will be fan favourites. And Marvel and DC are far too old to be able to make characters of different races from the beginning, they grew up and became popular in a time when almost everything about western culture was racists, without anyone other than the minorities realising it.  So the only solution for movies is to stop adapting Marvel IP, and instead start adapting comic book IP that was established in more enlightened times, which almost means nothing from last century.

Also major apologies to Falcon, he was the first non-white avenger in the MCU, though Black Panther was still the first non-white lead.

15 hours ago, Heartofice said:

By rights you could have a Wolverine character and completely change his or her appearance, and if his (or her) character was the same then you could justifiably say 'This is Wolverine'. If you wanted to do that then you could. It has happened with other characters, sometimes they don't look like their comic counterparts.

But movies are also a visual medium, and when you adapt a comic character there is an attempt to make them visually look how they do in comics, to be accurate. Making Wolverine black or asian would be a very noticeable deviation from his appearance in the comics, in the same way that making him blonde would be.. in fact it would be moreso. If you wanted to do that then it might well work, I'm not disputing it. What I am disputing is this odd, reality bending idea, that it wouldn't be a huge deviation, and a bigger change than casting a tall guy or a blonde guy. 

I mean sure, you can go to that extreme if you ignore the bit where I say you should keep the essential defining traits of a character. You could cast Tyrion Lannister as a woman, but she'd still need to be a dwarf. Though part of the tension in the Lannister family is that as Jaime is a Kings Guard a male Tyrion is the rightful heir to Casterly Rock according to the law and lore of Westeros. But Tywin will move heaven and Westeros to prevent that from happening. So a central aspect of Tywin and Tyrion's dysfuntion is the fact that he is the male heir. That tension is no longer there with Tyrion as a woman, unless you change the lore and law so that male and female children have equal inheritance rights. But then Cersei becomes the rightful heir, which makes a female Tyrion just a brooding second in line and Tywin can merely be indifferent to her rather than antagonistic or hostile. But you could have Tyrion plotting to kill her hated older sister to become the heir, which would be a pretty good alternative. But that is several substantial changes to the whole story just to make Tyrion a female child, but she'd still need to be a dwarf, so there is a good argument that too much other stuff needs to be changed to make changing Tyrion's sex a sensible thing to do. So yeah, sometimes certain physical traits need to be preserved, and sometimes that includes race, even whiteness.

[The Anti-Targ]

6 hours ago, red snow said:

they actually did a story where the original captain america was african american because that's who they trialed the serum on first.

Miles Morales was launched quite effectively as he wasn't replacing Peter Parker (he did but not the "primer". I think this prevents people hating the new character as the original is still present.

The problem with that in the real USA of the '40s is that as soon as they saw the black guy be all bulked up and still alive they'd have killed him, and then given it to a white guy.

There are certainly backstory implications for changing the race of an existing character, but most of the time they don't require a re-write of the history of the world, just a rejig of elements of the person's own history.