The Last Fox X-men Thread - no spoilers

[red snow]

4 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Actually Tormund as Sabertooth is brilliant! 

But I think you are missing the point, Wolverine already looks a certain way, and in the majority of cases it makes a lot of sense to try and at least cast actors who physically resemble the characters they are playing. Robert Downey Junior looks like Tony Stark for instance.

It doesn't mean you can't change the race of a character if there is someone who is totally perfect for the role, I mean it worked ok for Kingpin (although Daredevils version was a ton better). But my point is, if you are going to make such a radical change, you will need to do it for a good reason, and I'm not seeing many. 

It's a bit of a two way Street in the sense the comics start to look like the actors once cast.

My point is if someone in casting absolutely inhabits the character and other than his skin tone is a perfect representation, I'd have no problem at all. Height vs ethnicity? It would go down to who nailed the character best. 

But, at the end of the day I'd much rather they have  storm, nightcrawler, sunfire, thunderbird,  and maybe Dust  present with equal screen time. The line-up of giant sized x-men is pointedly diverse (it kind of makes sense if mutants are worldwide and rare for the line-up to be so mixed). The X-MEN have a plethora of male, female, gay, straight, monstrous, multi-racial characters who are already great/could break out on screen. It's one of the reasons the franchise is so popular and one of the reasons I'm wary of the original white-american x-men being the focus.

 

[Winterfell is Burning]

11 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

I also thought, though I might be wrong that the whole Jean Grey, Wolverine, Cyclops love triangle thing was more Jean and Cyclops being an item, and Wolverine having a brooding unrequited love for Jean, because basically he ain't no hunk, so can't compete with Cyclops in the hawtness department, as well as not being able to compete personality-wise.

Pretty much.

And the only reason Jean was shown any feelings for him whatsoever was done by a retcon because Chris Claremont (X-men's writer at the time) had married Cyclops off to a character he created after Jean died in DPS- (a character that, get this, was a doppelganger of Jean that had no memories until the moment Jean dies, but was supposed to be a different person, and married Cyclops a few months after they met) and was pissed when the editor decided Jean was to be resurrected and that other relationship ended, so he retconned that Jean was attracted to Logan from day one and barely resisting him (never mind it didn't fit with anything that had been shown before), and eventually planned for the two of them to have an affair and Jean leave Scott for him to get back at the editor- even if the writers writing Jean had the time had no interest in this, and the editor had left his post.

Was around the same time he begun to write Cyclops as weaker to promote others- for example, losing to Storm when she was powerless (though that was later retconned to mind-control). History of comics is full of petty fights like this.

Anyway, after he left, the triangle was mostly ignored.  People who only sees the movies assumes it was a much bigger deal.

 

4 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

After all the fuss about having white actors playing non white roles, it isn't worth the grief that would be generated to change his race, there are a lot of crazy, noisy people out there.

 

Yeah, much easier to just use the many characters of different ethnicities, nationalities, and sexual preferences; hell, in the movies we had, we see no indications Mystique is bi, for example.

 

5 hours ago, red snow said:

I think you have just accidentally come up with the genuis idea of tormund playing sabertooth!

Damn, now I can't think of anyone else playing him.

 

 

[Heartofice]

Claremont is probably the most important Xmen writer but you get the sense that he didn’t have control of the situation when the whole Jean clone stuff was happening. Apparently he got quite angry because he wanted to retire Cyclops and let him live on a farm, but that never got to happen

[Kalbear]

I like how the folks who are saying HE MUST BE SHORT and comparing him to hobbits are ignoring that the hobbits in the movies (as well as the dwarves) weren't, ya know, actually short people. If only there was some way of making people appear shorter than they are in a movie! 

Alas, it'll never happen. 

I personally am tired of Wolverine and if they do anything with him I'd like to see some standalones before he joins the x-men. The problem with the xmen is that Wolverine, Xavier and Magneto take up all the air. They need to give other characters a chance to shine and show off some. The other other issue is that Wolverine has a crazy amount of weird-ass backstory and whatnot that also tends to dominate everything, and ultimately it's just not that important. 

[Corvinus85]

4 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

I like how the folks who are saying HE MUST BE SHORT and comparing him to hobbits are ignoring that the hobbits in the movies (as well as the dwarves) weren't, ya know, actually short people. If only there was some way of making people appear shorter than they are in a movie! 

Alas, it'll never happen. 

I personally am tired of Wolverine and if they do anything with him I'd like to see some standalones before he joins the x-men. The problem with the xmen is that Wolverine, Xavier and Magneto take up all the air. They need to give other characters a chance to shine and show off some. The other other issue is that Wolverine has a crazy amount of weird-ass backstory and whatnot that also tends to dominate everything, and ultimately it's just not that important. 

The stunt doubles were short people. It's one thing to film two people standing next to each other, and make one appear much shorter than the other, then do the same in action scenes. Wolverine is an action-heavy role, so yes, we need Tom Cruise. 

[Kalbear]

1 minute ago, Corvinus said:

The stunt doubles were short people. It's one thing to film two people standing next to each other, and make one appear much shorter than the other, then do the same in action scenes. Wolverine is an action-heavy role, so yes, we need Tom Cruise. 

Eh, that was almost 20 years ago. We've gotten a lot better since then. 

I personally don't think Wolverine being short matters in the fucking least. There's almost nothing special about his shortness in the comics, nor is it particularly special he's short as a power.  The chip on his shoulder doesn't have to be about that at all, and arguably it never was about that - it's about that he is at his core someone who enjoys actually killing and also wants to be a better person, who barely controls the animal in him and is prone to psychopathic rage. That doesn't come from him being short - that comes from his background and family and mutant powers. 

I think Hardy could do a good job of that as well - Mad Max is basically Wolverine without claws. But the shortness itself? Bah. 

[Heartofice]

20 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

I like how the folks who are saying HE MUST BE SHORT and comparing him to hobbits are ignoring that the hobbits in the movies (as well as the dwarves) weren't, ya know, actually short people. If only there was some way of making people appear shorter than they are in a movie! 

Alas, it'll never happen. 

I personally am tired of Wolverine and if they do anything with him I'd like to see some standalones before he joins the x-men. The problem with the xmen is that Wolverine, Xavier and Magneto take up all the air. They need to give other characters a chance to shine and show off some. The other other issue is that Wolverine has a crazy amount of weird-ass backstory and whatnot that also tends to dominate everything, and ultimately it's just not that important. 

And yet none of the guys playing Hobbits were tall. They cast short actors and made them appear even shorter than they were 

 

edit. Actually The Hobbit movies did cast tall actors, and you could generally tell and it looked wrong.

[Kalbear]

Just now, Heartofice said:

And yet none of the guys playing Hobbits were tall. They cast short actors and made them appear even shorter than they were 

Some of the dwarves certainly were reasonably tall. Richard Armitage was 6'2". It's not an insurmountable problem if you really care that much. 

 

And you shouldn't, mind you, but if you do it isn't an issue. 

[Corvinus85]

Isn't it part of him being called Wolverine because he's short? Sure wolverines are extremely fierce animals, but if he was a big guy, The Lion or the Tiger would have been just as suitable.

[Heartofice]

8 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Some of the dwarves certainly were reasonably tall. Richard Armitage was 6'2". It's not an insurmountable problem if you really care that much. 

 

And you shouldn't, mind you, but if you do it isn't an issue. 

I addressed it in my edit ,  it was Armitage was who came to mind when I said it looked wrong. He was a rubbish Dwarf.

 

7 minutes ago, Corvinus said:

Isn't it part of him being called Wolverine because he's short? Sure wolverines are extremely fierce animals, but if he was a big guy, The Lion or the Tiger would have been just as suitable.

I think that’s part of it yeah. He’s a little savage. 

[Kalbear]

9 minutes ago, Corvinus said:

Isn't it part of him being called Wolverine because he's short? Sure wolverines are extremely fierce animals, but if he was a big guy, The Lion or the Tiger would have been just as suitable.

He's called the Wolverine partially because he's short (or at least smaller than, say, a bear) but mostly because he doesn't back down from a fight with anything and will take on things several times his size and strength, and never gives up. It's that absurd tenacity despite taking grievous wounds that formed his backstory on his power. 

[DMC]

Didn't Peter Dinklage recently play, like, a giant in some pretty successful superhero movie?

As for LOTR, John Rhys-Davies (Gimli) is a pretty big dude IRL.

[red snow]

9 minutes ago, Corvinus said:

Isn't it part of him being called Wolverine because he's short? Sure wolverines are extremely fierce animals, but if he was a big guy, The Lion or the Tiger would have been just as suitable.

He's Canadian and someone already had Sasquatch (first appearance) and bear can have different meanings. Plus, it's a cool sounding word. How many people have watched Jackman wolverine and thought "he's far too tall to be comparable to a wolverine"

8 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

I addressed it in my edit ,  it was Armitage was who came to mind when I said it looked wrong. He was a rubbish Dwarf.

 

I think that’s part of it yeah. He’s a little savage. 

Was he rubbish because he was too tall though?

 

2 minutes ago, DMC said:

Didn't Peter Dinklage recently play, like, a giant in some pretty successful superhero movie?

As for LOTR, John Rhys-Davies (Gimli) is a pretty big dude IRL.

They were probably both rubbish then. 

6 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

He's called the Wolverine partially because he's short (or at least smaller than, say, a bear) but mostly because he doesn't back down from a fight with anything and will take on things several times his size and strength, and never gives up. It's that absurd tenacity despite taking grievous wounds that formed his backstory on his power. 

I think that can come across more through his powers. He isn't anywhere near as strong as most mutants but he has the power that allows him to keep coming back irrespective of hiw much pain they dish out. Wolverine's chances against magneti aren't really improved by being 10 inch taller.

I actually thought of something where being shorter helped. The "fastball special" might be trickier if wolverine isn't short. Not as tricky as if colossus isn't in the film with him

[Maltaran]

42 minutes ago, DMC said:

Didn't Peter Dinklage recently play, like, a giant in some pretty successful superhero movie?

As for LOTR, John Rhys-Davies (Gimli) is a pretty big dude IRL.

That actually made it easier for the effects guys, because it meant the difference in size between him and the hobbits didn’t need to be adjusted.

[Heartofice]

Dinklage as a giant looked really odd, and I love that movie. It didn’t work at all.

And yeah Armitage was a rubbish Dwarf for many reasons, but he certainly never looked like a dwarf, he looked like an above average human they had shot from a distance to make look small. 

Gimli is a good example of how much work needs to happen to make someone tall look short. The guy was covered in latex and clothes and mostly shot from shoulders up and a ton of other techniques to give the illusion he was short. It actually mostly looked ok, but are you gonna do the same thing with Wolverine? No course not.

I don’t even know why we are even having a conversation about this, what are we even asking for? Height diversity or something  ??

Its hardly a controversial thought that you’d cast actors who look a bit like their comic counterparts. 

[Winterfell is Burning]

1 hour ago, Heartofice said:

Claremont is probably the most important Xmen writer but you get the sense that he didn’t have control of the situation when the whole Jean clone stuff was happening. Apparently he got quite angry because he wanted to retire Cyclops and let him live on a farm, but that never got to happen

He wanted to retire Scott because Storm was his favorite and he wanted her to be the leader, which would be next to impossible with the much more experienced Cyclops around, but didn't want other writers to use him so he could bring him up when he wanted to, which he did from time to time.

Anyway, about Logan, it is better that he is short, but it's not indispensable, IMO. He has to be rough looking, though, can't be a pretty boy actor at all.

[Darth Richard II]

Claremont losta lot of cred when he returned to the X-men in the early 2000s and it just plain sucked.

[Winterfell is Burning]

1 hour ago, Darth Richard II said:

Claremont losta lot of cred when he returned to the X-men in the early 2000s and it just plain sucked.

Yeah, but if you see some of his plans that were abandoned for the 90's X-men, most of them weren't all that good, and even his work after the team left Australia was mostly uninteresting. It's common for writers to end up accentuating their flaws with time (think Bendis and his dialogue) and he's no exception- his work tends to get convoluted and directionless if let unchecked, with plots taking too long to go anywhere, not to mention the hokey dialogue.

[Darth Richard II]

43 minutes ago, Winterfell is Burning said:

Yeah, but if you see some of his plans that were abandoned for the 90's X-men, most of them weren't all that good, and even his work after the team left Australia was mostly uninteresting. It's common for writers to end up accentuating their flaws with time (think Bendis and his dialogue) and he's no exception- his work tends to get convoluted and directionless if let unchecked, with plots taking too long to go anywhere, not to mention the hokey dialogue.

Oh yeah, Clarment's dialogue is terrible. I was never really a big fan thought to be fair, after those Willow "books" he wrote with Lucas.

[The Anti-Targ]

10 hours ago, Heartofice said:

I mean, there was a lot of outrage about Jackman when he was cast because he doesn't look a lot like comic book wolverine.

It would be very surprising if they decided to cast someone who looks NOTHING like his comic book counterpart and there wasn't a ton of outrage. 

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. Admittedly it is kind of hard to find hairy African Americans, but with a bit of mixed ethnicity it can be done. If true fans hated Jackman's casting, but came around fairly quickly, then surely, all things being equal, they would fairly quickly come around to a different skin tone.

9 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

After all the fuss about having white actors playing non white roles, it isn't worth the grief that would be generated to change his race, there are a lot of crazy, noisy people out there. 

I didn't realise how relatively poorly most X-men films did at the box office, with only DOFP taking really big money, that surprises me. 

 

I guess to those who think about these things simplistically (not accusing you of that) that sounds like a perfectly valid point. The question is, should the simplistic thinker drive what happens? On a purely profit driven analysis I suppose you have to figure out how much of the market thinks in those simplistic terms and would react with their wallets? It's a very vocal segment of the movie-going market, but is it an economically substantial segment?

10 hours ago, Heartofice said:

It doesn't mean you can't change the race of a character if there is someone who is totally perfect for the role, I mean it worked ok for Kingpin (although Daredevils version was a ton better). But my point is, if you are going to make such a radical change, you will need to do it for a good reason, and I'm not seeing many. 

My assertion is that it's not radical. It's only radical to change the race of a character if the character's race is an important element of the character. The only other way it's radical is because people think race is a separate and more significant physical trait than it should be.

For most characters in fictional stories race is not an essential element. In terms of race what's important socio-politically is representation and diversity and not the race of an individual character per se. Therefore there is good reason to introduce a broader colour palette into our movie and TV characters. So for me, the question isn't "why should they change the race?" but rather "why shouldn't they change the race?" If the only non-white heroic lead in X-men is Storm then that's not good, and they either need to elevate other non-white characters to leading roles, or they should change the race of one or more of the lead characters. It doesn't have to be Wolverine. I'd be fine with Denzel Washington or Morgan Freeman as Prof X, or ... quick IMDB search...Trevor Jackson as Cyclops. Actually changing Cyclops' race might be good, that way we could also get an interracial romance into play.

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.