The Official Doctor Strange Movie Thread

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"But darn it, Stan, Jack, and Steve made Nick Fury and Johnny Storm white, the Ancient One an Asian male, and Sue Storm invisible! "

"That's the way we like it, and that's the way it's supposed to be!"

 

 

 

 

Actually, you summed it up rather succinctly.

 

Long time fans of these stories have been waiting to see silver screen realizations of the books for literally decades.

 

Not hack director's injections of their "vision'. Not studios being PC. If somebody wanted to do an original movie with female Asian (or Caucasian playing Asian) mentors, or African American or female superheroes, knock yourselves out. Of course that would take creativity.

 

If it's good many of the so called "purists" would love to see it and become fans. In the meantime leave the established characters and stories alone.

I've been waiting for these movies since 1965, for about 5 decades or so.

I'm not sure Favreau, Black, the Russo brothers, Branagh or Whedon could be considered hack directors. Your milage may vary on that, however.

I also wonder about the use of the term PC in these instances.

My understanding of political correctness is that it's a belief in the elimination of language and behavior that may offend a group of people, and it's a term usually used as a pejorative.

I don't see where a strict adherence to the race and gender of the established characters by Marvel Studios would have offended anyone.

It appears that any offense has come from diverting from this adherence to the race and gender of the established characters, not the other way around.

Perhaps the Politically Correct behavior for Marvel Studios would have been to leave all the central characters alone.

Is it a lock that she is being considered for the ancient one? I read something somewhere (don't know where) that implied she's being considered for death, which seems like a pretty good casting choice.

I just want Marvel Studios to get the best actor they can for each role.

Personally, I thought the guy they cast as Drax in Guardians of the Galaxy was a terrible actor. He may have looked the part, but his delivery left a lot to be desired.

If some people had their way, the Marvel Studios movies would be filled with professional wrestlers and the movies would play like Saturday afternoon at the WWE.

Yechh.

She was an amazing androgynous Gabriel in Constantine. I wouldn't be surprised if they cast her in a similar role for the Ancient One. Hope Clea has the purple cross-hatched tights and the silver shag so you purists can be happy about something!

this is exactly what I thought when i read this news, and likely why they picked her for it. She will do fine in the role, and I can understand when Marvel feels the need to create forced/fake diversity, that they do it with supporting roles (Nick Fury, etc).

I also understand how hardcore fans will always be bothered by any changes. But, I'll take them changing supporting characters any day, over ending up with a Black Lesbian Doctor Stephanie Strange.

------

The Poltically Correct brain washed sheep crowd are always going to keep bleeting away and trying to twist up characters and cheer when it happens. What Marvel and other similar companies need to do to promote real diversity in their media, is continue to make NEW and compelling characters. They have already shown at Marvel they can take little known characters and make them house hold names. There is no need in comics or movies, to retcon characters gay, gender swapped, or altering their skin color. Write good new characters who fit the group they want to represent, and put them front and center in movies and comic series. Quality over gimmicks all day, every day.

So making Nick Fury black twists the character?

As in "misshapen, distorted and deformed"?

Hmmm.

Diversity bad.

Purity good.

So making Nick Fury black twists the character?

As in "misshapen, distorted and deformed"?

 

Hmmm.

 

Diversity bad.

Purity good.

I think the Nick Fury casting discussion is interesting. Obviously, the original character went from WW2 hero to James Bond-esque super-spy to SHIELD director. I personally found the portrayal by Hasselhoff (white male) to be more insulting/laughable to comic readers than a lot of other possible casting choices.

The Ultimates shook up the Fury character and made him a more modern post-Cold War black ops kind of guy. He also was visually patterned after SLJ. So SLJ being cast in Avengers was a no brainer for the Ultimates-style team. Not the Nick Fury we all grew up with, but pretty cool nonetheless, and fairly true to the Ultimates depiction.

So, to me, RIP Don Blake, white Nick Fury, Asian Ancient One, Redwing, and robot body Arnim Zola,

Viva la Marvel movie extravaganza!

PS - If they had f'ed with the Vision, I would be singing a different tune.

So making Nick Fury black twists the character?

As in "misshapen, distorted and deformed"?

 

Hmmm.

 

Diversity bad.

Purity good.

 

I think the Nick Fury casting discussion is interesting. Obviously, the original character went from WW2 hero to James Bond-esque super-spy to SHIELD director. I personally found the portrayal by Hasselhoff (white male) to be more insulting/laughable to comic readers than a lot of other possible casting choices.

 

The Ultimates shook up the Fury character and made him a more modern post-Cold War black ops kind of guy. He also was visually patterned after SLJ. So SLJ being cast in Avengers was a no brainer for the Ultimates-style team. Not the Nick Fury we all grew up with, but pretty cool nonetheless, and fairly true to the Ultimates depiction.

 

So, to me, RIP Don Blake, white Nick Fury, Asian Ancient One, Redwing, and robot body Arnim Zola,

 

Viva la Marvel movie extravaganza!

 

PS - If they had f'ed with the Vision, I would be singing a different tune.

My objection in this discussion is when the phrase "political correctness" is used as a catch-all pejorative by people who want to convey that whatever it is that they disagree with is in some way unnecessary.

It is unto itself a judgment on the validity of a point-of-view.

The PC charge is often used to silence discussion by marginalizing differing opinions and to blithely dismiss concerns as frivolous.

In some matters, this misuse of the term can blur the boundaries between free speech and offensive speech.

----- gets off soapbox ------

As for creating new diverse characters instead of race or gender swapping established characters like Nick Fury or the Ancient One, I'd be fine with that if Marvel had shown it could create any good, new, long-lived characters in recent times.

As far as I can see, Marvel Studios (and Marvel Comics) success has been with characters created in the '60s and '70s.

If Marvel Studios wants to make movies about popular characters with a diversity to appeal to modern audiences, I see what they're currently doing as the most reasonable way to do it.

So making Nick Fury black twists the character?

Yes

As in "misshapen, distorted and deformed"?

No

Diversity bad.

Purity good.

laughable strawman said only by you and no one else.

My objection in this discussion is when the phrase "political correctness" is used as a catch-all pejorative by people who want to convey that whatever it is that they disagree with is in some way unnecessary.

luckily that didnt happen, and in this case it was used correctly by people identifying something wrong happening in our society.

It is unto itself a judgment on the validity of a point-of-view.

The PC charge is often used to silence discussion by marginalizing differing opinions and to blithely dismiss concerns as frivolous.

The bolded part is what Political Correctness does, yes.

In some matters, this misuse of the term can blur the boundaries between free speech and offensive speech.

Being polticially correct about the term polticially correct is funny Can't say I have seen that one before. Good thing in this case people were speaking about how PC-ness is used as a bludgeon to push agendas, and silence valid concerns, not what you are attempting to describe.

As for creating new diverse characters instead of race or gender swapping established characters like Nick Fury or the Ancient One, I'd be fine with that if Marvel had shown it could create any good, new, long-lived characters in recent times.

Your "fineness" is not relevant. Assuming that diversity is needed, something not necessarily shown to be true...making new quality characters and placing them center stage, is the CORRECT way to do it.

Making quality compelling characters is not easy, but certainly can be done by choosing quality writers, and giving them the freedom to be creative.

Potential failure is not a reason not to try, and certainly not a reason to justify retcon'ing existing characters.

 

I think the Nick Fury casting discussion is interesting. Obviously, the original character went from WW2 hero to James Bond-esque super-spy to SHIELD director. I personally found the portrayal by Hasselhoff (white male) to be more insulting/laughable to comic readers than a lot of other possible casting choices.

 

The Ultimates shook up the Fury character and made him a more modern post-Cold War black ops kind of guy. He also was visually patterned after SLJ. So SLJ being cast in Avengers was a no brainer for the Ultimates-style team. Not the Nick Fury we all grew up with, but pretty cool nonetheless, and fairly true to the Ultimates depiction.

 

So, to me, RIP Don Blake, white Nick Fury, Asian Ancient One, Redwing, and robot body Arnim Zola,

 

Viva la Marvel movie extravaganza!

 

PS - If they had f'ed with the Vision, I would be singing a different tune.

 

good post.

It is sad when certain elements have to be given up for the movie making process. Donald blake, and tapping a stick, just wasnt going to work for modern audiences, and a science based vision of Norse Mythology.

In the Nick Fury case, I think it was a necessary casting decision. An all white Avengers would have set the PC media/blogosphere howling with outrage. Considering the attention span of the media is about two weeks, waiting for years to build the shared universe off of well known characters before introducing a good strong black character like T'Challa wasn't going to happen.

Sam Jackson is great as the Ultimate universe Nick Fury, and they needed to have a well known, loved actor in that role. That's very different from what Fox has done with Fantastic Four which is stupid.

But, given that no one cared about Guardians before their move announcement, and now they are everywhere in the comics...

Given that Marvel got the rights to Angela from the Spawn comics, and now she is involved in big crossover events and might even end up in the movies....

Marvel is more than capable in the past almost ten years since their films started, to have taken lesser known characters and started building their profile, or create new ones, and done so with top tier writers, and work them into the movies as well. That's how they should be building diversity if they need to.

For instance, Rucka's run on Punisher (2011 i think), introduced essentially a "She-Punisher" who is also a latina. Absolutely outstanding character and story, would be huge if worked into a punisher movie, or netflix series. They didnt need to kill frank castle, or have him undergo a sex change operation to do it.

Just write good stories, and create good characters, like they always have...

Donald blake, and tapping a stick, just wasnt going to work for modern audiences

 

It didn't work when I was 10.

Blake needed to be jettisoned from the start.

My objection in this discussion is when the phrase "political correctness" is used as a catch-all pejorative by people who want to convey that whatever it is that they disagree with is in some way unnecessary.

luckily that didnt happen, and in this case it was used correctly by people identifying something wrong happening in our society.

 

 

It is unto itself a judgment on the validity of a point-of-view.

The PC charge is often used to silence discussion by marginalizing differing opinions and to blithely dismiss concerns as frivolous.

 

The bolded part is what Political Correctness does, yes.

 

In some matters, this misuse of the term can blur the boundaries between free speech and offensive speech.

 

Being polticially correct about the term polticially correct is funny Can't say I have seen that one before. Good thing in this case people were speaking about how PC-ness is used as a bludgeon to push agendas, and silence valid concerns, not what you are attempting to describe.

 

 

As for creating new diverse characters instead of race or gender swapping established characters like Nick Fury or the Ancient One, I'd be fine with that if Marvel had shown it could create any good, new, long-lived characters in recent times.

 

Your "fineness" is not relevant. Assuming that diversity is needed, something not necessarily shown to be true...making new quality characters and placing them center stage, is the CORRECT way to do it.

 

Making quality compelling characters is not easy, but certainly can be done by choosing quality writers, and giving them the freedom to be creative.

 

Potential failure is not a reason not to try, and certainly not a reason to justify retcon'ing existing characters.

not sure there is necessarily a CORRECT way to introduce diversity into a situation. I'm guessing there's a bit more subjectivity to it. I disagree with the notion that there's some type of PC agenda being pushed down anyone's throats, I think you're giving corporation executives way to much credit for having the stones to take a stand one way or another on diversity. Its about the dollar. I think its more of a 'Oh all the Avengers are white? Do you think we can get a few more viewers if we make Nick Fury black? Both due to his level of fame AND his race? Can we gain more viewers than those lost who will refuse to watch a movie without a white Nick Fury? Do you think we can gain more female viewers with a female Ancient One than those lost who otherwise would have watched but now won't?"

Its not about what people in the People's Gaypublic of Drugifornia (according to Jack on 30 Rock) want, or about the alleged sacred integrity of stories that were written by white people for white people in comic books 40-50 years ago. Its about surveys, sales data, market research, econometrics models, and very smart people with Phd's taking things into consideration. Its about creating news, and appearing young and fashionable, and creating an experience at the theatre. And yes, social issues play into all of these things, and they are important things to be discussed in media and in our daily lives. But its not Joss Whedon saying, "we need this part to be played by a woman. Its some jr researcher saying "we want to tap as much of the Asian market as possible, hey Joss, can we find a part for an Asian but not be sooooo obvious about catering directly to China (see Transformers)? Boom. Helen Cho."

Is that better? I don't know. But I would bet that it has a lot more to do with the social construction of the targeted market than it does with the agenda of people in power. There's a 'tail wagging the dog' metaphor in here somewhere, but I'll pass on it since I never use it right. My point is, I don't think its so much about diversity for the sake about being politically correct, its just about grabbing more $$ from more markets.

It might be just me but I always thought the Vision sucked.

Donald blake, and tapping a stick, just wasnt going to work for modern audiences

 

 

It didn't work when I was 10.

 

Blake needed to be jettisoned from the start.

It might be just me but I always thought the Vision sucked.

 

agreed, and never liked S.W. and him as a couple...

My point is, I don't think its so much about diversity for the sake about being politically correct, its just about grabbing more $$ from more markets.

I agree that money is always the driver, and of course the most important deciding factor in everything. But that is the reason why a small vocal minority of PC witch hunters, can force billion dollar corporations to bow down. It is much easier to appease and recite the groupthink, then to just roll with common sense.

Really I think even the money arguement is much less about getting more, as opposed to losing any, aka bad P.R. Same reason company's make decisions out of fear of lawsuits, they want to be able to deliver there product without something extraneous (like outraged hipster trendies) lowering their profits.

I'll take retcon'ned supporting characters all day, if it keeps the PC crybabies quiet. It's when they retcon main characters (FF4 being the only example I can think of), where you have gone to far. A character's race, gender, and sexual preference are part of who they are, even when its not actively part of their panel to panel dialogue.

A anglo-saxon white black panther is obviously stupid, but making a straight character gay, or a white character black, or a male character female, can be just as profoundly dumb.

My point is, I don't think its so much about diversity for the sake about being politically correct, its just about grabbing more $$ from more markets.

 

I agree that money is always the driver, and of course the most important deciding factor in everything. But that is the reason why a small vocal minority of PC witch hunters, can force billion dollar corporations to bow down. It is much easier to appease and recite the groupthink, then to just roll with common sense.

 

Really I think even the money arguement is much less about getting more, as opposed to losing any, aka bad P.R. Same reason company's make decisions out of fear of lawsuits, they want to be able to deliver there product without something extraneous (like outraged hipster trendies) lowering their profits.

 

I'll take retcon'ned supporting characters all day, if it keeps the PC crybabies quiet. It's when they retcon main characters (FF4 being the only example I can think of), where you have gone to far. A character's race, gender, and sexual preference are part of who they are, even when its not actively part of their panel to panel dialogue.

 

A anglo-saxon white black panther is obviously stupid, but making a straight character gay, or a white character black, or a male character female, can be just as profoundly dumb.

I agree that its not ideal to kneel to the 'PC Police', I just don't believe that its as much of a factor in terms of the decision making by the companies.

Start with FF, which appears to be the most obvious situation where there was a very obvious and controversial change.

I don't believe that there were a lot of movie execs who were thinking "Oh man, everyone's going to think we're racists if we don't add a black dude to the main cast, we're scared". I think it went more like "hmm...if we cast Michael B. Jordan, we get an up and coming critically acclaimed young actor who has some recognition (and superhero movie experience) but still fairly cheap, and we'll probably get a nice bonus chunk of the African-American audience we might not have otherwise have gotten. And we get a built in talking point and extra media pub from the controversy.

The market and its appetite (or perceived appetite) for diversity is the driving force for these changes. If they didn't think it would be viable or that it would hurt revenues, they wouldn't do it. Of course, not every move or movie works the way the execs thought they would, but I have a difficult time thinking Fox (of Fox News fame) put pressure on the director to change the race of Human Torch. Although I could see a situation where some Ari Gold type character was putting pressure on an exec to cast Michael B Jordan in a superhero movie (cannon be damned!), but that's an entirely different issue.

It might be just me but I always thought the Vision sucked.

 

I once misattributed this sentiment to fingh, a fellow Vision enthusiast. He was fit to be tied.

My point is, I don't think its so much about diversity for the sake about being politically correct, its just about grabbing more $$ from more markets.

 

I agree that money is always the driver, and of course the most important deciding factor in everything. But that is the reason why a small vocal minority of PC witch hunters, can force billion dollar corporations to bow down. It is much easier to appease and recite the groupthink, then to just roll with common sense.

 

Really I think even the money arguement is much less about getting more, as opposed to losing any, aka bad P.R. Same reason company's make decisions out of fear of lawsuits, they want to be able to deliver there product without something extraneous (like outraged hipster trendies) lowering their profits.

 

I'll take retcon'ned supporting characters all day, if it keeps the PC crybabies quiet. It's when they retcon main characters (FF4 being the only example I can think of), where you have gone to far. A character's race, gender, and sexual preference are part of who they are, even when its not actively part of their panel to panel dialogue.

 

A anglo-saxon white black panther is obviously stupid, but making a straight character gay, or a white character black, or a male character female, can be just as profoundly dumb.

 

I agree that its not ideal to kneel to the 'PC Police', I just don't believe that its as much of a factor in terms of the decision making by the companies.

 

Start with FF, which appears to be the most obvious situation where there was a very obvious and controversial change.

 

I don't believe that there were a lot of movie execs who were thinking "Oh man, everyone's going to think we're racists if we don't add a black dude to the main cast, we're scared". I think it went more like "hmm...if we cast Michael B. Jordan, we get an up and coming critically acclaimed young actor who has some recognition (and superhero movie experience) but still fairly cheap, and we'll probably get a nice bonus chunk of the African-American audience we might not have otherwise have gotten. And we get a built in talking point and extra media pub from the controversy.

 

The market and its appetite (or perceived appetite) for diversity is the driving force for these changes. If they didn't think it would be viable or that it would hurt revenues, they wouldn't do it. Of course, not every move or movie works the way the execs thought they would, but I have a difficult time thinking Fox (of Fox News fame) put pressure on the director to change the race of Human Torch. Although I could see a situation where some Ari Gold type character was putting pressure on an exec to cast Michael B Jordan in a superhero movie (cannon be damned!), but that's an entirely different issue.

:winnah:

It's ludicrously paranoid to think that there's a "vocal minority of PC witch hunters" who are somehow influencing Marvel's movie-casting decisions.

It might be just me but I always thought the Vision sucked.

 

 

I once misattributed this sentiment to fingh, a fellow Vision enthusiast. He was fit to be tied.

Oh, I know he loves the Viz.

Vision sucks.