• @li10
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    593 months ago

    Adaptations are usually cash grabs because Hollywood is allergic to taking any risk or making anything that isn’t middle of the road, bland, mass appeal bollocks

    “Lets take this unique ip, remove the unique bits and just have it be the same as every other shite movie we make”

    They only want the name value and a guaranteed audience, sick of it. Make something new FFS.

    Maybe I’ll get shit for this, but I really hate the whole “remake a movie but make the character black” purely because it’s lazy and makes it so you’re giving a black character a white story.

    Take some fucking risk and make original black characters that actually represent real people and their heritage, rather than just wanting to remake a movie but mark off the black character checkbox. It’s a disservice.

    • @A_Very_Big_Fan@lemmy.world
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      163 months ago

      Maybe I’ll get shit for this, but I really hate the whole “remake a movie but make the character black” purely because it’s lazy and makes it so you’re giving a black character a white story.

      I’m white af so I tend not to comment on stuff like this but I agree. It always makes me think, like wouldn’t it be more productive to make a new character?

      • @skyspydude1@lemmy.world
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        193 months ago

        No, because that’s risky, and lazy race/gender swaps allow them to play the “It’s not a bad product, you’re just racist/sexist” to both gaslight consumers, as well as explain to investors why they keep having massive critical and/or financial flops.

        “It’s not our fault (Large Studio Remake of a classic IP) lost millions of dollars, we made a great movie! It’s the consumer base being bigoted! Please keep giving us money.”

        • @Seasoned_Greetings@lemm.ee
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          103 months ago

          I was thinking this. I don’t think other cultures even want media where it’s an existing story but the races are swapped. They want original stories that connect to who they are and their experiences.

          One of the best recent examples I can think of is Everything Everywhere All At Once. That movie was steeped in Chinese culture, not just a story in new york in a bland city block apartment with Chinese faces.

          And it worked. The Chinese heritage and how it evolved into the American-Chinese hybrid that many first-generation Chinese families in the US live through was a central theme of the movie. The movie would not have been the same without it.

        • @Demdaru@lemmy.world
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          63 months ago

          Isn’t Marvel (or was it DC?) known for having it out for gingerheads? If character has ginger hair and white skin, there’s mighty chance they’ll switch to black actor in movie lol.

        • @FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today
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          3 months ago

          Speaking of gaslighting, anybody else really doubt the rotten tomato’s audience score on “The Little Mermaid”? That shit is wack.

    • Captain Aggravated
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      113 months ago

      Hollywood: Let’s make a movie based on a popular IP, so we can get some money from the folks who enjoy that popular IP.

      Also Hollywood: Let’s change popular IP to be like everything else we make.

      Soon: J. J. Abrams presents: Battletech, starring Gal Godot as Greyson Carlyle.

    • @SlopppyEngineer@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      And writing a proper and engaging story is not needed because the white-to-black change covered with a thick layer of CGI is good enough to justify the existence of the movie. A two week rush job to knock out a script should do it

      I don’t go to the cinema much anymore.

    • @mindbleach@sh.itjust.works
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      3 months ago

      If you think “not specifically a black story” is what makes anything “a white story,” you will be getting shit because that’s just bigotry.

      The role of ethnicity in most caucasian-cast roles is surely negligible, since casting them is the default, and most stories are not about that because it is the background radiation of American culture. Even the best example of a new alternate character, Miles Morales, parallels a dude who grows up lower-class in NYC. Suffice it to say there’s people like that who don’t look like Pete.

      Like, when Netflix adapts Death Note, there’s no specific reason to say Light should’ve been black… because the source material is Japanese. It takes place in Japan, all the characters are Japanese, and it is very directly about Japanese mythology, so setting it in Seattle immediately means they can do whatever they want.

      When they adapted Cowboy Bebop and actually made Jet Black black, there was no specific reason (name aside)… because he’s from fucking Ganymede. The only character who’s from Earth is Faye, who’s from Singapore, which no longer exists. Does it matter that they cast a Hispanic woman? Who exactly is done a disservice, by that change?

      Not every black actor playing a black character has to be “a black character.” They’re just people. Relax.