Thor Trailer released

[Freefall]

"Legitimate" hate group? How the fuck does that work?

[Molyneux]

"Legitimate" hate group? How the fuck does that work?

I think they mean that they don't engage (at least openly) in illegal activities. Maybe.

I'm torn on this, really - I didn't like the "racebending" in Avatar, though that was far from my only reason to dislike the film, but I don't find myself having nearly so much of a negative gut reaction to Thor's casting. Hypocrisy is never a fun thing to discover in oneself.

[aieeegrunt]

Racebending = racism, it's just that simple. I didn't hit the link posted earlier in case it went to some white supremacist rant about Heimdall, would I be correct in that assumption?

Edit: that wasn't a dig at the previous poster, upon reflection I thought it might look that way, my apologies.

[Jim Raynor]

"Legitimate" hate group? How the fuck does that work?

I think they mean that they don't engage (at least openly) in illegal activities. Maybe.

I'm torn on this, really - I didn't like the "racebending" in Avatar, though that was far from my only reason to dislike the film, but I don't find myself having nearly so much of a negative gut reaction to Thor's casting. Hypocrisy is never a fun thing to discover in oneself.

I don't think you're a hypocrite. As I went over in my earlier post, there are more reasons to be a lot more offended at Asian actors being shut out from other movies.

[Batman]

Racebending = racism, it's just that simple.

Err-how so? If anything the people complaining about racebending are the racist ones.
Personally, I couldn't care less. Kingpin was black in Daredevil and guess what? It made no difference whatsoever as Kingpin's ethnicity is irrelevant.
This goes doubly for Asgardians who aren't even human.

Skin colour might be an issue for characters where that actually affects how he she or it is treated in-universe (black characters vs white supremacists, Jews vs Neonazis etc) but other than that, who cares?

Would I be happy with a black me, an asian Clark, a mexican Pete? Inevitably NOT. But that's because of emotional inertia (me, Clark and Pete have been caucasian since before I was born-and yes, I do note the inherent contradiction, thank you), not because there's anything wrong with it.

[General Zod]

Racebending = racism, it's just that simple. I didn't hit the link posted earlier in case it went to some white supremacist rant about Heimdall, would I be correct in that assumption?

Edit: that wasn't a dig at the previous poster, upon reflection I thought it might look that way, my apologies.

So it was racism when they cast the Kingpin as a black guy in Daredevil?

Edit: And I see someone else already covered the Kingpin example. Oh well.

[General Zod]

Would I be happy with a black me, an asian Clark, a mexican Pete? Inevitably NOT. But that's because of emotional inertia (me, Clark and Pete have been caucasian since before I was born-and yes, I do note the inherent contradiction, thank you), not because there's anything wrong with it.

Actually. There is an Indian version of Spiderman.

[Batman]

Actually. There is an Indian version of Spiderman.

Apparently so.

[mr friendly guy]

"Legitimate" hate group? How the fuck does that work?

I think they mean that they don't engage (at least openly) in illegal activities. Maybe.

I'm torn on this, really - I didn't like the "racebending" in Avatar, though that was far from my only reason to dislike the film, but I don't find myself having nearly so much of a negative gut reaction to Thor's casting. Hypocrisy is never a fun thing to discover in oneself.

You can look at things in 3 broad categories.

1. Equal opportunity in casting
2. Suspension of disbelief (eg a short white female playing the lead role in a story about Michael Jordan )
3. Loyalty to the source material (especially irritating if you are one of these "purists").

If the industry as a rule cast actors interchangeable irregardless of ethnicity (based on acting ability), so minority actors had an equal chance as playing a white character and vice versa (taking into account a studio's ability to hire foreign actors and the ethnic mix of the country), then I would say that movies like the Last Airbender suffered from points 2 & 3, but as a whole the industry adhered to point one.

If the industry tried to case actors to match the ethnicities of characters or at least look like how the characters are supposed to look like, eg say a Japanese actor to play Genghis Khan (even though he was a Mongol)*, a British actor to play a Frenchman (Patrick Stewart in ST : TNG) or a French actor to play a British guy (Christopher Lambert in Highlander) etc; then this scenario would adhere to points 2 & 3 and also points 1 (it just follows a different rule from the first scenario).

Realistically, neither of those scenarios occur. We see characters that are ethnic minorities being played by whites, but the reverse does not occur in the same magnitude. And that is the difference. The Last Airbender had the protagonists who are the major characters up and including the LEAD role played by whites when their in universe characters are Asian, while Thor (Heimdall), Iron Man (Nick Furey), Smallville (Pete Ross) did not have the lead white character played by a minority actor even as other less important roles were filled by minority actors. So from the point of view of equal opportunity, the industry as a whole is not doing it, and at least in regards to Thor it helps balance things out a little, but not completely because Heimdall is not a major character. People see a film titled "Thor" to watch the adventure of our favourite thunder god, not to watch the Asgardian who guards the Rainbow Bridge. People see the Last Airbender to see the adventures of ... The Last Airbender.

In regards to points 2 and 3, the Thor film clearly does affect SoD and loyalty to the source material. However you would expect it to do it to a lesser extent than the Last Airbender, because one would expect Heimdall to get less screen time because he is a minor character.

So to reiterate my views,
i) the casting of a black actor to play Heimdall clearly affects SoD and loyalty to the source material, just like how casting a white kid to play Aang does the same.
ii) In the Thor case it affects it less because Heimdall is a minor character, ie he will get less screen time.

To add to it, I have watched and enjoyed films / shows where the actor is clearly not of the ethnicity of the character without stretching SoD or the source material too much because of various reasons like a) they had minor parts (eg Christopher Lambert as an Asian thundergod in Mortal Kombat) and b) decent make up (David Carradine in Kung Fu). However...

iii) From the point of view of equal opportunity, casting a black actor to play Heimdall is only a small stone in trying to balance out the blatant propensity to cast white actors. This was especially disappointing in the Last Airbender since in universe an Asian actor would have SoD and loyalty to the source material in its favour. This is disappointing even in shows I enjoyed like the aforementioned Kung Fu. I even admitted in a thread that the Last Airbender would most probably be good if Shymalaman kept loyal to the plot from the cartoon, even though I disliked the casting decisions and felt it failed points 1 & 2. Of course it turned out from critics the movie sucked because Shymalaman was an idiot, but thats another story.

I could expect say a white actor to play an Asian role, say in the 1960s during Kung Fu with David Carradine, however I expected better in this day and age especially when some Asian films have become popular, and Asian actors of renown aren't exactly unknown (see Thanas providing examples in the Mickey Rourke to play Genghis Khan thread). If they demographics were reverse, and hypothetically black actors were playing white characters a lot and the reverse was not happening I would have to argue that maybe white actors should get more roles (like play white characters) even if I can enjoy the movie itself, because whether a movie is good or not, has no bearing on whether the casting decisions were made irregardless of race and only on ability as an actor. And yes, SoD does affect my ability to enjoy a movie because I would be thinking WTF everytime I see an actor who did not look anywhere like how the character is supposed to look, except maybe they are both humanoid in shape. Obviously less so for minor characters for the aforementioned reasons.

* I used the example of a Japanese actor playing Genghis Khan, because the actor who plays Hogan in the Thor movie is Japanese and also played the Mongol Khan in a historical biopic.

[aieeegrunt]

Racebending = racism, it's just that simple.

Err-how so? If anything the people complaining about racebending are the racist ones.
Personally, I couldn't care less. Kingpin was black in Daredevil and guess what? It made no difference whatsoever as Kingpin's ethnicity is irrelevant.
This goes doubly for Asgardians who aren't even human.

Skin colour might be an issue for characters where that actually affects how he she or it is treated in-universe (black characters vs white supremacists, Jews vs Neonazis etc) but other than that, who cares?

Would I be happy with a black me, an asian Clark, a mexican Pete? Inevitably NOT. But that's because of emotional inertia (me, Clark and Pete have been caucasian since before I was born-and yes, I do note the inherent contradiction, thank you), not because there's anything wrong with it.

Sorry that was an epic communication fail on my part, it's the bitching about an actor not be the "correct" race that I think is incredibly rascist. The bitching about Aang in Airbender, Mickey Rourke being cast as Ghengis, shit like that.

[Havok]

Who gives a fuck about what some idiot rednecks think. It's not even worth discussing.

FUCKING THOR!!! FUCKING FINALLY!!!!

I've been looking forward to this even more than I was looking forward to Iron Man or The Dark Knight.
My last memories of Thor in live action were, IIRC, was some retarded guest appearance on the Hulk TV show... or maybe it was a lame Captain America movie.

This looks fucking boss and an excellent addition to the growing Marvel created movie-verse. They need to get the rest of their rights back.

P.S. Mjolnir has been depicted in so many different sizes in the comics that it is equally useless arguing about what is an accurate depiction as it is about what idiot rednecks think.

[Tsyroc]

Who gives a fuck about what some idiot rednecks think. It's not even worth discussing.

FUCKING THOR!!! FUCKING FINALLY!!!!

I've been looking forward to this even more than I was looking forward to Iron Man or The Dark Knight.
My last memories of Thor in live action were, IIRC, was some retarded guest appearance on the Hulk TV show... or maybe it was a lame Captain America movie.

Thor was a beer swilling loud mouth in one of the Hulk TV Movies. He screamed "Odin" a lot. In fact I think Don Blake had to yell "Odin" to transform into Thor. Pretty much a long haired weight lifter with a hammer.

I also saw the lousy version of Daredevil they had in another of the Hulk TV movies.

[Elheru Aran]

Was that yellow-pajamas Daredevil? I always thought that one was kinda hilarious...

[Tsyroc]

Was that yellow-pajamas Daredevil? I always thought that one was kinda hilarious...

IIRC he just had a sort of black somewhat ninja styled outfit.

[SCRawl]

Yeah, that was full of suck.

[Ted C]

Generally concurred. I would have liked to see Thor wearing the winged helmet, if only to agree that 'yes, okay, you're right, that looks patently silly on the silver screen', and I'd personally have liked for Mjolnir to have a longer handle but otherwise none too shabby.

According to Norse mythology, the handle of Mjolnir actually is shorter than it should be due to interference by Loki in the manufacturing process.

[Molyneux]

*snip video*

Yeah, that was full of suck.

Wow, that's...pretty rough-looking, even taking the cruddy quality of the video into account.
At least Thor will pretty much have to be an improvement.

[Havok]

Man that was so awesome when I was a kid.

Surprisingly, Thor's design there is pretty cool.