[TekoMuto]

Stkbayfield, on May 26 2010, 08:14 AM, said:

That IS what people are upset about. Ignore Airbender for a moment. The article linked at the top showed that a lot of the Muslim community happened to be very pleased with Prince of Persia as a series as it was able to highlight some of the positive aspects of their culture during a historic period, and during a time when all the world ever hears is negative and horrible things about the middle east, having a mainstream movie which treats it's past culture with some respect would actually be a nice thing.

I'd like to say Disney did a 80% decent job at being respectful during Aladdin, sparring of course the lyrics to Arabian Nights, so it's not beyond them.

Of course, much like myself, the bloggers who are upset have not seen the movie. For all we know, Donnie Darko will do a great job.

*draws muhammad*

butthurt muslims need to stop being so butthurt

(saying this I'm talking about the butthurt muslims whom are having butthurt about this and I'm not saying all muslims have butthurt. Thanks to the butthurt muslims I had to just say all that now, also so that more muslims don't get butthurt)

[Stkbayfield]

Did you read the article?

It's not "butthurt", it's just they were impressed by the videogame and it's consideration towards it's environment. They just feel that Disney is not showing the same respect.

I only care, because the whole "all muslims are extremists" mentality is really starting to become prevailant and it's REALLY starting to make me butthurt, so when I happen to see something nice sane and rational, I'd like people to at least have the dignity to respect it on it's own merits.

That said, I don't know the blogger in the article, he doesn't know us, he wont read these comments. So why the heck should I say anything *shrug*

[sentinel28a]

Stkbayfield, on May 25 2010, 06:14 PM, said:

That IS what people are upset about. Ignore Airbender for a moment. The article linked at the top showed that a lot of the Muslim community happened to be very pleased with Prince of Persia as a series as it was able to highlight some of the positive aspects of their culture during a historic period, and during a time when all the world ever hears is negative and horrible things about the middle east, having a mainstream movie which treats it's past culture with some respect would actually be a nice thing.

I'd like to say Disney did a 80% decent job at being respectful during Aladdin, sparring of course the lyrics to Arabian Nights, so it's not beyond them.

Of course, much like myself, the bloggers who are upset have not seen the movie. For all we know, Donnie Darko will do a great job.

It's a tempest in a teapot in my opinion. Casting unknown actors in a part only works if it's a) an established franchise that people will go see anyway (Spiderman), you're not particularly interested if the movie flops or not (The Mummy), and/or c) you're short of cash and need to save money somehow (Star Wars). Obviously Disney cast Jake Gyllenhaal because people know him and say, "Oh, yeah, he's good--this'll be a good movie." (Kind of like my reaction when I heard that Russell Crowe is playing Robin Hood. I'll probably see it even though I know Hollywood ran down history, backed up over it, and peed on the corpse, 'cause I like watching Russell Crowe kill people.)

Contrary to popular belief, I don't think Disney executives got up one morning and said, "Hey! Let's offend Muslims by casting a white dude as a Persian." They probably took one look at the adaptation of a video game and said, "This crap might not sell unless we put some guy in that has a reputation as an okay actor and is buff enough that teenage girls will drool over him. Do we have any Middle Eastern actors that anyone's ever heard of? Do we have any Iranian actors? No? Okay, bring in Jake."

People need to quit getting so butthurt about trivial things. This isn't as bad as casting John Wayne as a Mongol. (Which happened.)

Ben Da Mad Irishman
"It was bad"

[Stkbayfield]

Yup, I remember the John Wayne one. This is no way near as bad as that.

Then you have Sean Connery, than man who has never played a Scotsman in his life. Russian sub commander, Spainard immortal trained in Japan, Irish cop in Chicago, King of England... but never a Scotsman.

[Voxx]

Stkbayfield, on May 25 2010, 06:44 PM, said:

Yup, I remember the John Wayne one. This is no way near as bad as that.

Then you have Sean Connery, than man who has never played a Scotsman in his life. Russian sub commander, Spainard immortal trained in Japan, Irish cop in Chicago, King of England... but never a Scotsman.

Not to mention DUN DUN DUN Steven Seagal who is an Irish American Jew pretending to be god knows what lol

[sentinel28a]

Ska_Toranpetta, on May 25 2010, 11:46 PM, said:

Not to mention DUN DUN DUN Steven Seagal who is an Irish American Jew pretending to be god knows what lol

Seagal's Buddhist, and I thought he was Italian-American. Though I think he's pretending to be a cop now.

Ben Da Mad Irishman
"Hard to keep track"

[Voxx]

sentinel28a, on May 25 2010, 09:43 PM, said:

Seagal's Buddhist, and I thought he was Italian-American. Though I think he's pretending to be a cop now.

Ben Da Mad Irishman
"Hard to keep track"

Lol my thoughts exactly...

[Keiichi-chan]

Quote

a) an established franchise that people will go see anyway (Spiderman)

tobey was hardly an unknown when spider-man was released, though. he was just more well-known for
indie films. dunst was on her way to being a huge hollywood actress from what i remember.
i think gyllenhaall was partially cast because prince of persia isn't even a mainstream game series.
they sort of need a bigger actor to put people in the seats. that still doesn't make it okay or something
that's best as it alienates the already established fans who're used to a particular type of prince.

Quote

and is buff enough that teenage girls will drool over him.

..because there aren't any buff persians in the entire world?

i'm almost positive the executives didn't consider casting a persian actor. is it because there isn't a well-known actor who happens to be persian in america? possibly. but, why isn't there? persians are genetically predisposed to
poor acting? nope, it's because hollywood doesn't allow a persian actor to get roles or gain notoriety. maybe
it isn't racism in this specific case, and they really need a well-known actor to carry the film based on a not-so-well-know
franchise. but the whole reason there isn't a well-known actor who also happens to be persian in
the first place is because of the racism that already exists as a part of film casting in hollywood.

Quote

People need to quit getting so butthurt about trivial things. This isn't as bad as casting John Wayne as a Mongol. (Which happened.)

because expecting things to have improved a lot by now is a totally ridiculous notion, right?

[sentinel28a]

Nope. Just pointing out that Hollywood has made much worse castings in their time than Gyllenhaal playing a Persian in a movie based upon a frickin' game. It's like being pissed off at 300, because they showed that Spartans wearing Speedos and a cape rather than being heavily armored, or that Xerxes looked more like the actor that played Leonidas and not like a fugitive from Hellsing. 300 is based on a comic book. Prince of Persia is based on a game.

Now if this was supposed to be a historically accurate movie about Persia in the early Middle Ages, fine--I can see the complaint. But this is a movie about a time-changing dagger!

Next complaint: anime characters don't look Japanese.

Ben Da Mad Irishman
"And they sound vaguely Canadian"

[Matt PNiewski]

sentinel28a, on May 26 2010, 01:36 AM, said:

Next complaint: anime characters don't look Japanese.

Remember this:

http://www.myspace.com/leevsgaara

One of the few things the director said that I actually stand behind was "If it wasn't from Japan, nobody would expect these characters to be Asian". Yeah, it came up, hiring a bunch of white people. I stand by "Hire the best actor, worry about the appearance later" unless it is IMPERATIVE a character be a certain ethnicity. Can't make a movie about Martin Luther King without a black man, unless we have Robert Downey Jr.

By the way, anyone know what happened to this? I mean, I hate Naruto, and I might have fought constantly with the director but I worked my butt off and want to see SOMETHING come of it

[sentinel28a]

Matt PNiewski, on May 26 2010, 08:55 PM, said:

Remember this:

http://www.myspace.com/leevsgaara

One of the few things the director said that I actually stand behind was "If it wasn't from Japan, nobody would expect these characters to be Asian". Yeah, it came up, hiring a bunch of white people. I stand by "Hire the best actor, worry about the appearance later" unless it is IMPERATIVE a character be a certain ethnicity. Can't make a movie about Martin Luther King without a black man, unless we have Robert Downey Jr.

By the way, anyone know what happened to this? I mean, I hate Naruto, and I might have fought constantly with the director but I worked my butt off and want to see SOMETHING come of it

Right. My problem with Dragonball wasn't that Goku didn't look Asian, but that the movie sucked so hard. They could've cast Ken Watanabe as Goku and it still would've been the biggest disaster to come out of California since the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906.

Ben Da Mad Irishman
"And Pearl Harbor...the movie, not the attack"

[Keiichi-chan]

Quote

It's like being pissed off at 300, because they showed that Spartans wearing Speedos and a cape rather than being heavily armored, or that Xerxes looked more like the actor that played Leonidas and not like a fugitive from Hellsing. 300 is based on a comic book. Prince of Persia is based on a game.

some people were annoyed by the dorky, femme bikini-things the spartans wore in 300.
but, i think it's less about people getting hot over accuracy, and more about people get worked up
over the inherent racism in hollywood. no one expects over-the-top hollywood films to be totally accurate, but
in a country like america, with all its grand ideals, you do expect some diversity and fairness.

people just want to see their race get their chance to be represented in a positive way, because people are
stupid and easily influenced by the media and movies like this. when pearl harbor debuted, there was a crop
of domestic attacks on japanese-americans homes immediately. the same happened with black hawk down.
if an ethnicity is shown as being diverse or even positive as opposed to villainous and simplistic, the
average person tends to treat them as such. people react negatively because most people let tv and films do
their thinking for them. lack of diversity in the media creates a lack of understanding in society.
vilifying middle easterners in films, just creates negative attitudes in a society where people get most of their
information about life and the world from hollywood films and tv shows.

with avatar, i think, since they're cartoons, people were less upset that the characters weren't cast ALL ASIAN or
whatever, and more disappointed that characters with obviously non-aryan features were all replaced with actors
with blue eyes, blond hair, pale-skinned, etc. no amount of tanning will make them anywhere nearly brown
enough to actually resemble the characters they're portraying and certain characters, like zuko, look especially
asian. it's not that a few characters will be played by ethnic mismatches, ALL the characters are. and by
lesser-known actors who don't even resemble them. not that i care the least about either film. i can totally
understand why so many fans feel put-off and upset about it, though.

[sentinel28a]

when pearl harbor debuted, there was a crop
of domestic attacks on japanese-americans homes immediately. the same happened with black hawk down.

Got some evidence of this? This is the first I've heard of it.

I don't think that people are so stupid as to just arbitrarily attack whatever they see in the movie as being bad guys. I just watched Desperado, and I'm not suddenly in the mood to kill Mexicans.

Ben Da Mad Irishman
"I am salivating over Selma Hayek"

[Keiichi-chan]

sentinel28a, on May 26 2010, 07:23 PM, said:

when pearl harbor debuted, there was a crop
of domestic attacks on japanese-americans homes immediately. the same happened with black hawk down.

Got some evidence of this? This is the first I've heard of it.

I don't think that people are so stupid as to just arbitrarily attack whatever they see in the movie as being bad guys. I just watched Desperado, and I'm not suddenly in the mood to kill Mexicans.

Ben Da Mad Irishman
"I am salivating over Selma Hayek"

i'll skim youtube now, but i remember seeing news reports the weekend the movie debuted about broken windows and
angry death threats in chicago communities towards japanese and asian-americans around the time.
i think you're just 'way above average intelligence' and forgetting how dumb and emotional people can get.
i remember being at parties as far as a almost a year after 9-11 and occasionally someone would come up to
me going on and on about how they were planning to toss a molotov cocktail through the window of the
middle eastern person who lives on their block and things like that.

i watched black hawk down with friends, and remember my friend's girlfriend going on and on about how haitians
were all 'animals' purely based on what's shown in the film. i'm sure plenty of people take films like gladiator and 300
as a sort of 'period piece'. the average person doesn't research or question anything, they just 'saw it in
a movie'. just because everyone doesn't react that way, doesn't mean plenty of people don't. we definitely
don't live in a society where most people think, 'well, this is just entertainment, i'll decide for myself.'
if people are shown a group as 'the bad guy' enough, they don't really question it. it seems understandable that
persians would want a middle eastern-themed movie to help refute that sort of sentiment.

[sentinel28a]

Keiichi-chan, on May 27 2010, 01:43 AM, said:

i watched black hawk down with friends, and remember my friend's girlfriend going on and on about how haitians
were all 'animals' purely based on what's shown in the film. i'm sure plenty of people take films like gladiator and 300
as a sort of 'period piece'. the average person doesn't research or question anything, they just 'saw it in
a movie'. just because everyone doesn't react that way, doesn't mean plenty of people don't. we definitely
don't live in a society where most people think, 'well, this is just entertainment, i'll decide for myself.'
if people are shown a group as 'the bad guy' enough, they don't really question it. it seems understandable that
persians would want a middle eastern-themed movie to help refute that sort of sentiment.

Since the Iranians hate our guts because we share the same planet as they do--well, the Iranian leadership, anyway--Prince of Persia isn't going to help that, unless said Prince of Persia is shown killing Jewish people with his dagger or going back in time to help Hitler win the war. Then they might like it.

And your friend's g/f really wasn't paying attention to the movie...considering Black Hawk Down takes place in Somalia.

Ben Da Mad Irishman
"But some people fail at geography"

[Matt PNiewski]

In defense of people who were offended by 300, they are right. It was meant as an Anti Iranian Anti Arab propaganda piece from that nutjob Frank Miller. Zack Snyder, however, claimed he had no political motivations. So lets put ALL the blame on Frank Miller. And never read his comics again.

Not because I find the material so offensive, but because I'm looking for an excuse to get people to never read his terrible comics ever again.

To the point, 300 was a political allegory. One I found quite disgusting, considering those standing up for "Freedom and Democracy" where the ones throwing their kids to the wolves and hoping they survived, and pretty much killing off all the weak and imperfect. But I like being able to say Frank Miller is a stupid primitive ape unworthy of breathing the same oxygen I do, so I kinda have to let him say what he wants.

We really can't go on about what movies "Should and shouldn't show" if we want to at least pretend to have freedom of speech in this country. People are going to get offended. Hell, "How to Train Your Dragon" caused some Parents to cry out in Rage.

I say, let them get pissy and angry. The recent South Park Episode was pulled not because of a large group, but pretty much two people, and that's disgusting. We can't let 'What if it offends people' stop us.

[XenoBlade]

You know what I find funny? People never complain about an all "minority" cast. And have the white people who ARE in it, have really unnatural and unrealistic roles.

Let's talk about Death at a Funeral. This was a british comedy released a few years back. They rereleased this year with an all black cast, and a white guy with the awkward role. Yet no one wants to complain about that. It's the same with alot of things in life. People love to complain about things, but when it comes around on them, then no words are said.

[Matt PNiewski]

XenoBlade, on May 27 2010, 11:32 AM, said:

You know what I find funny? People never complain about an all "minority" cast. And have the white people who ARE in it, have really unnatural and unrealistic roles.

Let's talk about Death at a Funeral. This was a british comedy released a few years back. They rereleased this year with an all black cast, and a white guy with the awkward role. Yet no one wants to complain about that. It's the same with alot of things in life. People love to complain about things, but when it comes around on them, then no words are said.

They cast the awkward white guy the same reason most movies full of white people cast the silly black man- to keep people from complaining too much about having all one color in the cast.

And PLENTY of people bitched about this remake, because it's the same movie but with Black people. Thing is, according to people who saw the movie and the original, both are "Pretty alright".

[Keiichi-chan]

XenoBlade, on May 27 2010, 11:32 AM, said:

You know what I find funny? People never complain about an all "minority" cast. And have the white people who ARE in it, have really unnatural and unrealistic roles.

Let's talk about Death at a Funeral. This was a british comedy released a few years back. They rereleased this year with an all black cast, and a white guy with the awkward role. Yet no one wants to complain about that. It's the same with alot of things in life. People love to complain about things, but when it comes around on them, then no words are said.

people don't pay attention to low budget crapfest, yeah.
were the american death at a funeral remake a big budget thing, more people would care.
were it a film most americans were familiar with, yeah, there would have been massive
complaining. people flipped out when halle berry played catwoman, which is understandable for several
reasons.

[Stkbayfield]

I've always complained about the token white guy, even since I was too young to understand the hypocrisy of the character. The first one I ever noticed was the store owner in Kenan and Kel, who was just a walk over idiot at the best of times.

So people do notice these things, but rarely get UPSET about it, because... well, why get upset, ya know?

[Sir Viver]

Ska_Toranpetta, on May 23 2010, 01:58 PM, said:

those movies are going to blooow so hardcore it is not even funny. (...) My first question though is WHY!?!?!? Why Disney!? Why would Disney make that game into a movie!? -___-

Didn't everyone think the same thing about Pirates of the Caribbean at first, though?

This post has been edited by Sir Viver: 27 May 2010 - 10:22 PM

[sentinel28a]

Keiichi-chan, on May 28 2010, 03:05 AM, said:

people don't pay attention to low budget crapfest, yeah.
were the american death at a funeral remake a big budget thing, more people would care.
were it a film most americans were familiar with, yeah, there would have been massive
complaining. people flipped out when halle berry played catwoman, which is understandable for several
reasons.

Halle Berry pretty much sucks as an actress comes to mind. That and nobody could've saved Catwoman, black or white.

Ben Da Mad Irishman
"Not even Julie Newmar"

[Lina]

You do realize, Dastan isn't really Persian right?

And the movie is actually really really good. Just see the movie and then you can say how bad it is, if you still feel that way after you see it.

[Matt PNiewski]

Stkbayfield, on May 27 2010, 10:16 PM, said:

I've always complained about the token white guy, even since I was too young to understand the hypocrisy of the character. The first one I ever noticed was the store owner in Kenan and Kel, who was just a walk over idiot at the best of times.

So people do notice these things, but rarely get UPSET about it, because... well, why get upset, ya know?

But you don't complain about the Token blacks. If you get offended by that, why not rage at the completely racist Anthony Anderson role in "Transformers" ?


The thing that makes me mad in BOTH is the fact that this is cliche, bad writing.

[Sir Viver]

My two cents on the Prince of Persia nitpicking:

First off, let me say that a lot of the best actors made their debut as no-names. Michael Clark Duncan made his name with The Green Mile (a movie advertised mainly for having Tom Hanks), Haley Joel Osment made it big with The Sixth Sense (a movie primarily starring Bruce Willis) and on the note of foreign performers, the young actors/actress from Slumdog Millionaire were excellent. That being said, would you prefer they just picked some random Persian actor who, hypothetically, couldn't act? Or, pick a skilled actor, regardless of nationality? I see it this way: Talent first, and if their nationality matches up, then woohoo, that's a bonus. On a similar note, people didn't seem to have a problem with Samuel L. Jackson playing Nick Fury in Iron Man, despite the fact that NICK FURY IS WHITE. Finally, given the plot of the movie, it's debatable as to whether or not Dastan is actuall supposed to be Persian in the first place.

And with that out of the way, here's the fun part: Trying to apply logic to a video game movie. While some people are too busy being upset that the lead actor (and likely most of the cast) isn't Persian, they're forgetting a couple other things:

*Everyone in the movie speaks plain English, regardless of the fact that the language wouldn't even be spoken in that region of the world. (and when does Prince of Persia take place? If it's before 400 AD, it's unlikely the English language was even conceived yet.)

*The movie revolves around a mystical artifact that uses magical sand to turn back time, which if used improperly could bring about the end of the world.

...And you're worried about the nationalities of the actors.

Keiichi-chan, on 26 May 2010 - 05:57 PM, said:

some people were annoyed by the dorky, femme bikini-things the spartans wore in 300.

Would they prefer the Spartans wore nothing under those capes? Because they didn't have speedos in the comic...

Matt PNiewski, on 27 May 2010 - 10:20 AM, said:

Not because I find the material so offensive, but because I'm looking for an excuse to get people to never read his terrible comics ever again.

Implying Sin City wasn't an excellent series of graphic novels.

This post has been edited by Sir Viver: 05 June 2010 - 09:20 PM