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Scarlett Johansson will star in live action Ghost in the Shell

 
 
 
I read "Scarlett Johansen will be in a movie." And other stuff.

There will probably never again be a movie where the credits flash across Ms. Johansen's lovely ass, but i'm willing to hope for the best.

And, you know, other stuff.
 
Keith&Co. said:
I read "Scarlett Johansen will be in a movie." And other stuff.

There will probably never again be a movie where the credits flash across Ms. Johansen's lovely ass, but i'm willing to hope for the best.

And, you know, other stuff.
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Name of movie, please.
 
Firstly I don't have a huge problem with the change of scenery for the LA version, it was pretty much going to be a given that it wasn't going to be an all Japanese cast speaking Japanese, set in Japan, with Japanese writers and having America portrayed as slimy A-Holes

Would I prefer it to be like the original....yes
Am I going to lose sleep over it being different.....not really (As long as it is good, oh please don't be another DB Evolution)

So Secondly Scarlett Johansson as the major
Now I like SJ
But am I alone in thinking that the major should be older?
 
Cool. Might be good. I don't really care though. I've seen GitS too.
 
Fuck.

I love Scarlett and she really would be good at this part, but as a fan of the series, Batou is the only American in Section 9.

If they really chose her because she's right for the part, then great, but I suspect they chose her because they assume that American audiences won't accept a non-white protagonist, and I hate when those well-meaning Hollywood liberals assume that I'm a slobbering knuckle-dragging bigot.

Just in case any right winger starts up with the usual "Why is it racist when a minority role is replaced with a white actor, but not racist when the opposite happens?" here is your answer:



And Moviebob's follow up on a circumstance in which people took complaints about racial casting decisions too far in the other direction:

 
I really have to see Cloud Atlas seems very interesting.

I wonder how a GITS or Akira live action interpretation made in Hollywood could be multi-ethnic and give a firm and respectful nod to Japan (not just Asian Americans) without using plot gimmicks. I haven't seen the newest Wolverine to see the Japanese aspects.

With Akira you could have a white american kid who became fast friends with a Japanese kid while his parents were working there - or vice versa. The foreigner (Tetsuo or whichever name they change it to) would be bullied and protected by the other (Kaneda). It would be more challenging and interesting to have Tetsuo as white in Japan, than Japanese in America.

How to have Japan maintain as a plot point throughout would be a challenge. Maybe having some japanese scientists who know about the "Project" would be a good idea. Like Tadanobu Asano or someone a bit older or a Japanese version of the older scientist in Thor. Maybe having the americans take over the project and not have all the knowledge or respect/fear of it as the Japanese would work.

The American military would be an ok substitute the Japanese.

But I REALLY want to see the cult scene with the chanting. That was so epic! Do it even if you have american crazies.

And please keep the tribal impulse of the Akira soundtrack
 
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Did anybody in the world seriously expect that if there was a live-action adaptation of GITS by a big Hollywood studio, that there was the faintest chance of it not starring a white American A-list actress?
 
Cloud Atlas is one of those movies that came so close to being good, but had one crazy error that made it mind bogglingly bad. And that was shoehorning the same actors and actresses into every one of the many roles, like a band of not as talented Peter Sellerses.
 
Sarpedon said:
Cloud Atlas is one of those movies that came so close to being good, but had one crazy error that made it mind bogglingly bad. And that was shoehorning the same actors and actresses into every one of the many roles, like a band of not as talented Peter Sellerses.
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What? That was very much intentional. It is a very important feature of the films message.
 
repoman said:
I really have to see Cloud Atlas seems very interesting.

I wonder how a GITS or Akira live action interpretation made in Hollywood could be multi-ethnic and give a firm and respectful nod to Japan (not just Asian Americans) without using plot gimmicks. I haven't seen the newest Wolverine to see the Japanese aspects.

With Akira you could have a white american kid who became fast friends with a Japanese kid while his parents were working there - or vice versa. The foreigner (Tetsuo or whichever name they change it to) would be bullied and protected by the other (Kaneda). It would be more challenging and interesting to have Tetsuo as white in Japan, than Japanese in America.

How to have Japan maintain as a plot point throughout would be a challenge. Maybe having some japanese scientists who know about the "Project" would be a good idea. Like Tadanobu Asano or someone a bit older or a Japanese version of the older scientist in Thor. Maybe having the americans take over the project and not have all the knowledge or respect/fear of it as the Japanese would work.

The American military would be an ok substitute the Japanese.

But I REALLY want to see the cult scene with the chanting. That was so epic! Do it even if you have american crazies.

And please keep the tribal impulse of the Akira soundtrack
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Notice how all of these intellectual properties set in Japan suddenly get set in America and all the characters recast as mostly white people? They even did it (partially) with Big Hero Six, an obscure IP virtually no one cared about.

I'm pretty sure Hollywood just thinks we're a bunch of knuckle-dragging racists who won't go to see their movies if the protagonist isn't white. It's as if they totally forgot about the whole Bruce Lee thing. *sigh*
 
Sarpedon said:
Cloud Atlas is one of those movies that came so close to being good, but had one crazy error that made it mind bogglingly bad. And that was shoehorning the same actors and actresses into every one of the many roles, like a band of not as talented Peter Sellerses.
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Uh, if you had a problem with that, then you kind of missed the whole point of the movie.

The whole idea was that these were souls who kept getting reincarnated and wound up interacting with the same people in every life, each time clashing with each other over very similar issues. The fact that they kept getting reborn as different races was meant to encourage the audience to consider the superficiality of race as a mere social construct.
 
I totally got the point. Its just wasn't good enough. Did the 'souls' actually develop? Not really, on screen at least. Sure you had tom hanks playing a jerk in the early scenes. Then he had redemption. But when did any of that happen?

There's no reason that they had to keep using the same actors, and putting them in hideously bad makeup. Instead, use, you know ACTING or ART DIRECTION to make the themes clear. I'm all for colorblind casting. I'm not for race swapping makeup.
 
I just saw Raiders of the Lost Ark again last week and it was really jarring how terrible the makeup was for one of the "Nepalese" guys. The movie overall was pretty good though.

Ratty_Nepalese.jpg


For the Temple of Doom it was good that they had a full Indian and Chinese cast to play their own roles. However, the movie was painful to watch except for Short Round.
 
Underseer said:
Notice how all of these intellectual properties set in Japan suddenly get set in America and all the characters recast as mostly white people? They even did it (partially) with Big Hero Six, an obscure IP virtually no one cared about.

I'm pretty sure Hollywood just thinks we're a bunch of knuckle-dragging racists who won't go to see their movies if the protagonist isn't white. It's as if they totally forgot about the whole Bruce Lee thing. *sigh*
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But with Akira for example having one be white and one japanese would be very doable and something hollywood likes to do anyway. Hell, any slight amount of money lost in the US would be made up in Asia if the movie was any good at all. Yes it would require some changes to the back story to get it done. Why not consult with Otomo on that?

As I said before having the white guy be "Tetsuo" would be more challenging but the payoff would be great.

I think old Hollywood is not really aware of how open young people are to lead actors of any race. They just want good acting and a good story.

The middle aged fan boys who watched it when young are fully open to a white/asian duo and would even be insulted by a white/white duo. The youths now also don't care. I don't see how the studio would lose with a white/asian duo.

Another major concern I have with Akira is to not have the cast be too old. The actors should not be over 20 years old and should be able to pass for 16-18.

The rest would be up to the script and director.
 
repoman said:
The middle aged fan boys who watched it when young are fully open to a white/asian duo and would even be insulted by a white/white duo. The youths now also don't care. I don't see how the studio would lose with a white/asian duo.
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The movie makers also know who many tickets they can sell, and how much funding they can get from a studio, merely by casting Scarlett Johansson as their star.
 
bigfield said:
The movie makers also know who many tickets they can sell, and how much funding they can get from a studio, merely by casting Scarlett Johansson as their star.
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^^^This.

Hollywood doesn't care about race AS MUCH as they care about predictable ticket sales. The key to getting most movies made is not saying 'original' to the studio exec, it's in saying 'We can get Jack Nicholson to play Christopher Robbin' or some other known name with box office draw. Which means all the meaty roles go to either household names, or new people you can convince the execs will be 'the new Jack Nicholson' or the new Raquel Welch.'
Casting a clone of a famous name is Hollywood's idea of 'taking a chance.'
 
Underseer said:
[
I'm pretty sure Hollywood just thinks we're a bunch of knuckle-dragging racists who won't go to see their movies if the protagonist isn't white.
Click to expand...

That's a safer bet than thinking that we're all so color-blind and culture-blind that a foreign setting and foreign stars will attract the exact same number of viewers as already-famous white stars with built-in fanbases. Hollywood is all about the safe bet.
 
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