Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION The Anywhere Machine Avatar: The Last Airbender The Movie

I fail to see what all this has to do with your initial point higher upthread. Even the situations you compared are, by themselves, not equal.

You have one movie that was almost entirely cast with White lead performers: in direct conflict with its own very recently created canon. A canon that was declared by its authors to not be dominated by White faces.

Versus:

One movie in which one very well-regarded Black actor was cast to perform with an otherwise all-White cast. There may be recent Marvel comics in which that's not canon, but then again who knows how many writers over the years have switched around or argued about the truthfulness of certain elements in a particular mythology? Quite a few, I'd wager.

These situations even in and of themselves are not equal. The people in each case who protested? Not equal. There is no history in the U.S. of Black (or Asian, or Hispanic, or Native American) supremacists dominating the U.S. cultural landscape. You can't say the same about White Supremacy. Well, you could if you wanted to look like a fool, I guess.

BTW, if you research the life of of Orson Welles, you'll find at least one other prominent villain in our entertainment history who was re-cast as Black: MacBeth. Welles moved the setting from Scotland to Haiti so he could cast the entire play with Black actors.

My main problem with it was they tried to cram too much into one film & ended up being too vague in most areas. Plus stuff like character defining Katara moments being given to Aang. You know that speech he gives to the downtrodden Earth-Kindom village to get their Earth-Benders to fight back? Katara did it way better in the series. Sokka wasn't enough of the "meat & sarcasm guy. Don't get me started on how the removal of the Kyoshi Warriors causes all kinds of issues. Suprisingly I didn't have a problem with Azula being introduced so early.

Originally posted by cleome:
I fail to see what all this has to do with your initial point higher upthread. Even the situations you compared are, by themselves, not equal.

Not equal? I see it as a simple reversal of "Driving while Black" here in lake City, a police force predominantly african american and northern, by the way. how is that not equal?

You have one movie that was almost entirely cast with White lead performers: in direct conflict with its own very recently created canon. A canon that was declared by its authors to not be dominated by White faces.

Versus:

One movie in which one very well-regarded Black actor was cast to perform with an otherwise all-White cast. There may be recent Marvel comics in which that's not canon, but then again who knows how many writers over the years have switched around or argued about the truthfulness of certain elements in a particular mythology? Quite a few, I'd wager.

Jurassic Park 2: Jeff Goldblum's character had a daughter, written as white in the script. A young black lady read for the part and got it on the basis of her acting skills. Jeff Goldblum ain't black. No mention was made of color, no "acceptable explanation" of how his daughter was black. She just was. That's how it should work, the best actor for the part if its available. That's how you stop discrimination, by the best that can be going out for the best they can be, and may the better person earn the reward.

These situations even in and of themselves are not equal. The people in each case who protested? Not equal. There is no history in the U.S. of Black (or Asian, or Hispanic, or Native American) supremacists dominating the U.S. cultural landscape. You can't say the same about White Supremacy. Well, you could if you wanted to look like a fool, I guess.

So, what you are saying is that its okay to punish someone that has worked hard, earned the right by that work, done everything right a person is supposed to do, to be discriminated against for no reason other than the color of their skin, even though they had nothing to do with the discrimination you are attempting to redress. As long as they match color with the societally approved demographic, its okay. No matter that they may have had it just as hard growing up, that they hovered around the poverty line their entire childhood.

Cle, that sounds an awfull lot like the institionalized discrimination of the old democratic south. Other than the switch in skin color, I don't see much difference. Punishing those that did nothing wrong to reward those that did nothing wrong, but happen to have the right skin color. That sound like I'm accurately stating the situation to you?

BTW, if you research the life of of Orson Welles, you'll find at least one other prominent villain in our entertainment history who was re-cast as Black: MacBeth. Welles moved the setting from Scotland to Haiti so he could cast the entire play with Black actors.


Yup. And? I was talking about from my youth in the seventies and eighties on, as I said above. Growing up, there was only one major league black villian that I was familiar with in comics. Moses Magnum. I had no idea that Black Manta was black, never saw his face. so, that's one character, not counting the throw away "gang" characters and omniversal "victim" set. Only one.

Off the top of my head from the seventies:

Lex
Joker
magneto
doom
Cheetah
and on and on and on....to what...thousands of characters.

discrimination is discrimination. I don't ever think its right. So, either casting is open to all and the better (hopefully) actor gets it, or they follow it strictly, and a lot of people that otherwise be great for a role will be denied. You can't split it and then approve it when you want it or its convienent. Thats called situational ethics.

I wasn't trying to debunk it Cle. I was saying two wrongs don't make a right.

Anytime anyone thinks its okay to sacrifice an innocent on the sword of rightousness, i get nervous.

and the amount of wrong incidents don't matter to me. One is too many.

We finally watched this movie...and my daughter loved it. She is a huge fan of the show and thought the movie was good. She was bummed that more fromt he show wasn't in the movie, but I hae explained to her before about movies vs. books/animated series and how they are different.

I thought it was okay for what it was. Trying to shove that much into a movie is gonna leave a liot out of the mix. the bending stuff was pretty well portrayed I thuoght.

I thought this was a really, really good movie!
I am definately set to catch the sequel when it comes out in 2012.