still very much white supremacist dreams of the master race

[Thommo]

The only difference between something like the Ghostbusters backlash and the Ghost in the Shell backlash is the exact tenor of the criticisms and the number of trolls in the mix. Blimey, people were upset this week about Olivia Coleman playing the queen (albeit I suspect instances of racist trolling on the matter were mercifully few).

As far as I'm concerned this is all part of America's culture war and we'd be fucking mad to import it here.

Whether the pre-superhero cinema age, consisting of franchises like Star Wars, James Bond, Die Hard, Star Trek or The Muppets was really more mature (or attached to positions in the culture wars to a greater or lesser extent) seems like a pretty dubious proposition. There's really no evidence for or against it. Cum hoc ergo propter hoc, correctly, put aside.

[Spearthrower]

Blimey, people were upset this week about Olivia Coleman playing the queen

As an aside, while I think Coleman is a fantastic actress, I do question the decision not to just keep the same actors and age them. It's not like Coleman's much older than Foy. I'm pretty far from a monarchist, but I do like historical dramas and ended up watching all The Crown so far (equal to approximately the entirety of my TV consumption of 2 or 3 years) and I just can't help but feel it's jarring to see all these different people playing their roles. So many of the actors of the first section were just phenomenal.

[Thommo]

Right. Sometimes people just find changes to their favourite characters jarring. Some of those people (mercifully few in the one case and far too many in the other) are complete knobheads.

There's no reason to jump to the conclusion there's a direct connection between the two. It's not like Ruby Rose's comments did Batwoman any favours, the road itself leads nowhere good.

ETA: A particular example of someone's objections to changes from source material on this very forum that's clearly not based in racism or sexism, but that for some reason stuck out strongly in my memory. And possibly I'm just trolling Fallible now.
http://www.rationalskepticism.org/post1 ... s#p1985862
[quote="Fallible";p="1985862"]I continue to be irritated by big deviations from the books. They even had to give the duel to Daario because they never introduced Strong Belwas as a character. All I've ever wanted out of life is to see a big fat bare-breasted man take a shit next to a dead man and use his cloak to wipe his buttum.[/quote]

[Spearthrower]

[quote="Thommo";p="2721331"]Right. Sometimes people just find changes to their favourite characters jarring. Some of those people (mercifully few in the one case and far too many in the other) are complete knobheads.

There's no reason to jump to the conclusion there's a direct connection between the two. It's not like Ruby Rose's comments did Batwoman any favours, the road itself leads nowhere good.

ETA: A particular example of someone's objections to changes from source material on this very forum that's clearly not based in racism or sexism, but that for some reason stuck out strongly in my memory. And possibly I'm just trolling Fallible now.
http://www.rationalskepticism.org/post1 ... s#p1985862
[quote="Fallible";p="1985862"]I continue to be irritated by big deviations from the books. They even had to give the duel to Daario because they never introduced Strong Belwas as a character. All I've ever wanted out of life is to see a big fat bare-breasted man take a shit next to a dead man and use his cloak to wipe his buttum.[/quote][/quote]


I'm going to be a little out of my depth in any extended conversations here because you and others will necessarily make references to examples of things I have never watched and know nothing about. I don't watch TV or go to the cinema even though it's my job, and I know even less about popular culture. I don't know who Ruby Rose is, and I never heard of Batwoman before!

I would have no problem with Batwoman at all if it was a new show and she was introduced convincingly within the setting of the presented world.

However, I did have a problem with James Bond because he kept bloody changing all the time! At least with Doctor Who there was a good reason why the main character suddenly looked different, but otherwise I have trouble suspending my disbelief after getting used to a previous actor's mannerisms and speech and forming strong associations between that and the character.

[Ironclad]

There are grumbles about a possible black female playing 007 before long. I've tried to argue, though I'm generally preferring canon, yadda blah blah, that 007 is a code name. James Bond is not. Swing away, I say.

[Fallible]

[quote="Thommo";p="2721331"]Right. Sometimes people just find changes to their favourite characters jarring. Some of those people (mercifully few in the one case and far too many in the other) are complete knobheads.

There's no reason to jump to the conclusion there's a direct connection between the two. It's not like Ruby Rose's comments did Batwoman any favours, the road itself leads nowhere good.

ETA: A particular example of someone's objections to changes from source material on this very forum that's clearly not based in racism or sexism, but that for some reason stuck out strongly in my memory. And possibly I'm just trolling Fallible now.
http://www.rationalskepticism.org/post1 ... s#p1985862
[quote="Fallible";p="1985862"]I continue to be irritated by big deviations from the books. They even had to give the duel to Daario because they never introduced Strong Belwas as a character. All I've ever wanted out of life is to see a big fat bare-breasted man take a shit next to a dead man and use his cloak to wipe his buttum.[/quote][/quote]

It’s because of my superior turn of phrase, isn’t it.

[Thommo]

I think it must be.

[Fallible]

I got over myself eventually, by the way.

[Thommo]

That's tragic. There's nothing sadder than hearing someone eventually gave up on their dream of seeing a topless fat man take a dump. All the romance has gone out of the world. There's just no magic left. No hope.

[Fallible]

We can’t always get what we want.

[Cito di Pense]

[quote="Thommo";p="2721331"]Right. Sometimes people just find changes to their favourite characters jarring.[/quote]

There's no one to play Sherlock Holmes for me but Jeremy Brett, but I understand that some students of the genre consider his portrayal flawed. I think my fandom relates to what was going on in my life when I first watched that series.

[quote="SafeAsMilk";p="2721252"]
What 'fans' want is to live in a time capsule from 40 years ago. Actual fans understand that it isn't 40 years ago, and mature adults today aren't going to pretend it is. The only people that would are the ones who are actually trying to steal your faded memories for a buck.[/quote]

Good call, SAM.

[Cito di Pense]

[quote="arugula2";p="2721309"]I
Added - More provocative, but also serious: most of us, especially when we’re railing & wailing, don’t really know why. We think we do, but that’s hubris.[/quote]

The sense of entitlement grows. Nobody is forced to buy any of this. At least, I hope not.

[Thommo]

[quote="Cito di Pense";p="2721377"][quote="Thommo";p="2721331"]Right. Sometimes people just find changes to their favourite characters jarring.[/quote]

There's no one to play Sherlock Holmes for me but Jeremy Brett, but I understand that some students of the genre consider his portrayal flawed. I think my fandom relates to what was going on in my life when I first watched that series.[/quote]

I love the books, and in some sense I've been satisfied with most of the major portrayals and none of them. A few, like the modern day one set in New York rub me up the wrong way because I always feel like London itself with its smoggy streets is in the very DNA of the original stories that I love so much.

To bring it back to superheroes I remember once hearing someone talk about how Spiderman *has* to be a New Yorker, it's fundamental to the iconography of him swinging from building to building, which wouldn't work in most US or western cities which simply don't have the same density of tall buildings (though there are a few in Asia that might, I daresay).

[don't get me started]

I've posted here before about how I have never really got on board with the superhero genre (comic book/graphic novel or movie versions). The whole thing just never really appealed to me and seemed somehow juvenile (even when I was a juvenile) and lacking in any intellectual content. A friend recommended I watch Deadpool, thinking I would enjoy it. I resisted and the one day it was on broadcast TV here. I watched it and liked it.
But then I caught myself out. Even though I never read Marvel or D.C. comics when I was a kid, and never found Superman, Batman or Spiderman et al. in any way compelling, I did read 2000 AD comic. Even when I was in my early teens, I remember thinking how political and intellectual many of the stories were. Then, when the modern version of Judge Dredd came out (not the cheesy Stalone vehicle, but the 2012 one with Carl Urban) I was transported back to those days.

The movie was very faithful to the Weltanschauen of the original comic. Dredd should be a bogeyman figure to me considering my political leanings, but somehow I like him. It is understandable that he is a product of his environment and likewise that his environment is a creation of flawed humanity. In his own way he is moral, although it is a very harsh and uncompromising morality. If you haven't seen the movie, check it out. (Lena Headey is brilliant as well.) The fans lament that this never got a sequel, but by the numbers, juvenile bullshit cashcow franchises churn out movie after identikit movie.

[arugula2]

[quote="Cito di Pense";p="2721377"]There's no one to play Sherlock Holmes for me but Jeremy Brett, but I understand that some students of the genre consider his portrayal flawed. I think my fandom relates to what was going on in my life when I first watched that series.[/quote]
This. Well, the early series. The last couple are painful, and he probably wasn’t all with it by then.

For me it was the books first, several times, and many years later I discovered Brett. I didn’t really notice any particular portrayal before that. I’m guessing they were never as vulnerable as the character seemed on the page, and as a result maybe felt 2-dimensional. Brett tapped into the manic obsessive side of the character, and the melancholy. He was probably better equipped than others. He ‘got’ the whole character, others seemed to be cherry picking. The idea of “flawed” is a compliment, afaic, because that’s Sherlock.

[quote="SafeAsMilk";p="2721252"]
What 'fans' want is to live in a time capsule from 40 years ago. Actual fans understand that it isn't 40 years ago, and mature adults today aren't going to pretend it is. The only people that would are the ones who are actually trying to steal your faded memories for a buck.[/quote]
I’m not sure I get these distinctions. To me, people seem complex enough to have a foot in different levels of maturity, about different things simultaneously, sometimes even about the same thing. The fandom spreads across all levels, comfortably. We all want to live in a time capsule some of the time, intensely some days, less so others. It depends. I think more meaningful than categories of fan is general trends in those attitudes... which is probably where commentary like Moore’s and Scorsese's is useful.

[laklak]

The only Sherlock is Basil Rathbone.

[Ironclad]

[Spearthrower]

[quote="don't get me started";p="2721387"]I've posted here before about how I have never really got on board with the superhero genre (comic book/graphic novel or movie versions). The whole thing just never really appealed to me and seemed somehow juvenile (even when I was a juvenile) and lacking in any intellectual content. A friend recommended I watch Deadpool, thinking I would enjoy it. I resisted and the one day it was on broadcast TV here. I watched it and liked it.
But then I caught myself out. Even though I never read Marvel or D.C. comics when I was a kid, and never found Superman, Batman or Spiderman et al. in any way compelling, I did read 2000 AD comic. Even when I was in my early teens, I remember thinking how political and intellectual many of the stories were. Then, when the modern version of Judge Dredd came out (not the cheesy Stalone vehicle, but the 2012 one with Carl Urban) I was transported back to those days. [/quote]

Me neither. Nothing against anyone who likes superhero movies or comics, but it's just not my cup of char.

When I was a kid, the only comic I ever read was the Beano - and I don't recall being all that interested in it, it was just something my dad used to buy because he'd liked it as a kid.

I haven't watched any of the latest crop of Marvel films, although I can't help but know about them given my job, but they don't interest me much.

The only time I really watch movies is when I'm on a plane, and that's the only reason I watched Deadpool. The story itself wasn't very memorable for me, but the dry humour monologues were amusing.

Working in creative development on films (story and pre-production), people in this field always assume I know all these films, but are inevitably shocked and somewhat dubious due at my near perfect ignorance. I find concentrating on passive activities for that long hard enough as it is, but that becomes impossible if I can already see where the story's going within the first dozen or so minutes of screen-time.

[Cito di Pense]

[quote="laklak";p="2721400"]The only Sherlock is Basil Rathbone.[/quote]

Nasal Bathrobe.

[Briton]

I loved Marvel comics as a kid but never watch any superhero movies.