Racebending "Akira"

[Roshi]

My eyes and my ears are still bleeding at Hollywood's whitewashing machine... Yea, fuck Warner!

 

[Griever]

This thread will certainly entertain.

I still find it amusing when any white person has the audacity to claim that racism is not a problem anymore when a majority didn't think it a problem in 1962 when it was right in your face

My eyes and my ears are still bleeding at Hollywood's whitewashing machine... Yea, fuck Warner!

 

[Level 2 Diagnostic]

But how is this any different than The Magnificent Seven vs Seven Samurai?

Or Ringu vs The Ring... or Shall We Dansu vs Shall We Dance...

Did you know the Japanese remade the movie Sideways? And to play the lead roles originally played by white characters... they hired Japanese actors! Shocking!

 

[USS Mariner]

I don't know how to post youtube videos here so instead I'll just link here.

Anyways, this is what I imagine an Americanized version of Akira would look like.

The sad thing is, I thought that plan fell through...

 

[USS Mariner]

I don't think it was okay to hire a black guy for Heimdall, either. Racism has nothing to do with it. People put waaaaay to broad a brush on "racism."

Considering it's Jack Kirby's Heimdall, he could have been light blue and it wouldn't make a difference. In fact, Kirby very possibly might have made him blue if it looked cool that week. Seeing a black guy playing the character if it was supposed to be a mythological fantasy film about the "real" ancient world of Asgard would be one thing.

Comic book Asgard's got freakin' spaceships and aliens.

DING DING DING! A large component of Kirby's thinking for Thor and the New Gods was the Ancient Astronaut Theory. In that context, it makes no damn difference what Heimdall's skin is.

I don't think it was okay to hire a black guy for Heimdall, either. Racism has nothing to do with it. People put waaaaay to broad a brush on "racism."

And some people don't have a fucking clue what the word means, or that 90% of the time it's not done for malicious intent.

However, denial, willful ignorance and flame-baiting aren't valid excuses for racism.

 

[the G-man]

Eh, Japan had a japanese Spider-Man living in Tokyo. Why? Because it was made for a japanese audience. "Racebending" wasn't a big deal then and it shouldn't be a big deal now.

Yep.

As other have mentioned, bitching about this is a little like bitching about the black Kingpin in Daredevil or the black Norse god in Thor.

Or a British actor playing Superman.

Or remaking the Wizard of Oz into the Wiz.

 

[Bishop76]

Uh oh, the perpetually offended have entered the fray.

It's just not racist (a term that is losing meaning due to flagrant overuse) - it's marketing. You may not like their marketing decision, but it's certainly not racist.

 

[Checkmate]

This is an adaptation of a very specific story, set in future Tokyo in 2019, being turned into New York with total recasting to wash all the "asian" out.

So the specific city and ethnicity of the characters is an integral part of the story? As opposed to just a label placed on a random futuristic city, filled with random futuristic characters?

Situation is the /reverse/ of the so-called controversy over Thor's casting; that was stupid white people bitching over one of them other races getting into the burly homo-erotic, blue eyed, blond haired white god club.

Just as an aside, I'm not white.

This is a story entirely set in and about Japan and Japanese people being whitewashed so as to sell it to the same white folk who would be uncomfortable going to a sci-fi film without any white people in it, that wasn't set in America (or American Outer Space, or the American Future).

Again, how is Akira "set in Japan" other than as a random label for the random sci-fi post-war city they live in?

Here I thought it was about some bikers fighting to free a psychic in some indistinguishable city of tomorrow that has fuck-all to do with the actual story.

And, sorry, but it's painfully racist, especially with the way several of you go on throwing around terms like "white washing" around. Or even worse, try to redirect it with red herrings like Griever just above.

Case in point:

And some people don't have a fucking clue what the word means, or that 90% of the time it's not done for malicious intent.

My eyes and my ears are still bleeding at Hollywood's whitewashing machine... Yea, fuck Warner!

Yeah, no malicious intent to be found.

 

[the G-man]

I've seen adaptations of Shakespeare that change the setting to, respectively, 1930s England, 1990s Miami, FL and modern day NYC.

I've seen Prospero turned into Helen Mirren, Othello into a basketball player and MacBeth into a mobster.

Why can the bard's settings and characters be changed and not a comic book's?

 

[Roshi]

Because the very ending of the comic book is anti US interventionism?

 

[Venardhi]

The bigger problem here is the youngest person on their casting radar is in his mid/late twenties and several in their 30s.

We've established a change of setting.

We're seeing pretty sure signs that the characters will all be changed to not only suit the new setting but also be quite a bit older.

We can be pretty sure the story will also have some fairly major changes due to the previous two changes, and to better appeal to US audiences/lowest common denominator mouthbreathing 13 year old boys.

So it seems DiCaprio payed millions just for the title and the bike designs at this point.

 

[Bishop76]

And it's entirely possible that might be enough for some. It wouldn't for me, but for a lot of people going to see movies is a mindless experience where they don't mind just looking at the pretties for 2 hours.

 

[Davros]

Well in the old days it would have been set in Japan... with white actors in makeup lol.

But how is this any different than The Magnificent Seven vs Seven Samurai?

Because those movies have different titles. Calling this movie by the same name of the story it is based on should obligate the filmmakers to be as true to that story as possible. So if they insist on cashing in on the fandom of the original they should at least make the Akira character Japanese as the name is a Japanese name.

I've seen adaptations of Shakespeare that change the setting to, respectively, 1930s England, 1990s Miami, FL and modern day NYC.

I've seen Prospero turned into Helen Mirren, Othello into a basketball player and MacBeth into a mobster.

Why can the bard's settings and characters be changed and not a comic book's?

In nearly every one of those examples, the filmmakers did not use the titles of the plays they based their movies on. Change the title do whatever you want, use the title, use the story.

 

[Aragorn]

In nearly every one of those examples, the filmmakers did not use the titles of the plays they based their movies on. Change the title do whatever you want, use the title, use the story.

So are you offended by Ethan Hawke's Hamlet? Leonardo DiCaprio's Romeo + Juliet? Ian McKellan's Richard III? The Bourne Supremacy? The Bourne Ultimatum?

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

Eh, Japan had a japanese Spider-Man living in Tokyo. Why? Because it was made for a japanese audience. "Racebending" wasn't a big deal then and it shouldn't be a big deal now.

Yep.

As other have mentioned, bitching about this is a little like bitching about the black Kingpin in Daredevil or the black Norse god in Thor.

Or a British actor playing Superman.

Or remaking the Wizard of Oz into the Wiz.

Or like setting Battlestar Galactica in Mongolia, and making Galactica a yurt. It's not about race, but rather about culture, and setting, and how it affects the story. That's what's grating on me.

 

[Level 2 Diagnostic]

Because those movies have different titles. Calling this movie by the same name of the story it is based on should obligate the filmmakers to be as true to that story as possible.

Okay, so where was the outrage over remaking Shall We Dansu as "Shall We Dance" with a white guy and a Latina in the lead roles? It's pretty much the same title.

Did it bother you that they remade the Thai film Bangkok Dangerous with the same title and Nicolas Cage in the lead role?

So if they insist on cashing in on the fandom of the original they should at least make the Akira character Japanese as the name is a Japanese name.

So, when a movie has a Japanese title that means it must take place in Japan and star a Japanese actor? So I guess it would be inexcusable to make a movie called Ronin that stars an Italian American and takes place mostly in France.

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

The title Ronin was thematically relevant, and also relevant to the plot. It was NOT an example of a Battleyurt Galactica.

 

[Reverend]

I honestly don't see what the fuss is about. If the film is any good then the narrative relocation and (for want of a better term) "ethnic recasting" will hardly matter. If it's crap (which I suspect may end up being the case) then it'll tank and be forgotten like hundreds of other bad films that nobody cares about.

Hell, some Akira fans don't even like the existing animated film for it's departures from the source material.

For me, because I'm a fan of the existing film, I would have liked it to have been as faithful a possible. Indeed, I wouldn't mind watching a US funded, Japanese made blockbuster complete with Japanese actors and subtitles...but that's never going to happen. What would be somewhat more feasable is a new animated series in the vein of Ghost in the Shell: SAC; an anime that more directly adapts the Akira graphic novels.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Make Akira an acronym rather than a Japanese superkid. AKIRA is already an acronym for "Artificial Knowledge Interface for Reasoning Applications", so how about "American Kids Improve on Real Asians".

Simples.

 

[the G-man]

I've seen adaptations of Shakespeare that change the setting to, respectively, 1930s England, 1990s Miami, FL and modern day NYC.

I've seen Prospero turned into Helen Mirren, Othello into a basketball player and MacBeth into a mobster.

Why can the bard's settings and characters be changed and not a comic book's?

In nearly every one of those examples, the filmmakers did not use the titles of the plays they based their movies on....

Richard III: William Shakespeare's classic play is brought into the present with the setting as Great Britain in the 1930s. Civil war has erupted with the House of Lancaster on one side, claiming the right to the British throne and hoping to bring freedom to the country. Opposing is the House of York, commanded by the infamous Richard who rules over a fascist government and hopes to install himself as a dictator monarch.

Romeo + Juliet: Shakespeare's famous play is updated to the hip modern suburb of Verona still retaining its original dialogue. The gun-toting members of the families wage a vicious war on the streets as the star-crossed lovers, their tragic destiny.

the Tempest: In Julie Taymor's version of 'The Tempest,' the main character is now a woman named Prospera.