Ghost in the Shell: Scarlett Johansson wut?

They did a pretty funny thing on Hollywood Whitewashing on the Last Week Today You Tube channel.
 
If it was industry wide oppression, I could understand all the bitching.

There are alternatives.

If you're only seeing white people in film, its because you're electing to watch "mainstream" cinema. Ie. Dumb cinema.

There are soooo many sci-fi movies out there with minorities.

The same debate could be applied to females, trans people, gays, colour blind. Etc.

There is a world of cinema out there.

Shock. Western society makes western version of eastern story with western iconography.

And as for gods of Egypt, who didn't see that coming? Heck, look at Jesus in a church. He ain't Arab.

And on the flip side, didn't the movie version of Assault on Titan cast Asians as the leads?
 
Shock. Western society makes western version of eastern story with western iconography.

This is part of what I don't get actually. Why not just Westernize it just like they did when converting All You Need Is Kill to Edge of Tomorrow. If Tom Cruise's character name was Keiji Kiriya, it would probably have been just as awkward or silly. Or if on top of that, tried experimental FX to make Tom Cruise look Asian.

Same for the Westernized version of The Ring. Naomi Watts' character named Reiko Asakawa would have been odd without an explanation. So it was changed to Rachel and Westernized just like all the other characters and the location.
 
If it was industry wide oppression, I could understand all the b****ing.

There are alternatives.

If you're only seeing white people in film, its because you're electing to watch "mainstream" cinema. Ie. Dumb cinema.

There are soooo many sci-fi movies out there with minorities.

The same debate could be applied to females, trans people, gays, colour blind. Etc.

There is a world of cinema out there.

Shock. Western society makes western version of eastern story with western iconography.

And as for gods of Egypt, who didn't see that coming? Heck, look at Jesus in a church. He ain't Arab.

And on the flip side, didn't the movie version of Assault on Titan cast Asians as the leads?
For what it's worth, Gods of Egypt was attempting to go for more of a fantasy film route similar to clash of the titans than anything historical. It's like that much of the casting was done to simply please the many studios behind the film.
 
Kevin Spacey was Lex Luthor just two years before 21, never mind the fact that the film still had a diverse cast. He's been starring in a successful drama that has won awards and is considered Netflix's star show. Hell, he's been nominated for multiple awards since 1999. If you bothered to do any research, you'd see that. Spacey has just about managed to maintain his relevancy in Hollywood in the same capacity ever since American Beauty. As for Gods of Egypt, I'm sure if you bothered to research the actual film, you'd see the entire cast wasn't even 100% white. Lots of your argument is complete generalizations refusing to look at the numbers. Money is the reason why it happens. Money is what's gonna change it. Hollywood isn't trying to hold down the 99%, they want to make money to make more movies. They'll go in almost any direction they believe will land them the most profit. It's as simple as that.

Your are justifying the extremely white-oriented casting of these movies with "if it makes the big studios a few more dollars then it's all fine." But anyways, you should calm down the "do your research, Gods of Egypt cast is not 100% white." And the reason you should calm it down is because I never said that since that was just you putting words in my mouth to invalidate my input. Not super cool. But I was wrong about the students in the movie 21 being all white. There was a token sexy Asian love interest and Hollywood's Aaron Yoo who fought tooth and nail to get a cast.
 
Last edited:
So the PR guy for Kodansha (publisher for GitS) responded to the critics over ScarJo being cast by saying "Looking at her career so far, I think Scarlett Johansson is well cast, she has the cyberpunk feel. And we never imagined it would be a Japanese actress in the first place. This is a chance for a Japanese property to be seen around the world."

I personally don't think it will be an issue visually and she certainly has the acting chops to do the role justice. Hopefully her fat $10 million paycheck for this role includes a clause requiring a lengthy masturbation scene. :hehe:
 
To be honest, if they make it as a re-adaption, like many re-adaption of foreign films, & took place in an futuristic American City,

like Let me in, The Eye, the ring, Grudge, shutter, office, House of cards, Girl with Dragon Tattoos etc, I think no one will would have give a damn.

never mind most time, the original are better. Do Americans really have issue connecting with characters that do not sound or look Americans? Just curious.
 
To be honest, if they make it as a re-adaption, like many re-adaption of foreign films, & took place in an futuristic American City,

like Let me in, The Eye, the ring, Grudge, shutter, office, House of cards, Girl with Dragon Tattoos etc, I think no one will would have give a damn.
.

Yeah this is the main point I'm getting at.

Do Americans really have issue connecting with characters that do not sound or look Americans? Just curious.

I think part of it could the accent and part of it is cultural. This varies a lot because a lot of Americans are culturally close to Ireland and Britain.

It seems like America had a phase of appreciating Martial Arts movies starring people like Jet Li or Jackie Chan who starred in their films, but those actors are moving away from action heavy films. Even Jacky Chan started to pair up with Americans for Shanghai Noon or Rush Hour and possibly those movies did better for having him be sidekicks with Chris Tucker or Owen Wilson. It'll be interesting to see how big a role Donny Yen has in Star Wars: Rogue One and if he can pivot off that into starring roles.

The odd thing to is I think most of the time if foreigners have major roles in American films they play intentionally exotic characters like Aliens in Star Trek or Fantasy characters. I also think there is a trend that German accented actors often wind up playing villains or crazy people like mad scientists. Even Alan Rickman and Jeremy Irons who are not German had German Origins given to their characters in Die Hard.

Somethings like this could even be another side topic:

 
Greed never justifies the means. It should be terrible that the only real means a minority can get a role is if they play the terriorist in Homeland. If they stopped constantly give white people all of the good roles, we wouldn't have people freaking out over a film potentially being low quality and low budget because they cast a black stormtropper.
 
Random thought, what if a property like Ghost in the Shell was adapted as a pure CGI Animation?

I'm not sure high realism like Avatar is the way to go, but it probably should look cartoony like most Pixar films either. Some animes like Appleseed are using a mix of regular Cell Animation and Cell Shaded CGI. I think that is one possible starting point, but needs work to so the audience doesn't feel like they're watching a video game.

Possibly, have traditional cell animation people touch up the Cell Shaded CGI. Sort of like how A Scanner Darkly was first filmed live action and then worked over with animation.
 
Random thought, what if a property like Ghost in the Shell was adapted as a pure CGI Animation?

I'm not sure high realism like Avatar is the way to go, but it probably should look cartoony like most Pixar films either. Some animes like Appleseed are using a mix of regular Cell Animation and Cell Shaded CGI. I think that is one possible starting point, but needs work to so the audience doesn't feel like they're watching a video game.

Possibly, have traditional cell animation people touch up the Cell Shaded CGI. Sort of like how A Scanner Darkly was first filmed live action and then worked over with animation.

Not cell shaded, but CGI animations are definitely a possibility. People were saying the new Jungle Book film was pretty much a CGI animation with one or two human actors, it's just that the failure of Final Fantasy and underperformance of Beowulf still make studios wary of entirely removing human players from de facto CGI animations like The Life of Pi or Gravity. Not sure about cell shaded though, recent CGI animations like A Good Dinosaur and Zootopia avoided the fakeness of "live action" blockbusters and managed to get that really tangible mold and texture characteristic only to animations. Doing that with materials like Ghost in the Shell would look pretty cool.
 
Yeah, I was thinking a mix of cell shading and traditional animation to make the cgi look artistic like A Scanner Darkly. Cel Shading by itself would probably look to much like a video game.


scan01.jpg



I also think a movie like this should consider the success of Dead Pool and embrace being a violent story. Paul Verhoeven said he did that for Robocop to balance out the cheesy concept of a cyborg policeman (Something the remake lost sight of). The violent tragic death of Murphy involved the audience in that world early on. I hope the production of Ghost in the Shell goes R - Rated like Dead Pool to sell the audience on how strong Motoko is.

 
They should have gotten Rooney Mara. She already looks like a robot version of Audrey Hepburn. And she gets naked in every movie anway.

I'll still go see this one though. The trailer looks pretty cool.
 
Ok, I know that sometimes I give ScaJo a bit of a hard time, but I don't hate her... as a concept. I just hate her acting, style, personality, and overinflated sense of self-actualization. But that's all.

Anyway, she has a new movie coming out, and you're going to have your face, and to a larger extent, your body shown all around the globe. All of the world's designers will give you couture to be seen in for free. Granted, it's not the premier, so you wouldn't wear a full length gown. That leaves 75% of all the dresses in the world left.

So, you're naked for large chunks of a futuristic, techno japan-centric action flick. What do you wear?

Simple. you dress like a pilgrim school girl who's been sexually assaulted by a were-wolf in the back of a van on prom night, while Donatello Versace is stapling a belt on you.

Scarlett-Johannson-Ghost-Shell-Global-Trailer-Launch-Red-Carpet-Atelier-Versace-Tom-Lorenzo-Site-1-683x1024.jpg
 
Me and my bro and his girl watched the 95 original and she said she totally sees Scarlett as Major in the new movie.
I still can't see anyone better suited than Rooney... She looks like Major already, and she's like Robot Audrey Hepburn in cracked out fashion.
Rooney-Mara-Oscars-2016-Red-Carpet-Fashion-Givenchy-Couture-Tom-Lorenzo-Site-9.jpg
Rooney+Mara+Givenchy+2013+Met+Gala+1.jpg
Rooney+Mara+Calvin+Klein+Dubai+FFRCE+2.jpg
Rooney+Mara+Givenchy+Oscars+1.jpg
 
After Pacific Rim, why isn't this chick getting more roles?

Rinko-Kikuchi-mako-and-raleigh-36995651-1920-1080.jpg

PacificRimMako2.jpg
 
I learned only recently that it's going to be a mash up of the movie and elements of the second season, "2nd Gig." The antagonist is supposed to be Comrade Kuze or something. Didn't rightly look the part though.

I'll probably get roped by some friends into seeing it. I love the original stuff and this gets them into any of the earlier stuff, it's a win overall.