I faulted the first X-Men for not being gutsy enough to cast the most popular X-man with an actor that actually matched the part – about 5’ 5’’ tall, rough features and excessive body hair. Sort of a short,hairy Clint Eastwood.
But suppose they had. Is there anybody in the business who even fits this description?
Back in the 80’s the name DeNiro was always thrown around for a dream actor. 20 years later, not so much. Bobby doesn’t seem to have that healing factor/age retardant that Logan does.
Whether or not Hugh Jackman is what you or I imagined Wolverine would be like is irrelevant. What matters is, he’s played the role superbly.
Hey, Lee J. Cobb was not at ALL what Arthur Miller pictured Willy Loman looking like, either. Sometimes, unlikely casting choices end up defining a role.
I’m not down with OP. I think Hugh Jackman is perfect in the role.
His height is no big deal; you can depict almost anyone as being short or tall using creative camera angles. I was surprised when I learned he’s 6’3"; he’s not portrayed as being that tall in the X-Men movies.
I agree with this. But I would argue that Hollywood would not have even considered a Logan-looking actor, regardless of acting abilities, because of Wolverine’s popularity and near-central role. If he were lesser character, they would have emphasized his atypical superhero features. Instead, all we get is an attempt at the hairdo – and they must have agonized over how to pull that off and still make Jackman look “cool”.
Jackman is good. I think I would have made him Cyclops and got rid of the gay-underwear-model-girly-boy whats-his-name.
I was reading X-men back in the 80s. At that time Logan’s excessive body hair and height were as much a defining physical characteristics as Xavier’s bald pate. Has he morphed since then?
No, we shouldn’t, any more than we should have him in yellow spandex. Or Rogue flying around or bending steel girders. Or Iceman all covered in ice. Why? Because it doesn’t matter. The story doesn’t need that to be told, and quite frankly, Singer’s whole approach to these movies is that you really only have to accept the possibility of mutant powers. He knows that accepting silly costumes and funny names on top of that is a little much, which is why the closest they get to costumes are those leather thingies. And he deliberately mocks the costume things that are necessary, e.g. Magneto’s dorky helmet, the whole Magneto/ Pyro exchange about being called Pyro, etc. Hell, everyone calls Logan by his name except Stryker, and Stryker’s use of “Wolverine” was deliberate, just like his reference to his own son as Mutant No. whatever. (It made Logan less of a person.)
Yeah, having a 5’ 5’’ sympathetic character who kicks ass would be pretty outlandish. Definitely too much for the American audience. What was I thinking?
You can argue that you don’t need it to make a highly enjoyable flick. Sure. I agree with that.
But my point is that the Hollywood folks think that it would be bad to have such an atypical looking hero. For same reason that you can’t have a bald hero. For instance, if the character of Picard on ST:TNG had been as quick with his fists as Kirk, there’s no way they would have cast a bald actor.
But the fact that you classify short and hairy with the features that definitely would not translate to the screen, like their costumes and icemans skin, justifies their belief, I guess. So mayge I shouldn’t criticize.
On the other hand, I have to hand it to the Spiderman folks who cast nerdy Tobey McGuire. Quite a pleasant surprise.
Not in the least. He included those thing in the list because they are all superficial characteristics of the books that have no bearing on the movie. Famke Janssen doesn’t have big tits. Does that make her less of a Jean Grey? No. She played the part perfectly.
Why don’t you go sit in the corner and whine about Nightcrawler’s sharp teeth and Storm’s eyeballs? Because that’s the same thing too.
Except for the reasons behind those changes. You seem to be trying to say that the reason they made Wolvie tall and good-looking is because of the Hollywood bias towards tall, good-looking people. If this surprises you, well, welcome to the real world.
Bruce Willis, when he’s not wearing a rug
Samuel Jackson as Mace Windu
Laurence Fishburne as Morpheus
Michael Chiklis from The Shield (more of an anti-hero)
Vin Diesel
Yul Brenner in Magnificent Seven
Takashi Shimura in The Seven Samurai
Mind you, that’s just action heros. Plenty of heroic bald characters who don’t smack people around. You had a better complaint when you stuck with height.
I don’t remember Jean’s tits. Were they really big?
Whine?
Do I sound surprised? The only surprise I mentioned was my surprise that they correctly cast Spiderman. That was a surprise. Jackman is not. In fact, I’m surprised they even kept the Logan hairdo.
He was already so big a star when he went bald that he could get a away with it.
My bad. I should have said you can’t have white bald heros. It is established that non-whites can be bald. It probably has to do with non-whites unconciously not being held to the same standards as whites, but I’m probably being much too cynical now.
**I have no idea who this is.
Didn’t these guys shave their heads? I was really referring to naturally bald-on-top guys. Heck, even John Wayne and Sean Connery had to wear toupes. If those guys couldn’t get away with it, who can?
Shaved is different. It’s bold! But it is long-held movie convention that only imbeciles and wussies are naturally bald. Sure, there are exceptions, like Ed Harris, but they are very rare.
Do movie stars have to wear toupes, or could vanity be an issue? Do I even care about the question I’m asking?
Anyway, I think Hugh Jackman is a great Wolverine. I remember having the height discussion with a friend after seeing the movie - I knew he wasn’t 5 1/2 feet tall, but I had no idea he was that big. Didn’t bother me in the slightest, and his skill at the role is way more important. I think he’d have been wasted as Cyclops (even if he’d been written as less of a wet blanket).
I haven’t seen X2 yet (later today . . .) but I thought most of the roles in X-Men were well cast. The only real exception was Halle Berry as Storm, but my disappointement had less to do with any lack on Halle’s part as on the fact that her character just wasn’t well implemented in the first X-Men movie. I saw many people suggest changing the actress, but giving her good lines and more to do is all that’s necessary. Hopefully they did just that in the sequel, I’ll find out soon.
At any rate, Wolverine’s shortness, as much as it may define him in the comics, just isn’t important in the context of a big budget Hollywood blockbuster. You want a short hairy Wolverine? The comics haven’t gone anywhere. The fact that they found someone who is able to pull the role off as well as Jackman has done is enough for me.
As for Francis’ comments on the casting of Cyclops, I don’t know what X-Men comics he’s been reading, but in the ones I read Scott Summers has always been a bit of a pretty boy, a very handsome guy though he never seemed especially aware of the fact. His good looks in no way detracts from the fact that he’s a good leader and can kick ass, and I thought James Marsden was quite good in the role.