Thank you, Aesiron. What a cool thing to share.
Pleasure’s all mine, Askia. OK, I’ve got one for you: Billy Dee Williams as Lando in The Empire Strikes Back: he doesn’t seem to fit under Star Power, Salt And Pepper {weeellll…maybe…} or Comic Relief, and one would have expected a sacrifice for his initial perfidy. Mind you, I have read {and don’t ask for cites} that Lucas wrote him in after criticism that there were no black characters in Star Wars: didn’t Richard Pryor have a sketch about that?
Mind you, then there were TWO charming ne’er-do-wells in Jedi, leaving neither of them with that much to do, once the role had been split between them.
Case Sensitive. Lando survived *Star Wars * only because everybody in the main cast survived the original trilogy except for Obi Wan and Vader.
While popular escapist entertainment, the original trilogy barely fits the conventions of typical horror, sci-fi or action movies – it was all about the adventures of this small and pivotal band against the backdrop of this huge galactic war, (a PG-rated war) where people all around them died. There was never a situation where the crew of the Milliennium Falcon had to fend off certain death from an enemy only to die, one by one. Had that ever happened, oh, yeah, Lando would’ve bought it for sure, if only to redeem himself for his initial betrayal of the crew to Vader in The Empire Strikes Back.
Mace Windu is the Sacrificial Negro of the current trilogy. Revenge of the Sith seems as though it might finally up the franchise’s body count and provide the inescapable danger that’s been missing so far, with the fall of the Jedi. I’m quoting Samuel L. Jackson in hoping that Mace doesn’t “go out like a punk.”
You just have to have a well-reasoned and consistent answer for everything, don’t you? I mean that entirely as a compliment, by the way - I’m off to find someone dumber than I am to try and match wits with.
The World Is Not Enough
I’m going to take issue with you on that one…
Villains: Baron Samedi survived Live And Let Die quite nicely, and was last seen sitting on the cowcatcher of the speeding train chuckling eerily to himself. OK, I know, he may have had supernatural powers - but he was black, right?
Heroes {or assistants}: Charles, the black MI6 agent in at least the last couple of movies {The World Is Not Enough and Die Another Day seems to be so far doing quite well in his chosen career, even surviving an explosion {in DAD} that killed a number of white agents - that one did quite surprise me; after the introduction of a token black agent, I was expecting them to kill him off - however he made it to the end of the movie and into the next one.
Case Sensitive. Oh, you’re good. You’re very, very good.
Yes, Baron Samedi is black – BUT – every other example f the Sacrifical Negro I’ve cited has been a mortal man. Samedi (Or Baron Saturday) is a sho’nuff skull-faced Voodoo god, Lord of the Dead, and is at least as wily, cunning and capricious as Set of Nile pantheon and Loki of the aesir. He transcends mere trivialities such as breathing. He’s not just laughing at the end of* Live And Let Die*, he’s laughing at you. Bond is lucky the gods are feckless.
M’s black assistant is not an M16 agent – he’s office staff. Twenty 007 films, and no one’s even come close to harming a hair on the office staff, especially M, Q and Moneypenny. He wasn’t even in the same room as the rigged explosive money when it when of in DAD-- that was on the other side of M-16 building, IIRC. He gets a free pass as long as he’s making Xeroxes and has fewer than seven lines per film. If he ever makes it out in the field, he’s probably toast. And hey, we’ve got the NEXT installment – he might not even appear in that one. Maybe I ought to get points for his unexplained disappearance, hmm? Missing and presumed dead and all.
Note : In Live And Let Die the badddie Mr Big has his henchmen dress up like Baron Samedi to impress the locals. Henchman #1 raises from the grave - actually he comes through a trapdoor from the secret underground base. Bond blows him away. He is then replaced by Henchman #2 from a different trapdoor. I think his makeup had a different pattern of black & white.
The one we see on the train right at the end is possibly Henchman #3, with yet another pattern of black/ white, but I think it is supposed to be the *real *Baron.
Peter Morris. Wasn’t the Baron played by Geoffrey Holder in all three instances? (80s 7-Up guy)
Hmmm…office staff? Just done a quick search on IMDB, and Colin Salmon’s Charles Robinson is credited as M’s Chief of Staff: OK, not a field agent then, but hardly a mere hewer of wood and drawer of water - MI6 probably has an Arcoroc ceiling, but he’s on his way up. He has at least some field assignments: he’s seen in Rasta disguise {OK, not too subtle} in DAD, passing Bond his instructions in the field.
C’mon, you KNOW he’s gonna make OO some day {and when Moneypenny dons the VR glasses, she sees him toting a gun, shoulder to shoulder with Bond, repelling an incursion of MI6 headquarters - although I grant you that at least part of that may be her fervid imagination…}
The explosion I was referring to wasn’t the rigged explosive money - that was in TWINE {hee hee}, not DAD {this is getting silly} - but later in TWINE when Electra blows up the pipeline control room: he was definitely present then, and the blast killed other personnel - but NOT Charles Robinson.
Get out of that…
Seems to me that Chief of Staff is a job for a former agent, not a future one. Robinson was probably a veteran 00 who was promoted to HQ duty. Think about it: not all agents are blessed with eternal youth like Bond, and many would be happy for a safer job after a few years in the field. He could have a family, for all we know. Not all 00s have to be complete failures when it comes to personal relationships.
Case. How’s this: I’ll concede Charles Robinson is an enigma that bears closer scrutiny in future installments of the 007 franchise… but I caution you that his becoming an agent in the 00 Section after being M’s assistant is roughly analagous to current White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card resigning his position to join the Secret Service-- and about as likely and sensible. In any event, I can live with revising my assessment that Jinx, miscellanous thug, Baron Samedi and Charles Robinson being the only black characters to survive James Bond movies alive, which still puts me ahead about 40-4. I owe you that much to admit when I’m wrong, and it teaches me a lesson about forgetting Samedi and dismissing Robinson.
Takes a big man to admit when he’s wrong,Askia, even in Cafe Society. C’mon, as per my earlier post I just like trying to match wits with you.
I don’t know. My impression is that it was three different people, but I don’t have the movie to check.
I’m unaware of the 80’s 7-up campaign of which you speak. Perhaps they didn’t show it over here (UK).
Its not. It’s Keith David (Childs) who survives at the end along with Kurt Russell.
I thought the original plan was for the Millenium Falcon to be destroyed while destroying the second death star - thus Han’s foreshadowing statements about never seeing her again. That would have been a better ending, IMHO, and not just as it validates Askia’s law. Lando’s just important enough for his death to bring home the cost of the victory.
And I enjoy defending my assertions. Keep me on my toes
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Hah! Chalk another one up for me - and yes, Askia, I know he may well be an alien entity by the end - but then again, so may Kurt Russell. Oohh, I’m on a roll today…
The best example of Sacrificial Negro I can think of is in Nighthawks with Sylvester Stallone and Billy Dee Williams. In it, the latter is badly hurt, not killed, but it nonetheless sets up the Our Hero Avenges His Buddy situation.
My preferred explanation is that, while the part of Our Hero is set as a vehicle for the likes of Stallone or Gibson, the part of Buddy Who Gets Killed/Hurt is more open, so why not cast a black guy in it? Or would you rather cast the villian as black?
Colin Salmon did get to play the Sacrificial Negro (great phrase by the way) in Resident Evil as his character One bites it third. I’m pretty sure he was the only black cast member.
As for The Thing…
In The Thing video game, Kurt Russell’s character MacReady is the final boss as he has been taken over by The Thing in that final scene.
I’d love to see more quality black villains. Most Hollywood movies are glorified morality plays where the villain (usually) dies at the end anyway, and we have some great African-American actors who could do a damn fine job chewing some scenery in the right roles. I love the nuances John Barrymore, Clint Eastwood, Christopher Walken, and Gary Oldman have brought to various viilainous roles, but you so rarely see black actors get to play that level of articluated mavolence. Street thuggery and general badasses, yeah. Cold, calculating, quotable crimelords with crazy quirks in crooked climes? Not so much. I mean, no offense to Michael Duncan Clarke as the Kingpin in DAREDEVIL, 'cuz you can only do so much with what you’re given… but c’mon.
I mean, You saw Denzel in TRAINING DAY. I’d like to see him play more villainous roles. Morgan Freeman can be a great villain. Wesley Snipes? Andre Braugher? What happened to the dude who played Simon Adebisi on OZ? Why hasn’t he hit the big screen?