Do you have anything left for the straightwashingof Ben-Hur?
Like **Smapti **said, after Gibson’s, shall we say, peculiar, staging of an old-style Passion Play was a huge hit, the Lord seemed to decide that required the smiting of Christian Film makers with possesion by a foul Demon of Lame. One has to admit, part of the deal with “The Passion of…” was that it had a creative vision behind it. A *disturbed *creative vision, sure, but he *had *one and he was not afraid (and in fact intended) to hit a nerve with it. Other Jesusy films of our generation, well, not quite. Like he said, too concerned with preaching to the choir and getting nods of approval from Parents’ Councils.
Maybe they thought it had the bad timing to have been outshone by Cable TV’s Spartacus. 'cause if you’re going to cash in on the Gladiator vibe, you might as well go all in, and in this day and age on cable TV you can give the audience the bread and circus AKA sex and violence they really want.
This whole seem reminds me of Hail Caesar! 
What do you have against those poor lions?
The ad I saw showed shots that were taken directly from the 1959 one. So if it was supposed to be new, it sure didn’t sell itself as new to me or to anybody else familiar with the Heston version. I’m not 50 (by a year and a half), but there used to be only two channels on my TV and as you can imagine the Easter fare was a bit predictable.
Do you think anyone really cares about that kind of thing enough to skip movies because of it? Maybe a tiny number of millenials with nothing better to get upset about, but most people just aren’t concerned with that kind of thing.
There’s another thought that I had about this movie. Beyond the 1959* Ben Hur *being a sort of iconic movie in this particular sort of ancient-world epic movie (I’d rank it up there with *Spartacus *and Ten Commandments as the top 3, myself), what exactly are they going to do BETTER than the 1959 movie in a remake? That movie already had very well done chariot racing and galley slave/ancient naval warfare scenes, and the rest were basically done on soundstages. They could, I suppose, try and better the acting/direction, and I suppose they could concentrate on the historicity of the scenes, costuming and what-not, but they have a tough row to hoe if that’s the primary avenue by which the producers and director hope to distinguish their movie from the 1959 one.
That’s I think, the biggest single problem with remakes; if the movie has enough room for improvement such that the remake is significantly better than the original, then the original was probably not particularly popular. Conversely, if the original was very popular, then the remake has a very constrained space in which to try and improve on it.
So I have a feeling that shy of trying to make a movie as epic as the original, with one of today’s top directors, such as Ron Howard or Steven Spielberg (the director of the original, William Wyler was nominated for “Best Director” a record-setting 12 times, and won it 3 times, tying him with Frank Capra, and one behind John Ford), a huge location and FX budget, and with the leading actor an already proven film actor with wide popularity- maybe someone like a Ryan Gosling. By the time of Ben Hur, Heston had already starred in the Ten Commandments and Touch of Evil, both widely acclaimed movies and performances, as well as a slew of lesser movies and supporting performances.
But remaking the movie with a virtually unknown leading man and a director best known for making “Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter” and an odd movie about bullet-curving assassins (“Wanted”) seems like a recipe for disaster to me.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!!! :o
The first choice was apparently Tom Hiddleston – who apparently passed on it for top billing in an upcoming film with Samuel L. Jackson and Brie Larson.
shrug Among my friends (mostly in their forties), it’s considered important. I know I’m going to see Dr. Strange regardless, but I know several people who won’t. My roommate didn’t go see the biopic on Nina Simone because they cast light-skinned Zoe Saldana as Simone, who was dark-skinned with strongly African facial features. Etc, etc, etc.*
*The current Broadway production of The King and I, as well as all the other ones I’ve seen recently, cast actual Asians, often Thai, as the King of Siam. Yay!
Did they skip SUICIDE SQUAD because of Will Smith? FANTASTIC FOUR, because of Michael B. Jordan? THOR because of Idris Elba? (Are they planning on skipping the upcoming SPIDER-MAN flick if the rumors are true and the new Mary Jane is black?)
Granted, nobody needed a reason to skip FANTASTIC FOUR. But I’m genuinely curious: did they buy tickets, or stay home?
Eh… was that part of the silly line of thought that casting a black guy in a historically white role is just as bad as casting a white guy in a historically minority role? Because that is a silly line of thought.
I’ll echo Maggie the Ocelot, you don’t have to be a millennial to care about that. It’s really most of my 30-40 year old friends who get upset about whitewashed casting. Probably more than the millennials I know.
The whole movie was like that. Particularly in the first half where they’re establishing who everybody is and their relationships, everyone was talking in this entirely casual, modern way. It was very off putting. I expected to see them whip out their iPhones at any moment.
I also am tired of seeing Morgan Freeman in every single movie ever made, but I actually thought this role suited him and he did a good job with it. Unlike other movies where he seemed shoehorned into a role that wasn’t right for him.
The chariot scene was pretty good, but some of the horse effects “needed another pass through the CGI machine,” as one reviewer put it.
Come to think of it, it slipped my mind that DOCTOR STRANGE swaps in Tilda Swinton as the Ancient One and simultaneously swaps in Chiwetel Ejiofor in the historically white role of Europe’s own Karl Mordo. (Who apparently gets higher billing than Swinton!) So – what, does that mitigate? Cancel out? Pull ahead?
I can’t keep up.
By sheer numbers, I’m sure “mainstream” America counts as most people, but the rest of us like seeing ourselves on screen sometimes too.
They probably skipped the first two because of the putrid reviews.
Thor? The Asgardians aren’t Nordic–they are highly advanced aliens. Who interacted with primitive folk from the Frozen North, thus entering into their mythology (as the Aesir). There were some neckbeards who complained about Idris (the fools!). I’m sure the same neckbeards are already bitching about* Spiderman*.
It’s not as if a galaxy of stars were cast in this latest Ben Hur. (“There aren’t enough non-white proven boxoffice winners!”) I’m almost tempted by cutie Jack Huston.
Yeah, whitewashing makes me think twice; it often indicates a lack of imagination. I’ll probably see Dr Strange because making his mentor non-Tibetan also had to do with appealing to the Chinese market. Besides, it’s made by the good Marvel folks. I was not tempted by that Nordic Gods of Egypt film…
And I am so not a millenial…
Somebody needs to
But isn’t the job of an actor, hell, a REALLY good actor, to perform as the character so well that you forget who that actor is, that they’re only the character they’re portraying?
I can give a damn what the race of the actor is, IF they make me believe they’re the character, that’s all that matters. (yes, 60, 70 years ago in the days of segregation, of Jim Crow, studios would PURPOSELY not hire actors of color, but I don’t believe the studious of today go out of their way not to hire people.
Anyway, I believe one of the best/worst portrayers of the same character on the big screen occurred within the last 30 years and has nothing to do with race.
The Batman villain, The Joker.
In the 2008 film, The Dark Knight, when I saw the Joker on the screen I didn’t see actor Heath Ledger, I saw ONLY the Joker.
In the 1989 film Batman, when I saw the Joker on the screen I saw actor Jack Nicholson hamming it up, I didn’t see the Joker.
The 1925 film wasn’t too bad. The cringeworthy film is the 1910 version, which fortunately is pretty short.
I think I’ve seen that one, too–it’s a DVD extra on the deluxe edition.
Still, the 1925 version has the “honor” of:
-getting the ENTIRE THRUST OF THE STORY BACKWARDS. Dorothy is the lost princess of Oz, so the focus isn’t on getting her home, it’s KEEPING her in Oz and on the throne. (Not to mention aging her up so every man who isn’t Uncle Henry can drool over her, and so she can end up with a handsome prince.)
-even worse, casting African-American actor Spencer Bell (billed as “G. Howe Black”) as the farmhand “Snowball” who is lazy, cowardly (guess which character he disguises himself as once he lands in Oz?), dimwitted, and eating watermelon in his first scene. I know it was a different time period, but REALLY.
Oh well, it does have some small saving graces: Oliver Hardy as one of the farmhands, and the genesis of “Kansas characters have Oz counterparts” (even if this version had them disguising themselves as these characters once the tornado swept them all away to Oz).
Your friends really need something more important to do… getting butt-hurt about a movie not casting a black-ENOUGH black woman in a part calling for a black woman is totally and completely absurd.
I mean, I can see the irritation with the old Hollywood practice of casting Anglo actors in Asian roles and then giving them bad makeup to sort of look the part.
But the real problem there is in the trying to make the Anglos look Asian in stereotypical ways, not merely rewriting a script to make a main character Anglo, or to cast an Anglo actor in a part that was something else in the source material.
I mean, that link cites the Hunger Games books as an example, as Katniss wasn’t described as white in the books. What does it matter though? The story doesn’t change, and the character doesn’t change by having super-white Jennifer Lawrence portray her. Same thing for say… having Sean Connery play Raisuli, or Kirk Douglas play non-Thracian Spartacus, or for that matter, having Samuel L. Jackson play the originally white Nick Fury. All excellent performances, despite not being exactly perfect on ethnicity.
People like me certainly care about it on a conscious level (and I’m not a millennial), but I think a lot of people (millenials and otherwise) are simply losing interest in these kind of movies because the lack of depth and originality is starting to grate. I mean, how many lamely written and directed action movies starring white male heroes being preternaturally badass, powerful, and stereotypically masculine can we all stomach? Race has a lot of do with this perceived blandness, but it’s not the only thing.
Some segment of the population can be counted on to eat this stuff up indefinitely, but that segment is shrinking in size and in spending power. American tastes are becoming more diverse not less. But would we really know that looking at our films? I don’t think so.