Forum - View topicNEWS: Live-Action Ghost in the Shell Film Posts 1st Photo of Scarlett Johansson as the Major
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Holo Wolfgod
 Posts: 90 |
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The Last Samurai says hi, although to be fair this even further back and not as predominantly Japanese (Tom Cruise...) |
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jdnation
Posts: 1995 |
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The complaints about white-washing tire me out.
I wish we could get high budget English movies with accurate racial casts. But the fact is that there aren't that many of them that are good enough. And the ones that are aren't big name enough, because whether we like it or not, high profile actors/actresses put asses into the seats that otherwise wouldn't be there, for reasons no different than the idol culture that exists in Japan itself. Other content will be localized to the dominant culture of the market where the film is expected to make money. All the wishful thinking and protests and angry twitters of the world won't change that. If it does change it will happen naturally over the course of time as more ethnicities start slowly working their way into Hollywood. Someday it will happen. That's how the course of history & culture works. Naturally, over the flow of time usually over hundreds of years. Progress didn't just pop out of the ground like the latest cell phone app. It may not happen fast enough for you or even in your time, and well you'll just have to deal with it. Going to war and burning and rioting will not help anyone's case. The idea that there's some big grand conspiracy in Hollywood to lock out ethnic people is bogus. It has nothing to do with race, and everything to do with money and convenience. Adapting foreign sources to a different cultural setting isn't racism. A stupid idea that probably doesn't work? In some/many cases, sure! But because they're out to deliberately pretend people of other races don't exist? Ha ha, no! As for this new image. Scarjo looks... pretty much like the major. I'm glad they kept the hairstyle. Anyone expecting real-life women to look like the proportions of hand-drawn anime girls needs a reality check. Ghost in the Shell is one of those ideas that are universal and could be adapted to take place in any major technological city. Frankly if the film plays its cards right, ideas like race and ethnicity are completely irrelevant when you can get made-to-order cyborg bodies and be whoever you want. There are other properties where being in Japan and being Japanese are crucial. So let's at least go to bat for those properties that really do need to maintain their Japanese identity in order to work best. I'd consider Akira for example one of them. Which is probably why that film will never be made in our lifetimes. At least not in a way that will work. GITS on the other hand can work. |
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BadNewsBlues
Posts: 5913 |
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Well it was a supernatural update of an old movie with Keanu Reeves no one really was looking for. |
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TarsTarkas
 Posts: 5823 Location: Virginia, United States |
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Excuses. It is a perfectly valid complaint. You just don't like it, because it is an inconvenient truth. There are plenty of foreigners in Japan. But as others have said, it is not about white washing or Japanese washing, but about seats in the theater. |
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malbhet
Posts: 13 |
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I have nothing against scarlett johansson and in fact love her as an actor, but casting her as Kusanagi is as bad as getting Gerard Butler to play Shaft! You mean to tell me they couldn't find one single female japanese actor to play the role, because I can think of one off the top of my head, Rinko Kikuchi for starters!
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Mr. Oshawott
 Posts: 6773 |
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Make no mistake--I like Scarlett Johanssen and I'm sure she's a good actress. However, I feel that she just isn't right for the persona of an Asian character like Motoko Kusanagi.
Then again, what do I know? To Hollywood, maximizing profits matters more to them than diversity and producing good films, let alone live-action film adaptations of anime shows that actually respect the original work. |
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malbhet
Posts: 13 |
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I've seen the original Oldboy long before the english remake, and the remake was just terrible compared to the original! The hallway fight scene in the original had me hooked, unlike the remake, which was a boring pile of fodder! |
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DuelGundam2099
 Posts: 533 |
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As long as the movie has plenty of action I will definitely be seeing it.
 Also
>caring about white washing >especially when the subject in question is a cyborg Granted I only watched the first two movies, not any of the series and OVAs. |
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silentjay
Posts: 304 |
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A. It's been established that Batou IS a big, white, blonde dude. B. He also has a full conversion cyberbody like the Major, just quite not as advanced. (He's a tank, and she's built for infiltration. ) As for the Major, Arise and the new movie point heavily towards her, at the very least, not being ethnically Japanese, and judging by most of the Asian characters, not even Asian. It's also implied that she took the name of, or was adopted by, the cyberneticist who designed her body. So, really, it's up in the air. Last edited by silentjay on Thu Apr 14, 2016 10:04 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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silentjay
Posts: 304 |
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And has only actually been played by an Australian once in said game. |
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TrowaAyanami
 Posts: 17 |
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I'm just gonna leave this here and end it at that.
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Re:SOUL
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I'm in two parts. There's side of me that understands how Hollywood understands why we would have white actors since this is an American movie, not Japanese. If they insist that she's Japanese however, that is illogical. I also think that Scarlett Johansson will make a good Major simply because of what I believe to be her "limited", stoic acting ability that I've seen in all the movies she's been in. While I don't think she is a good actress somehow with the Major not being an emotional character it works in a way. If this film is set in America instead of Japan and Motoko is simply called "The Major" then I'll have no problem.
Then there's the side of me that really wants Japan to do it properly since I enjoyed GANTZ for example and having a Japanese Motoko Kusanagi makes so much more sense to me since she is a Japanese character regardless of Japan's opinion that their characters don't have to look Japanese in anime and manga. That's just a superficial assessment. It's not like western media go into detail to make foreigners look foreign. Yes while many countries have "white" people, Romanians don't look American for example and the British are distinct from Americans too. That's my opinion. Out of the above photo and this one in the article I know which look I prefer. 
Also to those using the fact that the character is a cyborg as an excuse, (I could be wrong) but, I recall her being cyberized as a child and her body them resembled her body as an adult, as it should. With this in mind, the logic of her having a non-Japanese body makes no sense because why would the doctors change her ethnicity as a child? I'm simply saying this for argument's sake. Last edited by Re:SOUL on Thu Apr 14, 2016 10:32 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Re:SOUL
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The same reason why artists regardless of nationality create fan art. If I were a screenwrite or a pro a director I would have attempted to make an anime movie. While I could make Digimon which would be difficult I'd probably go with something more balanced and graceful like Wolf's Rain which 1) is fantastic and 2) can get away with having a non-Japanese cast. I'd hire Yoko Kanno too because I'm not insane. |
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koinosuke
 Posts: 271 Location: Fukushima, Japan |
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Not to mention Letters from Iwo Jima, which is even more recent and basically had a 100% Japanese cast (and was also almost 100% in Japanese). [Edit]: removed unnecessary nested quotes. Please read the quoting guidelines. Errinundra. |
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#838774
Posts: 158 |
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I don't really get the complaining about white washing. This is a movie intended for an English audience. Very few foreign movies are successful in the same way that American movies are. In a movie that requires a lot of CG, they would have to be really confident to risk it and still it would not be the same audience. Movies are a business, not a charity. The more money it brings in, the more budget and care it receives during the filming process. These are all good things for the final product.
Sure, we could make a GITS movie with an all Japanese cast. It would also be a shit movie with no resources, no budget, terrible CG, and probably an even worse director. English isn't evil, white actors aren't bad, and yes, it's all about the money. That doesn't mean it can't be good. |
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