Doctor Strange

[Mr. Hakujin]

I never even considered that they'd have him attempt an American accent. He sounds like Hugh Laurie in House!

Exacly! I was expecting Hugh Laurie to pop out of the corner. I think this is the first time I've heard Cumberbatch do an "American" accent.

[alive she cried]

So how accurate is it? It sounds pretty good to me, but do American ears pick up nuances (or lack thereof) that I can't hear?

[Da Cap'n 2099]

It's interesting. Sometimes I can TOTALLY tell when an actor is doing an American accent. Others I can catch it randomly. Like they're accent is great, but "that's not how you say that word." And others are uncanny. Like I'll watch an interview on YouTube, or something, and I'll be blown away. "THEY'RE BRITISH!?"

 

Don't ask for examples, please.

Edited April 17, 2016 by Da Cap'n 2099

[The NZA]

i guess i was assuming he'd have an american accent, since the character does. then again, if it was somehow his native brit one, i don't think i'dve minded, either.

[Da Cap'n 2099]

Yeah, I was kinda hopin' it'd be his natural speaking voice to bring some more diversity to the Universe.

Edited April 17, 2016 by Da Cap'n 2099

[Iambaytor]

So how accurate is it? It sounds pretty good to me, but do American ears pick up nuances (or lack thereof) that I can't hear?

 

Depends on the actor. Hugh Laurie is flawless as an American, Andrew Lincoln is atrocious (to be fair I didn't know he wasn't American when I first saw The Walking Dead but it was very apparent that he wasn't Southern.) The actors I've taken note of that just absolutely can't do American accents no matter how hard they try tend to have stronger accents like Liam Neeson and Alfred Molina, their accents are just too potent to tamp down. I have a feeling Cumberbatch will have a similar problem.

[Keth]

Christian Bale was one of those people who I didn't know if he was British or American for a long time. I first saw him in Reign of Fire, but I know I've seen him do TV interviews with an American accent.

 

If there was any doubt left on his British-ness, his set rant quelled that

 

It's interesting. Sometimes I can TOTALLY tell when an actor is doing an American accent. Others I can catch it randomly. Like they're accent is great, but "that's not how you say that word." And others are uncanny. Like I'll watch an interview on YouTube, or something, and I'll be blown away. "THEY'RE BRITISH!?"

 

Don't ask for examples, please.

 

Charlie Cox recently had this effect on me. He can hide his accent pretty damn well.

[Mr. Hakujin]

Cumberbatch (from the little I heard in the trailer) and Laurie both have this kind of vocal fry to their voices when they do their American accents that they don't have in their regular speaking voices. I think that's what makes Cumberbatch's accent so off-putting in the trailer since his natural speaking voice is so distinct.

[Donatella]

Charlie Cox recently had this effect on me. He can hide his accent pretty damn well.

 

Charlie hid it very well season one. I didn't notice it at all and I pride myself on catching fake accents! But in season two there were entire scenes where I felt he wasn't even trying. He sounded distractingly British!

[The NZA]

Scriptwriter for Doctor Strange film explains why they changed the Ancient One

 

https://soundcloud.com/kcoolman/the-...ervice-4-17-16

It's a podcast interview with the website Doubletoasted. The interview with C. Robert Cargill starts at one hour and thirty eight minutes.

 

He talks about the Ancient One's casting at two hours, fifteen minutes and eighteen seconds.

 

Cargill says there was nothing Marvel could do that wouldn't upset people. They didn't want to upset China by having the Ancient One be Tibetan, they also didn't want to just swap in another Asian race because of political reasons in Asia. Director Scott Derrickson felt the character was needed for the story, but was also a landmine. He decided the easiest way to deal with it was to change the character to a white female and hoped it would upset the least amount of people.

 

He also talks about why he thinks some directors, like Edgar Wright, decided to walk away from the Marvel films they were supposed to direct. That starts at one hour, forty two minutes and thirty seconds.

 

Basically from what he understands, the directors felt that due to their previous success they didn't need to listen to Kevin Feige'ssuggestions on improving the film's script and refused to make any changes. This forced Marvel to get someone else to work on the films.

 

wow, would never have even considered it was the chinese market they were thinking of by that casting choice...swindon's gonna be great for it, mind, but interesting stuff all the same. also, we get some answers on why Edgar Wright left, too.

[Da Cap'n 2099]

Basically from what he understands, the directors felt that due to their previous success they didn't need to listen to Kevin Feige'ssuggestions on improving the film's script and refused to make any changes. This forced Marvel to get someone else to work on the films.

 

Basically what I said way back when folks were condemning Marvel for "running off" their prized director. Dude wasn't down for the vision Marvel was pushing, fuck 'im.

[Iambaytor]

I'm pretty certain Wright left over the Falcon scene, which is a shame because he could've done something amazing with that (not saying that Peyton Reed didn't, just that he could've done more.)

 

And given how much of a baby Joss Whedon was being about Avengers 2 I'm kinda siding with Marvel here. I would've liked some more character beats but it made sense to tap into the inifinity stones and I'd much rather have cut out that awful Black Widow/Bruce Banner relationship.

[The NZA]

wait, did Wright not want that Falcon scene in?

 

this feels fairly reminiscent of heavy-handed editing comic writers have had for years, only...i can't argue with feige's results, so yeah, siding with him here

[Iambaytor]

The statement was that he clashed with the studio because they wanted him to add stuff to more completely tie it into the greater MCU. Considering that that scene is the only one in the movie that really does that (there's a few little asides here and there but nothing major) and knowing how tightly plotted and precisely portioned his movies are I'm gonna say that was what he didn't want to do.

[The NZA]

interesting piece on the controversy around this one

 

For Hollywood studios looking to maximize profits on their latest blockbuster, securing a release in China is a serious priority. The country’s 1.4 billion-strong population makes it the second largest film market in the world, and it could potentially even surpass the U.S. film market within the next decade. Ensuring that a release makes it onto the quota of 34 foreign films each year that China imports on a revenue sharing basis can make a big difference to a movie’s overall box office haul, but securing this theatrical release often comes with some form of compromise.

 

When it comes to superhero movies, perhaps no production company has been more successful at charming China than Marvel Studios. Last year’s team-up Avengers: Age of Ultron grossed over $240 million at the Chinese box office, a quarter of its total worldwide gross. Though Hollywood movies only receive 25% of the Chinese box office take, $60 million is not to be sniffed at.

 

 

Before Marvel movies can make their way into China’s theaters, however, they must first undergo scrutiny by the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television, the government body in charge of approving media for consumption by the Chinese populace, and keeping an eye out for any scenes that could be perceived as portraying China, the Chinese government, or the Chinese people in a negative light. Perhaps the most notable example of Marvel’s efforts to keep the SAPPRFT happy and cater to Chinese audiences is Iron Man 3, in which the Mandarin, a villain of Chinese origin in the comics, was portrayed as being of ambiguous ethnicity and eventually revealed to be nothing but a sock puppet created by the true villain, Aldrich Killian. Moreover, the Chinese version of Iron Man 3 included additional scenes featuring Chinese movie stars Fan Bingbing and Wang Xueqi as the surgeons who are finally able to remove the shrapnel from Tony Stark’s chest.

 

...

 

It scarcely needs to be said, but Marvel’s decision to quietly excise Tibet from Doctor Strange’s origin story is not apolitical. The studio has absolutely taken a side on the issue of the Tibet-China conflict, and it has sided with the Chinese government – an obvious choice, considering that the SAPPRFT is the gatekeeper to China’s massive population and substantial Marvel fanbase. But unlike awkwardly shoehorned scenes with Chinese actors or product placements for Chinese milk drinks, the erasure of Tibet from a major Hollywood blockbuster isn’t so easy to just shrug off. At worst, it could be argued that Marvel is being complicit in the oppression of a people whose troubled history has included human rights violations such as false imprisonment and torture by Chinese officials, many horrifying instances of Tibetans self-immolating in protest, and ongoing restrictions of freedom of religion, speech and the press. With all that in mind, Marvel’s decision to play along with the Chinese government’s stance on Tibet, even by simply avoiding acknowledgement of its existence, suddenly doesn’t seem so harmless.

 

From a business perspective, the decision makes perfect sense. China is, as previously mentioned, the largest film market in the world outside of the U.S., and as far as Marvel’s primary market is concerned the Tibet-China conflict is (generally speaking) a non-issue. The majority of moviegoers in the Western hemisphere probably couldn’t even point to Tibet on a map, let alone care deeply enough about its independence to boycott a movie just because its protagonist goes on a spiritual journey to Nepal instead. People tend to care more about the issues that are closer to home and most relevant to their own daily lives. It’s one of the reasons why the removal of Tibet from Doctor Strange’s origin story has been so vastly overshadowed by the continuing conversation about whitewashing in Hollywood and the lack of meaty roles for Asian-American actors.

 

It could be argued that even without the shiny appeal of China’s box office, Doctor Strange still would have ended up changing settings in order to avoid the potential pitfalls of setting a fun supernatural adventure in a real-world hotbed of political and social issues (Cargill’s example of a comic book character travelling to Palestine for his training is an apt one). In this case, however, the omission of Tibet is a political move precisely because it serves a particular status quo. Perhaps the best comparison is the fact that no Disney movie has ever featured an explicitly gay character; even in the MCU, characters like Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.‘s Joey Gutierrez and Jessica Jones‘ Jeri Hogarth are kept strictly on the TV side. While some might argue that this is simply a case of Disney not wanting to take a stance on a sensitive topic like LGBT representation, the total lack of LGBT characters is, in itself, a political stance; with each new movie that only features heterosexual characters, Disney incrementally reinforces the idea that gay characters aren’t suitable for media aimed at children.

 

The more cynical mind might argue that Marvel’s push for diversity is just as money-driven as pandering to China, since studies have shown that films with greater diversity among their casts perform better at the box office.

 

That, really, is the crux of the issue; with hundreds of millions of dollars on the line, any film studio is always going to listen to money first and morals second. But while big budget superhero movies that touch on political issues tend to stick to messages that are either largely non-contentious (i.e. the X-Men movies’ stance that discrimination is bad) or abstract (i.e. Captain America: Civil War‘s question of whether people with superpowers should be subject to oversight), it’s basically impossible for such an influential piece of media to avoid politics entirely.

 

more

 

Every major studio has been pandering to China (specifically, their Ministry of Culture that needs to approve foreign entertainment) for years.

 

It's why the new Ghostbusters headquarters is in a Chinese restaurant. It's why Tony Stark goes to "the best doctors in the world" in China. It's why the Chinese Space Admin involvement is entirely positive in The Martian (there's a much more lengthy political maneuvering battle in the book). It's why Sandra Bullock gets into the Chinese Space Station in Gravity. It's why parts of Looper were originally set in Paris but moved to Shanghai. It's why in '2012', the only country to think ahead to build the arks is China. It's why in Days of Future Past, one of the last hiding places from the Sentinels is China. It's why Transformers: Age of Extinction has that whole "China will defend Hong Kong" scene. It's why Pacific Rim has a whole act in Hong Kong - despite being built upon a combination of franchises from Japan.

 

If you know what to look for, it's absolutely rampant in Hollywood right now and has been for some time. And, to clarify, these films aren't pandering the Chinese audience - they're pandering to the Chinese government. Because if you piss them off, you don't get bad reviews or low box office numbers - you don't get to release your film, period. Or their 'totally-not-a-bribe' fee quadruples.

 

We have the same issue when trying to get games released in China too.

 

Takei weighs in on the whitewashing

 

[Iambaytor]

I don't disagree with Takei or anyone else but THIS is exactly why white people tend to stick with white characters and actors across the board. Nobody reads anything into white people unless they're replacing a non-white person.

[Little Nemo McFly]

Casting decisions made to appeal to certain demographics??? That's unheard of!

[Newtype]

[Keth]

Of course I had to bring back this goofy motherfucker

 

 

Someone needs to gifify that cape moment!

[Da Cap'n 2099]

Yeah, this movie is gonna blow our socks off.

[Little Nemo McFly]

I have no idea what the plot is - but I already bought the bluray, LOL! It's been awhile since a flick's eye-candy/fx alone is gonna be worth the price of admission. That shit looked like an epic, cinematic, straight-up ride - hot damn!

 

Again, I had no idea what was going on, though.

Edited July 24, 2016 by Little Nemo McFly

[Newtype]

Someone needs to gifify that cape moment!

 

[Da Cap'n 2099]

I'll tell you this: I won't be surprised if people get sick in the theater. Like, physically sick. Most of those scenes are trippier than anything I've ever seen in a film.

[Mr. Hakujin]

Damn. The first trailer already sold me on this film and got me hyped. I've already had SDCC overload, so I'm gonna hold this one for later in the week.

 

Dat cape gif tho.

[Keth]

 

"This doesn't make any sense."

 

"Not everything has to"

 

 

Can't wait to see them finally embrace magic without explaining it off as "Science we don't understand yet" or some shit.

Edited September 28, 2016 by Axels