Thor Movie Casting
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Thor Movie Casting

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Chris Hemsworth as Thor... I've seen a preview shot of him as Thor and he looks pretty cool.

Natalie Portman as Jane Foster... I can see this. She's a phenomenal actress when she has a good script to go off of.

Anthony Hopkins as Odin... Another stellar actor. I hope he'll do the part justice. I suspect he will.

Rene Russo as Frigga... I haven't seen her in a lot, but she seems like a decent enough actress and I doubt Frigga will get much screen time.

Tom Hiddleston as Loki... This guy was born to play this role, at least visually. The guy can give such a sinister/mischievous look.

Jaimie Alexander as Sif... Hot mama! She's enough of a looker to play the part, but can she act? I don't recall having seen her in anything before.

Ray Stevenson as Volstagg... I imagine he'll have to wear a fat suit for the role. Should be interesting.

Joshua Dallas as Fandral... Yeah, they needed a good looking guy for this role and they got one. I've never seen this guy act to my knowledge, though.

Tadanobu Asano as Hogunn the Grimm... Now I'm not sure what Hogun's exact story is, but I've read a lot of comics and despite his outfit looking vaguely like a Mongolian's getup, I never thought of him as an Asian guy. More on this in a moment.

Idris Elba as Heimdall... This grates on me. I'm sorry... I am not a racist person (and it's really sad that in this day and age I even have to make that disclaimer) and I'm sure the guy is an amazing actor, but this is a movie about -Norse Gods-. To cast a black guy in the role of one of said gods is as ridiculous as casting a white guy as one of the gods in a movie about an African pantheon.

Now I'm not trying to stir anything up here... I just want my (I feel valid) point to be made. Casting Samuel L Jackson as Nick Fury in the Iron Man movie... was I upset about that? Sure, but not because they cast a black guy. I was upset because it showed that they were mixing Ultimate and 616 Marvel for the movies, and I don't care for the Ultimate titles. I'm honestly surprised but thrilled that Thor in the upcoming movie has his 616 hammer instead of that (imo) goofy looking axe the Ultimate version has. Now when they cast Micheal Clark Duncan as the Kingpin, I was a bit irked. I know they would have had a tough time finding a white guy as huge and imposing as Duncan and I think Duncan's an -amazing- actor, but the fact is that they changed the identity of a fairly iconic character from the comics by changing his ethnicity. Heck, I was even pissed when they cast a white girl as Jubilee in the old Generation X TV movie as opposed to a Chinese-American girl, so it goes both ways. This just seems to be the most ridiculous casting choice yet and I do wonder if the choice was made for PC reasons.

Anyhoo, maybe it's just me. Again, I'm not trying to stir up a political debate here, just voicing my view on the matter. Debate if you will, but try and remain civil. My main point was to show folks who they've cast for the movie, which is looking like it will be very cool.

Posted by Punstarr
on Saturday, May 1, 2010
User Comments
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Azrael -
Monday, May 3, 2010
Actually Ironically, all the white people in Avatar were casted as indians, and the indian waterbenders are white people
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Green Skin -
Monday, May 3, 2010
The funny thing is that this kind of thing has been going on for years.
-John Wayne once played Genghis Khan.
-Keanu Reeves played the Buddha.
-Hell, David Karradine beat out Bruce Lee of all people for his role in Kung Fu.
-The lead in Dragonball Z was a white dude.
- THe leads in Prince of Persia are white folks.
- Nearly the whole cast of Last Airbender is white, gotta wonder what happend there.
-The main charater from Earth Sea was suppose to have 'red/brown/ skin, but some how Iceman got the part.
-The movie 21 was suddenly about white people when it became a movie.

You get the point.
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Therapist -
Monday, May 3, 2010
But sadly I guess we gotta look at it from a companies point of view. If they don't put any ethnic diversity then they have to deal with the backlash of civil rights groups. Moreso cause there are many rumors of those being into Norse Mythos being racist as is. I mean if you listen to Viking rock you are INSTANTLY labeled a racist =/. Look at the TV series Supernatural for a long time they were branded as racist.
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The Real Question -
Monday, May 3, 2010
should you really care about somthin like this....dude this happens in comics,games and books so why make a big deal about just go with the flow.
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Punstarr -
Monday, May 3, 2010
All I want in this Thor movie is an in-movie reason why Heimdall is black. At this point, if they have a badass story for why he is, I'd be far more ok with it. I'd hate to think it was just done for the sake of political ethnic diversity.
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Therapist -
Monday, May 3, 2010
No worries. The last thing I wanted was to convey a misunderstanding.



Which honestly shocks me...

Then again, how well known was that comic?



I apologize if that's how it seemed but such was not my intent. I was generalizing, not speaking about you.
Well to my knowledge Wanted the comic was as well known as say Watchmen . I mean its no spider-man or Superman but heck its only a graphic novel not ongoing ( all be it award winning).

Meh , You always gotta remember it is VERY hard to convey intent through text. Especially when you quoted me.
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Punstarr -
Monday, May 3, 2010
No worries. The last thing I wanted was to convey a misunderstanding.



Which honestly shocks me...

Then again, how well known was that comic?



I apologize if that's how it seemed but such was not my intent. I was generalizing, not speaking about you.
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Therapist -
Monday, May 3, 2010
Honestly? Your friend was seeing racism where none was present, then. My opinion on this has -nothing- to do with racism. It has heavily to do with the double standard, and anyone who doesn't see that double standard isn't looking very hard. You know very well that if a black character had his or her ethnicity changed in a movie there would be a serious political crud storm, because that's obviously "racism"... but it's perfectly fine to change a white character's ethnicity and if someone complains about it? Well, they're obviously racist or have no sense of diversity. That is what I think is utter bs and I'm not afraid to voice that opinion. I have nothing against anyone's ethnicity... but what is good for one should be good for the other. I'm talking about equality for -every- ethnicity.
That makes slightly more sense. Your opening post did not really convey that. I however must disagree to a extent. No one that I have talked to or seen on the net have had a problem with the fact that Angelina Jolie played a character who was originally black in the comics ( Fox in wanted) .


You say your just voicing your opinion but accuse me of thinking you a racist for voicing mine. That is some double standards.
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Punstarr -
Monday, May 3, 2010
Honestly? Your friend was seeing racism where none was present, then. My opinion on this has -nothing- to do with racism. It has heavily to do with the double standard, and anyone who doesn't see that double standard isn't looking very hard. You know very well that if a black character had his or her ethnicity changed in a movie there would be a serious political storm, because that's obviously "racism"... but it's perfectly fine to change a white character's ethnicity and if someone complains about it? Well, they're obviously racist or have no sense of diversity. That is what I think is utter bs and I'm not afraid to voice that opinion. I have nothing against anyone's ethnicity... but what is good for one should be good for the other. I'm talking about equality for -every- ethnicity.
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Therapist -
Monday, May 3, 2010
I must say I find it very hard to post in reply to this without allowing my personnel feelings pour out.

I honestly have NEVER had a problem with changing a characters ethnicity. I think it ads a small amount of accessibility to films that may otherwise have little to no diversity. Maybe it is because I am Half White Half Black or maybe its just a sign of the times I mean we have a black president now.

My Good friend JonT (who is Caucasian) once said something that applied here when someone complained about marlon wayans being cast as ripcord and they said ripcord should be white.

"why cause thats how it was back in the day? I guess we should force black people to the back of the bus to cause thats what they did back in the day. Right?"
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Green Skin -
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Me too. They could use the rebirth angle or that he's the son of the Nine Mothers. It's be a little weird if they still have Sif be his sister. Either way should be a cool movie.
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Punstarr -
Sunday, May 2, 2010
It's all good. Truth be told, it doesn't bother me anywhere near as much as it did a few months ago... my life has mellowed out a lot. I guess all we can do is see the movie when it comes out next year and hope for the best. I just hope there's at least an explanation in the movie.
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Green Skin -
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Even though Cage isn't as well known as Spidey or Cap, he is far more well known than Heimdall. I see where your coming from though, and you've got some good points. I think it's very similar to the Kingpin casting, there really aren't many white guys that have the acting skills and the physical size for the character.

II'll give it to ya, race does matter....when it comes to main characters and villians. For a background character like Heimdall though, I think people are blowing it waaaaay out of proportion.

I don't think it's really gonna matter too much since Heimdall will likely not have very much screen time. Guess we'll just have to see how the movie turns out.
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Punstarr -
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Ask your average moviegoer who Captain America or Spider-Man are (even before the Spider-Man movies) and they'll have probably heard of them. Ask those same people who Luke Cage is and they'll likely just stare at you blankly.

But my point is that there exists a double standard where if you changed the race of even a D list black character for a movie, you'd have groups up in arms suing the movie company. What's good for the goose should be good for the gander, but it's not. So ethnicity is not important, but because of that double standard, it really is. It's just that in these PC times, few people are willing to talk about it.

To me, maintaining -everything- about even secondary characters is important to make a good comic book movie. I'm not going to boycott a movie just because I don't agree with the casting, but I would have enjoyed Daredevil more if they had found someone who looked like the Kingpin from the comics who did as good a job acting as Duncan, just as I would have enjoyed Generation X more if Jubilee had been Chinese-American.
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Green Skin -
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Bad example, Heimdall is nowhere near as popular as Cage. Cage is a B list character, while Heimdall is a D lister. If you look at there on panel time, Heimdall doesn't even come close to Cage. THere's never been a Heimdall title, where as there have been many books that Cage has helmed.

A better example would be someone like Jarvis, Foggy Nelson or Robbie Robertson. Yeah it'd be weird if they showed up on screen as a different race, but it wouldn't really effect anything.

I still don't see the big deal. Like MangaJoe said, the movie universe are always separate from the comics. They change things in just about every single Marvel movie, so whats the problem with this? People can accept the premise that a man can magically transform into a god that can summon lightning and weilds a flying hammer, but an Asgardian being black is just too far fetched?
He's got the physical stature and the acting chops, his race shouldn't matter.
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Punstarr -
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Alright, but think about this...

How well do you think it would go over if they cast a white guy as Luke Cage in an Avengers movie?

Still think race doesn't matter?
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50percentJoe -
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Kind of with Greenskin on this, does changing a secondary character significantly change things that much? Also, they're f*cking GODS. Seriously, I feel a God can probably look however it pleases. I mean take for instance Zeus in greek Mythology, he'd pose as a different guy every day so he could nail more women and have illigitimate kiddies.

Also, Samuel L. Jackson... I don't care if he's not 616 Nick Fury, HE'S SAMUEL LEROY JACKSON! I'm just going to point out that our previous live action Nick Fury was David Hasselhof. Also the movies aren't really that strict on what universe it is, I mean Stark isn't exactly getting kidnapped by Chinese terrorists so he can make a suit of armor for the Mandarin.

I say let the movies be their own universe, I mean they even have comics based solely in the movie universe right now.
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Green Skin -
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Does Heimdall's race really matter? He's a secondary character, it's not like they made Thor a black guy. Lets not forget that the Asgardians of the Marvel U are not the same as the Norse Gods of Myth, they are just based on them. Even Thor is not consistent with his Norse God counter part. I'm more worried about his ability to pull off the character than what color he is. Who knows, maybe they auditioned a ton of white actors and then Elba comes in and does the character better than any of them. I see where your coming from, but it's the performance that really counts.
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