Dune (2020)

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Qhue

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I mean Dune is already a massive Islamic allegory anyway so having Zendaya as Chani doesn't bother me at all. The guy playing Paul seems a bit too scrawny to be the perfect human, but I'm willing to give him a chance. Oscar Isaac may be Guatemalan but hes a good actor and has demonstrated the ability to chameleon himself nicely.

I really liked the SciFi/German version from a few years ago, not sure if you can really do Dune justice in a single film. I went to see the David Lynch version when it first came out and even with the cheat sheet we walked out of the film with no idea what the fuck had happened. Ihad to then read the books to even comprehend what I was meant to have seen. His subsequent cuts did a much better job, but that initial release was dogshit.
 
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Vanderhoof

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We've learned from Game of Thrones that it is far more important to find the right actor for the role who can play the character over finding the person who looks most similiar to the character's description. People were upset briefly that Charles Dance wasn't bald with mutton chops or that Danys fuck buddy didnt have blue hair but they quickly got over it.
 
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Drinsic

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Wait, so are you mad she's brown or do you think she can't act? If because brown, she's half black playing a space Arab. If because acting, how many bad performances have you seen in a Villeneuve film?

This should've been directed at Aldarion Aldarion
 
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Vanderhoof

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I dont know how you could construe that I'm angry from that post. I was trying to say if shes the right actress to capture the essence of the character, her skin color wont matter.
 

Drinsic

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I dont know how you could construe that I'm angry from that post. I was trying to say if shes the right actress to capture the essence of the character, her skin color wont matter.
Man I'm retarded, sorry. For whatever reason I thought you had also made the Aldarion Aldarion post immediately bitching about race.
 
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spronk

FPS noob
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yeah the fremen being white is actually the fucked up thing, they should all be arabs and asians. Frank Herbert saw the future clearly, in 10,000 years only the decadent emperor and the fucked up courts of The Fat Baron and Sting were run by white men, the rest of the universe was brown

of course there should be no transgender either, the fremen would kill anyone like that for being haram. i'm not sure about gay tho, in a sparta kinda way its more likely it would be encouraged among the soldiers to have LGB folks, and God Emperor of Dune went into that heavily with the fish speakers
 

Aldarion

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We've learned from Game of Thrones that it is far more important to find the right actor for the role who can play the character over finding the person who looks most similiar to the character's description. People were upset briefly that Charles Dance wasn't bald with mutton chops or that Danys fuck buddy didnt have blue hair but they quickly got over it.
LOL thats what we've learned from Game of Thrones? Every time you watch Dany's bizarre black eyebrows on a platinum blond chick look, thats what you think? What I think is "there are a couple dozen actually blond actresses who could deliver these lines just as well". Not like theres some shortage of blond actresses.

Finding a person who looks like the part is equally important to their ability to stand their and recite lines while making their O face. wooo, acting ability!

I'm not objecting to some random race swap. I object to this ridiculous, transparent, and universal pattern in casting. If the leading couple are white in the book, they'll be a white dude and a black chick in the movie. Despite the extreme rarity of that pairing in real life, regardless of how it fucks with the story, realism and storylines be damned we have a message to sell!

It works fine in cases where the ethnicity of the woman isnt an integral part of the story. Chani is not an African American from Harlem. She's not an African tribeswoman from the Congo. She's a daughter of the Fremen, who are clearly described as having european and middle eastern features. So are all the Fremen gonna be black now? Or is this gonna be another one where we're asked to pretend we don't notice the black chicks parents arent black?

And all for what? Some transparent and unnecessary effort to fill a quota for white male/black female relationships on screen? This is dumb, and obvious, and its laughable that anyone would act all doe eye innocent and pretend they think its about casting the best actress for the role.
 
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Drinsic

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LOL thats what we've learned from Game of Thrones? Every time you watch Dany's bizarre black eyebrows on a platinum blond chick look, thats what you think? What I think is "there are a couple dozen actually blond actresses who could deliver these lines just as well". Not like theres some shortage of blond actresses.

Finding a person who looks like the part is equally important to their ability to stand their and recite lines while making their O face. wooo, acting ability!

I'm not objecting to some random race swap. I object to this ridiculous, transparent, and universal pattern in casting. If the leading couple are white in the book, they'll be a white dude and a black chick in the movie. Despite the extreme rarity of that pairing in real life, regardless of how it fucks with the story, realism and storylines be damned we have a message to sell!

It works fine in cases where the ethnicity of the woman isnt an integral part of the story. Chani is not an African American from Harlem. She's not an African tribeswoman from the Congo. She's a daughter of the Fremen, who are clearly described as having european and middle eastern features. So are all the Fremen gonna be black now? Or is this gonna be another one where we're asked to pretend we don't notice the black chicks parents arent black?

And all for what? Some transparent and unnecessary effort to fill a quota for white male/black female relationships on screen? This is dumb, and obvious, and its laughable that anyone would act all doe eye innocent and pretend they think its about casting the best actress for the role.
They're fucking space Arabs.
 
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TrollfaceDeux

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Zendaya as Chani is a deal breaker. I would've preferred middle eastern over an obvious shoe-in african american nonsense. there is a charisma that middle eastern women have which african women cannot and does not have.

gg Dune.
no monies for you.
 
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Aldarion

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They're fucking space Arabs.
I dont get it. Are all ethnicities with skin darker than snow interchangeable to you? Thats exactly my complaint. An Arabic/European race in the book, and they cast a black chick. Would a Filipina also have been a good fit? A Thai? how about an Australian Aboriginal? I mean its about finding the best person for the role. Why are we even limiting ourselves to cis-women here?

Are there no actresses of european / middle eastern descent in Hollywood? Oh right, theres tons..

OR its exactly what I said about a dumb forced message. Once you see the pattern, its like those magic eye pictures. Its like watching Sixth Sense for the second time, knowing the twist. You cant unsee it. The next sci-fi novel you liked that gets adapted to a movie... that one with a white couple in it... theyll cast a black chick and white dude in the movie. And the next one. And the next one.
 
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nu_11

Golden Baronet of the Realm
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Ya guys... I'm certainly not hyped to see Zendaya as Chani. The only thing I've seen her in was that Spiderman movie.

Dune is my favorite series of all time too.
 
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spronk

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is this movie still 2019? I don't see how it could be if they are still casting and stuff
 

OU Ariakas

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Dune is not a household series like Harry Potter or Star Wars so when you ask someone who the iconic version of Chani would be their answer would probably be "who?" Getting someone like Zendaya to play her doesn't seem like a problem to me because there is no damage to the cultural zeitgeist since Dune isn't really a part of it.

Two examples: Heimdall in Thor and Domino in Deadpool 2. Both casting decisions were derided by a portion of the niche fanbase and both Idris Elba and Zazie Beetz killed in the roles. The actors both got the tone and attitude of their characters well enough that they became the de facto real life versions.

It is different when you have a super well known figure that you try and race/gender swap but in all of the above cases you have characters that are all but unknown to most of the target audience. Zendaya will be a bigger draw to the movie than trying to maintain some illusion of the original version of Chani being upheld for some tradition? If this movie kills (it probably won't) and she is a big part of that then she becomes the standard. What is the problem with that?
 
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a_skeleton_05

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As someone that has no invested interest in Dune in any way, I can say that my one and only concern with this specific casting is I don't think the girl is a very good actress going by her Spider-Man role. The drama about her casting for that is probably bleeding over into this as well. Who knows, maybe she'll be the female version of Michael B. Jordan in how he is the go-to black male to cast in white-male roles.
 
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Drinsic

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I dont get it. Are all ethnicities with skin darker than snow interchangeable to you? Thats exactly my complaint. An Arabic/European race in the book, and they cast a black chick. Would a Filipina also have been a good fit? A Thai? how about an Australian Aboriginal? I mean its about finding the best person for the role. Why are we even limiting ourselves to cis-women here?

Are there no actresses of european / middle eastern descent in Hollywood? Oh right, theres tons..

OR its exactly what I said about a dumb forced message. Once you see the pattern, its like those magic eye pictures. Its like watching Sixth Sense for the second time, knowing the twist. You cant unsee it. The next sci-fi novel you liked that gets adapted to a movie... that one with a white couple in it... theyll cast a black chick and white dude in the movie. And the next one. And the next one.
So maybe cast someone who is, Oh I don't know? Arabic??

Black =/= Arabic.

She's half black. She looks brown. Tons of pics of her with straight hair. Again, when has Villeneuve fucked up casting?
 
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