So there's been a bit of backlash against the black actor being cast as a character that has always been white. His family is white in all iterations of the comic, and is white in all iterations of shows and films. In the film, Franklin Storm is black, and his wife is presumably white. Sue Storm is very fair-skinned, Johnny is very dark-skinned. Whatever. Genetics and stuff. Here's his response:

“Sometimes you have to be the person who stands up and says, ‘I’ll be the one to shoulder all this hate. I’ll take the brunt for the next couple of generations.’ I put that responsibility on myself. People are always going to see each other in terms of race, but maybe in the future we won’t talk about it as much.”

I'm sure there really are racists out there that oppose black people being cast as anything, but it doesn't seem like the issue is with Jordan being black, but the characters significantly diverging from the past. I personally don't care (if I recall, Nick Fury was originally white and nobody had an issue with Sam Jackson filling the role), and I think he'll do really well in the role, but I think he's being a bit dramatic about the racism of the situation.

I don't get why people are bitching about it, it's just a fucking movie.

I don't get why people are bitching about it, it's just a fucking movie.

people always complain about this stuff.
black this character, black that character, gay green lantern...

What if he just burned his skin?

Quote from: Cheat on May 22, 2015, 11:26:27 PM

The Ultimate Marvel universe originally modeled Fury off of Sam Jackson (and MCU is heavily Ultimate universe) so that's why he's that character. This situation is completely different, as the Storm siblings are supposed to be siblings.

wait is this F4 movie in the MCU? i thought they were owned by a separate entity like the x men?

No, Fox still owns the rights.

Otherwise, this movie wouldn't look shit-tier.  It'd at least ATTEMPT to look good.

This doesn't seem to have much to do with racism at all. They're just going against the established "lore".

Not that I care about superheroes and all that, but to me this would be no different than comic book fans getting worked up over Captain America all of sudden being a female in the next movie for absolutely no reason. You would hardly call these people "sexist" for complaining about a character that has been a certain way for 65 years suddenly having something changed for no reason.

According to wiki, The Fantastic Four have been around for 55 years. All of a sudden deciding to make one of the lead characters black seems like a strange thing to do, then. If the Hulk would randomly become red instead of green in the next movie, fans would complain about that just the same and for the exact same reason too; not because they somehow have an issue with a certain race / color.

To be fair, that's not really an apt comparison. The Human Torch is nowhere near as iconic as Captain America and the Hulk at this point.

Quote from: Madman Mordo on May 23, 2015, 06:45:20 AM

The Human Torch is nowhere near as iconic as Captain America and the Hulk at this point.

It is to the fans.

Yeah but in terms of who's going to generate more controversy, it's obviously going to be Capt America/Hulk since they're essentially almost as iconic as Batman/Superman now.

Quote from: Madman Mordo on May 23, 2015, 06:45:20 AM

Quote from: Flee on May 23, 2015, 05:59:14 AM

This doesn't seem to have much to do with racism at all. They're just going against the established "lore".

Not that I care about superheroes and all that, but to me this would be no different than comic book fans getting worked up over Captain America all of sudden being a female in the next movie for absolutely no reason. You would hardly call these people "sexist" for complaining about a character that has been a certain way for 65 years suddenly having something changed for no reason.

According to wiki, The Fantastic Four have been around for 55 years. All of a sudden deciding to make one of the lead characters black seems like a strange thing to do, then. If the Hulk would randomly become red instead of green in the next movie, fans would complain about that just the same and for the exact same reason too; not because they somehow have an issue with a certain race / color.

To be fair, that's not really an apt comparison. The Human Torch is nowhere near as iconic as Captain America and the Hulk at this point.

Like Meta said, this is a very subjective thing. Hulk might be more mainstream, but I'm sure that there are tens of thousands of Fantastic Four fans out there who genuinely care about this. Besides, it's almost always the vocal minority that gets heard.

Besides, I wouldn't be surprised if more superhero fans pick up on this. Even when they don't particularly care about The Human Torch, I can see many worrying that this might happen to their own heroes too, or just being concerned about the principle of superheroes' established characters and lore.

Movies and adaptations diverge from the main source material all the time, as was pointed out by Turkey in regards to Nick Fury. I could maybe see you're point if you were arguing against tokenism, but that wasn't what you were positing. The fact of the matter is that "lore deviation" really doesn't hold any truck with me, because movie iterations of graphic novels/books or any kind of artistic material for that matter don't always 100% adhere to the main continuity they base it off of. In fact 99% of the time I'd wager they never do.

Quote from: Madman Mordo on May 23, 2015, 07:28:33 AM

Quote from: Flee on May 23, 2015, 07:17:30 AM

Quote from: Madman Mordo on May 23, 2015, 06:45:20 AM

Quote from: Flee on May 23, 2015, 05:59:14 AM

This doesn't seem to have much to do with racism at all. They're just going against the established "lore".

Not that I care about superheroes and all that, but to me this would be no different than comic book fans getting worked up over Captain America all of sudden being a female in the next movie for absolutely no reason. You would hardly call these people "sexist" for complaining about a character that has been a certain way for 65 years suddenly having something changed for no reason.

According to wiki, The Fantastic Four have been around for 55 years. All of a sudden deciding to make one of the lead characters black seems like a strange thing to do, then. If the Hulk would randomly become red instead of green in the next movie, fans would complain about that just the same and for the exact same reason too; not because they somehow have an issue with a certain race / color.

To be fair, that's not really an apt comparison. The Human Torch is nowhere near as iconic as Captain America and the Hulk at this point.

Like Meta said, this is a very subjective thing. Hulk might be more mainstream, but I'm sure that there are tens of thousands of Fantastic Four fans out there who genuinely care about this. Besides, it's almost always the vocal minority that gets heard.

Besides, I wouldn't be surprised if more superhero fans pick up on this. Even when they don't particularly care about The Human Torch, I can see many worrying that this might happen to their own heroes too, or just being concerned about the principle of superheroes' established characters and lore.

Movies and adaptations diverge from the main source material all the time, as was pointed out by Turkey in regards to Nick Fury. I could maybe see you're point if you were arguing against tokenism, but that wasn't what you were positing. The fact of the matter is that "lore deviation" really doesn't hold any truck with me, because movie iterations of graphic novels/books or any kind of artistic material for that matter don't always 100% adhere to the main continuity they base it off of. In fact 99% of the time I'd wager they never do.

I'd say it's a case-by-case thing, though. Like Cheat said, Fury apparently was black in the "Ultimate" universe that the MCU movies are modeled on. In this case, you have a member that has always been portrayed as white. Plus, it really doesn't make any sense. Both Johnny and Susan have the same parents and backstory, yet one of them is now extremely pale and white, while the other is completely black for absolutely no reason?

Either way, I don't really care about this. I'm not much of a comic book or superhero fan anyways. Just saying that I understand where the upset fans come from, as it does completely go against 55 years of established lore and a pretty fundamental characteristic of the person, all potentially in the name of tokenism and forced diversity.

I agree, it definitely comes off as shameless tokenism, but the point you were making about canon divergence is a tenuous argument, because movie adaptations disregard artistic integrity all the time. Not to mention controversy seems to be tied to how iconic a character is, given that no one threw a hissy fit when they decided to change Nicky Fury's race who was a predominately white character in the comics.

I really don't see a logical reason to cast him. Surely they knew this would happen. It doens't add to the story, it causes confusion about their family, and it caused backlash. They gained nothing from it.

To be fair, they get to use this guy (below) as Franklin Storm, and he's an awesome actor (though for some reason now their dad is some awesome scientist, and all the team members look like teenagers).

Quote from: HurtfulTurkey on May 23, 2015, 06:34:25 PM

Quote from: Lord Starch on May 23, 2015, 05:19:34 PM

I really don't see a logical reason to cast him. Surely they knew this would happen. It doens't add to the story, it causes confusion about their family, and it caused backlash. They gained nothing from it.

To be fair, they get to use this guy (below) as Franklin Storm, and he's an awesome actor (though for some reason now their dad is some awesome scientist, and all the team members look like teenagers).

So the dad is black and the mom is white, but the son is black and the daughter is white?

I assume so. I don't know who's playing the mother. They could've just had him adopted, too.

I thought Sue Storm was adopted in this version?

I thought Sue Storm was adopted in this version?

The director hasn't said anything certain. Either they're a biracial family or Sue's adopted.

Quote from: Lord Starch on May 23, 2015, 06:48:30 PM

Quote from: HurtfulTurkey on May 23, 2015, 06:34:25 PM

Quote from: Lord Starch on May 23, 2015, 05:19:34 PM

I really don't see a logical reason to cast him. Surely they knew this would happen. It doens't add to the story, it causes confusion about their family, and it caused backlash. They gained nothing from it.

To be fair, they get to use this guy (below) as Franklin Storm, and he's an awesome actor (though for some reason now their dad is some awesome scientist, and all the team members look like teenagers).

So the dad is black and the mom is white, but the son is black and the daughter is white?

I assume so. I don't know who's playing the mother. They could've just had him adopted, too.

They could have avoided all of this. I still like the actor anyway, so I'll still watch the movie. I won't pay though, I'll sneak in.