Is this the first American big budget fantasy/sci-fi movie to feature a non-white kid as the lead? I'm thinking of movies like Willy Wonka, ET, Jumanji, Tomorrowland, Bridge to Terabithia, Race to Witch Mountain, Percy Jackson, etc. Pretty cool. I'm excited!
shareNo, it's dumb. Just write an original story with a minority kid as the lead if you have a problem with white kids as a lead in existing stories.
shareHaving read the book about five million times as a kid, I'll state that the race of the leading children doesn't matter. Find the best pair of kid actors you can find to play Meg and Charles Wallace, as long as they resemble each other and can pull off playing the supersmart kids of scientists.
And just as long as Meg isn't played by a beauty. That just wouldn't work.
I agree. This is an example when the race of the characters is irrelevant. I don't like cross-racial casting when the character's race or appearance is critical to the character. But this isn't one of those situations.
share
I loved this book, too! It has a lot of emotion in it.
I wonder what Aunt Beast will look like?
The trailer a bit styalized and over-produced, though:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4U3TeY2wtM
(And why are they making the dad sound so spiritual? He was just a scientist...)
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Are you really that naive to think that they didn't specifically go out to find black kids?
shareWhy shouldn't they?
Because I've read the book and the race of the kid isn't what matters, what matters is that they're the children of genius scientists. Meg's defining characteristic is that she doesn't feel like she's as much of a 4-digit IQ genius as her parents and her little brother, her conflicts have nothing to do with race so she could be any race.
The question is rather, why should they?
shareWhy not? AGAIN, the race of the leading kids doesn't matter to the story.
And many directors tweak book characters to be slightly more like themselves, it's a way to get inside the character. (J.K. Rowling wouldn't sell the "Harry Potter" books to Steven Spielberg because he wanted to turn Harry into an American boy, for example). Now that would have been a massive and deadly alteration, while making Meg Murry biracial doesn't actually change the story.
There's no good reason to specifically look for an actor of a certain race when the original character has a different race in the book.
shareI will take you seriously on this point, when you start complaining abut every white director who ever cast a white lead.
shareWhy? Did I complain about a black director casting a black lead? No, I said it was dumb to change the race of the character.
The fact that you turn this into a racist thing says more than enough about you. I'm sure you would've been just as lenient if a male director had cast a boy in the role. Or god forbid, had cast a white actor in an black role!
agreed
shareIt's also being directed by a black woman and the screenplay was written by a white woman as was the original novel. The cast and crew appear to be very diverse. One of the very few movies I'm excited about seeing.
shareYou're excited to watch it because it's directed by a black woman? WTF?
shareI'm excited about seeing a movie with an interesting and original plot. And I'm a huge sci-fi fan. I've been sick of sequels, superhero movies and lack of creativity in Hollywood for the past few years.
The OP mentioned that this movie had a non-white kid as a lead. I was just adding that there is also diversity re: the writer and director. My two comments weren't meant to be related to each other.
I find it odd that you focused on only the director when I mentioned the writer and novelist also. "Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations." - Star Trek pro-diversity philosophy.
In 2018 a diverse cast and crew make the movie better.
Just like a diverse sports team makes them stronger and faster
Diversity is always better....
Well that's according to liberals and many call liberalism a mental disorder.
This movie will fail just because of hollyweirds push for political correctness
Jayden Smith in After Earth
shareI forgot about that one. But that was really sold as a Will Smith movie and he just cast his son.
shareThe animated "Home" had a girl who looked biracial as the second lead, and that was definitely big-budget sci-fi.
Although the actual star of the movie was a blobbly little alien, voiced by Jim Parsons.
First hollyweird was just a bunch of freak and now they have gotten full p.c.
Biracial,.come on 2018.
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