And I just finished reading Making Money the other day. Buzzkill!

[questionstar]

Any OMGWTFSQUEEEEEEEE ANOTHER DISCWORLD MOVIE flailing was shut down before it even got off the ground.

Guys... guys, they cast a white guy as Twoflower!
They cast an old guy as Rincewind!

I don't get it? I wonder how they'd reconcile that if they ever decided to film Interesting Times. Pterry and Ursula LeGuin can start a club now I guess.

Comments

[rosynose]

Haha, I was reading it and thinking 'yeeeeeeeey but wasn't Twoflower supposed to be...?' Does seem a bit random (nothing against Astin). Though I guess few authors get their work put through the wringer quite as much as LeGuin did D:

[questionstar]

So true. I still refuse to see the Earthsea miniseries, it creeps me out what they did. XP

PY and I are talkin about this right now... I feel kinda torn honestly just cos yeah ASIAN TOURIST STEREOTYPE is kinda obnoxious but it's not like Twoflower can't be played as a fully-dimensional character, cos he is in the books, you know? And mostly I'm irritated cos about 10 minutes before I read that news, I was reading a totally different article about how nonwhite british actors have a really hard time finding work in the UK and a lot of them just come to the US to get jobs (dude I didn't even know that thandie newton was english until like a few months ago) and heeeeey look here might be one of the reasons why!

[boorman]

Did they ever techincally describe twoflower as LOOKING asian? IU seem tor remember them just describing him as having glasses and a beaming smile at all times.

even with that possible loop hole however, whoever cast Sean fucking Astin needs to be castrated, then shot, and then a team of people should be hired to BEG Masi Oka to play the role every single day untill he agrees.

[questionstar]

He's not described as looking Asian but when the Agatean Empire is Discworld's China proxy with a bit of Japan thrown in you kinda expect it.

Taking the first story without taking the later books into context makes a good excuse but... it's still an excuse?

Like, I can't remember much description of Constable Visit's appearance, but he's from Omnia, a small desert country between Klatch (Middle East) and Djeylibeybi (Egypt). It's definitely the context that's important, especially since like in everything we always turn to white people as the "default" character. Even when the character isn't intended to be. And Pterry isn't big on descriptions of physical appearance anyway (which makes fanart kinda hard arrgh lol).

Casting an old guy as Rincewind is bothering me too...

[sweet_gardenia]

Oh. My. Gods.

The fact they are making The Colour of Magic deserves a " YEEEEEEEEEESSSSS! " and air-punch...

but the fact that Sean Astin (sweet and cute as he is) cast as TWOFLOWER? That gets a great big Darth Vader-esque " NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! "

Geebus. The only explanation I can think of is maybe they were worried about Twoflower inadvertedly turning into an asian stereotype (glasses and camera and whatnot) but...gaaaaaawddddssss. Where is the reasoning in " Yikes, this might be construed as being offensive to asians...SO LET'S MAKE HIM WHITE LOL "? *facedesk*

[questionstar]

Yeah honestly the whole strategy of avoiding the problem completely is problematic and IMO MORE offensive because Twoflower in the books is YES, and asian tourist stereotype but when the author has made his entire career about setting up and then skewering stereotypes it's just seems... counterproductive I guess. He makes all these characters that are a cliche of some kind and then turns all your assumptions about them on their head and that's what's so great goddammit!

But I guess when you have a book-with-a-message the movie version tends to have that message taken out. :P I hear they took the Church-as-antagonist completely out of The Golden Compass... 9__9

[rosynose]

I hear they took the Church-as-antagonist completely out of The Golden Compass... 9__9
... OMG are you serious? *boggles* That's going to make the end of the third movie a bit of a stumper. 'Um... ah... A wizard did it, the end!'

[redvelvetaddict]

yeah earthsea bugged me out cos of that. whiteness!
but lee as death = <3

ALSO what was the FIRST discworld movie?! D:

[boorman]

hogfather, which was actually pretty good, even if i did greatly dislike the casting of Johnny depps Willy Wonka as Teatime.

[questionstar]

Oh god did you read the interview with Marc Warren about how he was so blase about not really even reading the script cos that's just not his style and how he really did think that playing Teatime as Depp's Wonka with a fake american accent (that lapsed all the time anyways) was actually a good idea??? ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH

I had such high hopes for him too cos he had the look and he can act, but that doesn't mean much when he obviously has no taste and didn't read the book much less the freaking script! aslkdals;aksfa

... this seems to have reopened an old wound.

[insomniel]

OMG YES, someone who feels the same way. Were they trying to avoid the Asian tourist stereotypes, because umm... a lot of the Discworld books address stereotypes? I'm just saying, I wouldn't have been offended if Twoflower was Asian.

[questionstar]

Well I think that's the thing. I guess they don't want to offend the potential audience that hasn't read the books and will take Twoflower's character at face value? Heh... you know kinda unrelated but I remember how all the billboards advertising Hogfather did not have susan on them. So... strange.

I really, really am dying to know what Pterry's thoughts on this are argh.

[insomniel]

Yeah, that's a good point. I guess they aren't planning to make all 30 something books into movies, so Interesting Times wouldn't be an issue. But I agree, I wonder what Pterry thought about the change, did he approve it or what.

[thoughtsunclean]

David Jason as Rincewind utterly boggles me, too. I mean, he's awesome and all, but he ain't no Rincewind. If they'd filmed this 15 years ago, Eric Idle was Rincey incarnate, and Terry agrees! But now he's unfortunately too old and round... much like David Jason. Damnit, he needs to go back to being the perfect Albert and stop flexing his executive producer muscles all over the casting department. He's gone all Tom Cruise in his old age.

But, four hundred thumbs up for Christopher Lee playing Death. He was the only good thing about the abominable Soul Music film.

[questionstar]

I know right? Old round Rincewind?? I mean isn't Rincewind's scrawny youngness or at least middle-agedness one of the (many)
reasons he's such a buttmonkey lol

I was never all that fond of his character, in my mind he is basically Shaggy from Scooby Doo but thankfully w/ the Luggage instead of a horrible talking dog.

And yeah once I realized it was David Jason I was just more confused cos it was like... but he was ALBERT?? I just can't get excited about this the way I was about Hogfather you know? All the casting choices in that one were so awesome D: