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Disney (and others) at the Box Office - Current State of Affairs
- Thread starter Disney Analyst
- Start date
flynnibus
Premium Member
Why is it a problem to just be against gender swaps?
Why is it a problem to not like someone screwing with familiar? If someone reboots Transformers and changes Optimus Prime to be a female... and I say "not interested"... it's not because I hate females or just want to Hate on Hasbro, it's because I find it doesn't advance the character or story I know and it feels contrived and unnecessary. It's just a forced thing that doesn't fit with the source material I've been around for almost 40yrs. Maybe you come up with an awesome new story... but don't try to sell it to me as Optimus Prime G1.
Sometimes when you do things that are forced or appear as unnecessary you are messing with the simple human condition of comfort from familiar. Sometimes forced change is necessary, but don't misconstrue what the motivation of the dislike is coming from simply because it may have OVERLAP with others who have completely different motivations.
Disney Irish
Premium Member
Not to distract from this conversation, but its funny as I don't think you intended it, but there actually is a canon female Optimus Prime from the Transformers:Universe line. There might have even been one in G1, dunno on that for sure though. You should check it out.
Wendy Pleakley
Well-Known Member
Because in many cases, and comics for sure, the vast majority of characters come from the same demographic.
If Fantasic Four was created today, it would be more diverse. If you're going to adapt stories from the 50's you have to adapt it with modern sensibilities in mind.
flynnibus
Premium Member
Note I said G1 - I don't play in all those other linesNot to distract from this conversation, but its funny as I don't think you intended it, but there actually is a canon female Optimus Prime from the Transformers:Universe line. You should check it out.
And if you mean that online game... well, it looks to have failed to before all the 'woke' conversation, so clearly it wasn't brought down by audiences being manipulated by talking heads
flynnibus
Premium Member
so? If you want to write new stories with new characters.. go for it! No one is saying don't create new characters of diverse types. What causes friction is when people take existing content, swap it, and then people say "why are you against this?"... uhh, because you've created conflicts and then get angry at people who won't turn a blind eye to it.
People try to tell me its the same, but then also say it's important to be different... so which is it? It's different and we can't acknowledge it as different... or it's the same, but you aren't allowed to spot the differences?
I don't agree. I also don't care if someone smokes onscreen (and I'm not a smoker). I don't care if you are showing a period piece that looks period even if undesirable today. If you want to create a new F4 and identify it as a different... go for it and we'll see what audiences think of it.
Disney Irish
Premium Member
Note I said G1 - I don't play in all those other lines
I don't know all the details of the various different iterations. But it was an early 2000s line of the toys.
erasure fan1
Well-Known Member
Nope sorry. There's only one Optimus Prime, and that's Peter Cullens Prime. End of story.Not to distract from this conversation, but its funny as I don't think you intended it, but there actually is a canon female Optimus Prime from the Transformers:Universe line. There might have even been one in G1, dunno on that for sure though. You should check it out.
Disney Irish
Premium Member
We live in a multiverse aware world now, so you never know.Nope sorry. There's only one Optimus Prime, and that's Peter Cullens Prime. End of story.
Wendy Pleakley
Well-Known Member
Cop out answer.
The MCU is built on decades of history so they're not going to start from scratch. Adding diversity is the approach that lets them do that.
Wendy Pleakley
Well-Known Member
Speaking of Box Office, Hunger Games opened to less than a third of what the original did. Trolls earned about 2/3 of the original, not accounting for inflation from 2016.
The movie business appears to be in a time of change across the board, and it's not just Disney.
The movie business appears to be in a time of change across the board, and it's not just Disney.
Animaniac93-98
Well-Known Member
The franchise business model isn't working like it used to (See also this year's: The Flash, Transformers).
We're now consistently seeing brands that used to deliver fall flat. I'd say Hunger Games was already past its prime though.
While all studios are suffering from this, Disney pivoted harder to this model of all tentpoles/franchises and consequently it will be harder for them to change course.
erasure fan1
Well-Known Member
flynnibus
Premium Member
Cop out?
My position has nothing to do with the MCU - so defining what I should and should not like by the MCU's constraints makes no sense.
My position to put in Marvel terms would be is "I liked the Comics Peter Parker from mid 60s til the 80s, but I did not the Peter Parker of the MCU" -- And that difference can be rooted in the portrayal of the character and their writing. Just because you keep iterating and using the same names... doesn't mean I HAVE to accept the new as I did the old.. or that I should be blind to changes just because you used the same name. I can be against changing a character just because I prefer the character I fell for initially.
And in that same vein... I can be against gender swaps because they fundamentally challenge the character as I know it. Want to change things... come up with a new character.
Casper Gutman
Well-Known Member
Comic characters change CONSTANTLY. These are characters who get handed from one creator to another, who appear in stories (often multiple stories) each month that need to offer the illusion of change. Popular characters like Rocket, Groot, and Deadpool bear little to no resemblance to their “original” versions. The idea that the characters have one “true” version, the version with which the speaker is familiar, runs counter to the nature of the medium.
“Comfort with the familiar” can be very benign - I say this as the guy who constantly posts here bemoaning the loss of original EPCOT. It can also very obviously mask a multitude of less acceptable notions. Someone who is “comfortable” with the way things were in 1961 is going to be “comfortable” with a lot of pretty disturbing things. That “comfort” has to be disrupted for positive change to take place. Besides, in another post you advocated just enjoying films without worrying about gender or ethnicity, in which case those changes won’t bother the viewer.
The idea that Hollywood should just make good diverse new content is naive at best and a dodge at worst (this is a huge failing of that South Park episode). The modern film industry is structured on multiple economic levels to be reliant on pre-existing IPs. It’s not an individual executive choice, it’s part of the structural logic of the studio conglomerates. For IPs to diminish in importance, we’d have to see a restructuring of the entertainment industry akin to what happened in, say, the post-war period. There are very few blockbusters without pre-existing IPs - other than John Wick and Avatar, what completely original big new franchises have emerged in the last two decades? Arguing that diversity should be confined to “new stories” essentially amounts to arguing against diversity.
Phroobar
Well-Known Member
There was never a female Optimus Prime in Transformers Universe or any G1 or G2 line. The closest you could get would be Elita-1 but she was not a Prime. There was a fan stage play at OTFCC 2004 where a woman voiced Optimus Prime for the play.We live in a multiverse aware world now, so you never know.
TP2000
Well-Known Member
Oh, geez, don't tell Mr. Thomas that. He was sure that the the Hunger Games 6 (or whatever number it is) would be a guaranteed "blockbuster" and cement Rachel Zegler's status as a true star and add luster to Disney's upcoming Snow White.
flynnibus
Premium Member
And people REJECT many of those - constantly. The point here wasn't that change isn't allowed - it's that people are being criticized for not liking a change. You can change all you want - but you can't mandate people like it. Instead you try to label those people something simply because they didn't agree with your choice.
The reason for most change in Comics was a business one - it was a business that required constant output. It wasn't just someone saying "You know, I have a new idea, I wanna make a new twist on spiderman" - It was people tasked with creating a number of issues and products within a timeline and resulting sales. They were constantly challenged with creating new interesting content. New people, in new eras, had new ideas they wanted to try out. The world changed, but they still had a barn full of well known heros to draw people in with.
That is not the same premise or even related to the idea of someone 'having a favorite character and not liking a new twist on it'. People can make whatever spiderman they want -- but where the conflict arises is when someone says "I don't like that" and judgemental people like yourself come along and say "well it must be something you are masking".. instead of just accepting someone didn't like your twist!
There you go again with the "if you like that.. you must be a XYZ' rationalizations.
You know what... I really like WWII history. That doesn't secretly mean I'm a Nazi and I harbor hate for non-aryans. But if you cast Hitler as an African dude, who just happens to be an amazing actor... I'm not going to be comfortable with it.
Know why I like WWII history? Because I grew up around avaiation, and WWII happens to be moment in time where aviation changed the global conflict. But you wouldn't get that if you just started judging someone's decision to reject your character swap purely on their disapproval of the character conflicts.
Non-sense. Hollywood pumps out hundreds of new stories and properties every year. Your arguing success of re-use makes it somehow a reliance to their existence? And then somehow saying we must force this diversity initiative into the other... or be against diversity fundamentally? This is some next level hoop jumping.
Phroobar
Well-Known Member
At least Zegler didn't embarrass herself during press interviews for Hunger Games.
She may have to hide in voice acting for a while. Her next movie is the animated movie Spellbound in 2024. It has an Alan Menken score and it isn't from Disney. It is Skydance.
Spellbound follows the adventures of Ellian, the tenacious princess who must go on a daring quest to save her family and kingdom after a mysterious spell transforms her parents, the King and Queen of Lumbria, into monsters.
Disney Irish
Premium Member
There was never a female Optimus Prime in Transformers Universe or any G1 or G2 line. The closest you could get would be Elita-1 but she was not a Prime. There was a fan stage play at OTFCC 2004 where a woman voiced Optimus Prime for the play.