Let's all say something nice about George Lucas. No insults allowed. — Page 9

Sure Kipling is a great author and is noticeably less racist than his contemporaries but George isn't a Victwardian and he was not making films in the mid 1930's either (no matter when they are set or what their influences were).

George loves the those cultural and ethnic tropes but he just shouldn't be allowed to get away with using them without a huge dollop of irony.

Jar-Jar as Stepin Fetchit only works if ends up being the genuine hero and not the stupid cowardly lazy Gungan who causes the Empire to happen by accident.

TOD only works if the villagers save Indy from the corrupt British Colonel who is secretly behind the Thuggee cult.

I think one can easily take all these things far too seriously.  Can idiots and bad guys only be white?  There's a difference between a character that's just silly and one that's clearly intended to portray a whole people as such.  I don't believe Jar Jar was such a character.  Remember that movie that came out a year before TPM?  It was very popular, Disney, and had an idiotic racial character named Mushu.  That's right, I'm talking about Mulan, with Eddie Murphie's dragon calling a horse a cow and being a horrible klutz that nearly ruins everything by destroying the Stone Dragon among other things.  Everyone laughed.  No one called this film with it's poor portrayal of ancient Chinese culture racist.  No one complained that all the Huns were an evil and heartless people who murdered without second thought.  Why?

Must everything not Christian caucasian America be satanic or in need of a white American saviour?

At least KOTCS didn't have missionaries in a cauldron danced around by black cannibals.

In Raiders Sallah was a real character with real concerns but in TLC he was a comedy Arab.

Was Indy more exciting when his friends were real or when his friends were national cartoons?  

Are you guys done talking about Indy yet...

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No?

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I'll be back again in a few days.

SilverWook said:

Was there ever talk about Sallah returning for Crystal Skull?

 

Yes. Rhys-Davies said in an interview (forget where but it was not that long ago) that he was offered a small appearance at Indy's wedding. I'm not sure if he even had lines. He said "Thanks, but no thanks." Thought it was sort of insulting to the character (it was).

Fortunately, I missed this scene in its entirety anyway as Indy IV was one of two movies I've ever walked out of. I'll take any one of the prequels any day over that horrendous pile.

Bingowings said:

Must everything not Christian caucasian America be satanic or in need of a white American saviour?

At least KOTCS didn't have missionaries in a cauldron danced around by black cannibals.

In Raiders Sallah was a real character with real concerns but in TLC he was a comedy Arab.

Was Indy more exciting when his friends were real or when his friends were national cartoons?  

Salah was certainly a better character in ROTLA.  But how is his comedy racist?  Marcus Brody was even more silly and utterly idiotic at times.  He was a white character.  Henry Jones, Sr. was pretty silly too.  Maybe he was perpetuating a stereotype against Scots.  I'm not saying there aren't valid criticisms of movies with racist content.  Many films make me cringe or at least worry.  But I think that the cure isn't simply making only whites idiots.  We need to spread the idiocy around.  Not everything must be taken in the context that there is a racist hidden message, though I feel so much of our society looks for exactly that.

Well, congrats to him.  We all know how celebrity marriages go, but hopefully this one lasts. :)

"George, when are we going to get married!?"

GEORGE: (praying to his Crystal Skull to escape the Mayan Apocalypse)  Uh... 2013.  Yeah, definitely by 2013!!

evan1975 said:

"George, when are we going to get married!?"

GEORGE: (praying to his Crystal Skull to escape the Mayan Apocalypse)  Uh... 2013.  Yeah, definitely by 2013!!

Come on! We're talking about the guy who created the Gungans and Watto and a planet called Kamino inhabited by a bunch of brown-skinned clones. Of course the guy's racist! He's only marrying her to ward off criticism!

darth_ender said:

Come on! We're talking about the guy who created the Gungans and Watto and a planet called Kamino inhabited by a bunch of brown-skinned clones. Of course the guy's racist! He's only marrying her to ward off criticism!

Brown skinned clones aren't racist. If anything, they are just inserting racial, non white people diversity into the story. How is that racist at all? 

Rare card? I think you mean race card. Anyway, I don't really believe George is racist. I'm just joking about what others have said. People say the Gungans make fun of Caribbean blacks while Watto makes fun of Jews. I even remember hearing that Kamino and clones makes fun of illegally immigrating Mexicans because "Camino" means "path" or "I walk" in Spanish, and considering there's a whole army of brown skinned guys (nevermind the fact that Temuera Morrison is really a Maori from New Zealand) ready to march, surprisingly many believed that he was making fun of illegal immigrants.

darth_ender said:

Rare card? I think you mean race card. Anyway, I don't really believe George is racist. I'm just joking about what others have said. People say the Gungans make fun of Caribbean blacks while Watto makes fun of Jews. I even remember hearing that Kamino and clones makes fun of illegally immigrating Mexicans because "Camino" means "path" or "I walk" in Spanish, and considering there's a whole army of brown skinned guys (nevermind the fact that Temuera Morrison is really a Maori from New Zealand) ready to march, surprisingly many believed that he was making fun of illegal immigrants.

Star wars had very little racial diversity in the films, with a few exceptions of minor characters. At the very least, that's semi racism.

Boba Fett in the Empire Strikes Back.

Really looks like this guy over here.

The Mandarin said:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxAEo3CWeq8 Those guys make fun of George Lucas in a very vulgar way. Let's just definitely steer clear of doing that. 

Yes, and the best way to steer clear of doing that would be to...

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...wait for it...

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...not post it in this thread.

Well, I don't want to get into too much of this sort of a discussion, especially considering this forum doesn't really put much stock into PT retcons, but bear in mind that Fett was originally played by Jeremy Bulloch, a full-fledged white man.

But as to saying that because there wasn't much diversity, I disagree. Lando's a very interesting character IMHO. James Earl Jones provided the most iconic voice to the most iconic bad guy (post-sexy hot tamale olympian demigod) in all movie history.

darth_ender said:

Well, I don't want to get into too much of this sort of a discussion, especially considering this forum doesn't really put much stock into PT retcons, but bear in mind that Fett was originally played by Jeremy Bulloch, a full-fledged white man.

But as to saying that because there wasn't much diversity, I disagree. Lando's a very interesting character IMHO. James Earl Jones provided the most iconic voice to the most iconic bad guy (post-sexy hot tamale olympian demigod) in all movie history.

Who the F*** in the world is the "post-sexy hot tamale olympian demigod"? I apologize. I don't want to use profanity here, but what you just said doesn't make any sense at all.

I don't feel like discussing politics, but I don't believe in affirmative action. Racial diversity isn't so much about the amount of non-white characters within a story, but it's more so about their important to the overall storyline.