She held ALL the stereotypes of a VIKING though! :D (Even though Vikings were just pirates and not a specific oriented culture. Lot of misconceptions tbh.)
It's even more blatant when you consider that all the human characters in "How to Train Your Dragon" are 'Vikings' - smallish isolated Norse clans who lived in a climate where days are short and often overcast. You won't even find Nordic people of that era with suntans, let alone anyone whose darker skin tone had become an ingrained genetic trait. Seriously... One of my favorite shows was Family Matters and I identified very strongly with Urkel, even though he's black and male (and I'm neither). What's with this infantile idiocy that claims that you can only identify with characters who 'look like you'?!?
@@randomgeekcrap That’s not what we’re saying. We’re saying that they should’ve at least cast someone that LOOKS like her instead of pulling the “diversity card”. By your logic, Star Wars fans should be boycotting their upcoming “Ahsoka” series, since Ashley Eckstein isn’t playing Ahsoka and instead is being played by Rosario Dawson (who is black). All we’re saying is that we want authenticity when it comes to adapting something stories and characters that already exists instead of changing things about it. :)
I hate race swaps. Astrid is Scandinavian. Make her look Scandinavian. It is a VERY key point in the movie that they are VIKINGS from somewhere COLD. I hate that I get labeled racist for being bothered by this, just because it makes no historical sense. Just stay true to her original design. If she were originally black, then I would have wanted her to be black in the remake. I just wish they’d keep characters consistent. To put it more simply, I don't freaking care what race a character is, as long as it stays true to the original design. Race swapping is a lazy way to add diversity. For example, I would absolutely LOVE to hear some African stories or tales, because I've never heard them before. Imagine how many cool stories there could be? I feel like I'm missing out on some amazing stories because they gotta be lazy and just race swap established characters instead of making new ones. You are completely right! You can relate to people of other races. I related to Mulan just fine, I didn’t even think about her race. I saw her for her. Hey, people even related to MEGAMIND, and he’s BLUE. I was raised on the idea to judge people not by color of their skin, but by content of their character. The fact that Hollywood doesn’t understand that just shows how shallow they are. But hey, is there ANYTHING more shallow than Hollywood? This is also unfair to incredibly skilled and awesome actors. When you shove someone into controversy like this, it does a number on their reputation. These actors could be off making some amazing movies, but instead they're put into a bunch of politically correct remakes.
I am hispanic and while I hate how much racism actually STILL exists, all of the issues I have to face gets silenced because so many people are tired of the label. Yes there are racist people. Yes, people like me have to face it all the time still, but these movies are doing people of colour and of different ethnicities no justice. It is NOT racist to be accurate with the depiction of certain characters or mythologies from regions that are white. STOP RACE SWAPPING. The way to do right by us is to create movies about stories from OUR cultures. You want to represent strong male or female hispanic heroes? CHOOSE some of the myths from hispanic/latino cultures. You want to represent strong black male or female characters from Africa? CHOOSE some of the heroes that come from tribes in Africa. THERE ARE A BUNCH of them. This has gotten ridiculous and has hurt people like me more than anything. HOW? Because when I speak up about actual RACISM in my life or community, I get told to shut the @#$#% up and stop playing the race card. ALL THIS IS DOING IS MAKING US FEEL EVEN MORE POWERLESS. But, like this message, no one is going to listen either.
These people are also the same morons who scream when someone is not the ethnicity of the character they are voice acting but happy to tag along if its an ethnicity that clearly does not belong or is out of place.
My biggest issue with the race swaps is when they mess with a culture in order to check the box. In this case they completely shattered not just the visual look of the character but bock the continuity of their world in order to seem “racially inclusive” and that is what really annoys me. It’s also why I don’t mind some other race swaps. Such as annabeth in the new PJO show coming out. While it does “check the box” and doesn’t look like the character, it still works in the continuity of the world. Basically movie studios need to stop trying to push the agendas and tell a compelling and consistent story.
Actually, I have done quite a lot of research on the people we call the Vikings. Other races were there, mixed among their people, particularly Middle Easterners and blacks. It is historically accurate to include a minority of other races in the film.
@@dominushydra It makes them $billions of dollars with every remake. That used to be a huge milestone - not for disney. Numbers don't lie. People love this. Also it's all about CEI Soros brownie points now. None of these companies actually care. So there's your answer to the opening question on this video - WHY?
Why do they have to constantly change an already well made and establish character for "diversity". Heck I'm a lesbian but I don't want to change an already established character to suddenly be lesbian. If you want a story to reach out to people showing them its great to be a certain race, ethnicity, gender or sexuality, don't mess with what's already been made. But instead make something new to show us we're all human. Great video man
THANK YOU for the kind words! and YES, If they want to make something "diverse" then they NEED to come up with something original instead of going back and changing stories and characters that people already love. :)
At this point I’m sure every time they want to reboot a franchise before even deciding anything about the movie or even have budget for it, they sit down for a cup of coffee to decide what existing character is go be more “diverse”
As a Swedish person, it’s sad to see people discard other cultures and replace them with what is seen as woke. I remembered that they showed how to train your dragon in school as a fun way to show how our culture could have looked like. There were misrepresentations in the movie, but that’s for the sake of fantasy and such. It was a fun way to show Nordic culture and the characters played a huge part in it. It’s kinda similar with what they did with cleopatra as well. She was Macedonian Greek and almost all depictions of her show her with traditionally European features, yet instead they casted her as a black woman. I mean it’s very different as Astrid was a fictional character, but the change is still there. There’s also the fact that Cleopatra was a part of Egyptian history. Misrepresenting history like that is one of the most disrespectful things to do, especially to an entire country. Though At the time how to train your dragon takes place, you won’t see any darker skin tones. That’s because Vikings and such existed around the 1000-1100s. We didn’t have any people come look around Sweden, Denmark, Norway or Finland. People might say that because Astrid is a fiction character that it doesn’t matter, but it does. Nordic representation hasn’t been done often at all besides how to train your dragon and Frozen. It’s a tiny spec in the entertainment industry and it’s kinda frustrating see that they chose to take away what little we had. I loved Frozen when I was younger and how to train your dragon. There was a familiarity to it. I recognized clothing, the people and the landscape. It’s not like I will hate the movie because they race swapped a character, but with how infamously bad the past remakes have been, I might as well wait until the critics starting commenting on it before I watch. Edit: there’s a whole war in the comment section and it keeps growing. You have been warned
Fellow Swede here, and I agree 1000% with every word. Vikings are a very cultural thing, and this is just so fucking disrespectful of them.. It's basically all the somewhat accurate historical cultural representation we have when it comes to the entertainment industry. And now they're doing this to us? We Nordics are pretty much always portrayed in a satirical way, except for when it comes to the Vikings, and now we can't even have that? They are so wrapped up in the racial inclusivity that they completely forget that there are other cultures than American and African.. Kanske är orimligt förbannad på detta, men fy faan asså!
@@EDuGoIHuvvetwhat's even worse is just how much they think they know about a culture and traditions. For example the misrepresentation of people from Africa and other countries, where we are seen as uncivilized and without culture which is completely false. Sorry for the rant. Context: living in Africa currently
@@dcspaladin7496 Race swapping is also incredibly patronising and lazy. The studios are effectively saying "Hey look [minority group] we've made a character that's just like you... okay we couldn't be bothered doing the work to develop an existing minority character or create a new one and we don't believe you appeal to audiences enough, so we just swapped an existing character to leverage their familiarity with audiences." Let's have characters from other peoples and cultures, but do it by telling their stories instead of rehashing the same stuff over and over. The Little Mermaid has been done, and done brilliantly in the original animated film. If Disney wanted to tell the story of a black mermaid then they could base it on the folk tales and myths about mermaids from Africa or the Caribbean to share those cultures and their rich histories with the world... except that would require creativity and effort, and wouldn't be a (supposedly) easy cash-in.
*There are also a lot of Scandinavian/Norwegian/Swedish/Danish people with a Olive complexion due to genetics/dna because of the HAPLO-GROUP they originally belong too!*
No live action movie can ever replace the How to Train Your Dragon animated trilogy, especially that first flight scene with the aerial dynamics and soundtrack. I would listen to the soundtrack while writing.
Its amazingly animated and the aesthetic is so pretty.. I'm so scared that they are going to capture that same look.. if the try to make the dragons look too realistic, they're gonna lose their appeal and that makes me sad
If they want more black characters they should just make them and stop changing the originals, they keep calling people who are mad about this racist but no one was upset about Moana, Mulan or Princess and the frog
Gee I wonder what people would say if they made Tiana from The Princess and the Frog a blonde white girl in New Orleans when they made the live action adaptation
I also just hope that they dont give Astrid a really cringy girl power scene in the live action. Like, Astrid was already the most badass and skilled woman of the group, but i bet they will end up giving her this scene that will just scream "Hey look, look how badass our female lead is, "GIRL POWER" am i right?"
Meanwhile, every male character will either be genderswapped out or downplayed to look like a bumbling fool. Can't have those boys showing up the *Strong Female Character™*
I’m so upset about Astrid and Annabeth. Like I can’t really name many characters that come from Nordic/Scandinavian or Greek backgrounds in US television. It’s really racist to say just because you’re one color you can’t relate to someone else. I personally can relate to Tiana a lot, as we have similar goals in a way. They are taking away other people’s cultures and representation. Every choice they are making to “give more representation” takes it away from someone else. It’s such a sickening tactic. I’m tired of it. Halle did amazing, she’s a fish, that’s fine. But Snow White? She’s German and might I add “skin as white as snow”. Astrid is Nordic, they made her pasty in the original movie on purpose. Annabeth is half greek, it would’ve been cool to see an actress with Greek features, and especially a Greek nose. Can you name a lot of characters that have that feature? Especially in Disney films or kid shows. I can’t really other than Hercules. Maybe a little girl who was insecure about her nose would’ve liked to see some representation too? Okay I’m done with my rant
I was mad when they showed the casting choice for Snow White. A fairy tale which takes place probably in 1500s southern Germany's Black Forest area. The cartoon uses a LOT imagry from that region too. The girl's name literally describes her skin tone. Will they change the poem to say "brown as sand" instead of "white as snow"? I would not be surprised at all.
My daughter absolutely lives for HTTYD, I even won a competition for her when HTTYD3 came out. Even she said and I quote "why does Astrid have dark hair like me she's blonde in the films", she didn't care about the colour of her skin, just her hair colour (she's 9 now) 🤣 but her take is right though, why change things that don't need changing. Tbth my daughter isn't a fan of the live action remakes they've been doing the last few years.
So how come you just can't think of how to train your dragon as a fictional story like the multiverse too. Nordic/Swedish can be black too if they are biracial or if they're born in those countries so I don't see why you're making a fuse about it! You're white just white, I could understand if you were Nordic/Swedish but you aren't... So why are you upset? The only people who are mad are whites not Nordic/Swedish people🤣🤣You're mad because the storyline isn't staying true to the original when the entire storyline is fictional and has dragons lord forbids if they're more black dragons than white ones I bet you'll have a meltdown! You also said it wasn't about color but proceed to have your daughter say something that is colorist towards her hair lol
it could be that they're going to make it so she's got blonde hair during the filming. we don't know what it will e like yet. but good on your daughter for not caring about her skin tone.
Thanks you SO MUCH for aknowledging this! I'm sick and tired when they always change the originality of a character only so they can make everything "more inclusive", doing as if people are too dumb to understand a character otherwise. Also immediately calling us racists when we say that they should stick to the originals we grew up to love. Nico is a great actress and I loved her in the last of us as also in missing and other productions but she just doesn't fit the role at all. Only because they want to make the series and movies more inclusive ( to their minds), it doesn't mean that vikings were black or yellow, or red or whatever else. It is the same problem they had with Dragonball when they let a white guy play Sengoku that were supposed to be a Asian actor. The movie bombed and they still didn't learn from it.
Dragonball evolution is trash. But gotta disagree that Goku should be played by someone Asian. He's Saiyan not Asian. So yeah. Never got people's misconception that because it's an Asian media Goku should be Asian when he is clearly given a fictional race
@@chriscrookham3340 Well then they could had taken someone that looks as close to him as possible or at least bother to do so. The actor didn't matched at all. Of course nobody has such big eyes like the anime characters but that's not what I mean anyway.
they won't make a live action for it because they Arnt trying to push black stories they are just race swapping to get woke points with the other elites and the left its all political.
@@quaintlyi but they did the princess and the frog in a different place and time period which worked instead of just race swapping a single character for political points. princess and the frog is one of my favorites because I thing they did a good job with taking the story and putting it into a New Orleans setting.
@@bryce1334 Aaah good points, I never thought about it on that level. It was never one of my favorite stories. Just one of those that showed up randomly though childhood and I agree, They really did do an amazing job on the movie. My Daughter chose that movies theme for her 9th birthday. But, back on point & Slowing down, I also now realize you meant, if they turned it into a live action movie...
@@bryce1334 it's not always about political points. Are you saying these artists get no kind of creative imput into their work? If your adapting a piece like this a cartoon about dragons. Why is it out of all the unbelievable things you are seeing, a different color person is the most jarring. Why have a carbon copy of the original, then you could just watch the original. Your trying to retell a story. Not recreate a cartoon.
Pretty sure Astrid was based on a blonde, wild-haired girl from another Norse tribe named Camicazi. She was on many of Hiccup's adventures with him in the books. Alvin the Terrible was completely different in the books, too, as was Toothless. He wasn't a riding dragon at all.
The original book that the series was based off of Astrid was a wild, blonde haired short wild girl from the bog burglar tribe and her name was camicazi. Fishlegs was a thin spindly character who wore glasses and was allergic to basically everything and was an Orphan boy who was outcast from the berserker tribe. Snotlout was hiccups Chad cousin who betrays the entire tribe to the enemy but sacrifices himself in the end
@BNuts Read the books too. Often something horrible comes out when trying to transfer the story from a book series 1:1 to the big screen. So from my point of view they did a great job in reshaping.
I brought this up with my mother and we had a discussion, I was arguing about how we should keep Astrid as she is while my mother was arguing the point of “ it doesn’t matter we need more representation in the media “ I said that I would love a new character from a far of land with a different skin tone as it would add some variety and a new story line but I wouldn’t like Astrid to be race swapped because its unnecessary. She then said I was being racist because I cared so much about how a character looked. ( so did my brother who joined in to watch) and I must say it hurt so much to hear my own mother call me racist. I’m not , I just would like my favourite characters to stay how they are. She’s fine as she is and she’s a Viking. She’s supposed to look like that. My mother then said “ why does it matter, she’s only a character “. I then said that she’s not just a character, she’s a character that I look up to and she would not be Astrid without her signature looks: a side fringe and glowing pale skin. I can’t explain it but changing her hair and eyes would change her completely. Anyone could be a badass Viking with odd but amazing fashion Tate. But no one could be like Astrid other then Astrid. Looks included. Sorry for my rant, please like this comment so I know how many people have read this 😁👍
I agree with you. I wouldn't really mind if a character was race swapped I mean look at nick fury well in his case Samuel L Jackson was chosen for the role not because he's black he was chosen because they know that he'll nail the character. what I don't like is when the actor or actress was chosen because of his/her race or skin color
I'm 100% with you. I'm white but my family doesn't lack for diversity; we have Black, Japanese, and Mexican (yes, from Mexico). I would LOVE to see more stories from other backgrounds as long as they are well written instead of a quick pandering cash grab. Race swapping for the sake of race swapping kills all interest in a story. One of my favorite book series from my childhood recently got remade into a TV series. The main girl has Turkish and Scottish roots and they constantly talk about her dark hair and darker than average skin tone.... So they made her black instead of making her Middle Eastern, they cast a Black actress. Great job on true diversity!
its funny that she says you are being racist because you cared so much about how a character looked but she was the one that said ''we need more representation in the media'' which literally implies that she cares how people look like. Also little side note: Astrid doesn't have glowing pale skin, she has fair/light skin.
I'm sorry that your mom is that narrow minded. Just keep trying to be better, despite what your family thinks. When it comes to entertainment, as hard as it can be, just keep it to yourself to avoid being hurt and discuss it only with people you can trust and know share your ideas and opinions.
They’re literally trying to fight racism with racism and it’s just wrong. They did it with Ariel from The Little Mermaid, Mermista from She-Ra, and April O’Neil in Rise of TMNT. Honestly, why don’t they just make new characters with different backstories? THAT’S representation, not this laziness they’re giving us
I actually like black April, she's definitely really fun to be around, and I honestly don't mind that race swap, but I agree with everything else you said, I think they should make more original stories starring black characters instead of race swaping them
I remember growing up there was only one princess that had brown hair like me, Belle, yet Ariel, a princess with red hair, was my favorite. Years later, after seeing princess and the frog, tiana’s personality, drive, and passion is what I see in myself. A focus that should be considered is the personality of the characters and how we can see ourselves through that. I don’t doubt that the actors selected for these live actions won’t do well but making sure the personality of the characters that we have grown up adoring need be a focus as well
Original fairy tails were either scary stories to warn kids about some danger, or more inspirational stories to teach us how to be good person. Since most movies go for inspirational route, why dont you focus on inspiring kids to be kind and brave and resilient and NOT trying to inspire us to be more black? more latin?? How is that suppose to work? Its not like i can learn to be more like certain race, but everyone can learn and be inspired to be brave (like Astrid), or be kind (like Cinderella), or resilient (like Mulan) - thats were focus should be on.
@@mar.s6516 Why did you have to add this comment under the original comment, that's the point the original comment is already saying. Sounds like you're just trying to take away character or personality from Tiana.
For real I example relate to Simba even though I'm not a hairy furry lion or to Kim possible with her annoyed trait even though I'm not a girl the character is important to relate to the character not the look
I think celebrating diversity can also mean representing a variety of white people cultures too like in the case of Nordic characters. If they made a live action Brave, you would expect Merida to look a certain way to represent the Irish look. Same with historic German, Italian, French people etc. They're all "white" but look different, talk different, & have different culture.
If they do a live action Brave and Merida is not a red head, I will actually be pissed. I am part Scottish, Irish, and Italian. That is my ancestry, and I take pride in it.
As an asian i support your position. We are all humans and we can relate to humans of other race. Because Russel Crow played Gladiator doesn’t mean i can’t empathise his characters.
As an asian, I want to see more asian characters in films, but I sure as hell don't want to see any existing characters race-swapped into an asian. Imagine an asian Maximus? Or a black Maximus? Sounds crazy? Somehow a black Astrid, the most scandanavian name was ok for this film. Madness
@random6809: LOL: THE most popular TV programs in Hawaii are Korean dramas. I know of geriatric white women who watched American soup operas for decades but now only watch Korean Dramas. Many have told me American soap operas are boring, monotonous and hedonic. They can relate to the moral characteristics of the Korean drama characters but not to the American soaps'.
@@milotin I wanted to see an asian Motoko Kusanagi in this horrendous "Ghost in the Shell" Live-action remake and NOT Scarlett Johannson... I simply could not see her in that role at all.... They only chose her cuz she was recognizable.
Well said, sir!! 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽 You're right in that people relate to characters based on how they are or what they're going through, not skin color. Race swapping is quite annoying. I've never thought of how it could be a form of segration but it does feel that way. Excellent observation!
@@Morten_Storvikwell to change it you got to add weird elements to even kind of make it work. Like normally you have no dark skinned living up north not enough sun the same for the opposite is true for living near the equator to much sun so easy to get a sunburn/tan or turn black olive black form dessert training like what happened to my step father poor guy his own mother did not even realize him by how much his skin color changed. You would think he got race swapped form mowin "not spelling it right" Hawaiian and a north African. Just form getting to much of a tan.
When I first heard that a live-action movie of the How to Train Your Dragon series was being made, instead of being excited, I was worried how they will mess it up. That disaster we call Little Mermaid, live-action, outside of the race-swap, was terrible with acting, script, CGI, etc. So, if this race swap is happening, I am expecting the other aspects of the movie to not meet any expectations outside of "terrible."
I too was so happy that there would be another movie. But then i realised the potential for it to be messed up. Cuz the previous movies all set an extremely high standard. And I don't think modern day movie making can meet that standard. But I'm crossing my fingers and hoping for it to meet most of my expectations. And at least. At least. Be decent. I really hope so. I really do.😢
This whole race swap thing is funny, because since when did mermaids have different races ? Ariel is also a fictional character 😂 So how can people be trying to draw out facts from a fictitious kids story, the people concerned about the “race swap” clearly have an agenda.
When I first heard about it, I jokingly said, "Wait!! Are they making Toothless white?!!!" Of course not, that would NEVER happen!! Not in today's "anti-racist" society! 🙄 🙄 🤡 🤡
@@2nang4distually it is if someone intentionally changes the color for the sake of $ then that is being r. Look at me. I'm not w but I know plenty of my folks sick of race swapping which is changing color of a character instead of going to the trouble of creating a new one. Since when we see b vikings? How's about b Abe Lincoln or w Muhammed Ali or b Cleopatra ... Oh wait ... If it were a one or two off, ok but this is a flood of cultural appropriation, if one were honest about it
i have watched HTTYD since i was like 3 and i was thinking the same thing every live action remake has been terrible the past few years so they better fix this.
I was never excited about a live action adaptation, because we never needed one. Especially with how recent it is. And this is literally the one thing I was most worried about.
The only reason I would be excited for it is because they could make it visually impressive in live action if they try but yeah, the point of an live action remake is to be as closely accurate to it's source as possible and maybe if done right, Improve little things here or there.
it is the worst possible outcome. Like Astrid is probably the best written character outside of Hiccup and all it does is show that they are less worried about being faithful to the story and more worried about being "woke" or "diverse"
If anything close to live action that I am accepting is the theatre version...not only they were truly LIVE and had actual action(acting and stunts) they also had some very realistic looking animatronic puppets of dragons(yes even the final boss one)...that is the closest I'll personally be accepting as live action...
Also have you noticed that it's always the female characters that they race swap (Annabeth in Percy Jackson( they said that they didn't care about the description in the book but funnily enough they kept Percy accurate) the Little Mermaid, Astrid...) The men that are in charge want to see men being accurate but they always sacrifice the characteristics of female characters so that "woke" people are happy.
No not just female characters. The resident evil movie isn't from Disney but they did the same thing to the character "Leon". He wasn't a white guy anymore. lol
@@bakaredmakaJet Black from Cowboy Bebop comes to mind, too. Granted, the actor was good - even if the adaption was trash. However, race-swapping is a sign of bad writing, direction, and intent with an intellectual property; ie, abusing manipulative commercialization of something that deservedly can be called art. It isn’t fair to the actors (even if many, honestly, are not all that great) to be put in that situation. Many seem to genuinely have talent that can be explored, but that assumes there is someone in Hollywood that is competent enough to write a half-ways decent screen-play. It’s a tall order, it seems.
Actually, Percy isn't accurate either. He has black hair and green eyes and they cast a kid with blond hair, blue eyes, and freckles. And before you say wig or contacts, Riordan has refused to make his actors do that. Lord knows why.
As a person of color I can say that this is not helping racism at all its just solidifying it, this is ridiculous why can't they just remake a classic movie without changing race i hate how race pretty much defines everything these days.
@@matthewcollinsiiiakacdawgc7361 I agree. Unless it has a major negative impact on the end product, then it really shouldn't matter. It's actually quite insulting to suggest that the actress has been chosen because of her skin-colour and not because casting thought the actress might be good in the role. And costantly complaining about race-swapping (especially if it has no credible impact on the movie itself) just fuels racists who feel they are justified at hurling anger, hate, and even threats, at the actors themselves.
@@monodescaradoyou can find a good actor from any race, but the point of an actor is to embody a character. Finding someone who visually correlates with a character, at least relatively similarly, is an aspect of accurately portraying that character. It doesn’t matter if I am the greatest actor on planet earth, if someone tried to cast me as miles morales I am starting a riot
Thank you! It’s hard for me (a white girl) having to say it bothers me without being told I’m r-cist. I don’t care if someone is black white asian Hispanic. But I do have issues when the swap was only done to check a box.
WHOLEHEARTEDLY agree with you! It drives me crazy too when they do this, and I'm apart of the group that they're trying to get a pat on the back from lol :)
@@Film_Overload YEAH seriously! Why not create a new character then instead of dismantling another? Does it not look worst, like a hand-me-down rather than something NEW? And why should their race matter. If they're the best candidate for the role, sure, but it really REALLY feels like its the "my cousin is gay therefore I'm not homophobic" argument these hollywood executives are having.
I wish they cast someone with a round face like Astrid. Not something you see in media a lot, I loved the fact that her face was round and she was still conveniently attractive.
Thank you! Honestly as white blonde I’m so sick and tired of no just the race-swapping but hair-swapping. Ever notice how the girls “swapped” are have blonde or red hair? First it was Iris, then Ariel, then Annabeth, Now Astrid! I want them to stop taking away every good Blonde and Red head! I thought Dreamworks was better. I’m so disappointed in them.
@@thedingdongsunshinefuture what else would you have expected the author to say? If he had come out and said he didn't want to cast a black actress but he didn't have a choice, he would have been labeled as racist
@@thedingdongsunshinefuture as a writer myself, if I describe a character with blonde hair and blue eyes, that means that's how I envision her but if they decide to make a movie about it and cast a black person, I can't publicly disagree
Finally someone realises that annabeth casting and astrid casting is sooooo wrong. Honestly if the actor doesnt have to remotely resemble the character in appearance then they should just cast a man to play annabeth cuz his personality matches annabeth. I mean thats the job of actor to ACT not match personality pf the character. The people who play serial killer villains in movies arent actually serial killers they are good actors. And ariel casting was horrid
@@thedingdongsunshinefutureer ethnicity is quite literally important to the story because she’s half GREEK GOD! I wanted GREEK people in these roles. Hair and eyes can be manipulated with contacts and wigs. But I wanted real Greek kids in these roles or kids who had Greek or Mediterranean decent! That’s what Rick should’ve been looking for! I’m pretty mad about Percy’s casting too don’t get me wrong. Tbh the only one I didn’t care about was Grover because he’s kind of ambiguous and tbh I liked his casting a lot in the old movies he was one of the best characters so my expectations of him were non existent. But Percy and Annabeth look NOTHING like they should. Percy has sea green eyes and DARK black hair with tan skin. Now I don’t actually take it out on the kids in the role though, because it’s not their fault they got the role they were probably just so excited to get the role! This isn’t about them it’s about the people behind the casting. Therefore, I’m really upset with Uncle Rick.
Kids who grew up watching HTTYD and series with og Astrid is gonna get confused as to why in the live-action did she became black. Now artists that draw og Astrid is gonna be labeled racist because Twitter Freaks is gonna believe that Astrid is now black. Saw this first hand when an artist drew og Ariel where they labeled them racist, THEN another black artist qtweeted and ratio them with their drawing of live-action Ariel which really pissed me off.
That makes me angry too. I know exactly what you're talking about. I saw that too. Like I say in the video, they do this to point fingers at the "racists" and "bigots". You're SPOT ON :)
Just to give the woke mob their just rewards, I'd love to race-swap a lot of black classic TV characters. Say do an A-Team reboot with B.A. a hillbilly with a mullet; an all-white remake of Fresh Prince of Bel Air; or maybe redo Friday with only Devo (the villain) remaining black. And when the #FascistLeft dares to complain, just give them back their own excuses about 'inclusion' and 'diversity'.
I would like to think that kids who grew up watching HTTYD are old enough and intelligent enough now to understand the game that is being played. I guess the sort of people who complained about Gods of Egypt and The Last Airbender having a cast that was overly white, did not imagine that Disney would seek to remake so much of it's very white-European back catalogue into live action.
To quote a Scandinavian friend of mine: "We should make a biopic about Martin Luther King here and have some blonde swede called Ragnar Gunnarsson play him." 😆
what’s even sadder to think is that not only is there little to no representation for people with Scandinavian backgrounds but that the main protagonists love interest was average looking and not an over sexualized bombshell character like most movies that trended were. I remember when the first HTTD came out and everyone was beefing why the main protagonists love interest was ugly and mean. But she got more beautiful and her character depth developed as the series continued. :(
Totally. They want us further divided than united, from politics, to entertainment, to the legal system. The more they make us divided, the more "we" fight each other, and are distracted to the real problem, which is the people in power taking advantage and exploiting the rest of us.
Ironically on the other hand, it has also kept many of us united with one common bond we all share with each other … a special heartfelt love for the original animated films! ❤️ 🧜♀️ 🐼 … 😉 They can try to change our mentality as much as they want to … but they’ll NEVER change our memories!
Indeed. I am not white, brown, latin or whatever adjective, im just a dude. I like Blade, I like Spawn, I like Steel, I like Superman, never cared about their nationality or ethnicity, they're still good characters.
@Zaemoncho … OMG, Steel?? LOL, I honestly felt bad for Shaq @ the time, cause I felt he deserved a better movie! 🤓 And I wanted SO bad to see a “SPAWN vs BLADE” movie from New Line YEARS ago, but unfortunately it never happened … and it probably never will either, being that you-know-WHO owns Marvel now… 🤬
Ironically, you being a giant baby is the very thing separating you from normal folks. It's not worth spending your time crying over. Move on and stop being immature.
I'm glad someone finally put there thoughts in a cohesive manner in order to explain why a lot of these race swaps are no bueno. couldn't have said it any better myself. thank you film overlord
ALL Dreamworks needed to do is make an animated series about Hiccup and Astrids kids. Give Snoutlout a kid with someone, give Ruff and Tuff kids, give Fishlegs a kid and then you could make an episodic series where something different happens in each episode but have them all tie together at the end, JUST like Defenders and riders and RTTE and no one would be saying anything, because we would LOVE that. The reason people loved the tv series and dare I say a LOT of people(myself included) consider them better than the movies is because those tv series gave life and personality to the world beyond the main characters. They took what were previously just backround characters (Snotlout, Ruff and Tuff, Fishlegs) and gave them personalities and purpose. The Nine realms might as well be it's own damn thing, completely disassociated with the main series because all that shit has done so far has been to go out of it's way to mock and disrespect the original property it's meant to be a CONTINUATION OF. For the record, I don't think anyone should have an issue with the fact that they race swapped Astrid. What they should have an issue with is that once again, rather than picking the right person for the character, they've picked a person that will fill their agenda. HTTYD as a concept takes place in Viking-age Scandinavia THOUSANDS of years ago on a single island. Yeah, there's not gonna be any racial diversity on an island of Nordic warriors. Let's also not forget that the Voice actress for Astrid (a white girl) is America Ferrera, who is Hispanic. Does the "inclusivity" not count unless you can SEE it? No one asked for this. HTTYD is STILL a classic 13 years later, it's one of my favorite movies and one of the ONLY movies I can watch over and over from start to finish and just not get tired/bored of. It is one of the most popular franchises in media history and still has one of the biggest fanbases of pretty much any media except maybe the MCU. WHY does it need to be remade?
LOVE all your ideas! And the reason why they’re remaking it, is because they’re running out of original ideas in my opinion. So they have to go back and wreck everything that already exists. :)
@@Film_Overload I've heard the term "creatively bankrupt" before but never put much thought into it because, no one can completely just run out of ideas, right? Well, I suppose when all the original people who founded these companies and the people who worked on the original projects and gave them love, are gone and all that's left are people who only see dollar signs, anything is possible.
@@blobbertmcblob4888 You're spot on! it isn't so much that they're out of ideas, all these new people see are dollar signs now instead of making actually good content. It's the same reason why Disney keeps remaking all their GOOD movies :)
Astrid is Nordic so cast someone who looks like Astrid. Maybe you have to use eye contact lenses for eye color and a blonde wig for an actress to play her but Astrid is undeniably white with blonde hair and should be played by someone who at least resembles her in look. Race swapping is becoming too prevalent in Hollywood because Hollywood is pandering to diversity, inclusion and Wokeness to the point of sacrificing the ethnicity or nationality of a pre-existing character or intellectual property.If the studios cast a wider net they can attract a bigger audience so I guess money's speaks louder than aesthetics. With Disney's "The Little Mermaid" struggling at the international boxoffice time will tell if this practice keeps up.The non race-swapping "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse" is performing much better at the international boxoffice and will most likely more profitable for Sony than "The Little Mermaid" will be for Disney.I hope this trend doesn't continue much longer.
You are 100% correct! If these studios want to be more "diverse" then they MUST come up with original stories and characters instead of sacrificing already existing ones. :)
@@Nika44 The problem with your argument is that they haven’t race swapped anyone. Nico Parker is well established to be a white woman so the complaints are not grounded in reality
Hey man, thanks for the video. I feel like I was going crazy. I was really bothered by the Percy Jackson cast since the books were such a huge part of my childhood. I agree 100%, this isnt inclusivity, its just pandering. They are tokenising races to score brownie points with the ppl who want to buy into this. I'm asian brown (Indian) and it's genuinely embarrassing. I'll just say, No, Big Media, i dont feel included. Stop ruining franchises for the love of god.
I'm Indian too. It also makes me laugh that they change the color of the characters but only use African people, not considering that there are many other ethnic groups in the world. Every time they insert a black character it's never Indian, why?
Perfectly said, couldn't agree more. These race swaps are completely ridiculous and just scream "we're too lazy to write original poc characters so we make useless live actions just so we can race swap the white main characters and appear progressive". Before the little mermaid, people were like "oh but she's a fictional fish why does it matter" which is already bs, but Astrid is a goddamn norse viking💀💀And the fact that live action tinkerbell and snow white are gonna be race swapped too...I can't even
Nice to see someone who actually thinks straight in this day and age. I was the only one who was excited when a live action HTTYD movie was announced, now that I realize what kind of people are making it that just. . . Dang it live action HTTYD! You just lost your only fan
Five-ten years ago, before the slew of sub par live action remakes, I would’ve been over the moon for this. But as it stands now, especially with the rampant ‘updates for modern audiences’ and ‘diversity’ and them buzzwords, I can only feel disappointment.
Astrid is one of my fav characters and I looked up to her a lot when I was 10 years old. Now that I'm nearly 23 I still love her. I always adored her design, she's a badass viking. Now that they've done this I'm so super disappointed...
Well said! We need to appreciate the originality within the story not force a change that shouldn't happen. These characters are relatable because of what they experience and their ups and down throughout the movie, not their looks. It shouldn't matter what someone looks like to relate and you're 100% right about that. Again, well said.
As someone who grew up watching how to train your dragon about ten billion times, I would like to see the characters I know and love instead of some random brunette I have to convince myself is Astrid.
But why, then you could just watch the original. I view it as if looking at the multverse. Here's a story you know but in a world where things are different. If you want a carbon copy than why watch it?
@@That1guyCraig If you have read the books, you would know why they aren’t and didn’t adhere to the book series’ plot. It wouldn’t be easy to make the first few books into movies, and the last books deal with themes like slavery, war, mass deaths, etc, a very different vibe then the originals. The books grow with their audience but with movies that would have to span multiple books at a time to get a decent runtime, that wouldn’t be possible, and I think you overestimate a film studio’s willingness to change a plot that works.
@Titan Knight I don't think they should change anything that works. But the race of the actors isn't the thing that make it a hit. It's the story. And a story can be told by anyone. What if I want to tell that story but set in Canada? Are you saying they wouldn't translate? What if I wanted to tell it using the pacific islands as a location instead? Look at theater. Changing the actors doesn't change the message.
I completely agree with this race swapping nonsense. In the "Little Mermaid", ok there wasn't really any cultural or historical significance to Ariel being white in the animated movie. However in "How to Train Your Dragon" the story takes place in Norse or Scandinavian society. They are effectively misrepresenting an entire culture and ethnicity. Would Hollywood race swap Moana, Mirabel, or Mulan in a live action adaptation with a white actress? Hell no, they would accused of minimalizing their respective cultures, and rightfully so. Yet if they change Elsa or Anna, it would be for making the live action movie more inclusive to other ethnic groups. Here's an idea, just make a new movie with new characters and a new story that can have whatever ethnicities, real or imagined, you want. Then you can have your "inclusiveness" so the public can relate to their so-called relatable characters according to their respective cultural backgrounds. Sorry I ranted a bit, have a nice day.
"there wasn't really any cultural or historical significance to Ariel being white in the animated movie." Tell that to the Danish people who literally have a statue of the original little Mermaid in the harbour of their capital to honor the original author of the story (Hans Christian Andersen). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Mermaid
As soon as you mentioned the actress from The Witcher I immediately thought she would be perfect. And she's an incredible actress too who I think would play that role so well. She's already got the chops of acting in a fantasy world from The Witcher. Would've been very interesting to see her in that role
Yes, it would have been. But did WOKE HOLLYWOOD think so? No. That my friends is why I don't do celebrities or politics unless I know exactly what they stand for and against.
Thank you! There is a difference between race swapping and blind casting, and at this point there is a super obvious pattern of race swapping rather than casting because the actor fits the role best. Samuel L Jackson as Nick Fury will always be the gold standard of blind casting.
Freya even shares her name with a Viking goddess... Thank you so much for making this video, it was fantastic to see someone being honest and thoughtful on this topic. I agree with you entirely, the race swapping perpetrated by modern cinema only demonstrates their own racism and lack of understanding of their audience. 100% hitting that subscribe button.
This character was just fine for me growing up and I loved her and I didn’t matter to me that we weren’t the same race I still love her and honestly not being the same race made me like her a little more because of the Norse/Viking heritage involved it made it unique and different for me. As someone who grew up in a black family with lots of black media involved in my life,you never saw Vikings or dragons in the stuff my family watch so I enjoyed it seeing other heritages and people that weren’t black was exciting to me personally but I still do love black media but they way they are force feeding the diversity in some of these movies doesn’t really make exciting or interesting has some other things do
And I love how he explains that you don’t need to look like a character to relate to a character it can be off there looks that you relate to a character but that feels really one dimensional and I personally like it when I can relate to someone’s personality and personal traits that make them who they are as a person and character like I can relate to hiccup in certain ways because he’s dorky but cute and I can relate to Astrid because she is independent but still like having her team (especially hiccup) with her. I don’t need to see skin to see someone
I think its interesting when the color of her skin is brought up. This actress is not brown. Why is it considered race swapping when she has only one black grandparent and three white ones. Is three not a larger number than one?
Just like they did to Percy Jackson TV series. Percy is supposed to look almost exactly like his father who is a greek god and there has been people who thought he looked like roman god (so he should look like greek/roman, black hair and sea green eyes). Annabeth was supposed to be blond typical California girl with princes curls and stormy grey eyes (that are from her mother, so her skin color would be white but tan from the sun). They race swapped Percy from looking Mediterranean in the books to look like a white kid in the TV and Annabeth from white girl to black. And the best thing is that there actually is quite a lot of diversity already in the books without race swapping any named characters. Like Leah (the actress for Annabeth) would have been a perfect for Hazel (who is black girl in the books). I mean most of the characters in the books have at least 1 parent who is supposed to be greek/roman and there isn't lots of series/movies in america that has characters that can actually look Mediterranean.
A awesome animation that I hold dear to my heart, it's part of my childhood, I'm a black person myself and I NEVER had a problem with this type of stuff, what bothers me is that the animation represents Scandinavian......Vikings.....those people shouldn't even know that black people existed. This is so wrong in so many levels, first, you completely throw a ancient culture out of the window, its disrespectful, second, these race swap is racist by itself, if you want racism to stop, then stop talking about it, if you feel the need to empower something It just mean you think its weak, the thought alone its racist. I still can't understand why these directors keep doing that, EVERY movie or animation that had race swap completely flopped and were met with GIGANTIC criticism over it. This is just ridiculous.
Dude you totally get it. I have been telling my friends how racist this practice is and they just shrug it off they call me racist for focusing on the race of the characters.
@@alexandrelagarde549If it's so unimportant, why did they bother changing it in the first place? Why does it ALWAYS go in one direction? Would it be innately racist if people were to have an issue with this being done to a historically and culturally significant black cartoon character? You know the answer to that, so stop it with your disingenuous coping nonsense.
@CowboyChris.0Or maybe there are just a lot of sheep fully ensnared in cultural Marxism and indoctrinated with woke propaganda that he happened to talk to about this. But sure, it's much easier to just call him racist. I'm sure these same people would certainly have strong issues with white people replacing historically black characters en masse, but it's not racist when they do it amiright?
you're completely right, the idea that "i cant relate to a character unless it looks like me" is not only racist, its so goddamn egotistical. which pretty much sums up these people's thought process. not to mention, its LAZY. instead of writing good stories that are relatable you're just gonna take the easy route of political diversity and rely on that to carry your movie. you want representation? REPRESENT NORSE CULTURE!! how self-centered do you have to be to claim that your culture is more interesting than someone else's??
So if you had to verbally tell someone this movie. How big of a part would the Norse part be? Probably not very because you're going to focus on the beats. How he met the dragon, how the bonded, the conflict, the resolution. That's the story. It can be told anywhere with any actor because it's the characters that make the story. Sure it's easier to do with books because you have few preconceived images except the ones you thoughts of. So sure I'll give you once you've seen it one way you like change is jarring. But it's a fantasy piece. So why is it dragons are ok but other changes are not, it is fantasy after all. If they are telling the same story you loved then should it matter if it looks different. Isn't that more entertaining too, to make something that looks so different and yet make you feel the connection with the old. You say race swap is lazy, well so is just recreating the same looking thing just in real life.
@@That1guyCraig Norse is literally the entirety of all the scenery, their clothes their heritage their way of life, even down to their decision making processes they’re called Vikings., the dragons are literally the secondary plot UNTIL toothless and even then the story still focuses more on hiccup and the Vikings UNTIL the last quarter of the movie in which it shifts unto the secondary plot of dragons and Vikings co-existing and helping one another.
@Dreamon ok. Sure I've never seen it so I'll take your word on all that. So you mean to say they can't do those exact same things with a different group of people? It's a story not a historical recreation. If your adapting something from a book. Why not take liberties in your art? Why pander to those demanding it be made their way? I mean yeah from a buisness side you need those people to come to make money. But if they make no changes make it just how you want. Then there's another group complaining about their lack of changes. So how do these creators win?
@@That1guyCraig going by your point of view, I think they would do well to make Toothless pink. Or maybe rainbow colors... because you know, who wants to see the same boring thing?
@Bb85 I mean why not. Is his color important to the story. Is he the only (insert his actual color here as I don't know what it is) dragon born in 100 years. Who the stories say will bring upon great change? No? Then why not change the color. Look there's going to be people who have their own image from the books. And there's another group who has an image from the cartoon. You can't please either. And then there is the casual like myself. Who just wants to see something fresh. So yeah. If they want to make it rainbow colored as long as it looks good I'm for it. I mean I'd hope I'd be a reason or explained.
That is concerning for the story as well. Because the original How To Train Your Dragon movies were approved and in a lot of ways directly influenced by the author Cressida Cowell. The books are very different from the movies on purpose, but I don't know how she feels about one of her main characters getting race swapped. That being said she was perfectly fine with the original movie changing Astrid's background to being a warrior where as in the books she is a master thief.
The messed up thing is that the people who supported the Ariel casting and hated the Nani casting are the same people who are going to defend this. They still can't see there is an agenda.
Noooo no. *I Supported Halle as Ariel because Halles mannerisms and voice is just like Ariel.* Ariel is a mermaid who sings Caribbean songs. Her name is Hebrew/Arabic and her father was Greek. Clearly her culture is ?????? Fantasy? Making her any race wasnt an issue. If they hired an asian woman who had Ariels voice and charm, Id support the casting too. *But Astrid is NORDIC.* There are no question marks there! She should be white! Race swapping strips the culture away from the character which is why I dont want Nani to be white passing. I want her to be Hawaiian. Nordic and Hawaiians arnt some fantasy culture, theyre real people whos culture should be respected.
Honestly the history and backgrounds don't matter, they are established characters with already canon physical appearances. Character design matters as much as personality, like Tinkerbell isn't even blonde anymore. I want to work in animation/character design and i'd be mad asf if I spent hours coming up with a design just for ppl to disregard it cos "race does 't matter" or the actor/actress sings and acts well
@@naturallyspiritual7256The actress for Nani is Native Hawaiian though? But I understand why you would expect a dark skinned Nani. As long as we don’t invalidate people’s culture because they are “white-passing”? That can still be only focusing on race more than the person’s cultural background. Race swapping can strip people’s culture but focusing on race or skin color alone while ignoring the people’s culture and character can be just as harmful too. Nani was more dark skinned originally yes but if they are from there and have lived there then they are far more likely to fit the role than someone who looks like Nani but is not even from Hawaii unless they are a great actor then yes I can be proved wrong. But I understand why you’d want the actress to be both just as dark and native Hawaiian, idk why that wasn’t possible. I am Mexican but I’m white so I wouldn’t take a dark skinned Mexican’s role for example but that doesn’t mean I’m not Mexican because I’m white either. I don’t think that’s what you were implying from light skinned Hawaiians but it did come off that way. Ariel was always originally just Atlantican she was white but never really had an official ethnicity and the origins of the story are Danish. That is why many people erroneously think Cleopatra was African or Egyptian because they just see where they resided but her family was not originally from Egypt. The main problem is what’s the point of making a remake? If the original set a very high bar and set of expectations anyways? And people get bored of seeing the same plot reused over and over again.
@darkstalkerknight63 Buddy, you're wrong. Screwing up an original character design is disrespectful to the creators. The idea is to honor the original films, not to shit on them. It's an adaptation, not a remake. She definitely can look like Astrid with eye contacts and a hairdo but not really. Facial features are a bit off. Even though it's a stylized character, you can see the small and yet wide nose shape she lacks. Also he's completely right. It's more racist to assume that you can't relate to other races than your own. We are all human. Not just you or your country. Everyone.
@@darkstalkerknight63 so batman can be woman is she can play it ? anakin become a girl aslong a she can play it ? could nordic people back then been black no therefore it's historical accuracy that she's white nothing to do with race + changing white role into black ones does it realy help the cause.Helping the cause would be making new caracters not changing old one.
@@erickvallee2548 yes. She is called batwoman and batgirl. There are literally 2 of them. Also there are black batman and superman. I know. Suprising huh. There were black nordics and Vikings. So it is historic accuracy. Literally everything you said made it about her race while denying history itself. Even the old ones, they were not white
@@PoorMustang "Hjor and Ljufvina had two sons: the twins Hamund (Håmund) and Geirmund. They, too, had dark skin and were therefore nicknamed Heljarskinn; the “Black-Skinned”. Geirmund the Black-Skinned - the black Viking - never became king at Avaldsnes." "Their history in Africa, however, remains a forgotten part of their expeditions. According to sources in the Vikings' fragmented historical texts, the 9th century chieftain Hastein led a fleet to the African coast around 859 C.E. after raiding multiple Mediterranean cities." "There is evidence to suggest, however, that some Vikings had darker skin, and may have originated in Africa" So how am I wrong by sure you have to make it about race and not if she can play the role. You are the one who assuming it is about relating to them and making it about race instead of if she can play the role.
I watched the first HTTYD movie when I was little, I loved it so much. Every single character is iconic it and I was especially drawn to Astrid because she looked similar to me; Blonde hair, blue eyes, pale skin. Ever since I was little I didn't like that most movies percieved those types of girls in movies as "the mean girls" or "The dumb one". I was especially happy because I felt that she matched my personality for some reason(idk i was weird, okay) and she was my idol for so long and is one of my favorite animated characters to this day. taking away representation like that hurts. And I know I sound like the most racist person ever right now but if you'd take an asian or black person and make her white, how would you feel? it goes both ways. I don't know why we can't just make original movies, establish characters and their personality traits and all that jazz, and then afterwards, cast whoever fits the role best. Unless the original creator has a certain "vision" for it, i'm confused why this can't just happen. I don't understand this stuff as much as others, so I am probably upsetting a lot of people by this essay of a comment so I will shut up now.
They haven’t taken away her representation because the original movies still exist. Also, they are vikings but the story is set on a fictional world and not in a specific region. I read the books as a British Child, and no specific relevance was made on the characters heritage or their land. It’s set in a fictional world, it’s open for interpretation.
Yes i mean... She Is supposed to be a Viking, a fucking Viking. Her genetica and her origins are suppose to be White with Blue eyes and blonde/light Brown hair
They arent making original Movies, because Hollywood isnt really good in making their own Fantasy-Stories. Every good Fantasy Film for Decades was a Book adaptation or the remake of older Stuff. And no, i havent seen them all, but at least every one that comes to my mind. So i simply doubt that current Hollywood is able to write a half decent live Action Fantasy-Story. On the other Hand they are in need of the Fanbase. If they would advertise an original Film like this, i doubt anybody would talk about it and not many would go watch it in the Beginning. The Film would need to get audience through Quality and as i said: Thats something current Disney isn´t able to produce...
@@maximylesude Vikings are from a place and time that didn’t have other races. That would be like making a new cars movie and making lightning McQueen an airplane because “it’s up for interpretation”
I genuinely only think they do race swaps like this because they’re running out of ideas. There’s really no other good explanation, these remakes are just so different from the originals that it just feels like a cheap rip off. The life the stories had is just completely gone, which in itself is another problem when they cast dark skinned people. By casting them in such a lifeless and empty husk, it tells the community they’re trying to represent that they’re not worth the efforts of getting a original good story. At least that’s how I see it. And it’s incredibly sad to see these companies that have made such amazing films to go down this road of trying and failing horribly representing people. Not to mention that the only people liking it, are incredibly toxic. This is just feeding that small percentage and ignoring the majority. I’m sad to see where this is going. Either way, you’re incredibly underrated. Hope you get the acknowledgment you deserve soon, pal!
i don't see how race swapping Astrid is "running out of ideas" . the idea is simple here, the story is already there, all they have to do is cast correctly . they should focus on changing the story a little bit here and there to not make it a carbon copy of the original that's all . The race swap was forced . you should watch videos about the ESG and the black rock company. They're the ones demanding these changes , I bet Dreamworks had no choice but to racebend one of the main characters . Either that or they could lose a lot of investment .
@@eglantinepapeau1582 It isn’t so much about them running out of ideas, they’re doing this so that they can “pat themselves on the shoulder” and basically say “look at us good people, we’re doing you a favor”. You’re right by saying they’re not running out of ideas, but companies do this so that they can try and call people who care about these things “racists” and “bigots” :)
I love that you actually made this point. It's something that has bugged me in conversations with other people. When you go look at cosplay or comiccon events, they have for decades been flooded with people of all walks of life and ethnicities dressed in a costumes of characters of equally diverse backgrounds. And to say you can only relate due to skin color is asinine and an insult. Thanks for saying it.
Absolutely hit the nail on its head. When they did the race-swap/racebending for MJ in Spiderman, it was fine, because Zendaya is an excellent actress & it was not a massive & unlikely change to the character as America is diverse in cultures. However it seems that what was a fun change in perspective has now gone out of control. While I can't say this change is good or bad, as I have not seen Nico Parker in any tv or movies, she might be an excellent actress like Zendaya, but culturally How to Train your Dragon is set in the Viking era (somewhere between 793-1066 CE), a dark-skinned Viking did not exist. For me to watch this live action adaptation Nico would have to hit it out of the park & the Toothless CGI would have to be as bad ass as the Drogon (GoT) CGI.
Also Zendaya is a white passing biracial .If she didnt sau she is half black no one would know .Nothing ,her hair or her skin tone even her featurs are white passing
Zendaya was boring and she wasn't MJ (Mary Jane Watson) her name was Michelle Jones, same initials, different character. Ned & Flash were horrible castings.
@@dawickedjno there weren’t. Maybe after they started sailing the ocean and meeting other people but no there weren’t. That’s a bald face ass lie. The Vikings knew nobody else for a long time.
@@jamespope7669changing the name doesn’t really mean the character is different and second Ned was horrible casting and so was flash I’ll agree with that but MJ is quite literally the same
In art in general (since it works so much for movies, games, cartoons) when a character is created it is important that he is easily identified by the public at first sight, so his silhouette, his color palette and pose have to refer the public to such a character. When you remove this visual identity from the character, when you look at him with another color palette, a very neutral pose or with a completely different silhouette, you no longer associate this character with the portrayed character. Take Mickey for example, if you see Mickey's silhouette on a sign across the street you will immediately say "look it's Mickey!" That's why I don't agree with changing the ethnicity of the characters, and although the personality and moral characteristics remain the same, the public doesn't associate it because the visual character has been lost, and unfortunately it causes many live action works to fall into oblivion and nor are they so successful, the success they acquire is usually based on nostalgia and relying on already loved material, rather than creating new stories.
What you're saying at 5:15 is so true. My 5yo daughter is always saying that's me, that's mom and that's you. She picked the character she didn't even came close to look like, but acted the most inspiring to her. Why don't they just create new characters? Instead of destroying the characters we came to love as they are. It's no longer about making a good movie, it is about blaming, shaming, destroying and making a point. (And a shitty one) By trying to prove the world to be racist, they became the racists.
The extremists on the left and the woke, they hate everything and everyone, and their only solution to it all is to change it to fit themselves only, or to just wipe it out entirely. They CAN create new things, but they simply won't. The leftists has become the most racist people ever, it feels like, and they're completely addicted to race and being racist - but they play it like the entire planet is racist, not them. You are not permitted to even question it, you MUST obey like their personal rape slave, or you MUST FUCKING DIE. Or everything as close as possible to death. Race and racism is their literal religion at the moment.
Well they are trying to gain an audience with a grow up that might only watch one episode that leave as that group they are trying to gain does not care for the character or the story they just care about their agenda where as for the real fans and people who love and appreciate the original story and see the character as a symbol of what inspires them by the character development and pretty much grew up with them don’t want to see messed with Like I can say this series I grew up with it and when they finally said they were make a 3rd and final movie a 20 year old adult was bouncing off the wall to see it this like introverted and trouble kids understanding that life might be hard but their is light at the end of the tunnel or like people who are in the light already “Astrid” and they have the power to help people like “Hiccup” grow and shine as well
I'm looking forward for this upcoming movie to sink even deeper than The Little Mermaid life action. These people mess with Astrid, her fans will reign Hell upon you.
First the white redheads, now this. The most frustrating thing about this is that it's only one way, and no matter how you say that the character was established to be a certain way before they changed it, they could never be changed back to the way they were established, or people will say you're racist when all you want is to respect the way that the character was established. Another problem with this is that they ignore the real minority groups when they did this, red hair is a result of recessive genetic mutation that's extremely rare, they're the minorities and I only met like one white redhead in my life and that's it. That is also why in Disney's history, they only had one princess that is a redhead while you can find a lot more princesses in the Disney princess lineup that have blond hair, black hair and other hair colors but never red until Ariel is on the list. And now we're going to do the same thing with the characters that have blond hair? Astrid is a Viking, and because of the region that those people live in, it's impossible for them to have any other kind of people than white people, it's like how you mention Andersen you will immediately think he's a white guy, or when you talk about any character in the How To Train your Dragon franchise you're going to picture them with those white characters, or when people mention Merida, you're going to have an image of a white princess, you're not going to say they're black or whatever. Why did they always say that people have to "see themselves" in characters to be able to like those characters? Growing up, my favorite Disney princess is Ariel because I love her personality and I really can relate to the parental issues, I like Sophie and Howl from Howl's Moving Castle because they have very human problems, for me, the way I relate to characters is often about the problems they face, those very human problems and insecurities are the things I can relate to. Diversity was never just "Less White" of all the white characters that I know of growing up, they're all from different parts of Europe and have different cultures. It seems like now all they want to do is to erase the white characters.
Finally! Somebody who sees that redheads are also a minority XD Really annoying how they keep race swapping things instead of coming up with original things…
RIP my favorite franchise man, the one thing that got me obsessed with dragons in the first place, and the inspiration behind my username. You have no idea how upset this makes me hearing this…
Hollywood seems to be allergic to "source material accuracy". They're remaking How To Train Your Dragon in live action and changing Astrid. Why? The trilogy ended in 2019. Why are they remaking this franchise that was not only perfect, but JUST left us? It's not long enough for fans like us to miss the franchise
@@travisbishop782 Movies with original ideas are getting made look up some of Netflix original movies that aren’t heavily promoted like the kissing booth those types. There’s a RU-vid channel that summarizes movies that are a bit odd but original. But when you look at RU-vid channels for example the Ryan guy do you see him discussing original movies or this is the reason the little mermaid remake sucks.
@@travisbishop782 Also maybe some people are overlooking ones not made in the US I remember watching a movie on Netflix was about a prison where the amount of food depends on what level you are think it was called the lift. It was interesting and something new. It was a movie from Spain.
This is exactly why I dream of becoming a casting director (I'm currently a freshman college student) because of this shit right here that Hollywood is doing. I can show Hollywood how its done when it comes to these adaptations by finding people who has the looks and NOT RACE-SWAPPING!
I honestly think looks is equally important to acting ability, when it comes to casting. If you can't identify who a character is at a glance despite being a fan of the source material, and have to be told their name in order for you to figure it out, then casting has utterly FAILED. Doubly so if the characters ethnic background makes absolutely no sense in their historical (or even fictional) setting.
I'm a white man. One of the characters that I've related to the most in recent years is Luisa from Encanto, a Columbian female character. As an older brother myself I related to the troubles and pressure she's dealing with within that movie. If you can only relate to people who are the exact same ethnicity and gender as you then that makes you racist and sexist. It's as simple as that. We shouldn't cater anything towards people who can only relate to a character that looks identical to themselves. Especially when a story is set in relation to a historical setting, whether the story is fictional or not. I don't expect or demand there to be white people in movies like Moana or Encanto. Imagine how stupid it'd be if they turned Maui into a white man if they made a live adaptation. They just wouldn't do that though. Yet they keep doing the reverse to these kinds of movies with white characters, it needs to stop.
But Encanto is ground breaking as there ARE white and black people mixed into her culture. Are we just gonna be blind to that because they speak Spanish. Encanto was great on many levels because it did ethnicity and culture right. It was a melting pot of all people celebrating once culture. Yes, skin color should not be the issue when relating to someone because we are all people. But why do we get upset when there is a race swap to make it more inclusive like Encanto. That doesn’t change the person we relate to and love. I think what would bother me more is if hey kept her white and gave her a different hair color. To me that would be weird. But to make her biracial, as Vikings raped and pillaged, and killed, I guarantee you they mixed and mingled with other color ppl. Just as there are Black German ppl and Black English ppl. Ppl need to stop taking it personal and be open minded to inclusivity.
@@SabiChan8 There are black Germans and black English (black, white, yellow - that's colors they don't need big letters at the beginning) because they are immigrants or their ancestors were slaves or immigrants If we talking about race swapping it is a problem bcs big companies are doing it only because it is cheaper and easier than finding/ creating stories from specific region And sometimes it can create problems with immersion - black people don't fit in stories base on European culture in Medieval time as white don't fit to middle/south Africa in Med times (even the story is fictional) Specifically about Astrid, yeah her hair color is bothering me more bcs actress' skin color isn't very dark
But coming from a fan who loves Vikings and the movie how to train your Dragon she looks nothing like the character, so why would I want her to play the character in the movie and I personally don’t think it’s not about being racist. It’s about Disney trying to relate to a wider audience to make something called money so who is really racest in the situation and if you would like to respond, could you explain more on how it’s sexist personally, I’m not here to argue just start a conversation I’m a strong believer that dialogue is a important tool to understanding, and I enjoy discussions on subjects like this. Have a good day. Thanks.
I COMPLETELY AGREE WITH YOU! and they wonder why people didn't watch little mermaid remake, THEY LITERALLY CHANGED HER TO SOMEONE UNRECOGNISABLE, SHE WASN'T THE ONE THAT PEOPLE WANTED, THAT PEOPLE RECOGNISE AND PEOPLE FELT CONNECTION WITH! Regardless of her race, People would've still hated it as much if they casted a white girl with yellow hair, or an Asian, people would've been just as MAD! BECAUSE SHE DOESN'T LOOK LIKE THE ORIGINAL! SHE LOOKS LIKE A RIP-OFF! Now look, THAT LITTLE MERMAID REMAKE FLOPPED, SERVES THEM RIGHT FOR MESSING WITH MY ARIEL.
i saw an article about them choosing the perfect actors for Hiccup and Astrid for the live action How to Train Your Dragon. i was curious because i hadn't heard they were doing that, so i clicked on it. they actually did a good job with Hiccup, so i was excited to see Astrid too. i just thought are you serious when i saw her. not only is Astrid pale with blonde hair and blue eyes, but she's a Viking. as far as i know, there were no African American Vikings, so why do it?
This girl is white and British. Her dad is British, her mother is half-British. She's not even American. And she's not African. She only has one African grandparent, out of 3 that are white British, and that's from Zimbabwe. You ignorant ass people. Not all black people are African Americans, and this actress is neither black nor African American. She's a white British girl who happens to have a black grandparent from Zimbabwe. But how is that not white enough? She's 75% white, but that's not white enough to be white? But you think it's black enough to call her African American? What the fuck? What's wrong with you racist ass people? To say she's not white enough when most of her family is white, when she's mostly white, is some racist ass nazi white racial purity bullshit. One drop rule asses. You know that mentality is from Jim Crow right? From the same Eugenics movement that birthed Nazi Germany? Y'all still on that same bullshit? So How is she not white enough to be white?
At least they got the dragons historically correct 😕 Also, she got 3 viking (lol, they white so whatevs) grandparents 😂. How black people so powerful one black grandma erases your entire white lineage? One drop rule users are definitely not racist 😕
The one drop rule actually goes even farther than Jim Crow. It was created by slave owning white people to justify the enslavement of their own children that were conceived by the rape of enslaved women. I'm really taken aback by those who are so angry about this casting and so comfortable with using the logic of slaveholding rapists. Now, can someone please explain to me (without using the one drop rule) how this person with 3 white grandparents being cast is a "race swap"?
There were absolutly no african american vikings lol. The viking landed in the north of america and lived in Greenland and traded with american natives. if any africans like egiptians went to america they would not have gone that far north. Asside from the fact that african americans probably didn't exist yet, outsiders would not have been vikings and if american vikings existed they would have been white immigrants.
So true and well said. This film is based on nordic culture and so please reflect it. Just as as Mulan was based on Chinese culture (interestingly I cant remember a white, black or brown race swap there). The big companies would rather race swap existing films than develop new films that celebrate and promote other cultures.
OMG! That is soooo true! Instead of filming European based stories with race-swaped heros and heroines, why not film African tales? I think you're on to something there.
They race-swap to shield themselves from criticism. "Oh, you don't like it cuz you're racist lolol", ugh. As an Unangan (aka Aleut) Alaskan, I've had virtually ZERO """"represenation"""" growing up. There is not even one semi-famous Alaskan Native actor or actress I can think of, in real life or fiction. I guess that means I can't relate to ANY media now and must exist as a Native void. xD I'm glad more and more people are calling this out. Race-swapping is just lazy, and people shouldn't turn to media to be validated.
As someone from Sweden I feel kinda offended by this. Disney really needs to go check their history books to see that this is wrong. A lot of Swedish, Danish, Norwegian kids are extremely blond when they are growing up and as they become adults their hair starts to go a bit darker but you can clearly see that it isn't brown hair. So basically my entire childhood so many of my friends have been blond including me. So to see this feels like they are just clearly doing something racist. So are they now gonna make Mowgli, Pocahontas, Princess Tiana or T'challa white? Or maybe we can even go as far as making Brother Bear into I dont know something stupid like snakes or something. Cause you can't just go one way without going the other. Why dont we even go as far and just make Indiana jones join the Nazis instead to fight the "horrible" America for suppressing everyone... while he magically is being played by Samuel L Jackson instead of Harrison Ford, Cause that would definitely make everyone happy! No more patriots just a big mess. Do you understand how stupid this all sounds? All this is stupid cause it totally ruins the legacy for the characters along with the representation of a tribe, country etc. I dont want a white Mowgli just like I dont want a light skin Astrid and that's NOT in any what connected to racism in any way shape or form. I want all people to be represented but do that by creating new amazing stories instead of ruining classics please🙏
How to train your dragon is NOT Disney its Dreamworks which is owned by Universal Pictures, which is owned by NBC Universal which is owned by Comcast. So like many other problems in media please blame Comcast.
You *DO* realize that there actuallt were black vikings right? Also have you concidered that that actress was the best choice they found for the characters and she just happened to be black? Should she be denied the role because of her skin color? Sounds pretty racist to me. Furthermore, this is a series about vikings riding *DRAGONS* . Dont pull the historical accuracy argument with that.
@@Morten_StorvikI didn’t realize there were black Vikings could you give me an example? I do think the best actor for a role should get the job but if a core design of the character is Norse aesthetic or a region that has no black people then it goes against the original character. Let take black panther for an example. Black panther is fiction and doesn’t truly exist. Wakanda is supposed to be comprised of only black people. Are you saying that it wouldn’t be an issue if the black panther or main characters in those movies were white.
@@Morten_Storvik Very ignorant take there. It's not racist at all to be against race swapping characters, especially with how common of a trend it is these days and a vast majority of the time not for good reasons. The problem is that people have primarily been doing so purely for the sake of it, not because there was an actual reason. If you can't see the obvious issue here then you're beyond reasoning with. And people like you calling others racist when they clearly aren't is exactly what has made that word lose all meaning.
I understand where you are comming from, but I think we should wait until we see her in character. Makupe makes wonders, and i dont think her skintone is that dark. Im honestly more concerend about her Hair.
Only time a race swap is alright in my opinion (not always it is usually case by case) is if the character is obscure or if the actor they got to play them is actually talented enough for people not to be to worried but with quotas and all these diversity points it’s hard to tell if someone got casted to tick a box or because of their merit. Like for example Eartha Kitt played Catwoman in the old Adam West Batman show and considering the time she must have been hella of an actress to get that opportunity. Or when there were rumours Idris Elba would play 007 (when Wokesim didn’t infect everything) most people were fine because Idris Elba just has the charisma, build and voice that would make him a good Bond. But now I definitely would prefer an original spy character but if he did get cast I wouldn’t be as opposed. Moral of the story don’t fuck with people’s escapism because when you do… You’ll find out
Idris Elba as James Bond would still have been a race swap. If they wanted to make a spy thriller with him as the lead, they should have found another franchise.
@@Too-Odd I agree entirely with you in that they should have considered and still consider him to start a new IP rather than a race swap of James Bond. What I'm trying to say is that a race swap I'm some cases are ok but their are criterion for those cases so that they are somewhat like obscurity and actor talent. But in this day and age in the last 5 especially, years it is less likely a talented actor is chosen for a race swap because of quotas and box checking.
@@Too-Odd for example in the past race swaps (20 years ago or more) were less controversial because they usually got talented actors. Halley Berry as Catwoman even though the film was crap, Morgan Freeman as Red, Michael Clark Duncan as King Pin. When you see these depictions despite not being accurate to the source material you can at least tell that they chose talented actor them. But I do agree in 95% of cases you go for the actor that both looks like the character and can actually do them justice in portrayal. The 5% is usually for cases where the actor is so good that despite the contrast from the source they can pull it off but when do it is very variable.
@@wzrdlzrd1987 Personally, I can't imagine anyone other than Samuel L. Jackson in this role, even though I read the comic books about white Nick Fury before watching the film. And that's because Samuel L. Jackson is an outstanding actor, whose energy in Marvel movies is perfectly suited to the super-spy. But had this character been played by someone else, less talented, the sytauation could have been very different.
This one agrees and I worry Hiccups is gonna be down graded by Astrid and I worry she isn’t gonna be the one we grew up with it’ll be one who I worry would just be rude to Hiccup and judges Stoic I worry I’ll say I don’t like bashing on kid actors like this but I do worry
@@Garagelab164 Agreed. Seriously why can’t people just leave well enough alone? It was great as it was. And the Original Astrid was already a strong women. She doesn’t need to change.
@@Garagelab164 He will DEFINITELY get down graded by her and it’ll be her trying to navigate through Hiccup and Stoic’s “mistakes” lol. Obviously I haven’t seen the film, but knowing modern day Hollywood, they’d do something like that. :)
@Jesus is king 👑 Maybe, though Astrid is 20 in the 2nd film, 21 in the 3rd film, and then 30 in the 3rd films epilogue so I would have a 15 year old actress to play Astid for movies 1-3 because she'll be the right age for them and then have Hunter come in and play Astrid in the 3rd movies epilogue because she'll be 30ish by the time the 3rd live action adaptation came out if they ever get that far.
Truly agree with the point you made that the looks of a character isn't what makes them relatable. As a kid I saw a lot of characters that I could relate to and say "hey they're like me" despite them being a different gender or looking different. Putting the imagine out there that you can only find a character relatable if they match your looks/race is weird to me, especially for a movie that's for kids. And like you also mentioned I do find the race swapping racist as well, I am white so a lot of people don't want to listen to my point of view on this matter, but I feel like making remakes and replacing white characters with another race seems racist to me because it's lazy, as if they can't make a new interesting character to introduce into a movie.
I remember when I was kid and there was a, as I would put it, a golden age of cartoons and series. Superhero shows from DC and Marvel may not have been perfect, but they were damn good. One series stuck out to me due to its lessons that each episode touched on and that was Static Shock I believe it was called. The main character being black and showing his struggles with life, school, friends, etc. really stuck with me. Being a young white kid, I didn’t care what his skin color was because the writing was good for my small, young mind lol. There was even a lesson on racism and how to deal with it in a calm and clear headed manner. I just don’t understand how good characters already exist and they haven’t brought them to the big screen. I absolutely enjoyed the HTTYD series and it bugs me that they feel the need to race swap characters for no other reason than ‘diversity’. I’d love to see some original characters being created and new stories being told. Hollywood is stuck in franchises and it’s really starting to show. If they started creating new characters and stories and broke away from the franchises that hold them back, they MIGHT be in a better place today.
You are 100% right about the race swapping! I was never quite what i thought about the race swaps until I watched this video so thanks and keep up the great work! 😁😁
