Revaulting wrote on Aug 14^th, 2015 at 8:52pm:


I'm pretty sure that's why those haven't been made into movies.

Revaulting wrote on Aug 15^th, 2015 at 3:57am:


It's not necessarily racist. It's just a no-win proposition either way with the casting. No matter how they do a Drizzt movie, somebody is going to cry foul and/or scream bloody murder.

I guess they could give it the Final Fantasy Spirits Within treatment, but then no one would take it seriously. (it should be a lot cheaper to pull off nowadays though.)

DropBear wrote on Aug 15^th, 2015 at 5:26am:


There just aren't enough actors that dark. You'd have blacks in blackface, which I assume people would find offensive.

5 Foot Step wrote on Aug 15^th, 2015 at 4:59am:

It's not simple enough to put the onus on anyone. But it is definitely racist and sexist. In many ways they're at the mercy of the audience. The majority of filmgoers want to be able to relate to the lead, and that usually means white.

They take huge investment risks with every film, so they also stick very closely to formulaic plots. I think that's also why there's never just one movie about say, baseball, coming out at the same time, but 2 or 3.

I think this is probably the same reason Hollywood has weird trouble adapting to certain other things, as well. Like name any time any movie ever got computers right.

Vin Deisel - Wulfgar
Scarlet Johanssen - Cattie-Brie
Sean Astin - Regis
Peter Hambleton - Bruenor
Jude Law - Drizzt

Revaulting wrote on Aug 15^th, 2015 at 11:23am:


Do you really believe that Caucasians have trouble relating to ethnic actors (not just dark skinned, but non-Caucasians in general)?  I find that observation surprising, as for me personally, skin colour is not even an issue.
I think the skin colour thinking is self-fulfilling.
I don't think it affects most people, not in the social circles I have anyway.

I look at male leads like Eddie Murphy (in his day), Morgan Freeman and Denzel Washington and see dark skinned actors who had successful careers.  And Zoe Saldana is a successful actress too.  Granted there aren't as many, but there are enough to show they can have success.

In the Star Trek reboot, JJ Abrams took a relatively unknown cast and did a bang up job.  Same with Avatar.  Zoe and Sam were relatively unknown.
Find a suitable actor for Driz'zt, give them a good script and allow them to own it.

heh, that "racist" bullshit reminds me kinda outcry that witcher 3 or in my land produced Deliverance have no black people in it. U can argue however u can, that witch is mainly based on Poland (and slavian) folklore and Deliverance is set into medieval Bohemia (where any noncaucassian were pretty rare at most - and those were huns n mongols and not afros), but they will always cry its racist.

DropBear wrote on Aug 15^th, 2015 at 7:24pm:

Yeah, but she's not black, she's green, right?


I hope you're right about studios not making casting decisions based on prejudice, but I can tell you with certainty that racism is alive and (un)well even on my street in liberal New England. I'm sure it's even more entrenched in other areas. I think the fans of these books would tend to be more tolerant, on average, than America at large, but it's still a matter of at least some concern.

5 Foot Step wrote on Aug 15^th, 2015 at 10:05pm:

I think this is the best way to go.

As for racism ... you might be thinking racism is a simple and obvious thing, and you'd be right as far as obvious and individual behaviors go. I'll leave it at that, since this isn't P&R.

Gringo wrote on Aug 16^th, 2015 at 5:23am:

I dunno. You have Google, right?

Flav wrote on Aug 5^th, 2015 at 7:11am:


But you will see it. Confess!!!

Gringo wrote on Aug 16^th, 2015 at 5:23am:


Some of the bad mooks were non-caucasian, iirc.