As long as they have wings on the feet I'm satisfied that they went the extra distance to be comics accurate because that's the dumbest part of his look.
As long as they have wings on the feet I'm satisfied that they went the extra distance to be comics accurate because that's the dumbest part of his look.
“The biggest communication problem is we do not listen to understand. We listen to reply,” Stephen Covey.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loca...es_of_Atlantis
There are a lot of hypothetical locations for Atlantis including the Western Atlantic Ocean. Mezo-American culture wouldn’t look out of place here.
We're not even sure Plato was retelling a story he'd heard; there's a good chance he just made it all up as a metaphor. Aristotle's on record thinking Plato was bullshitting.
Architectural details in Plato's account are very sparse, and cultural details beyond the legal (which line up WAY too conveniently with Plato's own thoughts on the subject to be taken seriously) are essentially nonexistent.
Some of the few details he did provide, like extensive irrigation systems and integrating waterways into the city proper and so on, line up surprisingly well with Mesoamerican civilizations, better in some cases (albeit accidentally so) than most Mediterranean civilizations Plato would've been familiar with at the time.
Man, that was another thing that pissed me off with Ragnarok. Hel being Thor's unknown sister (and God of Knives). Just bleh! Not as bad as the horrible stagger on the deserter slaver when she debuts, but still. Plus they didn't even give Jormungandr a spot!
I think the Other Atlantis with it's seven kingdoms would work better for the various things, so maybe Namor will have an Meso-american part and a greek part and stuff, but they probably just wanted something different art wise.
"I only feel two things Gary, nothing, and nothingness."
DC has won the underwater battle. Simple as that.
They came first and they came great and I would like to point out what a fucking irony is an universe with Batman and Superman having its bigger success and the best movie in... Arthur Curry.
Do you remember Aquaman one decade ago?
Warner achieved to change the perception of Aquaman as a joke.
This is the reason we are seeing a version of Namor based in the mesoamerican culture and wearing the Huitzilopochtli helmet : they just don't want to do another classic Atlantis that will draw comparisons with Dc's (no matter if Namor is one of the few characters that actually predates its dc counterpart)...they don't want to do Namor the Aquaman of Marvel.
Now let's not lose context that this is a Black Panther movie and Wakanda has an accentuated tribal aspect not only in the visual design ( the use of ultratech zulu spears and shields as one of many examples) but in the social structures too like the trial for kingship or , Marvel did not dared to do that in the movies , the Dora Milaje being the first candidates to become Queen. Wakanda is both the most advanced nation in the world and a nation mantaining traditions that span over millenia.
That tribal aspect I think that matches right with the way they are basing Atlantis in the Mexica's culture. Two ultratech tribes clashing.
Now....
A ) I hate the moustache and the goatee. It shrieks in my head.
B) I'm completely lost about the story of "Wakanda Forever". I don't even have theories.
Namor's last name is MacKenzie.
I suppose it'll be the same comedic bullshit they've been peddling since making the god of thunder into an alien.
All I ever wanted was the truth. Remember those words as you read the ones that follow. I never set out to topple my father's kingdom of lies from a sense of misplaced pride. I never wanted to bleed the species to its marrow, reaving half the galaxy clean of human life in this bitter crusade. I never desired any of this, though I know the reasons for which it must be done. But all I ever wanted was the truth.
Ultron was invented by Hank Pym...not Tony Stark
Drax is a human from Earth named Arthur Douglas... not an Alien.
Etc. Etc. Etc.
The movies make changes from the comics. Get over it.
Hell even in the comics different universes have different versions of characters
Here's a different Namor for Earth 6706:
He married Susan Storm...and they have a son named Remy...aka Gambit
There's an infinite amount of possibilities. Multiverses are like that.
Last edited by Evil Midnight Bomber; 2022-07-04 at 11:53 PM.
“The biggest communication problem is we do not listen to understand. We listen to reply,” Stephen Covey.
I'm one of the last people to care at all about comic character switcheroo's, we all know it's part of the genre.
But the concerns of folks who don't like this should be given consideration, all the same. Rather than cry out "racist!" (which I know no one has actually done, but the implication is there and will increase as the topic goes on, I'm sure), try seeing it from their point-of-view, because IMO they do have a legitimate grievance.
The simple truth of the matter is that blackwashing is acceptable in film-making, currently, and by most cultural leftists. Cultural right-wingers in Hollywood and the public, conversely, don't have much problem with whitewashing. Both groups are, in my mind, hypocritical to some degree. Either it's all ok or none of it is ok. We can't keep pretending only the one we, personally, prefer is ok and expect those who prefer the other to remain silent.
No one should complain about this portrayal of Namor, just the same as IMO no one should have complained about Scarlett Johansson as Major or Tilda Swinton as The Ancient One. That's my personal preference, that we just let them cast whoever they want to cast for whatever reason they want to cast them so long as it's historically accurate where appropriate (real world, thinking of the Anne Boleyn series here and similar).
Or we could say no race/gender-swapping at all and cripple our storytelling, but at least it would be fair.
That's oversimplifying things. Whitewashing was (historically) done to deny representation; blackwashing (if you even want to call it that) is done to restore representation. It's an overcorrection against decades of precedent. Is it "racist" on a technical level? Sure. But without overcorrection the status quo has too much inertia to simply shift on its own. It's like saying "steering hard left or hard right is never going to get this car driving straight" - which is technically true in a vacuum, but if you've been steering hard right for a long time then you also need a lot of hard left for a long time to get back on track. To say that both are either equally okay or equally not okay is missing the point a little. Of course it goes too far sometimes - all things do. And just like all things it can be ideologically and politically weaponized irrespective of the actual aim.
But before this digresses more... I'm happy to see them branching out a little into some other comics. Namor has his own following; not sure how well that slots into the existing MCU, but I guess we'll see. So far they've done a fairly good job at integrating new things, but Atlantis worries me far less than mutants.
That argument only makes sense if you pretend this is occurring in a cultural void where past history does not exist.
And that's not reality.
"Whitewashing" was a practice of culturally and ethnically erasing identities other than white identities, or using white actors to portray racist caricatures of ethnic individuals. It wasn't just a switch-up that was happening in a vacuum, it was an expression of white supremacy done to ensure people of color remained marginalized.
That's just not anywhere close to the case with the current diversification of roles, and white actors are still getting the majority of roles anyway.
Last edited by Endus; 2022-07-05 at 01:17 AM.