Escape to the Movies: The Lone Ranger

[Jetsetneo]

I feel compelled to ask:

People complained about Idris Elba playing Heimdall. They were greeted with "stop being so closed-minded! it's just a movie and Idris is a great actor."

Johnny Depp plays Tonto, and it's extremely racist. Please don't get me wrong. When I heard Idris was playing Hemidall I knew people would get offended, but I didn't see anything wrong with it. Some made the argument "what if they got a white man to play John Shaft?" and I think it's valid.

With Depp playing Tonto, I again expected this negativity, but can anyone explain the double standard?

I'm not bothered by Depp playing Tonto, and it honestly gives me pause. I ask myself "shouldn't this be something that offends you?" But then I answer myself "You weren't offended when they hired a black man to play the whitest of the gods, so why would a white man playing a native american offend you?

The long story short is; because there are not nearly as many roles for minorities to play, and when they SHOULD get them they get handed out to, not only the 'wrong' minority, but often a Caucasian ('the majority').

Tonto is a role steeped in Native American Culture, its intrinsic to the character, you can't divorce it. So it seems very wrong to give it to a non-native American.

Now, I can't name a Native American star who puts that part of themselves up front, but i don't know if thats yet ANOTHER problem with hollywood or what.

I don't like it either way, but its the sad truth of what is happening. Besides, Johnny Depp wasn't right for this role for many other reasons than 'hes a white guy'.

 

[MCerberus]

I'm not bothered by Depp playing Tonto, and it honestly gives me pause. I ask myself "shouldn't this be something that offends you?" But then I answer myself "You weren't offended when they hired a black man to play the whitest of the gods, so why would a white man playing a native american offend you?

Heimdall was a character the actor was chosen for for the right presence and his ability. The character was also not just a walking stereotype parade about what the writers thought about white people.

 

[MB202]

Before even watching this, I knew this was going to be a negative review, because Bob usually has something to criticize when he has to spoil the movie. Usually, if he likes a movie, he doesn't want to spoil it, because he likes it and wants others to have the same experience. Honestly, though, I wasn't surprised that this movie was going to suck.

...Which makes it all the more embarrassing to see Lone Ranger figures included in Disney Infinity.

 

[Weaver]

Damn Bob, you really tore into this one!
I've not heard anyone who has liked this movie thus far. Too bad I guess!

 

[Lucane]

Funny, I'd heard that Johnny Depp was the only good part of the movie. Ah well, there's only a couple weeks until Pacific Rim.

I think The Lone Ranger is under the Transformers rule of "good/bad" If you are familiar with the original material and enjoyed it, then it insults, machs and/or punishes you while seemingly washes everyone else as a comedy. I can see the logic in this but I found the movie entertaining with it's disregard for psychics due to the in-movie story telling of the Lone Ranger by Tonto to a kid. Though if Tonto was a more competent sidekick/partner in the original versions then making him a slightly demented loone would be nothing short of insulting to be sure.

 

[MB202]

Oh, and by the way Bob, you already pointed out that the Green Hornet was the Lone Ranger's relative in your review of the Green Hornet movie a few years back.

 

[Quiotu]

I feel compelled to ask:

People complained about Idris Elba playing Heimdall. They were greeted with "stop being so closed-minded! it's just a movie and Idris is a great actor."

Johnny Depp plays Tonto, and it's extremely racist. Please don't get me wrong. When I heard Idris was playing Hemidall I knew people would get offended, but I didn't see anything wrong with it. Some made the argument "what if they got a white man to play John Shaft?" and I think it's valid.

With Depp playing Tonto, I again expected this negativity, but can anyone explain the double standard?

I'm not bothered by Depp playing Tonto, and it honestly gives me pause. I ask myself "shouldn't this be something that offends you?" But then I answer myself "You weren't offended when they hired a black man to play the whitest of the gods, so why would a white man playing a native american offend you?

Because a minority playing a character in an exclusively white heroes only mythos is just the movie makers giving a statement that the lack of minorities isn't because they don't think they could do the roles properly, and it's a way of doing it without getting on a soapbox about it. In the Lone Ranger's case, Tonto is one of the ONLY minorities in the whole movie, and they fill it with a rather oversaturated white actor instead of finding an actual Native American to portray him. That's removing ethnicity instead of adding it, and for no other reason than to have one famous name in your film.

As for TMNT, part of me doesn't mind it in the same way I don't mind and rather enjoyed Man of Steel. Superman is a rather blah boring character to wrap a 2 hour movie around, so changing the character a bit (and in a way that works in an alternate reality setting) gives a fresh different take on a rather tired portrayal. In TMNT's case, the entire comic was a self-parody of the comics of that time... and was then twisted into a children's cartoon, something it was never intended to be. If Bay can twist TMNT again so it's not as kiddy anymore, but leaves enough parody intact to make fun of itself, or even better to make fun of the 25 years of kiddy cartoons spawned from it... I might be okay with that.

The 90's cartoon you grew up with is not the TMNT originally. Remember that.

 

[forlornhope22]

I feel compelled to ask:

People complained about Idris Elba playing Heimdall. They were greeted with "stop being so closed-minded! it's just a movie and Idris is a great actor."

Johnny Depp plays Tonto, and it's extremely racist. Please don't get me wrong. When I heard Idris was playing Hemidall I knew people would get offended, but I didn't see anything wrong with it. Some made the argument "what if they got a white man to play John Shaft?" and I think it's valid.

With Depp playing Tonto, I again expected this negativity, but can anyone explain the double standard?

I'm not bothered by Depp playing Tonto, and it honestly gives me pause. I ask myself "shouldn't this be something that offends you?" But then I answer myself "You weren't offended when they hired a black man to play the whitest of the gods, so why would a white man playing a native american offend you?

The difference is opportunities. Name a Native American Actor. Just one. Now name an Asian actor not known for a martial arts flick. Tonto could have been a big budget opportunity for a Native American Actor to make a name for himself.

 

[Kmadden2004]

Another fun bit of trivia to accompany Bob's first end credit factoid this week;

Tom Wilkinson was in both The Green Hornet and this movie.


Not much more to add, just thought i'd share that with you all. Carry on...


Captcha: "total shamble"

Oh, captcha, how apt.

 

[bificommander]

And here I was expecting a World War Z review. Funnily enough, one of the big criticism I have on that one was mentioned almost literally here: Why call it World War Z, when that name will only draw attention of the fans of the book. and since most of those fans are the typical escapist-crowd, who will find out that it's nothing like the source material BEFORE buying their tickets, it'll only piss them off and make sure they don't see it. So even if the movie is good on it's own merits (the judge is still out on that one I hear), the name recognition does nothing positive for your movie. Why not make it an original movie that drops the WWZ pretense.

 

[Vedli]

I feel compelled to ask:

People complained about Idris Elba playing Heimdall. They were greeted with "stop being so closed-minded! it's just a movie and Idris is a great actor."

Johnny Depp plays Tonto, and it's extremely racist. Please don't get me wrong. When I heard Idris was playing Hemidall I knew people would get offended, but I didn't see anything wrong with it. Some made the argument "what if they got a white man to play John Shaft?" and I think it's valid.

With Depp playing Tonto, I again expected this negativity, but can anyone explain the double standard?

I'm not bothered by Depp playing Tonto, and it honestly gives me pause. I ask myself "shouldn't this be something that offends you?" But then I answer myself "You weren't offended when they hired a black man to play the whitest of the gods, so why would a white man playing a native american offend you?

And I feel compelled to let Bob explain rather than just regurgitate his points as my own wisdom: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/the-big-picture/3183-Skin-Deep

 

[Joriss]

And again Bob throws another jab at Dark Knight Rises (and Man of Steel too?)...

Oh well, I'm reading your book Bob!

 

[Blunderboy]

"Wow. I'm surprised how crap The Lone Ranger seems to have turned out." - No one. Ever.

 

[KeyMaster45]

Well I guess I'll be the person who breaks the trend here and say that I actually enjoyed The Lone Ranger.

By the time it reached the final action sequence I was definitely thinking "Damn, finally" but I would not consider it the terrible movie Bob makes it out to be. It didn't need to be two and a half hours long though, there was a significant amount of fat that should have been trimmed from the movie but I get the feeling was left in due to their contract saying it was going to be 2 1/2 hours.

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

The least surprising news in hollywood history.

Considering that the film opened up behind Despicable Me 2, it looks like everybody thought it would suck.

WHO THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA?

 

[CharlesCarmichael]

Holy crap, am I glad I went into this without having read the reviews. I went in with no real expectations, good or bad, and I walked away from it thinking that it was a solid popcorn flick in the vein of Pirates of the Caribbean (not quite as good as the first one, due to the slow pacing in the first half, but the second half elevates it above the sequels). Imagine my surprise when I go on the internet and find, nope, I'm wrong and it's a terrible movie :eyeroll:

Spoiler

It's also possible that they did some last minute editing to the heart eating scene between the critic screening and general release, because I was actually confused as to what was being cut out (I thought it was something...much lower), and only people constantly referring to "He ate my brother's HEART" cleared it up.

It's actually very similar to the reaction to the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie. I LOVED that movie, but when I read the reviews I found stuff like "Goes around in circles JUST LIKE THE RIDE! IT'S BASED ON A RIDE THEREFORE TERRIBLE!" Is it a cinematic masterpiece? No, as I mentioned the first half needed some more tightening up, and even at best it's a summer action movie. But a flop, or at least deserving to be a flop? Hell no, the quality is FAR too high for that. Live Free or Die Hard, now THAT deserved to flop, but Lone Ranger had too much chemistry between the leads and too high quality action to fall nearly so low.

 

[Phuctifyno]

So the better question is which Western film is worse now? This or Jonah Hex?

Eh. I reckon neither of them are Westerns, just bastardizations of the asthetic. Movies like this - a Frankentstein of explosions, bad comedy, and whatever else they can cram in to mesmerize dumb people and make them feel smart - are too homogenous to belong to any genre. It isn't enough just to call it "mindless blockbuster popcorn flick", because sometimes even those can be actually unique, interesting, or even good.

But to answer your real question.... I don't know. Avoided both.