Rumor: Giancarlo Esposito as Prof. X

[inisideguy]

I have seen people here say that Magneto was Jewish and he came from Eastern Europe etc ect. And this is all true. However not sure how you can do a modern Magneto, right now and him dealing with holocaust issues. I suppose he could be the grandson of a holocaust survivor or something like that. But you can't have him literally in the holocaust at this point. Unless they do some crazy time travel writing.

[80sbaby]

I have seen people here say that Magneto was Jewish and he came from Eastern Europe etc ect. And this is all true. However not sure how you can do a modern Magneto, right now and him dealing with holocaust issues. I suppose he could be the grandson of a holocaust survivor or something like that. But you can't have him literally in the holocaust at this point. Unless they do some crazy time travel writing.

It'd be incredibly easy to just have been frozen by Hydra all this time and he's awakened to find "his people" being persecuted once again. It would make sense given that organization in the MCU.

[inisideguy]

It'd be incredibly easy to just have been frozen by Hydra all this time and he's awakened to find "his people" being persecuted once again. It would make sense given that organization in the MCU.

Hmmm thats a good point. You could do that.

[HollowSage]

The kiss had nothing to do with the movie, which makes it even stupider to court the controversy over something that didn't matter. So in that sense you are correct. It wasn't a story issue. And it equally wasn't a story issue that people don't want to see Buzz Lightyear's backstory. It wasn't confusing in any way. It was the story about a beloved character who has sold BILLIONS of dollars worth of merchandise over decades. It was one of Pixar's flagship properties and a Toy Story movie! Every parent wants to take their kids to see Pixar summer blockbusters and Toy story movies, or at least download them when they become available.

Well, except this one. And we have a clear answer why. The controversy over a three second kiss hurt this movie because there is a plurality of Americans who don't want to see the culture war in their children's entertainment.

I said the kiss was a minor part of the movie that most moviegoers probably weren’t even aware of if they didn’t see the movie.

I never said it didn’t matter. Representation always matters. It mattered to the staff at Pixar who fought to keep it in the movie despite knowing it could cause controversy. Some things matter more to people than just making the most money possible. If it was only about the money then they could just rollover for whatever demands China is making this week. Sometimes you have to stand up and do what’s right for the long term even if that means losing some in the short term. If people didn’t believe in that we would never have gotten a Black Panther or Wonder Woman or Shang Chi.

I also dispute that the kiss is the clear reason why the movie underperformed. Pixar has had a lot of success but Lightyear isn’t their first failure. The Good Dinosaur and Onward. The Cars franchise is also pretty much dead. The Toy Story franchise is strong but Lightyear is a spin-off that doesn’t even take place in that world or use the same character. The Buzz in Lightyear is a different character than the Buzz in Toy Story, maybe they should have gotten Tim Allen back.

So pointing to Lightyear as some aberration due to a kissing scene in spite of many other factors is a stretch worthy of Mr. Fantastic.

[Ulysian_Thracs]

I said the kiss was a minor part of the movie that most moviegoers probably weren’t even aware of if they didn’t see the movie.

I never said it didn’t matter. Representation always matters. It mattered to the staff at Pixar who fought to keep it in the movie despite knowing it could cause controversy. Some things matter more to people than just making the most money possible. If it was only about the money then they could just rollover for whatever demands China is making this week. Sometimes you have to stand up and do what’s right for the long term even if that means losing some in the short term. If people didn’t believe in that we would never have gotten a Black Panther or Wonder Woman or Shang Chi.

I also dispute that the kiss is the clear reason why the movie underperformed. Pixar has had a lot of success but Lightyear isn’t their first failure. The Good Dinosaur and Onward. The Cars franchise is also pretty much dead. The Toy Story franchise is strong but Lightyear is a spin-off that doesn’t even take place in that world or use the same character. The Buzz in Lightyear is a different character than the Buzz in Toy Story, maybe they should have gotten Tim Allen back.

So pointing to Lightyear as some aberration due to a kissing scene in spite of many other factors is a stretch worthy of Mr. Fantastic.

You didn't say it didn't matter. I said it didn't matter...to the story. In my opinion there is a world of difference between a ten second throwaway kiss that has no bearing on the story and a well-developed and important subplot about, for instance, how being raised in a 'non-traditional' family shaped the protagonist and became a major arc of her hero's journey to overcome both her own faults that were holding her back and the external antagonist. The latter, in my opinion, is where we should be pushing representation and is the hill to fight and die over.

And that ties into Xavier casting in one of two ways. Either you keep his original background and the race change serves no organic purpose, or you ignore 60 years of what's on the page and create a different character to make the race change actually matter, which is a different Xavier than I grew up with and quite frankly I would be skeptical to watch.

PS- And you mention Tim Allen as if that wasn't another nail in the movie's coffin. There aren't a lot of people (myself included) who believe he wasn't asked to reprise the role specifically because of his politics. And if these entertainment companies keep making clear they don't want the money of people anywhere to the right of center, they are giving up a lot of potential profit which, contrary to your assertion, is the only interest a publicly traded company's board can legally take into consideration. (Fiduciary duty to shareholders.)

[Noodle]

It was the story about a beloved character who has sold BILLIONS of dollars worth of merchandise over decades. It was one of Pixar's flagship properties and a Toy Story movie! Every parent wants to take their kids to see Pixar summer blockbusters and Toy story movies, or at least download them when they become available.

Well, except this one. And we have a clear answer why. The controversy over a three second kiss hurt this movie because there is a plurality of Americans who don't want to see the culture war in their children's entertainment.

Or they saw it for what it was, a blatant cash grab just to sell merchandise. The Toy Story movies had heart. This didn't. It's the same reason the Cars movies are some of the lower grossing Pixar films. People saw them as little more than a means to sell toys.

PS- And you mention Tim Allen as if that wasn't another nail in the movie's coffin. There aren't a lot of people (myself included) who believe he wasn't asked to reprise the role specifically because of his politics.

If they didn't want to work with him due to his politics then they wouldn't be making a TV show with him for Disney Plus.

[ChrisIII]

Tim is still doing Disney work outside of Lightyear-the Santa Clause series on Disney+:


https://twitter.com/disneyplus/statu...clauses-178523

[80sbaby]

Tim Allen also wouldn't be on ABC, which Disney owns. I think we need to let the "political" angle to Lightyear's failure go.

[Username taken]

You didn't say it didn't matter. I said it didn't matter...to the story. In my opinion there is a world of difference between a ten second throwaway kiss that has no bearing on the story and a well-developed and important subplot about, for instance, how being raised in a 'non-traditional' family shaped the protagonist and became a major arc of her hero's journey to overcome both her own faults that were holding her back and the external antagonist. The latter, in my opinion, is where we should be pushing representation and is the hill to fight and die over.

And that ties into Xavier casting in one of two ways. Either you keep his original background and the race change serves no organic purpose, or you ignore 60 years of what's on the page and create a different character to make the race change actually matter, which is a different Xavier than I grew up with and quite frankly I would be skeptical to watch.

PS- And you mention Tim Allen as if that wasn't another nail in the movie's coffin. There aren't a lot of people (myself included) who believe he wasn't asked to reprise the role specifically because of his politics. And if these entertainment companies keep making clear they don't want the money of people anywhere to the right of center, they are giving up a lot of potential profit which, contrary to your assertion, is the only interest a publicly traded company's board can legally take into consideration. (Fiduciary duty to shareholders.)

They aren't required by anything to pander to bigots and homophobic governments.

Hence their decision not to release their movies in certain markets.

[Username taken]

Tim Allen also wouldn't be on ABC, which Disney owns. I think we need to let the "political" angle to Lightyear's failure go.

I was about to point that out too.

[John Venus]

They've been clear that the movie is going to about the story that the toy was based off of. One little background kiss isn't going to derail the movie anymore than a random passerby flying or walking around will.

Audiences have accepted Sam Jackson as Nick Fury and they've accepted Jeffery Wright as Jim Gordon. As pointed out numerous times in this thread, race bending alone hasn't sunk any project. There is usually some other factor contributing to it.

Race bending is sometimes a necessary tactic when adapting characters that were created during times of segregation. It took Marvel almost 20 movies starring white leads before they decided to make one starring a non white lead. So no, casting a non white actor for Professor X is not the same as casting a white actor for T'Challa.

[Username taken]

They've been clear that the movie is going to about the story that the toy was based off of. One little background kiss isn't going to derail the movie anymore than a random passerby flying or walking around will.

Audiences have accepted Sam Jackson as Nick Fury and they've accepted Jeffery Wright as Jim Gordon. As pointed out numerous times in this thread, race bending alone hasn't sunk any project. There is usually some other factor contributing to it.

Race bending is sometimes a necessary tactic when adapting characters that were created during times of segregation. It took Marvel almost 20 movies starring white leads before they decided to make one starring a non white lead. So no, casting a non white actor for Professor X is not the same as casting a white actor for T'Challa.

Exactly this.

Some people are racist but there aren't THAT many racist people that race bending will sink a movie.

[inisideguy]

First off the whole Tim Allen wasn't asked to do Buzz lightyear, cause he is conservative is garbage made up by right wing trolls. 2nd the reason Buzz Lightyear didn't do great are probably many but maybe the general public just wasn't that interested in seeing a movie like this. Why can't it just be that? For cripes sake. And others have pointed out Pixar has had movies not do great in the past. This isn't something new. I don't know why the internet has to micro diagnose every hit or non hit for various political or social reasons all the time.

[ChrisIII]

Also Tim hasn't been quite as OTT publicly as say, James Woods, Jon Voight, Sorbo etc. for the most part. Maybe a bit more than say, Sinise, Arnold, Stallone etc. but his twitter mostly seems focused on his showbusiness stuff from what I've read.

[hyped78]

I have seen people here say that Magneto was Jewish and he came from Eastern Europe etc ect. And this is all true. However not sure how you can do a modern Magneto, right now and him dealing with holocaust issues. I suppose he could be the grandson of a holocaust survivor or something like that. But you can't have him literally in the holocaust at this point. Unless they do some crazy time travel writing.

Fair point. The same way they put Tony Stark in Afghanistan instead of Vietnam