Ok, sounds like they were laying the groundwork for a while then.
Television Doctor Who
- Thread starter Silva
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Ok, sounds like they were laying the groundwork for a while then.
Because for me the 'male Doctor and female assistant' dynamic is part of the identity of Doctor Who, and it feels really strange to change it. One thing is that the BBC have had a brilliant track record of picking Doctor Who lead actors from Ecclestone all the way through to Capaldi so I'm inclined to believe that she will be very good too, and if thats the case it probably won't matter.
Yeah, it's one of the easier 'oh shit we need a new actor' plot devices to work with in this respect and really it isn't out of place at all in the universe.
I believe Bond is supposed to be one character, which makes this harder, but then on the other hand if we can cope with Daniel Craig and Pierce Brosnan – who look nothing alike – being the same person is it that much more difficult to suspend our disbelief a bit further?
I also have a feeling they might kill Bond off in the next film, a running plot line over all the Craig films is how old he is, and then bring Bond back as a code name to be given out which neatly sidesteps some of the predictable backlash.
I think you'll find that's the actual reason they made the change. It needs it. The show is stale, it's become a mess under Capaldi and Moffitt. I also wouldn't say that a 1/13 ratio is "equality".
Changes... I feel like a Tupac song coming on.
Change is great, embrace it.
Change is great, embrace it.
Feck me, the comments on BBC'sfacebook.
I always thought that that was the underlying storyline in Bond anyways, that whoever became the new Bond took over the moniker and 007 status.
Can't wait to see her do battle with a Dalek in a bikini.
Wait, who am I kidding.. I don't watch the programme.
I get the argument as to why the show needed freshening up and all that but this just smacks of political correctness gone mad. What next? Janine Bond? Maybe they could remake Star Wars and make Darth Vader a female.
Wait, who am I kidding.. I don't watch the programme.
I get the argument as to why the show needed freshening up and all that but this just smacks of political correctness gone mad. What next? Janine Bond? Maybe they could remake Star Wars and make Darth Vader a female.
I think it was a running fan theory, but it's definitely not true since Skyfall (and Spectre) which played around with things from Bond's childhood.
It's definitely the easiest way to justify recasting him now though and seeing as we're now long past the Bond books (which were all about one guy) I think they'll go that way.
Indeed. Also, this particular change was always coming. It had been inevitable for some years now. The longer they delayed it the louder the clamour would've become. It's faintly daft to assume they could've gone on indefinitely casting white males without making a huge and stupid issue over it by constantly excusing it...it's done now, at the very least the casting can go back to being about the actual actors chosen.
People will eventually forget the fuss and the casting pool will become infinitely larger and more interesting.
It had already been established in the universe of the show that the character "could" become female, so not doing it would eventually become the far bigger issue. It's a show about an alien that can change its appearance, it hasnt particularly got much in common with Bond outside of being a British institution.
I'm not a fan of Bond or Doctor Who so have no attachment to either character or any of the actors. I do however see the logic in casting at least similar looking people to the last actors. If he's a man, keep him a man. Not everything needs to be 'updated' so to speak. That's just his character.
Doctor Who is a bit different for the reason you outlined above. Regeneration isn't something found outside of Doctor Who as far as I'm aware.
What next? A woman being prime minister? Bah! Stick to your lane ladies!
Sort of links in with a conversation that's going on in the Spiderman thread.
To my mind the key point with these changes is whether they change things so much as to effectively make it a new character.
Making James Bond a woman wouldn't make sense to me as there's too much of the character rooted in certain ideas of masculinity. If you made James Bond a woman then you'd be fundamentally changing the character in a way that you wouldn't if you, say, cast Idris Elba in the role.
In the case of The Doctor, casting a woman doesn't fundamentally change the substance of the character so there really shouldn't be any objections. Besides, the show could do with a bit of a change.
To my mind the key point with these changes is whether they change things so much as to effectively make it a new character.
Making James Bond a woman wouldn't make sense to me as there's too much of the character rooted in certain ideas of masculinity. If you made James Bond a woman then you'd be fundamentally changing the character in a way that you wouldn't if you, say, cast Idris Elba in the role.
In the case of The Doctor, casting a woman doesn't fundamentally change the substance of the character so there really shouldn't be any objections. Besides, the show could do with a bit of a change.
Idk, maybe a woman Bond would be less obvious about being a spy.
The main reason all of these old franchise leads are men is because women characters were minor parts (more than now anyway, it's not like it's too much different now). But if we're going to carry on using these franchises is makes little sense to stick to the ideas of people born a century or more ago.
People are definitely going to argue that she was chosen because she's a woman but she's actually a fantastic actress so i'm super excited to see her in the role.
Even if it doesn't serve the story or the character?
Yeah, Since Skyfall/the Craig movies the theory doesn't hold. But then again, the whole Craig era seems a reboot from the old Cold-War Bond movies.
Actually making James Bond a good spy would be the biggest betrayal of all.
Well it certainly isn't a case of the BBC riding on the coattails of Ghostbusters' success.
Haha, exactly. Although I did like that movie.
I'm not sure what you mean. Women have played male characters, men female characters and everything in between for ages. It's practically a tradition of stage and film. Does it matter that Aubrey Plazas character in Legion is a middle aged man? No, not really.
I was just about to say this not just BBC just everywhere. As one of the top comments says "People who accept a shape-shifting, time-travelling immortal character unable to accept female lead in a television show.". It's shocking.
Well would you be in favour of a female James Bond? Even though the character is so well defined and iconic, and his character is a man, not merely the actors who have portrayed him?
I'm all for switching it up, I thought the fuss recently over Hermione being black in some stage play was unwarranted seeing as her colour is not explicitly stated, merely what the filmmakers went with.
Positive discrimination rearing its ugly head again. Giving someone a job for being a female when the job is and always has been a male role. Load of nonsense and unnecessary.
Yeah I'd be fine with it. She can seduce someone called Dick Maximus and steal they keys to some top secret layer from him.
See that wouldn't make much sense to me. If it's supposed to be the same guy, cast someone who looks like the last guy. I couldn't imagine a new Star Wars film with Han Solo played by a woman or something, that's just who the character is: a man.
Can't fly a time travelling box unless you've got a little dick or something?
Don't you know, the dick is the key to opening it.
It's much bigger when you get inside.
Regeneration is, as far as I'm aware, just something they retconned in after the first Doctor decided to quit and they didn't want to end the show. I imagine if reddit/redcafe were around at the time people would have been up in arms about the silliness of the whole idea, but here we are now discussing it as if it's perfectly fine.
The point is that as much of fans of these shows like to obsess over cannon they're all fundamentally trying to get around the simple problem that real people who age, change, and have other motivations and commitments are depicting fictional, timeless characters.
Sean Connery and George Lazenby are pretty similar looking dudes, but George Lazenby wouldn't win a Sean Connery look-a-like competition, but it's not real life and audiences learnt to just roll with it, would any of the Lara Croft characters be mistaken for one another, or do any fans on Game of Thrones really care about characters being recast between seasons?
None of it really matters, it would take a minuscule amount of universe building to justify any change and fundamentally we watch (or don't watch) TV shows based on whether they're good or not.
Something always being a male role doesn't mean it always should be a male role though. Especially when the character has already been established to not necessarily be male.
Pretty sure I've already seen that film.
Bond's a franchise loosely based on the same character though. It wouldn't make sense for anyone but Daniel Craig to play Daniel Craig's bond, but I don't see why the next version of the character has to be slavishly based to the last one. Star Wars films have been a continuation of the story. If they were going to reboot it as a whole new thing, then I don't see the problem. They can have a Prince in place of Princess Leia and a a woman playing Luke Skywalker, it wouldn't matter.
One last thing, I was under the impression that the Missy character was one of most fans favourite things in the recent series. So I really, really don't understand the uproar when you LITERALLY ALREADY HAVE AN EXAMPLE of how changing a characters gender worked well in the show.
It's a lot easier for those fans to accept those kind of subtle changes in appearance though I'd guess. They fully accept that no-one is going to look exactly like the last guy, they just have to deal with it. They just have to do their best to cast the best actor who somewhat resembles the character and the fans are usually pretty content. Casting someone of another gender, colour or whatever is a much more significant change and I'd wager it's probably harder to keep those fans onside since you didn't even try. If you cast a woman it's a deliberate decision, and an obvious sign that you're not even attempting to convince the audience that it's the same person.
Why does it have to be the same person? Sherlock Holmes for example is currently being portrayed as both American and English by different actors across the Atlantic. Does it really matter that the American doesn't have the same accent as in the books? Does it matter that Watson is portrayed by a woman? Not really. Would it matter if someone made another show where Sherlock is portrayed by a woman? No, not really.
If you want to watch the last film, buy a DVD and watch it.
As I say I'm not familiar with Bond really, I've only seen Skyfall which was meh. If the characters are distinctly different from one Bond to the next, or aren't really even considered to be the same character then it's a different story. But if there's a role in which they are trying to keep some kind of continuity going then it's much harder for the audience to maintain their suspension of disbelief.
But it's not just acceptance is it? In discussions about Bond and Who you get people actively excited about changes. How many times have you seen something along the lines of 'I'd love to see X in the role' or 'I think Y's take on the character would be really interesting'? It happens all the time. Fans fully expect actors to bring new things to the roles they get cast in and understand that there's more to a recast than an actor trying to emulate how someone else did it.
It's fiction, it would take a single line of dialogue to make it whichever way you want to.
It's just another writer's take on the books as far as I can see. Adaptations happen all the time with British, American and countless other versions of the same show. Wasn't there some version of The Office where David Brent was a woman?
I just think it's a bit of a slap in the face for fans of long running shows like Doctor Who, who've built up so much investment in a character who's supposed to be the same guy, to suddenly become something different.