This guy can’t be serious … Ridley Scott Explains White Washing His “Exodus” Movie As the premiere date looms near for his “Exodus” film director Ridley Scott is further explaining why he just HAD to white wash the production. As previously reported Scott said that he cast “ major actors from different ethnicities to reflect the diversity of the culture.” Now he’s flat out saying that he casted the film the way he did (with popular WHITE actors) because actors named “Mohammad so-and-so from such-and-such” wouldn’t get the movie financed. DassKindaRacist. Variety.com reports: Like most high-profile religious pictures since Martin Scorsese’s 1988 “The Last Temptation of Christ,” “Exodus” became the subject of intense media scrutiny before Scott had ever exposed a frame of (digital) film on stages at London’s Pinewood Studios and on location in Spain. Much of the outcry online stemmed from his decision to cast white American, European and Australian actors in most of the key roles, no matter that the same could be said of “The Passion of the Christ,” “Noah,” “The Ten Commandments” and virtually any other big-budget Bible movies. “I can’t mount a film of this budget, where I have to rely on tax rebates in Spain, and say that my lead actor is Mohammad so-and-so from such-and-such,” Scott says. “I’m just not going to get it financed. So the question doesn’t even come up.” SMH…sooo basically eff giving a proper historical depiction and just focus on the moolah??? Got it. What a lazy azz answer. What do YOU think about Ridley Scott’s reasoning???
This answer is basically an “eff you” to the racial criticism… Ridley Scott Responds To Casting Criticism There’s been a justified uproar over the all-white casting of main Egyptian characters in Ridley Scott’s new Biblical thriller, “Exodus.” The director finally addressed the backlash …but gave a pretty unsatisfactory answer to his thought process. Via DailyDot : Ridley Scott has finally responded to the backlash against his new movie Exodus: Gods and Kings, but his explanation is unlikely to stem the tide of criticism. Exodus is a Biblical epic inspired by the exodus of the Hebrews, with Moses and Ramses II as the two central characters. The movie isn’t out until December, but it’s already faced criticism for casting so many white actors in Egyptian and Middle Eastern roles. The most damning example is how the heroes and royals are almost all played by white actors, while most of the black actors in the movie have minor roles as slaves, thieves, and assassins. In an interview with Yahoo!, Scott explained why he decided on what is described as an “international” cast. Egypt was—as it is now—a confluence of cultures, as a result of being a crossroads geographically between Africa, the Middle East, and Europe. We cast major actors from different ethnicities to reflect this diversity of culture, from Iranians to Spaniards to Arabs. There are many different theories about the ethnicity of the Egyptian people, and we had a lot of discussions about how to best represent the culture. This makes about as much sense as the explanation that Darren Aronofsky’s Noah had an all-white cast because it was “mythical.” While the overall cast of Exodus is relatively “international,” Scott’s answer fails to acknowledge the unrealistic prominence of white European and American actors onscreen. The vast majority of main characters are played by white actors from the U.S. and U.K., with Christian Bale as Moses, Aaron Paul as Joshua, and Sigourney Weaver as Egyptian queen Tuya. Scott mentions discussing how to represent Egyptian culture, but the result was casting Joel Edgerton as an Egyptian pharaoh, and then covering him in fake tan to give him darker skin. The idea of Egypt as a cultural melting pot is more or less acceptable, but Exodus illustrates this by casting pale-skinned people of Northern European descent as leaders and heroes, while dark-skinned people are criminals and background extras. SMH! So he basically threw a bunch of buzzwords together and said “deal with it.” Will you be giving this film your dollars??
A film set in Africa with no Black main cast…hmm… Is Ridley Scott’s “Exodus” Film Racist? By now you’ve probably heard about Ridley Scott’s film adaptation of the Biblical Moses story, “Exodus.” But you may not have noticed the way in which Hollywood has gone out of its way to dip this fully-African tale into a cinematic vat of Whitenicious . Peep what one writer has to say about this film’s casting and not-so-thinly-veiled attempt to weave white heroic-ism into an exclusively-African tale. Via Medium.com I went to see Get On Up and there was a preview for Ridley Scott’s Exodus: Gods And Kings movie about Moses’ story in the Bible. The first thing I noticed was that all the main characters are White. Moses is White. The Pharaoh is White. Tuya is super White and Joshua is Jesse Pinkman. Not only are these characters who are supposed to be Africans White, they’re not even remotely tan. They’re pearly White. Christian Bale is Moses, a former slave in Egypt who was using SPF infinity sunscreen because he’s still Gotham City White. You can convince me that a guy can shake a staff and make it rain locusts but I refuse to believe someone who grew up in Egypt in the sun doesn’t have a tan at least. But this is all Hollywood stuff, right? White guys are always cast in these roles and we’re all here to throw praise on a cast full of White guys no matter where or when they live. It would have been annoying enough if Scott stopped there. But look at the rest of the cast: Not only are all the main characters White, but the servants, thieves and assassins are played by Africans. Guys. This is racist. Ridley Scott is one of those guys who’s apparently hellbent on historical accuracy but doesn’t care enough to cast a person of color as Moses or a damn African queen while simultaneously filling out the rest of the movie with Black servants and thieves. I could even accept him going the Louis CK route of “the best actor gets the job regardless of if race makes sense” and casting Merly Streep as Tuya, Guillermo Del Toro as Moses and Choi Min-Sik as Moses for all I care. But to make the main characters White and everyone else African is cinematic colonialism. It’s creating a piece of historical “art” that carries on oppressive imagery that’s helped shackle entire countries and corners of the world. I’m so damn sick of Hollywood and its acceptance of these oppressive images. If studies have shown the way that perpetual violence in movies begets violence in America, then what about perpetual maintenance of the White savior standing over the ethnic servant/villain/imbecile? What damage is this creating for the American psyche? How am I supposed to feel when all the messiahs, last samurais, African kings and saviors are White? Yikes. Did Hollywood think casting Black people in a film about African people set in Africa would make the picture too “race-themed?” What do you think? Will you go see this film?
Damon Lindelof may be leaving Ridley Scott’s Alien universe on a vague, quasi-philosophical note that leaves no one feeling fully satisfied, indicating this week that he won’t be penning the sequel to Prometheus . Speaking to Collider , Lindelof talked first about the possible direction the Prometheus franchise-within-a-franchise could take, and then explained why he won’t be returning for round two. While he doesn’t quite come out and say it plain, he does admit circumspectly that the popular response to his script may have had a small influence on his decision. “I think what ended up happening,” Lindelof said, “was that the movie came out, and there was a reaction to the movie.” There’s far more to it than that, of course. Lindelof is, despite the haters, very busy. “…I got really wrapped up in [ Star Trek Into Darkness ] and really wrapped up in this movie that I’m producing and writing with Brad Bird,” he said, referring to the Disney film currently code-named 1952 . Lindelof also cited an upcoming TV project he’s passionate about, all of which led him to conclude he wouldn’t be able to make the kind of commitment a project like Prometheus 2 would require. Fortunately, according to his telling of events, Scott was fine with it. “I said to him, ‘I really don’t think I could start working on this movie until I do this other stuff. And I don’t know when the other stuff is going to be done.’ And he was like, ‘Well, okay, it’s not like I asked you anyways.'” But do we even need a sequel? To my mind, a continuation of Prometheus would just be an exercise in throwing good money after horrendously convoluted money. But what about you, readers? Do you want to see a return to the Alien universe? Does Lindelof’s exit from the series make you happy, or as frustrated as when you found out that the castaways were (spoiler alert) in purgatory? Sound off in the comments. [via Collider ] RELATED ARTICLES: Jon Spaihts’ Original ‘Prometheus’ Script: Better Than The Film? There Were Supposed To Be Facehuggers! ‘Prometheus’ Screenwriter Spills Secrets Of Early Scripts Prometheus Secrets Revealed: What Did David Say to the Engineer? Ross Lincoln is a LA-based freelance writer from Oklahoma with an unhealthy obsession with comics, movies, video games, ancient history, Gore Vidal, and wine. Follow him on twitter (@rossalincoln). Follow Movieline on Twitter .
What if Prometheus had actually answered questions and had been more of a direct sequel to Ridley Scott ‘s Alien films, instead of a maddeningly ambiguous but thought-provoking spin-off vaguely connected to the Alien universe? Screenwriter Jon Spaihts’ original Prometheus script, confirmed to be legit by Spaihts himself, has surfaced online revealing what his facehugger-laden version might have looked like. (Spoilers follow.) As Spaihts teased to Empire last month, his Prometheus (titled Alien: Engineers ) featured facehuggers and chestbursters, among other more obvious links to the Alien films. (One word to get your geek pulse racing: Ultramorphs .) Spaihts’ Prometheus script has found its way online at Scribd.com , and while it ultimately became a different movie, the core story is mostly the same. For starters, the ship? It’s called The Magellan . And while the key players are present and reasonably similar in Spaihts’ version (scientist-lovers Watts and Holloway, Peter Weyland as a “Warren Buffet type,” David the creepy android, Meredith Vickers as a 45-year-old woman and not an earthbound goddess who looks like Charlize Theron) certain reveals and plot threads are very different from what subsequent writer Damon Lindelof became involved. One major scene that went through a transformation is Holloway’s fate, which I’ll detail here since Spaihts himself spilled the beans to Empire. Rather than being poisoned with black goo by David, Holloway meets his end when, after being facehugged in the pyramid, a chestburster rips him open… mid-coitus. It’s a fascinating read alone just to see which of Spaihts’ ideas stuck and which Scott and Damon Lindelof took in different directions, and it’s always tempting to label what could have been as better than what actually made it to the screen. But some of the changes made between this version to the theatrical cut are smart ones; here, for instance, David is more of a pronounced villain saddled with even more expository dialogue — and what fun would it have been to really know what he said to the Engineer ? Scott’s Prometheus may leave us with too many unanswered questions, but I’d venture to say this early script perhaps explained too much. It’s still viewable here and below for the time being; chime in and tell us if you’d have rather seen this version make it to the big screen instead. View this document on Scribd [via Prometheus Movie , Giant Freaking Robot ]
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