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  1. - Top - End - #31
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    Default Re: Disney "Artemis Fowl" (note the quote, :smallyuk:)

    Quote Originally Posted by GrayDeath View Post
    I dont really get what you are saying.

    Unless your grammar is intentionally strange and your post doesnt actually say something concise (in which case I didnt get the reference/Joke^^): Could you elaborate?
    Eh, there was a mistake ('hearing it was a thing made me...' is how the second paragraph should begin), and one thing that's not clear (the Book in the last sentence is the fairy book of rules, not the Artemis Fowl book). I can see how that made it harder to understand.


    The thing about the series is that it's a children's to Young Adult series (remember when those weren't all about teenage girls in dystopias trying to decide which hot boy to kiss?), beginning with books that were aimed at roughly the same age range as the Harry Potter books, but had somewhat better writing and plotting (the worldbuilding is a bit meh, although there's some good bits). Taking that into account they're relatively good, I've read both better and worse, and back when I was the target age range I don't remember there being much competition.

    But either the second or third book (I think the third, it's been a long time) was so boring when I was the target age that I just skipped most of it. Read all the way up to Lost Colony though before I began focusing my reading on other stuff. So it's not the absolute best series in the world, but I'd argue that it's stood the test of time slightly better than Harry Potter has (if only because it can get me to actually care about the Artemis/Holly relationship in a way that I didn't about any of the HP ones).
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    Quote Originally Posted by Zelphas View Post
    So here I am, trapped in my laboratory, trying to create a Mechabeast that's powerful enough to take down the howling horde outside my door, but also won't join them once it realizes what I've done...twentieth time's the charm, right?
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  2. - Top - End - #32
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    Default Re: Disney "Artemis Fowl" (note the quote, :smallyuk:)

    Quote Originally Posted by Fiery Diamond View Post
    As someone who doesn't intend to watch this apparent atrocity, I'm now very curious for details.
    So remember that big surprise reveal partway through the series? Where he finally tells his first name?

    Now he goes by that first name, or shortenings of it exclusively, and actively hates being called Butler.
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    I like the "hobo" in there.
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  3. - Top - End - #33
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    Default Re: Disney "Artemis Fowl" (note the quote, :smallyuk:)

    Quote Originally Posted by druid91 View Post
    So remember that big surprise reveal partway through the series? Where he finally tells his first name?

    Now he goes by that first name, or shortenings of it exclusively, and actively hates being called Butler.
    What the what.

  4. - Top - End - #34
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    Default Re: Disney "Artemis Fowl" (note the quote, :smallyuk:)

    Quote Originally Posted by druid91 View Post
    So remember that big surprise reveal partway through the series? Where he finally tells his first name?

    Now he goes by that first name, or shortenings of it exclusively, and actively hates being called Butler.
    It might have been a studio move, because you probably don't want your white child protagonist referring to the black man acting as his servant (that changed further on in the series, becoming more of a bodyguard) consistently as 'butler' only.

    Of course, why Butler was black in the first place instead of 'Eurasian' like he and his family are described as being in the books is a wholly different question, seeing as his place of being raised has a certain importance to his upbringing. I don't claim to fully understand how studio executives go about casting characters, though.
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  5. - Top - End - #35
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    Default Re: Disney "Artemis Fowl" (note the quote, :smallyuk:)

    I found a fanfic that posits an explanation for the movie. I haven't seen the movie, but this is still a lot of fun anyway.

    https://archiveofourown.org/works/24708697
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    Default Re: Disney "Artemis Fowl" (note the quote, :smallyuk:)

    Quote Originally Posted by deltamire View Post
    It might have been a studio move, because you probably don't want your white child protagonist referring to the black man acting as his servant (that changed further on in the series, becoming more of a bodyguard) consistently as 'butler' only.

    Of course, why Butler was black in the first place instead of 'Eurasian' like he and his family are described as being in the books is a wholly different question, seeing as his place of being raised has a certain importance to his upbringing. I don't claim to fully understand how studio executives go about casting characters, though.
    Eh. I'm not that bothered by Butler being black. No, it's not what he was in the books, but that detail? That's unimportant. Changing Butler to a black guy does not affect the story in any significant way.

    Now, changing him to use his name, among all the other stuff... That's a whole 'nother kettle of fish.
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  7. - Top - End - #37
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    Default Re: Disney "Artemis Fowl" (note the quote, :smallyuk:)

    Quote Originally Posted by deltamire View Post
    It might have been a studio move, because you probably don't want your white child protagonist referring to the black man acting as his servant (that changed further on in the series, becoming more of a bodyguard) consistently as 'butler' only.
    To be fair, the book makes it clear that Butlers are bodyguards first and servants second.

    Of course, why Butler was black in the first place instead of 'Eurasian' like he and his family are described as being in the books is a wholly different question, seeing as his place of being raised has a certain importance to his upbringing. I don't claim to fully understand how studio executives go about casting characters, though.
    I believe he's supposed to be Eastern European/West Asian, judging by where he's stated to come from and his name. While I'm not saying he can't be black and has to be white it's possibly the most problematic casting choice seeing as him being exclusively referred to as Butler is big enough for a book to make a plot point depending on it (book 4, you know the bit I mean).

    Honestly, I'm less annoyed at Butler being black and more at Holly being white. We could have had a great role for a South Asian actress and stayed closer to the book without sacrificing on acting ability, but no apparently fairies have to have pale skin.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Zelphas View Post
    So here I am, trapped in my laboratory, trying to create a Mechabeast that's powerful enough to take down the howling horde outside my door, but also won't join them once it realizes what I've done...twentieth time's the charm, right?
    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Raziere View Post
    How about a Jovian Uplift stuck in a Case morph? it makes so little sense.

  8. - Top - End - #38
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    Default Re: Disney "Artemis Fowl" (note the quote, :smallyuk:)

    Quote Originally Posted by Cheesegear View Post
    That's allegedly how Rambo: Last Blood was made. It was originally some random screenplay about a dude going after his daughter, a hybrid of Taken and Death Wish. Then, the main character's name was changed to John Rambo and the script rewrites wrote themselves.
    This kind of scenario and brand swaping happens a lot in movie industry to the point, where Die Hard 4 was the first part in the series to have a script originally written for Die Hard. I do not remember, what the first one was supposed to be, but the second was originally an independent script that got rebranded as Die Hard and the third part was - as far as I remember - supposed to be a part of the Lethal Weapon series.
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  9. - Top - End - #39
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    Default Re: Disney "Artemis Fowl" (note the quote, :smallyuk:)

    Quote Originally Posted by JNAProductions View Post
    Eh. I'm not that bothered by Butler being black. No, it's not what he was in the books, but that detail? That's unimportant. Changing Butler to a black guy does not affect the story in any significant way.

    Now, changing him to use his name, among all the other stuff... That's a whole 'nother kettle of fish.
    I would argue that adding a black butler to an aristocratic white family is exactly a detail that's important. It changes the overtones of their relationship significantly.
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  10. - Top - End - #40
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    Default Re: Disney "Artemis Fowl" (note the quote, :smallyuk:)

    Quote Originally Posted by Tvtyrant View Post
    I would argue that adding a black butler to an aristocratic white family is exactly a detail that's important. It changes the overtones of their relationship significantly.
    Thought, would the film have worked with Artemis as Black Irish and Butler as a white servant? I think it would have done, you'd have got some complaints because book Artemis might have been described as white (I honestly don't pay that much attention), but less so than with Butler and the implications he brings to the table.

    Especially when you remember that the Butler family's purpose to to provide the Fowl family (and other wealthy individuals) with bodyguards/servants. It's a problematic but workable arrangement with book butler, such a detail is much worse with the film version.

    I'll note that Butler's original ethnicity has similar, but not as extreme, connotations, which I think is why the book makes a big deal about the position being named after the family.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Zelphas View Post
    So here I am, trapped in my laboratory, trying to create a Mechabeast that's powerful enough to take down the howling horde outside my door, but also won't join them once it realizes what I've done...twentieth time's the charm, right?
    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Raziere View Post
    How about a Jovian Uplift stuck in a Case morph? it makes so little sense.

  11. - Top - End - #41
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    Default Re: Disney "Artemis Fowl" (note the quote, :smallyuk:)

    Quote Originally Posted by Anonymouswizard View Post
    Thought, would the film have worked with Artemis as Black Irish and Butler as a white servant? I think it would have done, you'd have got some complaints because book Artemis might have been described as white (I honestly don't pay that much attention), but less so than with Butler and the implications he brings to the table.

    Especially when you remember that the Butler family's purpose to to provide the Fowl family (and other wealthy individuals) with bodyguards/servants. It's a problematic but workable arrangement with book butler, such a detail is much worse with the film version.

    I'll note that Butler's original ethnicity has similar, but not as extreme, connotations, which I think is why the book makes a big deal about the position being named after the family.
    Artemis is described as white in the books, but it's not a super important detail. It's usually used as a description when he's being overly mature and creeping out adults.

    Having Butler being black makes calling him Butler awkward, but calling him Butler is a very important part of his personality and personal arc. So if you are just going for diversity, you shouldn't make him black. Find a different character to take that role.
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  12. - Top - End - #42
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    Default Re: Disney "Artemis Fowl" (note the quote, :smallyuk:)

    Quote Originally Posted by Forum Explorer View Post
    Artemis is described as white in the books, but it's not a super important detail. It's usually used as a description when he's being overly mature and creeping out adults.

    Having Butler being black makes calling him Butler awkward, but calling him Butler is a very important part of his personality and personal arc. So if you are just going for diversity, you shouldn't make him black. Find a different character to take that role.
    Should've been Holly, with the caveat that it would require the story skew much closer to the first book. The dynamic between Holly and Artemis in later books stems from there.

    Artemis is, at heart, a criminal, and clearly thinks of the Laws that bind the fairy folk as ridiculous restrictions to be exploited. The fact that fairies have magic and superior technology, and yet still got driven underground, cemented this fact in his mind. Holly being an officer of the law just makes her doubly-representative of everything he doesn't like about that kind of mindset, and it shows in how he treats her, locking her down, talking down to her, even when the tables are starting to turn he's holding the letter of the law against her as best he can. He doesn't really think of her as lesser, necessarily, but as restricted in ways he isn't, and he's willing and able to exploit that for his own gain.

    Holly rejecting that framework by breaking out despite the rules placed on her, regaining her magic, and healing butler for all their sakes, ends up earning Artemis' respect in a roundabout way, and in turn he earns her respect despite his treatment of her by trading away a significant portion of the ransom for his mother's mental health. This is the seed from which their relationship in the coming books grows, and that whole dynamic would be aided by making it more explicitly a race thing. Portraying Artemis as a racist criminal 12 year old who gradually grows into a better person explicitly because he interacts with the people he thinks less of (everyone, sure, but primarily the fairy folk and in particular a fairy cop) is a very solid character arc and would maybe be something actually worth using as modern political commentary if handled properly.

    But this is Disney, so of course it's gonna be completely family friendly and not actually have anything to say about it, it's just using casting and tiny insignificant moments to make noises as if they care. It's blatant virtue-signalling.


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  13. - Top - End - #43
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    Default Re: Disney "Artemis Fowl" (note the quote, :smallyuk:)

    Quote Originally Posted by AvatarVecna View Post
    Should've been Holly, with the caveat that it would require the story skew much closer to the first book. The dynamic between Holly and Artemis in later books stems from there.

    Artemis is, at heart, a criminal, and clearly thinks of the Laws that bind the fairy folk as ridiculous restrictions to be exploited. The fact that fairies have magic and superior technology, and yet still got driven underground, cemented this fact in his mind. Holly being an officer of the law just makes her doubly-representative of everything he doesn't like about that kind of mindset, and it shows in how he treats her, locking her down, talking down to her, even when the tables are starting to turn he's holding the letter of the law against her as best he can. He doesn't really think of her as lesser, necessarily, but as restricted in ways he isn't, and he's willing and able to exploit that for his own gain.

    Holly rejecting that framework by breaking out despite the rules placed on her, regaining her magic, and healing butler for all their sakes, ends up earning Artemis' respect in a roundabout way, and in turn he earns her respect despite his treatment of her by trading away a significant portion of the ransom for his mother's mental health. This is the seed from which their relationship in the coming books grows, and that whole dynamic would be aided by making it more explicitly a race thing. Portraying Artemis as a racist criminal 12 year old who gradually grows into a better person explicitly because he interacts with the people he thinks less of (everyone, sure, but primarily the fairy folk and in particular a fairy cop) is a very solid character arc and would maybe be something actually worth using as modern political commentary if handled properly.
    I don't think you can really translate the way Artemis looks down on fairy folk and considers them being lesser into something that applies to the real world. His initial motivations for this position aren't baseless, it is simple fact of reality that they lose their magic if they break their laws. The way people look down on real world groups in our world is not based on their literal inability to do certain things.

    It is a similar problem to trying to interpret Zootopia as a story about actual racism. Sure, in-universe there are creatures fighting other creatures based on how they are born, but given that that particular fighting is based on an a past prey-predator relationship that does not exist among real word humans you really shouldn't try to read in-movie groups as specific real world groups.

    Don't forget that in the first book Artemis his winning strategy is entirely based on fairies having to absolutely follow the rules. He exploits what he sees as their racial failing and gets rewarded for it. Perfectly fine in a story about a human fighting imagined creatures, but may have some unfortunate implications if you try to paint Artemis his view on fairy folk as something akin to what's happening in the real world. Artemis is the protagonist after all, I doubt many readers sided with the fairies against him or judged him based on his believes given that those believes were essential for his victory. So probably best to no make it too much about judging groups and just about not judging individuals. It takes a few books (and so by extension, a few movies) before Artemis decides he was wrong, and people might not get to those,

    Then again, I am willing to bet that pretty much anything that requires the story to skew much closer to the first book than this abomination did would be better than what we got.
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  14. - Top - End - #44
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    Default Re: Disney "Artemis Fowl" (note the quote, :smallyuk:)

    Quote Originally Posted by Manga Shoggoth View Post
    I'm always a little cautious about the "adaptation must be a reasonable fit" thing.

    The old Robin Hood and Jungle Book films were great films.

    Robin Hood took a lot of inspiration from the Robin Hood legends, and all the characters were recognisable.

    On the other hand the Jungle Book took very little except the names and species from the original stories (In the books, Kaa was one of the good guys, a mentor to Mowgli and one of the single most dangerous animals in the jungle; Hathi was a leader and shrewd tactician, Baloo was a wise teacher; Bagheera and Shere Kahn were about the only characters who got through the adaptation process reasonably intact.

    That didn't stop me from enjoying them both, and I still like Jungle Book after having read (and preferred) the original stories.

    Admittedly, my feeling is that if you are going to adapt a work, then adapt it, and if you are going to do something different, then don't pretend to adapt something; but sometimes you do get something good out the other end.

    But no, this doesn't sound good.
    I view stuff like that essentially as fan fiction (though the worst stuff where they only take some names probably doesn't deserve to be called fan fiction.) And fan fiction is fine as long as you don't try to sell it to me as the original story. I wish you had to clearly declare that yours is a spin on the original (yes hard to draw a precise line but the wish isn't realistic anyway.)

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    Default Re: Disney "Artemis Fowl" (note the quote, :smallyuk:)

    Quote Originally Posted by A.A.King View Post
    It is a similar problem to trying to interpret Zootopia as a story about actual racism. Sure, in-universe there are creatures fighting other creatures based on how they are born, but given that that particular fighting is based on an a past prey-predator relationship that does not exist among real word humans you really shouldn't try to read in-movie groups as specific real world groups.
    Yep, Zootopia is an extremely good story about intersectionality, but if you start trying to map it 1 to 1 you're going to have all sorts of problems.

    As for Artemis Fowl and Butler, I would agree that Butler is probably the only person in the whole damned series that absolutely should not be black unless Artemis is, too. It's actual tokenism writ large; they want their key leads to be white, they want one person on screen to be black so that they aren't called out for racism, grab the most prominent person who isn't a main character, call it a day. There's a whole discussion about fantasy settings that exclusively have a single black person and it's always a middle-aged man who is in a role of martial subservience to the actual main character.

    It's the same sort of thing that led to "the black dude always dies first" being an action/horror trope; they didn't die first because they were black, they died first because they were the least developed characters. But they were the least developed characters because the most-developed characters were always white, so...
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    Default Re: Disney "Artemis Fowl" (note the quote, :smallyuk:)

    Quote Originally Posted by Friv View Post
    Yep, Zootopia is an extremely good story about intersectionality, but if you start trying to map it 1 to 1 you're going to have all sorts of problems.

    As for Artemis Fowl and Butler, I would agree that Butler is probably the only person in the whole damned series that absolutely should not be black unless Artemis is, too. It's actual tokenism writ large; they want their key leads to be white, they want one person on screen to be black so that they aren't called out for racism, grab the most prominent person who isn't a main character, call it a day. There's a whole discussion about fantasy settings that exclusively have a single black person and it's always a middle-aged man who is in a role of martial subservience to the actual main character.

    It's the same sort of thing that led to "the black dude always dies first" being an action/horror trope; they didn't die first because they were black, they died first because they were the least developed characters. But they were the least developed characters because the most-developed characters were always white, so...
    Off topic, but that's actually why Zootopia works so well. If it DID map 1 to 1, it would come across as being preachy and high-handed if it was accurate and offensive if it was inaccurate. The fact that it doesn't means that the movie can make its points without having to be compared to the exact real-world circumstances of specific real-world races.

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