"We need to make money. China doesn't like stuff about Tibet, so we couldn't make the character Tibetan" which I guess means that the character then automatically had to be white? I don't know. It was a ham handed response and they haven't done any better at addressing the issue as the controversy has continued to roil.

There's an interesting interview that addresses it more thoroughly and with mixed results (linking to the start of a Twitter thread about it). [link]

I am conflicted between my firm philosophical stance against whitewashing and my firm philosophical stance in favor of more Tilda Swinton all the time. Also my less firm philosophical stance that we have passed peak Cumberbatch so I'm not clawing at the walls to see or boycott the movie either way.

(In conclusion, I have nothing to add and am posting mostly to see my own pixels? Hi, I'm Jessica and I like the sound of my own voice.)

I think more SWINTON is something we all can get behind!

(In conclusion, I have nothing to add and am posting mostly to see my own pixels? Hi, I'm Jessica and I like the sound of my own voice.)

(Hi Jessica!)

Can AoS please stop with the cheesy-ass Ghost Rider tagline already? The storyline is fine, but damn is that shit nerving me. ("Nerving me" came from a German friend - isn't it the best?)

Devin Grayson wrote a Dr. Strange novel: [link] Interesting.

All caught up on AoS. Will Ghost Rider's brother's paralysis be magically cured at the end of this story arc? And if not, why couldn't they have hired an actor with a disability? Either way, I'm annoyed.

So Dr. Strange was good, gorgeous to look at, worth seeing, but it easily could have been way better. Whitefont rant below:

So in what has to be the best-cast Marvel movie ever. The performances from Cumberbatch, Swinton, Ejiofor, McAdams, everyone, was really, really, really flat. So disappointing. And then suddenly, in the mid-credits sequence, for a brief moment, Cumberbatch suddenly came to life and started projecting. That's because the mid-credits sequence was directed by Taika Waititi and not Derrickson.

In short, Scott Derrickson makes a really gorgeous looking film, but can't work with actors. I hope they get someone else to direct the sequel.

Maybe more in the morning.

Good to know, Tom. I wasn't planning on seeing it, but it's good to be validated.

I mean, I don't want to overstate things here, nobody turned in a BAD performance, they're all pros here. But everyone here was completely straight¹, when given the subject matter, they could have easily had a lot more fun with their roles.

¹ Except that Marvel desperately wants Cumberbatch to be another RDjr; he was probably specifically told to base his performance on RDjr, but his attempts at RDjr-style quipping were forced and fell flat. Again, maybe with a different director it could have worked.

In comparison, in Ant-Man, everyone on the screen looked like they were having fun; nobody looked like they were having fun here.

In the first Thor movie, Hiddleson and Hopkins were given free reign to chomp their way through the scenery, and it worked and it was awesome. But while Dr Strange is objectively a better film than Thor in terms of plotting & pacing, visuals & special effects, and action & fight scenes, it still felt kind of off.