On the marketing of 4E

[LostSoul]

Williams also played Harvey Dent in the '89 Batman movie.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Williams also played Harvey Dent in the '89 Batman movie.

I know. And he was supposed to play Two-Face originally, until the studio bought out his contract.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

That's just it, though. "Acting abilities and scheduling conflicts" aren't "aside." Burton chose Williams because he felt he was right for the role; the studio replaced him with Jones because they thought he'd be a bigger box-office draw.

The former is a very personal, subjective opinion; the latter is a financial one. But they're both reasons.

Acting abilities and scheduling conflicts are legitimate concerns, but Mouse, you missed my point.

I'm saying they didn't have to change the character's race, either the first time or the second. At least one of those race changes was unnecessary.

Or are you telling me

1) they couldn't find a good white actor(s) to play Harvey Dent/Two-Face from movie #1 on...

or

2) they couldn't find another quality black actor to fill Billy Dee Williams' shoes, thus at least maintaining the character's new racial identity?

Instead, we get a discontinuity.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

That's just it, though. "Acting abilities and scheduling conflicts" aren't "aside." Burton chose Williams because he felt he was right for the role; the studio replaced him with Jones because they thought he'd be a bigger box-office draw.

The former is a very personal, subjective opinion; the latter is a financial one. But they're both reasons.

Acting abilities and scheduling conflicts are legitimate concerns, but Mouse, you missed my point.

I'm saying they didn't have to change the character's race, either the first time or the second. At least one of those race changes was unnecessary.

Or are you telling me

1) they couldn't find a good white actor(s) to play Harvey Dent/Two-Face from movie #1 on...

or

2) they couldn't find another quality black actor to fill Billy Dee Williams' shoes, thus at least maintaining the character's new racial identity?

Instead, we get a discontinuity.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Acting abilities and scheduling conflicts are legitimate concerns, but Mouse, you missed my point.

I'm saying they didn't have to change the character's race, either the first time or the second. At least one of those race changes was unnecessary.

Or are you telling me

1) they couldn't find a good white actor(s) to play Harvey Dent/Two-Face from movie #1 on...

or

2) they couldn't find another quality black actor to fill Billy Dee Williams' shoes, thus at least maintaining the character's new racial identity?

Instead, we get a discontinuity.

Ah. I see what you're saying now, but I don't think it's an example of "change for change's sake." For it to be, the race of the actor would have to have been a deciding factor to the studio one way or the other, and frankly, I just don't think it was. I think it more likely that they just didn't care. (Much like the character of Felix Lighter in the Bond films, who has been white and black.)

True, they (probably) didn't say "Let's make this character Race X for Reason Y." But for me, when I hear "change for change's sake," it means that someone has to have consciously decided to make said change for no other reason than because it was different from what came before. And I don't think that's likely what happened here, because I don't think there was any conscious decision at all in that regard. I think the studio probably also didn't say "Let's make this character Race X just for the hell of it." I believe what they probably said was, "Let's cast Person X," and when someone pointed out that it would change the race, they said, "So?"

In other words, that particular change doesn't fall into either the "motivated change" or the "change for change's sake" category. I think it falls into the "repercussions of some other decision that nobody cared about one way or the other" category.

Of course, I could be wrong. Maybe Burton did specifically want a black Dent. Maybe the studio specifically wanted a white Dent. I'm obviously not privy to that. But if so, I'd wager some real money that each had his reasons--even if they were bad ones.

But what I'm getting at is, not every single change needs to be one or the other, "motivated" or "for change's sake." Sometimes they're just the natural results of a prior decision, and nobody felt them important enough to remain consistent.

So yes, they could have found a white actor for the first one, or a black actor for the third. I just don't think, once they had their first choice, that they could be bothered to worry about it.

 

[Mouseferatu]

To open the topic a little broader, I think the disconnect is in how people use the phrase "change for change's sake."

For a change to be "for change's sake," change must be the motivation--and the only motivation--behind a tweak to what's come before. (That's what the words mean. )

Other people, however, seem to be using it to mean "A change for which the given explanation is insufficient" or "a change with which I disagree" or even " a change resulting from carelessness."

And while those are perfectly valid reasons to dislike a change or to question the reasons for it, they're not "change for change's sake."

 

[Hussar]

Possibly they could have DannyA, we'll never know. Then again, could they find a black actor of the level and draw of Jones at the time they needed one? That's a much, much more narrow field. The answer could quite well have been no. You're talking about A list celebrities. Narrow that down to A list, well established black actors and your list is down to a pretty short page.

Narrow that down further by schedule and other movies that may want those actors as well, and it could easily be that the answer was no, they really couldn't get another black actor.

Or, it could have been they did not feel that the character included any particular racial leanings, so, changing from a black to a white actor wasn't going to be a big deal.

 

[pawsplay]

[DIGRESSION]
Actually, my longest lived 3e character (got up to around lvl 24), was a "fighter" (actually a samurai) with 10 Str. In 3e, not only was it possible, but it was actually a feasible and very effective build. This was in a party that consisted of him, an epic level wizard and an epic level cleric. Never once did he feel like a suboptimal character, or like he wasn't doing his job in the team.

And that's why I just don't get posts that say that fighters above level 10 sit around watching the wizards and clerics do everything when playing 3e... it just wasn't my experience.
[/DIGRESSION]

I now return you to your regularly scheduled edition skirmish...

I wasn't saying that no Str 10 fighters exist, just that the hypothetical character in this example does not exist. If he doesn't have high Str, he has high something else or he would be eligible for a reroll, and as a fighter he can't escape having combat feats of some kind.

I have seen a Str 11 halfling paladin who was actually quite formidable, for a variety of reasons.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

For a change to be "for change's sake," change must be the motivation--and the only motivation--behind a tweak to what's come before. (That's what the words mean. )

I agree as to the meaning of the words.

Other people, however, seem to be using it to mean "A change for which the given explanation is insufficient" or "a change with which I disagree" or even " a change resulting from carelessness."

In the post in which I challenged you, I pointed out that this is how I've always seen people use the phrase- idiomatically rather than literally.

Kind of like the phrase "head over heels" (in love). Normally, my head IS over my heels, but the phrase is used to indicate someone who is out of kilter from their normal mental state.

 

[Hussar]

TBH DannyA, I'm with Mouse on this. I always took, "Change for Change sake" to mean that the primary motivation for change was simply to make something not the same.

Although, thinking about it, your version does probably make a lot of sense.