I’m linking the article but the actual dunk is on redditors who see this and cheer, completely ignoring that this is an extension of how much power/influence the American military has over hollywood film. Want to film anything that might have the military in it? You gotta play ball babyyyy! Ever notice how weirdly patriotic and jingoistic almost every film that features a tank is? They played ball babbyyyy!!!
there was a good comment on reddit at least though https://old.reddit.com/r/entertainment/comments/14o3xt8/defense_department_declares_it_wont_work_with/jqbfo50/
“militant US regime threatens to censor media that doesn’t bow to it’s demands.”
Since all the
Sinophobes love to say the only reason there isn’t more LGBTQ representation in movies is because of the Chinese market, I’m sure we’ll start getting lots of big action movies with queer romances right?Actually yeah, is there any truth to that at all or is it all projection?
It is unfortunately not all projection, at least on race issues.
Tabloid paper written in English
Aah, they’re inevitable
There is some truth to movie posters having the black character resized smaller/removed, but westerners like to omit some things.
- The Star Wars poster that popularized this conspiracy theory was actually made by the west and used as official promotional content in the west. It’s one of the various posters made and all sorts of versions were used, including in China
- The black character in Dune was removed in the Chinese posters, but that Chinese poster was in Taiwanese theaters lol
I don’t know how Chinese fans reacted to John Boyega, but I believe one of his reasons for leaving Star Wars was because of China IIRC. Though the biggest reason was because of English speaking fans, so whatever racism China might have, the vitriol is much more present and readily available in the western world.
To add to that, Star Wars isn’t a big deal in China anyway, and never has been. The original film came out less than a year after Mao died at the very beginning of the Dengist period and was not screened in the mainland. Because of that, there is zero nostalgia for the two or three actually good films that powered the west through decades and decades of awful worthless Star Wars movies. John Boyega being in some of those movies has nothing to do with their lack of popularity in China.
I want to propose to China funding giant films/series with multi ethnic casts that use vast numbers of extras and involve massive constructions and destroying them in giant set piece battles.
I want the Bronze Age Collapse on the big screen!
How much of this is going to be an issue going on? For starters, it’s looking more and more like the (live-action) superhero movie trend is finally on its last legs, and while Top Gun did well I don’t think that military action movies are going to have any sort of come-back. On the other hand, idk the current appetite of Chinese movie-goers for American films as Cold War II continues to drag on. In addition, the Chinese film industry doesn’t seem to have taken the same hit from Covid as the American film industry did (due to the mostly competent response), so I don’t know if there’s a lot of room for a glut of US imports.
If I had to randomly pick a new trend to replace superhero movies, I’d probably guess it going to be video game adaptations with the success of the Mario Bros. movie. Video game movies have the potential for pre-built international cultural appeal, you have massive IP back catalogs that have yet to be tapped, and video game companies already have pre-developed merchandising networks to work with for those IPs. While some of those films would want DoD toys/money, a lot would probably prefer working with Chinese film studios or video game publishers.
Yeah video game movies might be the next big thing. The Pentagon will absolutely help fund a shitload of Call of Duty films at the very least - they already send advisors to consult for the games. Any Hollywood executive would greenlight that series immediately just based on all of the free US govt funding it would get.
I guess it will affect Fast and Furious franchise, I remembred John Cena speaking in fluent mandarin apologizing about Taiwan.
Even then that doesnt use pentangon budget.
Defense Department declares it won’t work with Hollywood films
that bow to Chinese censorshipOh no, Hollywood will have to use CGI for their tanks, a thing so easy to model that half of 3D modelers get started with them.
Well, that or Hollywood will stop bothering putting in three second token scenes pretending they care about gay people, which is what they usually censor for China.
Child Murderer 3 bows to the Xi god
What do they mean chinese censorship in Hollywood? If its about Taiwan America itself doesnt officially recognize America.
Literally 99% of Chinese “propaganda” in movies is just the movie has an important plot progression that takes place in China for like 15 minutes and no one is spewing hatred for Chinese people. Maybe someone speaks mandarin for a few seconds. Then it transitions back to the west. Americans lost their mind over it because god forbid your globetrotting brain rot take place in the largest country for a few scenes.
I remember transformers 4 being pandering to china…for showing chinese authorities being competent. Mind this is a series where the US military managed to kill DECEPTICONS without Autobots help. Transformers series as whole are dumb action movies with a lot of yikes and
moments, but potraying China as normal isnt a problem.
Imagine, a Transformers movie where the US military tried to fight a Decepticon and just eats shit immediately…
Some obviously corrupt and incompetent commanding officer orders a jet to intercept Starscream. A 5’8" first Lieutenant with an obvious inferiority complex gets into his F-35, hyped to prove he’s a REAL MAN™, but crashes on takeoff. Some other equally unlikeable pilot is sent up in an F-22, which does actually manage to fly, but gets hopelessly outclassed by Starscream who ends up grabbing the pilot out of the jet by the head, popping it like a cherry, and dropping his corpse into a veterans living room from 12000 feet up, and trigger his PTSD.
US military in the South China Sea gets attacked by aqueous deceptions
Chengdu J-20s are dispatched to save the Americans
Americans start firing on the J-20s assuming they’re deceptions
Chinese military urge their pilots to be brave by withstanding fire without retaliating so they can rescue their foes
American soldiers are saved without any of them being killed by the Chinese
That kind of happens in the first one before Optimus helps them out. In general it’s shown that they get their asses kicked if Autobots aren’t around until the fifth film, and even then its because they’ve got Galvatron on side.
