http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=57473

I think it's a goddam waste of the Joker, even if Leto turns out to nail the role, but I think Smith as Deadshot could actually pretty damn entertaining.

I know Australia-Dave is a big fan of SUICIDE SQUAD (at least the 80's version). He should be enthusiastic about this release.

Myself, I never warmed up to the series, although I haven't read enough to really fairly rate the comic series. Luke McDonnell is one of my least favorite pencillers, and that pushed me away.

The concept of villains-turned-good, teamed up to fight (reluctantly) on the side of the law, is a great concept, if handled by the right team. That's as true of a comic series version as it is of a movie.

They had a movie version of THE LOSERS a few years ago that I actually thought they pulled off very well. A great mix of action and humor, with a lot of fun twists.

Looking at your link, the thing that turns me off is a very young trendy-looking cast, that I think probably will make the movie very different from the comic book version, without attempting to capture the feel of the original.


Movie versions of the Dark Horse stuff (Hellboy, Sin City, 300...) are versions I've liked the best, because of how consistent they are with the comic book versions. I mean, comics and film are two vastly different mediums, it's very difficult to have that consistency with the original in a vastly different form, and I'm amazed how well all of these examples have been able to capture at least the feel of the original.
It's difficult to hit it out of the park every time with these movies, very few of them work for me. But it's nice to be pleasantly surprised when they can bring it all together.

l only have two issues with the casting.
Firstly having The Joker in it. He has no place in the Squad and negates having Harley on the team. Hopefully he will have some other role than being a member of the team.
The other issue I have is with Will Smith. I actually like his movies, and think he is a good actor but I am sick to death of the constant need to change white characters into black characters. They could so easily have used a character like Bronze Tiger for Smith, but no, they have to go with the age old "token" race change. It started with Kingpin in Daredevil (or to be more specific Harvey Dent in Batman), and since then its been Iris West in the Flash tv show, Johnny Storm in the upcoming FF film, Heimdall in Thor, Sarah Essen in Gotham etc etc.
Why cant they just stay true to the original character and bring in an actual character from the comics who was ethnic? Imagine how it would be perceived if Storm, Luke Cage or Falcon were cast as white people. Change for the sake of being PC adds nothing to a film or show, and actually comes across as even more racist than not having someone of colour (like Speedy) in the role.
The FF one is pathetic though, as the brother and sister part of the team are no longer 100% brother and sister. Thats just fucking with shit for the sake of fucking with it.

I will still probably enjoy the film, but shit like that just bugs me.

You'd think so but I wasn't a big fan of the '10s re-release. Amanda Waller as a hottie with a bad girl attitude? Ugh. Waller is meant to be Machiavellian not ass-kicking. Plus all the mental issues plaguing Deadshot have been erased away. No longer so interesting -just an amoral mercenary with a daughter.

Not sure what to think of this movie, but then, I had low expectations of Guardians of the Galaxy so I guess we shall see.

So...just out of curiosity, how much of a James Bond fan are you?

Daniel Craig is black?!

I KNEW IT.

Craig's not black. His voice is all wrong.

I don't understand the controversy about this. Who cares if the guy playing Bond is black or white? Does his ethnicity matter to the concept or the plot?

I can see how this matters to Captain Phelps. The pirate captain has got to be a black Somalian. Does it matter to Bond? Not at all.

I didn't know a black guy was playing Deadshot in Suicide Squad. Aside from confusing fans of the TV series Arrow, where Deadshot is definitely a white guy, does it matter?

I think people had problems with the casting precisely because they think the character's race isn't an issue, and that they see the change as pandering to the PC crowd.

Personally, I'm waiting for them to get done turning established characters black and move on to the next minority: Asians. I would really like to see Maaya Uchida take over Scarjo's spot on the Avengers as Brack Widow.

I think Elba would make a good Bond, however, I also understand that fans of a long running character can and do get a particular general image of a character in their head and might be disappointed when the actor-for whatever reason-doesn't look like how they've envisioned him or her (or how he or she has been depicted in the past).

I can also understand when the character is adapted from a novel that fans might want the character to hew more closely to the book version. Ian Fleming created and described Bond as looking a certain way (white, British,etc.). A fan of the novels could understandably want the movies to depict Bond physically in a similar manner.

Hell, I would really like to see someone who can act take over that spot...

They can just ask her to bring her old costume.

She can also bring Voldemort and give him a part as Jarvis (I can't think of any Avengers character that looks like John Steed.)

Yep, I can accept that. I should go back and read those books.

The main problem is its exactly what SOM said. Changing characters to ethnics comes across as PC or trying to bring in ethnic fans.
As I said, if you changed a black character to white, it would be hailed as racist, so there is no way they would do it. The other way round, you are racist if you complain about them changing a white character to an ethnic character.

Simple fact is, with all the black characters in comics, why not just use one of them (Bronze Tiger being the perfect example for Suicide Squad).
And with Elba, I am a massive fan of his, but no way should he be Bond. Shit, why not just write a new character for him and try to start a new franchise? Next thing you know they will cast a woman, to appease feminists and change his name to Jane Bond.

But most of those characters are concepts, rather than having physical attributes.

Bond is an interesting case in point. He is definitely male (a woman wouldn't work - even a lipstick lesbian with a ferocious sex drive would be off concept), British (not Scottish, Limburgh you arse), a spy, and a patriot. Making Bond black is only PC in so far as it suggests that a black guy can be just as patriotic to the British crown as any white guy. Which, while not a bad message to be sending to Islamised Englishmen of subcontinental origin, is a stretch: may as well have Elba play 003, a more senior agent in the 00 division, who dies patriotically for Queen and Country, if you wanted to communicate that message.

Would Batman work if he was black? Warren Ellis tackled that with Simon Spector, and it worked well. No reason why Bruce Wayne couldn't be a black guy in a movie, other than it would be jarring to an audience used to a white guy.

Perry White was a black guy in Man of Steel: don't know if there was any kerfuffle about it and I barely noticed it.

Could Black Panther be a white guy? Nope, same reason why Tarzan would not work as a black guy. Ethnicity is fundamental to the story.

So am I bothered that Deadshot, one of my favourite characters in Suicide Squad, is being portrayed by a black guy? Nope. Honestly, the character is more obscure than Perry White, 99 out of 100 people in the audience would not know that Floyd is a white guy in the comics.

I don't remember there being any kerfuffle over Morpheus playing Perry White. If there was, it probably got buried by all the fanboy outrage over Superman killing Zod.

Its true that there were more fundamental issues with the movie.

You miss the point though. The fact is, rather than use existing characters that are already black, why specifically choose a character that has always been white and change the colour or his skin? Deadshot could easily have stayed white and Smith could have been Bronze Tiger. Its just typical shoe horning to try and not have an all white cast (what other reason can there be for casting Johnny Storm as black and Sue Storm as white?).
Look at the stink they are coming up with at the moment over the casting of Johanssen in the Ghost in the shell movie, and even coming up with things like "typical hollywood whitewashing ethnic characters" all the while forgetting how many traditionally white characters have been cast with non white characters.

As for James Bond, sorry dude you got it all wrong, as much as I am loathe to admit it, he is Scottish. The whole Skyfall/Scotland thing was established by Fleming himself (although granted, after Connery was cast). Although to be more specific, half Scottish half Swiss.

I agree with Cunty that Smith would have been the perfect fit for Bronze Tiger, and that making him Deadshot is just token pandering. It might not matter fundamentally to the character, but there's a reason they didn't cast Patrick Stewart as Cyclops.

Meanwhile, Tom Hardy saw where this boat is sinking and jumped ship. He's being replaced with Jake "Second-Hand Joseph Gordon Levitt" Gyllenhal...

In Fox's defense, they managed to avoid getting the brunt of fan outrage over the African American Johnny Storm, mainly because fan outrage is now directed solely at Dr. Doom, who is now just an angry blogger.

I think it was more due to the fact that everything about the proposed movie sounded terrible that the anger was more scattershot like a shotgun blast.

I hate it when they change the race of a character, because I agree that it isn't done for the right reasons.

You can always create a new character. I have never read it but it looks like Marvel got it right with Miles Morales becoming Spider Man.

They didn't just make Peter Parker a black kid.

It depends on the reasoning for me. If it's just to be PC as the case with the FF movie clearly is, then that's bullshit. If it's because the best actor for the role performance wise just happens to be another race, as was the case with Morgan Freeman for The Shawshank Redemption, then that is okay. I think the casting of Smith may have been just as much about attaching a serious A list actor to the role to gain notoriety as much as if not more so than the PC reason. We'll see what is what with that if (when?) Smith backs out and they replace him.

They should at least get a song from Smith out of the whole deal. Preferably with Akon doing the chorus.

Here comes the Suicide Squad
Belle Reve's defenders
Here comes the Suicide Squad
Ain't got no black pretenders

But once again, they could easily have attached an a-lister like Smith in a role like Bronze Tiger. Instead they chose to insert him into a white man (Wonderboys favourite thing).
It just smacks of the same PC bullshit as FF.
And by all accounts, Smiths role is getting expanded all the time to the point that Tom Hardy has had his role reduced so much that he quit.

And lets not get started on the rumour that Rick Flag turns on the team at the end because his father is the main villain. Another rumoured reason why Hardy quit.

Not if they don't want or need that character. They want Deadshot and everything that character brings. Arbitrarily saying that you can't cast a black actor in a role that was originally portrayed as white when the race of the character really has no bearing on it is just as bad as changing a character's race just for PC purposes.

As far as them expanding Smith's role to the detriment of all else, that sounds less like a 'he's black' thing and more like a 'Smith's a mutli-million dollar box office draw' deal. That and a Scientologist.

scientologists always get their way because science is on their side.

I don't think Smith will do a movie if he's not the center of attention, that's why he reportedly couldn't work things out with Tarantino to play Django.

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/71055

Shouldn't the SJW crowd be having a shit fit over that pic of Leto right about now?

Ha! that's excellent!

What the hell is Suicide Squad?

They're those emo girls that take their clothes off and take nudie pics.

Oh!

I thought it was octopi which kill themselves.

So. Now we have a possible appearance by Deathstroke:

http://au.ign.com/articles/2015/04/14/jim-parrack-teases-deathstroke-role-in-suicide-squad

Jared Leto's Joker Revealed For 'Suicide Squad'


Looks like something airbrushed on the side of a van

I like that they have gone a different route with this. Going back to a more traditional Joker (like Nicholson) after Ledgers Joker would be a bad move. I think this look brings the character bang up to date. Has that kind of Marilyn Manson rock star vibe going on.

Ok, I am starting to have real high hopes for this.
Team looks quite cool. (especially like the look they have gone for with Harley & Katana)

http://nerdist.com/the-first-official-look-at-harley-quinn-and-the-suicide-squad/



and I do like the Deadshot mask

Hawt!

Harley looks a little too much like a...I hate to say it...suicide girl for my taste but the rest-esp Katanna-look great.

Flag in the middle, with Harley Quin to his right. Then Deadshot, Killer Croc, and... Zzasz?

Is that Poison Ivy to the left? And Deathstroke and Captain Boomerang?

The guys on each end are Slipknot and El Diablo. So... pretty much fodder to show that the Suicide Squad moniker is apt.

The other bird is Enchantress, not Poison Ivy.

Where's Skurge the Executioner

Enchantress looks like a homeless chick I once met in San Diego who was talking to the urban trees. She had an exceptionally long one with this guy:

http://www.comicbookresources.com/article/official-sdcc-suicide-squad-first-look-arrives-online

Looks remarkably decent

I could watch Margot Robbie doing cage yoga for 120 minutes. In 3D. and feel like I gypped the theater.

Yeah, Margot Robbie


Wait, was I saying something.