Question about how audiences percieve fantasy films.

H

harmonica44

When it comes to movies like The Lord of the Rings for example or most movies like it, all the characters are British always. Even in the new Prince of Persia movie, they gave all the Persians British accents, just cause that's what they think audiences expect I guess, but why? Would it hurt to those movies with other ones? What if in the Lord of the Rings they had different accents, or made up ones to fit the made up world?

What if in Prince of Persia, all the Persians had Arab accents since that's closer to what Persian would have sounded like more so than British? Would audiences really care?
 
It's a convention that's been around a long while. I think it continues to be used because it's convenientt and it works. There's something simple and aesthetically pleasing about it. One good reason that it makes perfect sense for the LOTR flims is that it was created by an Englishman whom they're always going on about having loved the language. It did cross my mind when I watched Prince of Persia. I didn't mind it though. I think I would probably prefer it. Sounded like music to my ears. Of course I'm one of the countless Americans who like the sound of an English accent...the posh ones, at least. I'm sure I would prefer it to having the actors delivering fake Arabic accents. Sure, authenticity is nice, but I doubt that anything, including authenticity, trumps artisit license in filmmaking.
 
Well another thing is that they didn't even hire real Arab actors for the role, or at least ones that could pass. At least for movie like say, Blood Diamond they hired real Black actors to fit the roles, and for The Hurt Locker the Arabs looked like real Arabs, so why not Prince of Persia?

Plus although the non-British actors did fake accents, any Englishman can tell they are fake. Just like how any Arab could tell if an accent is being faked. So it wouldn't have made a difference whether it was a fake British one as oppose to fake Arab, at least not when you look at it from both sides.
 
Er, wait a minute. It just occurred to me, belatedly, that we should be talking about Persian accents in regard to The Prince of Persia. :rolleyes:
 
Considering The Prince of Persia specifically, I think the choices that they made were fine. I think that assembling a Persian cast would have been a prohibitive burden for a Hollywood production. What they did was fine by me.
 
I don't know about that. America doesn't mind when they use more accurate foreign groups for other movies. And a lot of times it seems that movies trying to be more accurate or fitting to a setting or place is a breath of fresh air to most audiences, when it is done. I think Hollywood is fearful and assumes America can't stand non British accents, instead of being more open minded about the audience.
 
Don't forget, all ancient Romans are actually British.

It may have to do with the fact that classically-trained actors just sound better delivering stylized dialogue like you see in period pieces.
 
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