Are these female lead remakes are getting out of hand now?

The recent new version of Lost in Space, which I haven't seen but I've read about, is another good one to mention. I believe the Robinson family have an adopted child who is black (the new Fantastic Four applied the same principle but in reverse, Sue being adopted by the black Doctor Storm). Plus, their Doctor Smith is female, and played by Parker Posey.

I think the problem they've got with these things is that they very often look manufactured, or just that they're trying too hard. With that in mind I agree with what you say below, and it has become very political:

And then we're getting into the mentioned problem. If we're being fed with annoying and unnatural "token" diversity leads... genuine female/black etc characters might also suffer because we think - is that another one of these political statements?

I don't want to think about that when checking or watching a movie, but unfortunately it is a reasonable thought.
Leads to distraction and less appreciation of such characters though.

It is pretty patronizing to women to suggest they need special movies made just for them.

Just write the same movies but with female characters.

I was thinking the other day that so many of my favourite films, some very recent favourites, have two female leads. It's a recurring pattern.

This is actually interesting cause my friend didn't like The Karate Kid remake, cause he said that it was because they made the lead character black, unlike the original, and he thought they were doing it as a political statement, and he didn't like the remake as a result.

I wasn't bothered by this though, and I felt the remake might have actually outdone the original in some ways, and it never occurred to me that the kid being black was done as a statement.

Do you think so?

But then again, if you were to remake a martial arts movie, like The Last Dragon, and make the lead character white, people would be very disappointed in that I am guessing.

They wouldn't be disappointed, they'd be screaming bloody racism. Funny how that works, isn't it?

If you all feel this way.. then how about Hollywood stop making American remakes of foreign films.. Its pretty much the same sh*t...

Hell the Argentine version is a lot better than the American remake of "El Secreto de Sus Ojos".

and seriously, if you dont watch foreign films.. you really have no say in this...

better yet, lets remake these movies with a gay cast...

Oh okay, maybe I'm being doubles-standardish here, but I actually like when Hollywood remakes foreign films when they put a new take on it. As long as it's done well. But I feel it helps to bring in a new audience to a not so well known foreign film. Where as movies like Ghostbusters and The Expendables are well known to people in comparison.

I definitely hope they'd stop that too but I guess it's not happening until US audiences learn to read subtitles.

I don't think it's just about subtitles being a problem for people though. The US market doesn't really market foreign films very well, cause most people don't even know what a lot of these movies are. For example, a lot of people I know, do not know there is a Swedish Girl with the Dragon Tattoo but everyone I know, knows about the American one. So the US has failed to promote the Swedish one just as much, and perhaps they need to just as much advertising or theater showings, or something.

Oh it's about the subtitles...I hear it a lot

"I don't want to read while I'm trying to watch a movie"..

If any film is well made...you don't really need to read...but focus on the visual story.

Not only that the actors can tell you a lot – I'm usually much more interested in the faces of the actors than the subtitles .

I'm unfamiliar with anything Karate Kid, but what you describe here pretty much what I was assuming will happen over time for many people - although I think for most it will be less extreme than for your friend. I think most won't and shouldn't be so distracted by the thought of political correctness statements that they literally don't like the whole movie.
It would be more subtle I think, but it might happen... more general negativity towards black/female etc leads.

I think that has nothing to do with black/female etc remakes.
In the end, let's say Sherlock Holmes becomes a black woman (**) - this would be taking an established male character and giving him a sex-change for what ever reason (besides politics)... and if politics are the driving factors chances are the product is gonna be bad because politics aren't a good source of inspiration for media that has nothing to do with politics and is supposed to entertain and fascinate.

If you remake a foreign movie you mostly don't even change the original characters, they stay the same and are just different actors.
Sometimes of course ethnicities will change naturally. This however happens natural and is very obviously not inspired by political correctness, which is why the PC re-castings seem unnatural.
A lot of people also don't know the foreign versions before America has a go at them. Thus you don't change established characters. They are only established for people who knew them before, which often aren't many outside the original country.
And if it's a single movie, as is mostly the case I think, those often aren't really established characters of the same kind as James Bond or Mr Holmes etc...

(**) Ps: Not even sure that is so unlikely - he and Watson have already become female on a HBO series.

Unless you're dyslexic....

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UGH, people keep talking about movies getting too political, just for casting a woman or a black person in it, which is silly. it'd be political if the whole time, they kept making a big deal of how she's a woman/person of color/whatev, comparing it to a man or something like that. the choice to cast it that way in the first place is political i guess, but i don't see how it affects the movie, or somehow magically makes the movie itself political, as it is possible to make remakes slightly different, or even quite different, from a different perspective, and they can still be good.

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letterboxd

That's true.

Yeah, this is very wrong for the simple fact that anything can be political if one allows it to be.

You’re arguing that applying a political message to something that wasn’t “meant” to be political diminishes the product? Well, it’s quite easy and a frequent practice of adaptations to apply a political message to pre-existing properties. Keep in mind that very few things are apolitical in any case. Shining a light on the doctrines that informed the original work or even changing them to suit a contemporary audience happens every day and some find that it adds to the enjoyment of the consumption.

Isn’t the OP arguing this very thing?

Well I am arguing that applying a political statement does not shed a light all the time. Sometimes it's just done at the hopes of pulling in a new audience, but a lot of viewers see through it and see it as trying to force politics onto it maybe.

I have no problems with James Bond being played by Idris Elba or even Charlize Theron being the first female James Bond aka Jane Bond..