I would agree, but the fact remains that Herbert described them as dark skinned. Also leathery tanned and sinewy. I'm sure they'll take liberties with the "desiccated" look of the desert Fremen, but using generally dark(er) skinned people seems right.
And my point is that Arabs tick off all those boxes. You can do and not just cast generic "darker skinned people". The only official art of Fremen is this:
All we see is the head, which is exposed to the sun. Said face is bronze, brownish. And again, we know that the Fremen live underground, and migrated there. I see no reason why they would wholly dark-skinned.
Again, the woman is described as being small, very skinny, elfin faced, dark skinned and with red hair. Now, except for the red hair, Zendaya works perfectly... There is no specific earthbound ethnicity given to Fremen in the books (although Herbert reportedly based them on Bedu and San People), so from simple looks, Zendaya fits the bill, right?
Well, you think she works perfectly. I don't, because her features are not what I envisioned.
Still, she is a known name, in a movie filled with known names... It doesn't hurt to put a teen star in your film if you want to pull in young demographics, does it? Chalamet and Zendaya are (irrespective of their talent or lack thereof) good to draw teens and younger folk to the theatre.
I wouldn't call her a known name. She's just being pushed. Brad Pitt is a Superstar, Clive Owen is a known name, Chalamet is an up and coming name, Zendaya is just there.
Well, again, the source says they are dark skinned, sinewy, strong people... As far as I remember, the only red hair mentioned is Chani's. Too bad they didn't dye Zendaya's hair, but it's a bit of minor point, isn't it? Bardem's casting as Stilgar would probably be more of an eyebrow raiser, but then again, there's enough fair-skinned Bedu for Bardem to work.
Banderas' played an Arab before, in the 13th Warrior. Both Europeans and MENAs are Caucasoid so, IMO, it works more than a mixed black American girl.
I'm not sure I agree with this... In Star Wars everybody's white. Except for the aliens, but then again Chewie is kinda on the light side of fur...
Lando isn't white, neither is Mace Windu. And I was mostly talking about the Aliens. They all have a specific traits and looks, and that's what I want from my Space Operas. That extends to Houses and Races/Species/Everything. Even to something like "The Witcher". I cannot take a Medieval Polish setting seriously (yeah I know, the writer's a greedy guy who's backtracked on everything, but let's not pretend he wasn't trying to do for Polish folklore what Tolkien did for British), when somehow Asians and blacks are all over the place, and everyone's somehow perfectly okay with them, but as soon as a guy with white hair and bright eyes walks in, they start behvaing like Sublime has infected them. Sometimes you need uniformality.
Or take the Lynch Dune adaptation, everybody's white and (despite the mess the movie is), you can tell who the bad guys and who the good guys are.
You can tell who the bad guys are in Lynch's adaptation since they're ugly, slimy and degenerate. Skin colour plays no role, as the Harkonnens are white yet still are scum.
I think that's the issue... you want it to be a certain way, but, honestly, I don't think you're bringing up solid arguments.
Sure I want it to be a certain way. Why would I even argue if I didn't want something else than what I'm getting? In general, I don't think all genres, subgenres and whatever else, can have the same kind of casting. There are limitations and guidelines in order to differentiate them. And I think my arguments are pretty solid. The source material talks about "dark skinned" people, who wear special suits and live underground, while being migrants to the land, and later they're retconned as Space Sunni. You have the chance to go with MENAs, have some actual diversity, and are instead just going with the same old American blacks/mixed. It's a boring choice; wholy unironinal. And it doesn't IMO work at all.
Here's fanart of Chani with a tanned, brown skin, red hair and everything:
Sexy, but those big boobs don't really work for me with the whole idea of "sinewy" and "desiccated". And where's the dark/tanned skin? Other than the blue in blue eyes (and not even those are quite right) and the red hair, I don't see how that represents Chani.
Thos are aren't really big breasts. And that is tanned skin. That's what tanned skin looks like.
And if we want to talk about a darker, natural skintone, here's Rami Malek:
Here he's got a tan going on, which is what I envisioned the Fremen to be:
Here's Sofia Boutela:
Here are the two leads from an Iranian film, "The Seperation":
And here's a still from "Lawrence Of Arabia", with regular Arabs:
All of them are darker skinned. Some have a tan, others are straight-up dark. Hell, Peter O'Toole's got the same skintone as some of them. They're darker than a mixed American black. But the difference is there; they aren't black. As far tans go, they are more of a bronze, yellow-ish colour. Which is my point. Zendaya's just a mixed black girl. Her skin's that mixed "mocha". It doesn't come off as tanned, because it's not. And her features are a mix of White & African, not Arabic.
Either way, I don't see the point in going over circles. I don't like the casting and I've explained my reasons. Hollywood talks about diversity all the time, and all it does is hand out white and even non-white roles to the same old American mixed and not blacks. All gingers go to them, for some reason. They're free to do what they want, they're their movies, games, whatever, but I don't have to like it.
