i don't think taht there should be a movie.

• Everytime a book movie comes out, they mess it up.
  
• Why do books have to be turned into movies? Aren't the books good enough?
  

However, if a movie did come out, I would be the first to get a ticket!!!

Meteorite: the question on the table probably is why can't a Brit be a good guy in a Yank movie without ditching the British accent?

OTOH, Mr. Gruffydd managed to be a good guy in TITANIC while retaining the Welsh accent. [grin]. Check out the bit where Kate Winslet get rescued and notice who's manning that particular lifeboat.

And adding to the counter-example list, I shall also mention a particular librarian in the television show of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Rubywolf: there has to be a movie to entice those people who don't read to go buy books.

Meteorite - yeah, Kathy hit it: House can be considered an exception, if you like (although I do think he's fundamentally a good guy) but Mr Fantastic just proves my point. Er, such as it is. My vendetta. Whereas you have Gaius Baltar, or... or... okay, look, I can't think of other examples but they're totally out there. :P Ethan and early Spike from Buffy (okay, fine, then you have to deal with Giles and Wesley, I suppose. Although early Wes is such an incompetent and that's completely associated with his bookishness, ie britness).

Actually, I suspect it's secret anti-classism; upper-class British accent = wealthy + symbolic of The Empire = evil. (Palpatine? Does Palpatine have a brit accent? I do not know.)

*scratches head* I'm going to go away and collate some examples. Plot. Plot.

quote:

there has to be a movie to entice those people who don't read to go buy books.

Heresy!

quote:

Originally posted by Birdhead:

Actually, I suspect it's secret anti-classism; upper-class British accent = wealthy + symbolic of The Empire = evil. (Palpatine? Does Palpatine have a brit accent? I do not know.)

Aha! Thank you for jogging my noggin! Many of the good-guy actors in the Star Wars series were British: Sir Alec Guinness, Anthony Daniels, Ewan McGregor, et. al. Indiana Jones' trusted contact in Egypt, Sallah, was played by John Rhys-Davies. I have to scratch around some more, but there have to be other examples where being British in an American film didn't mean you were automatically playing a bad guy.

Sir Alec Guinness, Ewan McGregor

You so only get to use them as one example!

OK, my hypothesis is crumbling under the weight of your counterexamples, so I'll gracefull resign.

there's also the fact that when bird head said

quote:

fundamentally a good guy) but Mr Fantastic just proves my point. Er, such as it is. My vendetta. Whereas you have Gaius Baltar, or... or... okay, look, I can't think of other examples but they're totally out there. :P Ethan and early Spike from Buffy (okay, fine, then you have to deal with Giles and Wesley, I suppose. Although early Wes is such an incompetent and that's completely associated with his bookishness, ie britness).

as a bad thing about weasly and giles, she was actually pointint out good characters who were british at the same time. i don't even know why i'm getting into this, since i really don't have an oppinion one way or another at the moment, but still, there you have it.

I'm fond of Ioan Gruffydd, ever since he played the lead in the A&E Hornblower series. He's got several American roles under his belt, both with and without accent.

There just aren't that many redheaded actors of sufficient caliber to play the Lone Power, British or not. You need the ability to project a certain amount of powerful menace and, yes, evil.

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a bad thing about weasly and giles

No, no! I was saying it was a bad thing about Spike and Ethan, and then conceding Giles and Wes. :P

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There just aren't that many redheaded actors of sufficient caliber to play the Lone Power, British or not.

Or actors of any hair colour, IMO. And they also have to be damn pretty.

right now, there are no actors period who have the capability or skill to play the LP. It is that evil. Well, maybe one of the people on Saturday Night Live. Oh, and I could do it.

I don't suppose there IS many that could play the evil of the lp in full force, but evil doesn't necessarily have to SEEM evil...in fact, it's more likely to disguise itself, and even if it doesn't hide it completely...
the implication that there's always more evil underneath the surface that you're not seeing, is often more powerful then seeing it all at once.

Going back to no one being evil enough to play the lp, well, there is one, but he is not an actor. President Goerge Bush president of the US (I m aloud 2 say this as I m an American...a human ofany sort, actually)

As much as Bush gets on my nerves, I'd hardly say he's evil, especially compared to some figures in history . . .
Anyway, I'm imagining who would play characters in later books (like, in a million years, right). Particularly interested in who would do well as Ronan and Roshaun . . .

I think I'm qualified to comment on Bush, since I'm in Canada (AKA, next door).

He is a phony leader. He cant talk. Plus, he's a mass murderer. It's kind of funny when people talk about getting rapist and killers behind bars...how about him. He's like Hussain instructing people to sacrifice themselves in order to kill others. In a sense, Bush is sending a bunch of young soldiers out there...just to put themselves under unnecessary danger...but that's my opinion.

On another note...Screenplay! yeah!

I don't like bush, but even i can't use evil to describe him...
evil involves an enjoyment of giving others pain, and i hesitate too apply that to anyone unless i know for certain.

Somebody modlike wanna move the bush-bashing to chatter? Not that I'm necessarily opposed to it (although I do think putting him on a level with the LP is a bit melodramatic), it just might be considered inappropriate here.

Re: who would play Roshaun. He's not blonde, although I'm sure a lot of peroxide would fix that, but I've been watching a few ridiculous japanese teenage dramas (I have a friend who really digs them, and I like this friend so I'm tolerant) and I have to submit Kazuya Kamenashi (or Kamenashi Kayuza. I'm pretty sure Kayuza is his family name, anyway.) obviously, he's... Japanese. But Roshaun is supposed to look like an anime prince! As an added bonus, he has the bored look down absolutely pat. He would be hilarious. :P

Tui, you volunteering for mod duty? No, I'm not moving it, because that would require creating an entire thread for it, and as it's pretty much dead already in here, I don't see the need to encourage more of same/rebuttal/etc. And it's about as on-topic as, well, British actors as bad guy casting.

BTW, while a lot of good guy parts in Star Wars were Brits, so were a lot of bad guys. Star Wars, having begun the entire trend of filming in the UK and at Elstree, peopled the entire background with Brits. It's why every Imperial officer not in stormtrooper gear speaks with a Brit accent. Nearly every one of the X-wing and Y-wing pilots in the final attack on the Death Star is someone you could also find on Masterpiece Theatre (one of them, notably, in Brideshead Revisited).

It's like Casablanca--you've got bit parts being filled by star-level actors.

And (to move back topicwards), anybody else listen to the Bibliofile podcasts with DD in them? I loved the bits where she and Peter Beagle are sharing their knowledge of screenwriting for Star Trek and how-Hollywood-works at each other.

quote:

And it's about as on-topic as, well, British actors as bad guy casting.

Yeah, but it's meaner!!!

I'm not volunteering for ANYTHING, being sane. I was just remembering what happened the last time I saw people bush-bashing, and it wasn't all that nice, and sometimes invoking mods is handy even if they don't do anything. It's nice to know y'all are paying attention to us, you know?

I haven't listened to the podcasts yet, but I will. Maybe they will be the first podcasts ever on my new toy! *pets it*

ETA: I totally sound like a mad censorship freak, I realise, re-reading my last two posts. I'm really not. Honest! I just find bush-bashing a bit wearying so I like to put people off it but, you know, most people ignore me. and I'm really not helping by keeping. bringing. it. up. I'm just, you know, not a bossy nut.

Birdhead: Kazuya is a given name, Kamenashi is a surname. I'm trying to think of a nice simple way for people not familiar with Japanese names to identify which is which, but I can't think of one. A lot of boys names end with the syllables -ya, -ki, -ta, -hei, -suke, -hiro, -mitsu, or -kazu. Girl's names tend to end with -ko, -ka, -mi, -ri, -tsuki or -ku. Not all given names end in these syllables, but most. Not all names that end in these syllables are given names. But most. I hope that helps.

Wow, that was really off topic . . .

Yeah, movie . . . um, excellent! I've always thought that the YW books would lend themselves very well to the screen. Probably because DD is also a screenwriter, her works have wonderfully balanced timing, both within and between individual scenes. I hope that makes sense to someone other than myself.

What the Japanese origami community's begun doing to help out us poor ignorant Westerners is whenever they're romanizing names, to all-caps the family name, since some of them like to switch to Western-style names, while others like original Japanese ordering. So, you can open up a Tanteidan annual and find KAMIYA Satoshi, HOJYO Takashi, and Hideo KOMATSU.

BTW, for those that don't know about the podcasts I was speaking of, here's the link to Bibliofile. DD calls in twice in the Peter Beagle podcast, and I think it's around halfway through, but not sure which part it starts with. I'm interested in Peter Beagle, so I downloaded and listened to the whole thing.

The other interesting note was that I believe DD mentioned that she might end up reviving the Wizcast to talk about the development of the SYWTBAW film if it happens. Or maybe that was a blog entry or something. I'm getting old. My memory's all fuzzy 'round the edges.

Just an amendment to Wilf's post - he linked to the latest post on DD's blog, which will change. And an edit to my post for the new excerpt.

Links to the specific posts: SYWTBAW screenplay excerpt, SYWTBAW background and FAQ, second excerpt.

The Livejournal versions have a lot more comments (over 140 combined so far):
excerpt, background/FAQ, second excerpt.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Peter Murray,