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It’s been a little while since I last posted.  I was planning writing a review of the Amazing Spider-man, but then I went on a week long cruise the day after I saw it and it got sidelined (I saw whales!  It was awesome!).  I’m not going to write a long review, but I will say a little bit about it.  I really liked it, more-so than the original movies (which I liked a lot).  I liked that it felt smaller in scale than those previous films.  Not that it didn’t have plenty of comic book action, but the story felt more personal. It was a movie about a Person with powers, instead of a person with Powers.  I liked Emma Stone as Gwenn Stacy.  I liked that she fit into the love interest role very well, while not being a stereotypical superhero love interest.  She was smart and not in just a “oh look she’s pretty and brainy, aren’t we progressive?” way.  When she got the “I’m going to push you away so I don’t put you in danger” treatment, she knew exactly what was happening and refused to accept it.  And she served a function in the plot other than to be imperiled and-or longed for.  Also, she and Andrew Garfield had really good chemistry together.  Speaking of Garfield, he was very good.  He brought several layers to Peter Parker, which are there in the comics, but I hadn’t seen in the earlier films.  He aptly portrayed Peter as an awkward kid with an enormous burden.  We saw his guilt over his part in his uncle’s death, and his unbridled joy in discovering his new powers.  I also really enjoyed the scene when those powers first manifested

Okay those were my thoughts.  Now to make up for the lack of a legnthy review, here are a bunch of links!

On the topic of our friendly neighborhood web-slinger, check out this Spider-man fan film from 1969!  It’s charmingly homemade, and does capture the simplistic and sort of hokey feel of the early sixties issues.

And here is an awesome article about why Princess Leia is such an important icon.

And now an enormous and intricately detailed model of Serenity, made out of Lego!  How freaking cool is that?

This I only just discovered.  It’s a tumbler devoted to reviewing, page by page the novelization of Back to the Future.  It picks apart the questionable quality of the writing, while also analyzing the story itself.  I especially liked this passage.

“To buy into Back To The Future, you need to accept not only that time travel exists, but that there exists a META-TIME, because changes to the timeline THEMSELVES take time: Marty stops his parents from meeting and rather than disappearing right away, he has a week in 1955 to sort this out before the consequences of that become critical.  In other words, whatever change you make to the timeline ripples through it like a wave in a bedsheet, altering things as it goes, and you’ve got until when that wave catches up with you to fix things if you’ve done something dumb like prevent yourself from being born.

Proof for this is that Marty’s siblings faded away in order from oldest to youngest – the change caught up with them first!   We’re going to assume you start to fade when your birth gets interfered with.  The fading isn’t consistent (Brother Dave fades from top to bottom while Marty just gets less and less opaque), but we’re estimating!  Here we could assume instead that you start fading when the date of your conception gets messed with rather than date of your birth, but we’re not, because that’s a rabbit hole of tracing events back to causes that puts us back in 1955 again.

So!  Since we know the day Marty arrived in 1955 and stopped his parents from meeting (Saturday, November 5th), the day he started actually fading away (a week later on Saturday, November 12th, 1955), the year Marty was born (1968) AND we even can guess at the day (most stuff puts his birthday at either June 12th or June 9th (same as Michael J!)) we can calculate pretty reliably how fast this meta-time lets changes move in this story, which is how fast changes to the timeline propagate.

A change made to the timeline on November 5th, 1955 takes 7 days of real time to ripple through time and reach June 9th, 1968.  That’s 4,604 future days to ripple through (inclusive, so we’re assuming that Marty was born near the end of the day, but it doesn’t make THAT much of a difference), therefore meta-time travels at about 657.71 times faster than regular time here.

One problem, cats and kittens: with this number Dave actually fades out too soon (he’s not born till 1963 but he shows effects of fading early in the morning of November 6th, 1955, and with our meta-time speed the changes should only 3.6 years out by then, back in good old 1959).  So we adjust our theory to say that these changes here travel at a speed that AVERAGES out to that 657.71 times faster number, but it can go faster and slower in places.

This raises the question: what does this propagation speed depend on?  Well, there’s actually evidence in the movie that lets us conclude that the speed of changes to the timeline is dependent how much it’s being changed from its original shape.  AND I CAN PROVE IT WITH MATHS AND LOGICS:

So remember that Marty starts to fade, and then Lorraine and George kiss and BAM, everyone in Marty’s photograph fades back in right away, one after the other.  This is obviously way faster than our number from before, but we incorporate this by assuming that the timeline is flexible, but like a spring, it has a preferred shape.  Changes that restore it to its original form propagate much faster (30 years of timeline gets restored in about 4 seconds here, which is a meta-time transmission speed of a zany 236,676,945 times faster than regular time), while those that deform it into unusual shapes travel at our (much) slower speed.

HOWEVER: it gets more a teensy bit more complicated when you do something that changes the timeline back to its original form in one way, but changes it in another way (like oh I don’t know coming up with and then executing a plan to get your parents back together in such a way that one of them experiences an epiphany and moment of personal growth while the other gets assaulted??).   In this case you have TWO ripples going out: the restorative one that puts things back as they were originally with children being born and what not, and the altering one that applies the changes from that baseline.

That’s RIGHT: two ripples, baby, and they’re travelling at different speeds, with the restorative one several orders of magnitude faster!  This is critical because soon when Marty returns back to 1985 he’ll witness himself going back in time again as he remembers it happening, go to bed, and wake up in a future he barely recognizes.  The restorative ripple goes through time, restoring his family, in about four seconds.  We see that happen with the photograph.

What we don’t see (because Marty travels through time pretty quickly after this dance and never looks at the photograph again) is the alterations to the baseline timeline that are happening in the meantime, at a slower speed.  These are the ones changing his family history to the “improved” edition.  When Marty arrives in 1985 he actually gets there BEFORE the alteration ripple gets there (he’s travelled through time and in doing so jumped over the ripple travelling through metatime), so he can watch himself, then he goes to bed.  As he sleeps the altering ripple catches up and changes things around him, causing him to wake up in a 1985 he doesn’t recognize.  This ripple goes faster than the original one did, travelling 30 years in only about 8 hours of real time instead of a week, but here the changes are proportionally much smaller!  All that’s changing is jobs and lifestyles for a few characters, we’re not dealing with an entire family never existing.

I hope that this post convinces you that changes to the timeline in the Back to the Future (Part 1) universe take time to travel through time, and that the speed at which this metatime allows changes is proportional to the size of the change being made!

INTERESTING ASIDE: One cool thing we get from this theory is that a more minor change Marty made in 1955 could’ve affected him while he was hanging out there, and it’s a shame he didn’t put any money in a bank account when he was there because midway through his week in the past he could suddenly discover that he’s rich!!

INTERESTING ASIDE 2: some of you are probably saying “Wait when Marty watches himself it’s the Lone Pine Mall instead of the Twin Pines Mall he remembers, this ruins the theory!” but ACTUALLY, it only strengthens it.  One of the first things Marty does when he arrives in 1955 is kill a pine tree, and that minor ripple had a full week of real time to arrive in 1955.  When I said earlier there are TWO ripples, I was simplifying: each change actually gets its own ripple, which propagates at a speed dependent on the magnitude of the change.  This makes sense as soon as you realize that changes are obviously a spectrum, and not just “major” or “minor”.  When Marty arrives in 1985 again it’s already changed from what he’s remembered in minor ways, in the process of changing in more major ways, and will change more over the next few hours as everything stabilizes into the new normal.

INTERESTING ASIDE THE THIRD: the fact that Marty isn’t altered as the timeline catches up with him is something we’ll deal with down the road, because it raises some timey-wimey issues too!”

Okay, hope everybody is good.  That’s all I’ve got right now.  I’ll probably be back after I’ve seen the Dark Knight Rises (if I see it while it’s still in theaters).

The Avengers is only a few weeks away!  I’m super excited (and already have tickets for opening weekend).  I think Joss Whedon was the perfect choice to direct.  He knows how to direct dynamic action sequences without losing sight of character arcs, and can handle a large ensemble without having one or two characters dominating while the rest get lost in the shuffle.  And he always brings the funny.  So in honor of this excellent director/comic pairing, I thought I’d try matching up comic books I want to see adapted with the directors that should do the adapting.

Maus as directed by Julie Taymor.  Maus is a masterpiece.  It’s the only comic to win the Pulitzer for literature.  And it’s probably unfilmable.  But if it ever is, Taumor is probably the only director who could pull it off.  I know her last comic adaptation, the Spider-man musical, didn’t work out so well, but Maus is far more in her wheelhouse.  Most of her work both on screen and stage has dealt with death and or tragedy.  She often uses masks and puppets to create moving and effective imagery, dealing with some of the darkest aspects of the human experience.  Maus is a holocaust survivor’s story as told by his son.  The Jews are depicted as anthropomorphized mice and the Nazis are cats.  Masks are a running motif throughout the comic.  Maus isn’t really a project I see movie producers clambering to make happen, but I’d be fascinated to see it.

Y the Last Man as directed by JJ Abrams.  In YLM a mysterious plague kills every male person and animal on Earth except for one man and his pet monkey.  The comic follows the last man on earth as he and a few companions travel through the ruins of society (the loss of half the world’s population overnight, caused some serious chaos) trying to figure out what happened.  This is complicated by the fact that he is the most valuable commodity on the planet, and is pursued by numerous governments and organizations.  JJ Abrams is one of the most successful television creators in recent memories.  He has a hand in such diverse projects as Lost, Felicity, Alias, and Fringe.  He’s recently had big screen success with Super 8 and the Star Trek reboot.  He’s got the chops when it comes to action, as well as suspenseful conspiracies (aside from pretty much all of the later seasons of Alias).  What he’s really good at is getting you really invested in characters in the midst of some crazy circumstances, and while the premise of YLM was great, what made it a must read were Yorick, Agent 355 and Dr. Mann.

Death as directed by Neil Gaiman.  Technically I’m cheating here.  At one time Neil was set to direct an adaptation of his comic Death the Time of Your Life.  But it seems to have fallen by the wayside.  I would love to see it revived.  Gaiman’s Death is one of the most original and compelling characters to come out of comics in the last twenty years.  And if anyone can get an adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s work right, it’s Neil Gaiman.

Fables as directed by Peter Jackson.  Fables is a big story, it’s been running for over a decade and more than a hundred issues.  There are hundreds of major characters and thousands of secondary characters.  I actually don’t want to see a direct adaptation (although I think Jackson could handle it).  The Fables universe is expansive.  I’d like to see an original story set in the Fables universe, featuring some of the less used characters (like what creator Bill Willingham did in the Fables novel Peter and Max).  Jackson have proven that he can create fully realized fantasy worlds.  And he’s done darker stories.  I think he can balance humor, magical elements of the series, while not shying away from it’s creepy side.  I know he’d give us a fairy tale that didn’t reek of Disney.

Runaways as directed by Joss Whedon.  What?  You didn’t think I’d let Joss get away with directing only one comic book movie, did you?  Runaways is one of my all time favorite super hero comics (though the kids in Runaways aren’t traditional super heroes).  With a bunch of sarcastic, smart, angsty, pop culture reference making teenagers with superpowers at its center, Runaways felt like a spiritual successor to Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  Whedon was such a fan that he wrote an arc of the series after creator Brian K. Vaughan left.  Joss is the only choice to direct in my opinion.  It must happen.  But I’ll be generous and let Joss finish up promoting the Avengers, film  the next two films in the Big Damn Serenity Trilogy, and the Dr. Horrible sequel, and and Goners, and finally give us the long promised Ripper tv series, before he starts work on Runaways.  I’m nothing if not considerate.

This isn’t particularly timely, but I thought of it last night and it made me giggle, so I whipped this up.

I’m not trying to besmirch Liza Minelli in any way, she seems perfectly nice, if a bit eccentric.  I just can’t think of an instance in a sci fi film or tv show where a female character with extremely short black hair was benevolent, can you?

Part of the cast was on hand at the Disney Expo thingy this weekend, where they showed four minutes of footage from the upcoming Avengers movie. I haven’t been able to find a video of it online, but here is a good description of it, as well as an article about the event.

I’m excited for the movie, mainly because it’s being written and directed by Joss Whedon. I don’t think it’s a secret that I love just about everything he’s done and it feels like there hasn’t been much output from other than a few issues of Buffy season eight, since Dollhouse went off the air. That would be because he’s been busy prepping a major tentpole motion picture. I think it has the potential to be fantastic. In his one previous big screen work Serenity, he delivered exciting action sequences that furthered the plot,while not losing sight of the characters, while also giving them strong emotional arcs and some really fun dialog. That is exactly what I want out of the Avengers.

I havent seen any of the movies introducing the individual team members, except the first Iron Man. Which I quite enjoyed. I think it’s a shame that the core of the team has been established and cast already, I would have liked some Whedon regulars in the cast. As it is the closest we’ve got to a Whedon connection is Cobie Smulders, whose How I Met Your Mother castmate Neil Patrick Harris starred in Whedon’s Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog. At least as far as we know. Maybe he’ll find places for Nathan Fillion, Amber Benson, James Marsters, Summer Glau, Alyson Hannigan, Adam Baldwin, and Felicia Day. Yeah, that’s a super team I would get behind.

(the poster is most definitely not an official poster, but it the best of the fan made ones I saw.  I could not find an artist to credit it to.  If anyone knows, leave it in the comments and I’ll include it.)

This podcast, Marty, Jason, and Florence are joined by Justin from The Film Confessional Podcast, as they talk about movies they’ve seen recently, especially the latest blockbuster comic book movie, Thor.

Listen to ReadComics.org Podcast Episode #051 (47.3 MB, 98 minutes)

Sandman ran for 75 issues, and in them featured hundreds of memorable characters.  All with names and interesting back stories.  I could keep going for months trying to cast them all, but I think I have covered nearly all the major players.  Today I will get through the last, that I expect to do. Unless I realize I have left out anyone important, or come up with a particularly inspired choice for one of the minor characters.

These last characters all have in common that they will need to be portrayed by either, puppets, CGI, or an actor in major prosthetics, or a combination of all of the above.  I will pick a voice actor for each.

Morpheus had a series of pet ravens.  They are usually the spirit of a dead man that has been reincarnated as a raven.  He retains his human personality and ability to speak, but in every other way, such as taste and behavior, he is a raven.  The one that he has for most of the series, except flashbacks to earlier eras, is named Matthew.  He is the spirit of Matt Cable, a supporting character from DC’s earlier horror/fantasy epic Swamp Thing.

Matthew is loyal, rough around the edges, and a little sardonic.  Before he died Matt Cable made some mistakes, and hurt people he cared about.  It was interesting to see Matthew the Raven striving to atone for those mistakes, and become a little more sensitive.  He often served as the audience’s surrogate.  One that could openly ask questions like, what is going on? And, why did you do that?  As well as being a sympathetic ear for Dream.

Though if memory serves Matt Cable was an American character, I always heard Matthew speaking with an English accent. Which is probably why I went with a British actor for the his voice.  Clive Owen

Owen has a deep, rich, but slightly gritty voice.  Just what I hear when I read Matthew’s dialogue.  He often plays characters with some darkness in their past, while still be able to deliver a biting one liner.

Next we have Barnabas.  Barnabas is Destruction’s pet/companion.  He appears to be a large grey dog.  He too can speak, and has a human like personality.  Though he does show that he likes dog things like chewing on stuff, and getting scratched behind the ears.  It is unclear if he is simply a talking dog, or a reincarnated spirit like Matthew.  He is very down to earth, and sarcastic.  If he wasn’t a dog, he would constantly be rolling his eyes. I’m going with Michael Palin for his voice.

Palin is of course a member of Monty Python.  He would be able to play the sarcasm, and the intelligence, along side the warm, nurturing side of the character.  And of course he would nail the utter goofiness of him going dog-giddy over a stick.

Last but hardly least, is Mervin Pumpkinhead.  One of the few characters that is there purely for comic relief.  His body is made of twigs, and his head is a jack o’lantern.  He usually wears overalls or coveralls, and has a cigarette hanging out of his mouth.  He is the janitor/handyman of the Dreaming.  He is a smart aleck, with a wise crack for everything.  He has a somewhat inflated ego, and likes to hear himself talk.  I am choosing another Python, for him.  Eric Idle

Idle knows how to play a smart-ass.  Since Merv’s face so simplistic his personality is really going to have to come through his voice.  Idle has plenty of voice over experience, and is really versatile.

I also think the character should have a real person in a suit, perform his movement.  As again, he is such a minimal design, he could come across as very artificial if he was purely CGI or animatronic.  For that I suggest Doug Jones.

Jones has made a career of bringing to life extraordinary, fantasy characters. He played one of the Gentleman, a terrifyingly creepy monster, on a particularly memorable episode of Buffy.  More significantly he has worked with Guillermo del Torro, playing Abe Sapien in both Hellboy films, and the Faun and the Pale Man in Pan’s Labyrinth.  He is impossibly tall and thin, and is incredibly expressive with his body.

Okay, that it is it for this series of posts.  I can’t believe I made it to fifteen posts.  It has been fun.  I may try another fantasy casting project for another comic series, but I haven’t thought of one yet (maybe Fables).  As I said in the very first post, I really don’t want to see Sandman made into a film. I think it exists in its ideal form already.  I do think it probably will get adapted someday, and if even one of my casting choices made it to the screen, I would be super excited.

The three woman who repeatedly appear in Sandman went by many names: the kindly ones, the fates, the furies, the weird sisters.  They were consistently shown as a trio of woman that seemed to function as one being.  They always appear as one young woman, one middle aged women and one very old woman, aka the maiden, the mother, and the crone.

They served many purposes in the series.  They were used as prophets, that occasionally commented on the action, and less frequently propelled it.  They were also the furies, the means through which justice for a primal crime, was acted out.

Typically they looked different every time they appeared, so to remain true to the comic they should be played by several different actresses.  However for the purposes of keeping this post relatively short, I will only cast one actress each.

Lisa Backwell as the maiden.

She played the lovable, loopy, and naive, Pandora on the third and fourth series of Skins.  She has a round, child like face, that would make for a good contrast with the other two.  The maiden was sometimes drawn as older and more voluptuous than Backwell, but she also sometimes looked like little more than child.

Brenda Blethyn as the mother.

While she is a very versitile actor, she has played quite a few mothers.  In such films as Pride and Prejudice, Lovely and Amazing, and Little Voice.  All very different mums, but maternal nonetheless.

Jackie Burroughs as the crone.

Burroughs has been working steadily since the mid sixties, and is still going strong.  She has looked nearly exactly the same for the past twenty years.

Finally for today’s post is Hippolyta Hall.  She was not created for the Sandman, but was a DC Comics heroine that went by the name of the Fury.  A title she inherited from her mother, (though in a bit of confusing crisis muddled continuity, she was also Earth Two Wonder Woman’s daughter).

Poor Lyta did not have an easy time of things in the series.  She was married to the second DC hero to carry the title of the Sandman.  Both she and her husband Hector, were unknowingly tricked by a pair of renegade dreams, into being trapped inside a child’s dreams.  To make matters worse, her husband Hector was dead, but being stuck in the Dreaming, neither of them knew this.  And on top of that Lyta was heavily pregnant when she was trapped, and remained so for the whole two years, that she was stuck there.  When Morpheus discovered what had been done by the misbehaving dreams, he put end to it, setting the Halls free.  This however effectively killed Hector.  He was already dead, but freed from the dreaming, his spirit was allowed to move on.  Lyta of course had no idea what had happened, she just saw her husband disappear, and her world dissolve.  Morpheus, not being very sensitive to other being’s distress, didn’t bother to explain any of it to her.  Which left her with a mighty grudge against Morpheus.  One that was easily exploited by those who wished him ill.

I would cast her with Amber Benson.

She was excellent as the lovely Tara on Buffy.  She is also a talented writer and director, who has made several independent films, and published quite a few fantasy books.  She would be able to sympathetically play Lyta’s rage at the powerlessness she has over her life, even while becoming more of a pawn.

I think the next post will be the last in this series.

Like I said before, all types of gods were welcome in Sandman.  One of the most memorable was Bast.  The Egyptian goddess with a human body and a cat’s head.  She was a major goddess in her time, but as her following dwindled, so did her power.  Her personality is as catlike her appearance.  She is at times: flirtatious, self interested, aloof, affectionate, and playful.  There also times when the sadness of her loss comes through.

My pick to play her is Virginia Hey.

She played a regal, enigmatic, goddess-like character as Zhaan on Farscape.  As such she has loads of experience acting through large amounts of makeup, that the role would require.

Next up we have one of the ultimate trickster gods, Loki.  He is portrayed just as he is in Norse mythology.  The untrustworthy adopted son of Odin.  He loves a dirty joke.  He can’t pass up any opportunity to mess with anyone, and he doesn’t like being shown up in any way.

My pick is Iggy Pop.

He looks a lot like the character as drawn, and he is a pretty good actor.  He played a sweet, softy of a suburban dad on the Adventures of Pete and Pete, in the nineties.  Think of what he could do with an anarchist god.

Finally we have Puck, of A Midsummer Night’s Dream fame.  In Sandman he is depicted as a malicious imp.  More likely to slip strychnine in your coffee, as give you donkey ears for a night.  In his true form he looks like a tiny hairy devil creature, but he can also look human.

And my pick for him is David Tennant.

Obviously Tennant is very capable of being lovable, which is the antithesis of the role, but I really want to see him play a malignant character.  I am sure he can pull off the right mix of hyper, and viscious.  It would be fun to see him play the human form, and also a motion captured CGI version.

Next up the furies!

Rose Walker is an American teenager that becomes embroiled in one of the earlier plot lines of the series.  She is central to the second arc, but also pops up later on in a smaller role.

She is shown at first as having her hair dyed in several wild colors.  Later she has a more muted red-brown hair, with just a single streak.  Her face is round and youthful, regardless of her eventual age.

My pick for the role is Amber Tamblyn.

She looks the part, and she could handle Rose’s sarcastic shell that protects her more vulnerable nature.

Nada is an African princess from an unspecified time period.  Pre recorded history, most likely.  She became involved with Morpheus, and it led to her down fall.  Despite the tragic turn her story takes, she has an innate strength of character, and dignity.

I’m going with Lauryn Hill to play her.

( I could not find a picture of Nada anywhere.)

She is best known as a musician and singer, but she has acted as well.  She looks a bit like Nada as drawn, but more importantly she projects the integrity inherent in Nada, as well as the charm that would captivate the Dream king.

Finally for today is Thessaly.  She is one of the more mysterious characters in the book.  It is implied that she is many centuries old, and that she is a witch.  She is also rather ruthless, or at the least not very concerned with politeness.  She usually knows more than she says about any given situation, and she doesn’t have much patience for those who know less than her.  She is depicted as being very petite, with brown hair, and a heart shaped face.  She usually wears round glasses that are too big for her face.

My choice for the part is Elisabeth Moss.

She is currently playing Peggy on Mad Men.  She can play shrewd, and intense, like nobody’s business.  It would be really fun to see her play intimidating.

Up next will be sundry gods and goddesses.

Shakespeare was a character that popped up in Sandman from time to time.  There was no gimmick to it.  He wasn’t a time traveller, or a wizard.  He was just Will Shakespeare, Elizabethian Era playwright, struggling to make good.

I think I’d cast Gary Oldman.

I don’t really have much to say for my reasoning behind the choice.  I just think he’s a good actor who looks good with a beard, and who seems comfortable with Shakespearian dialogue.

Hob Gadling is another character that didn’t appear often, but made quite an impression.  He is first seen in the fouteenth century, claiming that dying is for suckers.  Dream overhears this, and makes a deal with him.  Death won’t come for him until he decides he is tired of life.  Dream checks up on him once a century, and we get to see him go from rich man to beggar, and back again.  We see him happy with a full life and family, to a man that has outlived everyone he loved.  And regardless of his circumstances he always chooses to go on.

His physical appearance remains pretty much the same through out, just his clothes changing to match the times.  He is shown to have reddish brown hair and usually a beard.  My pick is Ewan McGregor.

For no other reason than I like him.  I think he is charming, and so is Hob.

Morpheus had a son named Orpheus.  And a couple of daughters named Blorpheus and Shmorpheus, I kid!  Orpheus is in fact the same Orpheus from the Greek myth Orpheus and Eurydice.  He actually has pretty pivotal role to play in the series, and it’s one I am loathe to spoil, so I won’t go into it too much.  He starts as a relatively carefree youth, but goes through a trauma that changes him a great deal.  His appearance is mainly of a nice looking young man, but with a haunted look in his eyes.

Who better for that than Matt Smith?

He is of course the latest actor to take up the mantle of the Doctor, and he’s done a bang up job of it.  He often comes across in the same scene, as very young boy and an old old man.  Which is just right for Orpheus.

Rounding out today’s post is Daniel Hall.  To say what Daniel’s role in the series is, would be to give away a major plot point.  So I won’t.  I’ll just say that he begins as an adorable human baby, and by the end he is neither a human or a baby.  So for the early scenes he should be cast with a beautiful, blue eyed baby , with curly blond hair.  For the later scenes I would cast Mitch Hewer.

He played the talented and impish Maxxie, on the first two seasons of Skins.  He has a very youthful, and sweet look, and is drop dead gorgeous.  Daniel needs to look innocent, but also wise.  I think Mitch would nail that.  And with that, I am officially out of pretty blond males.  This cast has taken them all!

Next post will probably involve important ladies.

The next three dreams, did not appear in Sandman as much as the others I’ve already featured, but they did make an impression.

Eve may be the biblical Eve, or she may not be, or both could be true.  She lives in a cave, and seems to have great knowledge and power.  She could have been the first woman.  Or a goddess of prehistory.  Or an old crotchety witch.  Or any of a number of other female archetypes.

Her appearance changed with each time she appeared in the series.  Sometimes she was an ancient crone, sometime a middle aged motherly type, and sometimes a beautiful voluptuous young maiden.

Since she always looked like the same woman, but at different ages, I would cast her with a single actress and put her in the appropriate aging makeup.

My choice is Christina Hendricks.

Eve is drawn as having black hair, but I’d rather keep her as a redhead, and hope the Sandman super-fans will forgive me.  Hendricks first impressed me on Firefly, where over the course of a single episode, she went from a naive farm girl, to a dangerous, seductive con artist.  She was equally convincing as both.  Lately she has been utterly mesmerizing as Joan on Mad Men.  It is one of the most nuanced performances on television.  She has been powerful, and also vulnerable.  Confidant, and also petty.  Charming, and also manipulative.  Sympathetic, and then repellent.  She owns every scene she’s in.

Fiddlers’ Green is unique in that he is actually a location.  An idyllic patch of land, that travelers, sailors in particular, often dream of.  Fiddlers’ Green decided one day to go traveling, himself.  He took a human form and set out to see the Waking World (which is what our world is referred to, in the Dreaming).  He took both the appearance, and general personality, of the prolific late nineteenth, early twentieth century, English author G.K. Chesterton.  He called himself Gilbert (which was Chesterton’s given name), and was genial, lovely man.  I didn’t know that he was based on Chesterton, when I first read Sandman.  In fact, I only learned it this afternoon, when I was reviewing the Sandman character page on Wikipedia.  I am just not as familiar with English fantasy authors as Neil Gaiman is.  Before today I had identified Gilbert as Teddy Roosevelt.

But the fact that he is English rather than American, works even better for for the actor I chose, Jim Broadbent.

Gilbert is an incredibly lovable, somewhat blustery, fellow.  Broadbent is very good at playing endearingly, bombastic men.

Finally there is the Corinthian.  The Corinthian is a nightmare.  Nightmares have just as much a place in the Dreaming, as any other dream.  He too escaped into the Waking World.  In which he became a serial killer that preyed on adolescent boys.  He is one of the most chilling characters I’ve ever come across.  He looks like a handsome, well built, blond man.  He almost always wears sunglasses.  That is because he doesn’t have eyes.  Where his eyes should be, he has two small mouths.  It is really creepy.

My choice for the part is James Marsters.

He has appeared in countless scifi and fantasy series.  Such as: Torchwood, Caprica, Smallville, but he is best known for playing Spike on Buffy, and later its spin off Angel.  He, like Hendricks, is a top rate scene stealer, but he manages to do it while making everyone he is playing against look better.  He has great comic timing, but also excels at imbuing his characters with depth.  He can go from broad physical comedy, to intense emotional soul barring, in the blink of an eye.  He is also capable of scaring the living daylights out of me.  Which is essential for the part.  But his range will also come in handy for some aspects of the Corinthian’s storyline, that I don’t want to give away.

I also want to put in a quick plug for Marsters’ audiobook narration of Jim Butcher’s Harry Dresden series.  They are a blast.

Next time, some notable humans.

Dream Casting, Sandman Casting Call Part 9: Faeries!

In Sandman all religions, and mythologies were welcome.  You could see Odin one eye, rubbing elbows with the Lords of Order and Chaos.  There were several denizens of Fairyland, that would come in and out of the narrative at their will.

The king and queen of Faerie’s appearances were few, but memorable. They came across as haughty, a touch petty, and very powerful.  They appeared of humanoid, but not human.  They are longer, and thinner than us.  Their faces are elfin.  Oberon has green skin and greenish white hair, and rams horns.  Titania has light blue skin, and dark blue hair.

My pick for Oberon would be Jude Law.

He played a character in the Talented Mr. Ripley, that was prettier than everyone else, and damn well knew it.  That is exactly the quality that is needed most for Oberon.

For Titania I’m going with Cate Blanchett.

She played an Elf queen in the Lord of the Rings, so she certainly has the look for it.  It would also be fun to see her playing a devious, self serving, fairy queen, to contrast with Galadrial’s almost angelic nature.

The most prominent fairy to grace the pages of Sandman, was Nuala.  She was sent to the Dreaming as an ambassador of Faerie.  Or so she thought.  She was actually sent as a gift to Morpheus, from the king and queen.  Morpheus had no interest in her, but as it is unwise to refuse a fairy gift, he allowed her to stay.

When she first appears it is as a stunning blond.  It is soon revealed that that is a glamour.  Her true appearance is a very petite, slightly awkward looking brunette.

For the glamoured version I propose January Jones.

I think the reasons are obvious.

For the non glamoured version, I’ll go with Emma Watson.

She has that new adorable pixie cut, and is tiny, and has plenty of experience playing awkward despite being gorgeous.

Nuala’s brother, Cluaracan, also frequently pops up in Sandman.  His personality can best be summed up as amusingly drunken, braggart.  He too, often wears the glamour of a tall, beautiful, blond.  His real appearance is more modest.

For his glamoured self I would go with Alexander Skarsgard.

He is best known as Eric on True Blood. Between the angels, the fey, and a few other characters coming up, I am exhausting my supply of pretty blond boys.

For the non glamoured version, I cast James McAvoy.

He could handle the comedy, as well as the slightly tragic aura that sometimes leaks through.  He isn’t a conventionally pretty boy, but he rocks what I like to call the homely hot factor.

Coming up, a few more dreams.

Sandman played host to gods and demons from a vast array of pantheons.  This post will concern itself with the biblical.

One of the most complex characters in the series is Lucifer.  So much so, that he was given his own long running spin off series.  His arc is one of the most surprising in the whole series, so I won’t go into it.  I’ll just describe his back story.  He was the light bringer, God’s most beloved Angel.  He decided that he didn’t like being a servant to his creator, so he led a rebellion of Angels.  They lost, and were cast out of Heaven.  They fell and became the residents and staff of Hell.  Lucifer became the Lord of Hell, also known as the Adversary.  He was fond of saying it was better to rule in Hell, than serve in Heaven.

This version of the Devil is erudite, calm, slick, and very dangerous.  He is drawn to look like the angel he once was, but with (for  lack of a better word) a certain edge.  His hair is sometimes shown as blond, sometimes as red.  His eyes are piercing, his cheekbones sharp.  Everything about him is sharp, including his taste in clothes.  He favors tuxedos, with a jaunty scarf, for accent.

Neil Gaiman apparently based him on David Bowie, and it’s hard to argue with that.  Except to say, I would not cast him.  Only for the reason, that I would find the fact that it was David Bowie playing a very David Bowie part, at this point in his career, distracting.

So instead I nominate Jonathan Rhys Meyers.

He already played a Bowie-esque character in the film Velvet Goldmine.  And he did it with great aplomb.  He’s also played sinister characters very well.  Most recently he played a self centered, hot tempered, king on the Tudors.

Lucifer had a demon lover, by the name of Mazikeen.  She was devoted to him, and she rules.  She is a badass!  And I kind of love her.  She has a very distinctive look, one that would have to be replicated with a lot of prosthetics, and probably CGI.  One side of her body looks like a beautiful brunette, the other is a twisted, mangled approximation of a human woman.  She is equally proud and confident with both.  My pick for her is Famke Janssen.

(This picture is taken from the Lucifer series, after Mazi’s “deformity” was corrected.  She was not at all pleased by that.  She continued to wear a mask over the side of her face where it had been.)

Famke is best known for playing Jean Grey in the X-Men films, but it was her turn as a sociopath on the first season of Nip/Tuck, that put her in my mind for Mazikeen.  I haven’t considered anyone else since.  She projected intense strength and intelligence in that part, even as she did super crazy stuff.

There were a couple of non fallen Angels in Sandman.  They were almost always together, so I will cast them as a team.  Remiel, was the mouthpiece of the two.  Only because Duma, the Angel of silence, never spoke.

They look very similar.  Slight, feminine, beautiful men, with curly blonde locks.

I would put Joe Anderson, as Remiel, and Eddie Redmayne, as Duma.

Anderson has played supporting parts in Across the Universe, and Becoming Jane.  He is very nice to look at, and he could properly convey the arrogance that is hiding under Remiel’s humble exterior.  I have only seen Redmayne in an adaptation of Tess of D’Urbervilles, in which he played a character named Angel.  That wasn’t what made me think of him.  There is something unusual about his face.  It isn’t necessarily ethereal, but it is otherworldly.  I think he could bring out the enigmatic quality, of Duma.  He is silent, but he is very present.

Coming next, faeries!

Morpheus’ realm is called the Dreaming.  It is where we all go when we dream.  It contains all the people and things that we dream of.  The setting and populace shift constantly.  However there are some fixed (or as fixed as things get in the Dreaming) characters, they are known as major dreams.  They are part of our collective unconscious.

Possibly the most important is Lucien (at least in his role).  He is in charge of the library of the Dreaming.  It contains every book ever dreamed of, which includes books that were written, and books that were only ever written in the author’s head. That spy thriller you wrote two chapters of, lost interest in, then forgot it existed?  It’s there.  Want to read the version of Tale of Two Cities where Darnay gets guillotined, and Carton assumes his identity and gets the girl?  It’s there.

Lucien is Dream’s most trusted subject.  He is fastidious, loyal, and a touch snarky.  He is the Dreaming’s butler, professor, CEO, and nanny, all rolled into one.  He is tall, rail thin, with rust colored hair that sticks up in tufts.  He wears small wire framed glasses, and formal, slightly Victorian style suits.

My choice for the part isn’t actually an actor, and isn’t a perfect match physically, but he reminds me of Lucien in the way he carries himself.  Tim Gunn.

I could probably come up with an actor, that could do the job very well, but I like Tim.  He is my choice.  He feels like Lucien to me.

Next up is Cain, of Cain and Abel.  Aka the first murderer.  That is who he is more than the Cain of the bible, though he is that as well.  He is the first being that came into existence that took another being’s life.  When the story of Cain and Abel came into existence it was about him, and so he became Cain.

He is loud and aggressive, and sarcastic.  He is constantly going through the cycle of seeking out his brother for company, finding some flaw in him to pick at, going into a rage, and killing him.  Over and over again.  It is as much his function, as it is Destiny’s to observe it.  Despite his unpleasantness, I rather enjoy his scenes, when he isn’t killing Abel.  It helps that his victim, always gets up again (yet that also makes it worse, it’s complicated).  And his sardonic commentary on the action is pretty funny.

He is drawn as a tall man with brown hair, that sticks up in two points to give the illusion of horns (this hairdo is also known as the wolverine).  He has a beard, and dresses in shabby brown suits.

I would cast Christopher Eccleston as Cain.

He can play the manic energy, and the wit.  He also can work a homicidal glint in his eyes.  By the by, this cast list by the time it’s done, will include a lot of people from Whedonverse shows, a few more cast members from Skins, and likely Eccleston will not be the only Time Lord.

There needs to be an Abel to go with our Cain.  Abel is the first murder victim, to Cain’s first murderer.  He too is stuck in a cycle.  He can’t get away from his brother.  He desperately wants them to get along, but he knows  the inevitable outcome.  He is timid, and a stutterer, and has a tender heart, which he knows he has to conceal from Cain.  He is not capable of standing up for himself.  He is both adorably sweet, and cringe inducingly pathetic.

He is a short, stout man, with black hair, in a Wolverine cut of less prowess, and a goatee.  He too wears shabby suits, in blue.

I had a two top contenders for the part, both specialize in playing sad little men.  Ricky Gervais, and Paul Giamatti.  Gervais looks more like the character, but I think I’m going with Giamatti.  Gervais’ brand of SLM usually is not aware of how pathetic he is, while Abel knows all too well.  A Gervais character that is self aware loses some of the necessary patheticness.  On top of that Gervais has recently lost a great deal of weight, and looks too good to play Abel anymore.  Giamatti can do a self aware SLM, that is still a sad-sack.

(I had a lot of trouble finding pictures of Abel, and could only come up with this one of him recently murdered.  He does recover I promise.)

Next up, Angels, Demons, and the devil himself.

Rounding out the Endless, are Destruction, and Destiny.  In Sandman things are rarely what you expect them to be.  Ie: Death is a perky, optimistic young woman, and Dream is a dour, moody guy, that mopes around in a long black robe.

Likewise, the embodiment of Destruction is a laid-back, Zen-ish drifter.  Although he wasn’t always.  He had to work pretty hard to achieve calm.  Which doesn’t mean he used to be a rageaholic, by all evidence he was pretty gregarious.  I don’t want to go too much into his arc, because it us pretty interesting.  So I’ll just get straight to his physical description.  He is impossibly tall, and broad, with long red hair, and a beard.  According to the Sandman Companion, the early inspiration for his look, was the English actor Brian Blessed.  Who could open his mouth so wide when he laughed, that it looked like it took up his entire face.  He is still working, so he could concievably do the part, but he is in his seventies now, and looking older than Destruction ever did.  And Destruction’s final look never did look that much like Blessed.  My top choice is Adam Baldwin

Even more than casting Summer Glau as Death, casting Adam Baldwin as Destruction, would have the Whedonites rejoicing.  He has played any number of lovable, and not so lovable, sociopaths over the years.  Lately he has become beloved in the geek world for two roles, col. John Casey on Chuck, and Jayne Cobb on Firefly.  He is appropriately physically intimidating, for the part, and his hair could easily made the right color and length.  He is a very good actor, he could play both the exuberant Destruction of the flashbacks, and the more subdued one of the present.

Destiny is probably the least interesting of the Endless (at least to me).  He is also the only one not to have been created by Neil Gaiman.  He is a character that had been knocking around the DC universe since the early seventies.  He really doesn’t have much of a personality.  His job is to observe everything that happens, and make sure it goes down exactly as written in his book.  Which is pretty easy, as everything that happens, has happened, and will happen is written in the book.  Including him reading the book.  He doesn’t have opinions, or preferences, or emotions.  His main physical characteristic is a long brown cloak, with a hood that is always drawn down over his eyes.  Since his eyes are never shown, and he is described as being blind (although he still reads, and moves in a way that proves it is not a hindrance), it is possible that he doesn’t have eyes.  The other main feature, is the enormous book that is always chained to his wrist.

Given that you don’t see his face, and that he doesn’t need to posess much charisma, you could put just about anyone under the hood, and it would work.  So I’m going with Bill Nighy, just because I like him.

It almost seems a shame to hide that much charm under a cloak, but he can do restrained and aloof as well.  Maybe he can even manage to make the character a little less dull.

Up next a few prominent dreams.

I’m not going to link to the previous posts anymore since there are too many now.  They should all be available on the main page, or by clicking the tags.

It’s interesting that in a series that included, demons, serial killers, trickster gods, and the Judeo-Christian devil, the most malevolent creature of all, is Desire.  It’s true that desire is not an inherently bad thing, but it can make people do dangerous, reckless things.  And Desire of the Endless seems to represent this aspect of the concept, more than any other.  Desire is neither man nor woman, rather it is both, and therefore is always referred to as it.  This makes sense, since desire is not a gender specific concept.  Then again, neither is any of the other concepts the Endless represent, and the others all stick to one gender identity.

Desire the concept is not solely about lust.  You can desire just about anything.  Lust is however desire, and the entity Desire seems to concern itself most with lust.  And it seems to derive pleasure from making people desire things that are not good for them.  It is safe to say that, while it is not specifically a woman, Desire is a petty bitch.  Get on its bad side, and it will make it its mission to take you down.  It holds grudges, and goes to great lengths to get revenge.  Usually manipulating things at a great distance, to keep its hands appearing clean.

Desire’s appearance is one of androgyny.  Most often looking like either a handsome woman, or a beautiful man.  Its clothing was often either menswear, when looked the most feminine, or fetish-wear, when it was more masculine.  The artists tended to make it resemble those nineties icons of gender blurring, Annie Lennox, and KD Lang, and occasionally David Bowie.

There is really only one actor in my mind that could pull it off, Tilda Swinton.

Not only does she favor a somewhat androgynous look in her personal style, she has already played a gender bending supernatural role, as the title character of Orlando.  She also demonstrated bone chilling maliciousness, as the White Witch in the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Desire has a twin sister, Despair.  They aren’t twins in that they look alike.  Far from it.  They simply came into existence at the same time, and are often intertwined.  Desiring something too much can make you miserable.

While Desire the character, is almost entirely unsympathetic, Despair is not.  She does not wish to make people unhappy, it is simply her function.  Just as Death does not cause people to die, she just takes them when they do.  Despair embraces the miserable to her bosom, and drowns them in it, but it’s not out of viciousness.  In her own way, she is helping them.  She seems to have genuine affection for her twin, and a few of the other Endless.  And she seems to be a little lonely, since most non depressed people, do not wish to be anywhere near her.  And she tries to stay away, since as I said, she does not want to cause misery, it just leaks off her like radiation.  Just like being around Delirium, can make a person crazy.

Despair looks like a female sumo wrestler, if the sumo was the height and scale of a twelve year-old child.  Even if there is a person out there that fits that description, it would be a miracle if they also possess the acting chops to convey the nuance of the part.  So I am proposing hiring a very good actress, and then putting them in extensive makeup, and maybe augmenting it with visual effects.  My candidate is Judi Dench.

That is in no way a comment on her looks.  I think Judi Dench is gorgeous.  If I look half that good at half her age, I will be very happy.  She is such a good actress, that I think she can make the character sympathetic through the makeup, while still being very creepy.  In fact, the idea of lovely, warm Judi Dench, speaking in Despair’s skin crawling voice, and ripping at her flesh with a hook, sends wonderful shivers up my spine.

In the next post I will finish off the Endless, and we will see from there.

Read parts 1, 2, 3, and 4, by following the links.

Now that I’ve got Dream and Death well cast, I’m going to try to tackle the most variable character in the series.  Delirium is the youngest of of the Endless.  Which is a bit like calling a 150 foot Sequoia, small because most get up to 160.  Nevertheless, she does have a childlike quality to her.  As the embodiment of insanity, she is unpredictable, sometimes sweet, playful, and careless.  Sometimes dangerously sensitive to slight, and quick to anger.  She is easily distracted, and nearly impossible to have a coherent conversation with.  All of which makes her the most compelling character in the series to me.  And many of her scenes are the ones I find most entertaining.

It also makes her very difficult to cast. Like her fellow Endless, her appearance changes frequently.  Unlike the others, hers changes rapidly, often mid-scene, sometimes mid-sentence.  She has few consistent physical characteristics.  She most often looks like an adolescent girl, though occasionally looks as young as nine, or as old as twenty.  Her clothing is usually in tatters.  Her hair, is often a wild variety of unnatural colors, although sometimes it is partially, or completely shaved.  Her most consistent feature is that she has one blue, and one green eye.  However, the most reliable way to identify her is by her technicolor word balloons, and nonsensical dialogue.

In my last entry, I site the fact that Summer Glau’s breakthrough role on Firefly, had too much in common with Del (as she is affectionately referred to), to make her my choice for Delirium.  It would feel a bit like a repeat performance.

So I hesitated a little with my top choice for the part, Hannah Murray, because she has also portrayed, a spacey, vulnerable, occasionally dangerous, character.  She played the mentally ill, anorexic, Cassie, on the British, out of control teens drama, Skins.  I’m giving her the part though, because fewer people who would be going to see Sandman, would have already seen Skins, than would have seen Firefly.

She demonstrated on Skins, that she possess all the necessary skills to play Delirium.  She made Cassie, a character that could have been played for laughs, or as a freak show, into someone you couldn’t take your eyes off.  She had me constantly yelling at the screen, for someone to please pay attention to her, as she desperately needed help.  Anytime someone hurt her feelings, I felt it, and demanded vengeance.  And when she was happy, it was magic.  She managed to make me entirely invested in her safety, even when she was the one endangering it.  And she scared the bejesus out of me, in her darker moments.

She looks young enough, and with good wigs, and makeup, she can pull off Del’s ever-changing looks.  The effects department will have to work out how to add the frogs, fish, and or butterflies, that tend to manifest out of thin air, around her.

My alternate choice, should the imaginary studio require a bigger name, is another Whedon alum.  Sarah Michelle Geller.

The second image, is a portrait of Delirium, that I found in a book called Vertigo Visions.  The strong likeness of the Del in this picture, to Sarah Michelle, is what put her in my mind for the role.  The books dates it as having been done in 1995, two years before Buffy made her a household name.  It could be a coincidence, or the artist Sherilyn van Valkenburgh, could have spotted the then unknown (and at that point brunette) actress in something, and used her as the model.

Either way, I think she could handle the part.  She displayed a lot of versatility over her seven years as Buffy.  Displaying strength, and spunk, along side vulnerability, and introspection.  She is in her thirties now, but she is on the tiny side, I’m sure with the right costumes and makeup, she could be made to look the appropriate age.

Okay, that’s it for the major parts.  The next entries will be two or more characters each.  Starting I think, with the twins.

Click to read parts 1, 2, and 3.

I already gave my reasons, for why the Sandman should never be made into a movie in part one. I’m going to try casting it anyway. From now on I’m going to play the part of a casting director, for my ideal imaginary version the film. And in the world of Sandman, imaginary versions of things, are just as valid, as real ones

The most important part to cast is of course the Sandman himself.


Some background on the character, before I get to my casting pick(s). The Sandman of the title* is actually Dream the anthropomorphic embodiment of dreams. He is a member of the group of beings known as the Endless. Each of whom is the living representation of a universal concept, that happens to start with a D, in English. Some of the others are Death, Destruction, etc.

Dream has many names, all of which are either the word for dreams in another language or variations there of, or the name of the god or king of dreams from a specific culture. However he is most often referred to in Sandman, as Morpheus, so that is what I’ll call him from here on.

One of the qualities that all the endless share, is their tendency to shift their appearance depending on whom they are speaking to. For example when Morpheus had an affair, with an African Princess, he looked like an African Prince (albeit an African Prince with several of his more unique features). When he met with a house cat, he looked like a house cat version of himself. In those scenes, the casting would have to be done accordingly.

But, for the most part Morpheus looks like a very pale, thin man, with messy black hair that defies gravity. And eyes, that are depicted as pieces of the night sky, with stars shining out of them. Not an easy look to find in nature.

My top pick for the part, is a little known actor, named Peter Wingfield.  He recently had a small part on Caprica, but he caught my attention, over a decade ago, when he got a prominent part on the television series Highlander. Which was a surprisingly good adaptation of the silly Highlander movies. Peter played an immortal named Methos. He was at least five thousand years old, and often came across as morally ambiguous. He did a great job of projecting the character’s age, despite his youthful appearance. A trait that will be useful for playing Morpheus, who is only slightly less old than existence itself. He also would be able to portray the character’s humanity, along with his other-worldliness. Beside that he just looks the part to me. Morpheus was most often depicted as having a long, angular face. As does Peter.

(And look how good he is with the naughty smirk! Not a skill he would really be able to put to use in the part. Morpheous’ default expressions, are mope, and scowl.)

He can even pull off the ridiculous hair, without looking a complete prat.

(Well not too much, at least.)

The only drawback in my mind is how little well know he is. Which I don’t really consider a drawback, as I think the role benefits from there not being any baggage being brought in by the actor. However my imaginary studio bosses probably would not see it that way.

So when they say, “This simply won’t do! No one has heard of this guy! We need a name for the poster.”

I will stomp my feet, and storm out of the meeting, and hold my breath until I turn blue. And when I have picked myself off the floor, after realizing that they could not care less if I died of asphyxiation, I would submit my alternate choice. Guy Pearce.

He has the bone structure, and the liquid eyes the part calls for. While his resume carries some stinkers, such as The Count of Monte Cristo, and the Time Machine, in both of which he came across as rather wooden. He was impressive in both Memento, and the Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Dessert. Which shows some range. Although neither part had much of the Dream king in them. Still, at least he’s a recognizable name.**

Stayed tuned for part three, where I try to conquer Death! Er, I mean find a suitable actress to fill the part. Sounds more dramatic the first way!

*There are two other Sandmen that appear over the course of the series. They are both DC comics heroes that have used the title in the past.

**Phooey, Methos forever!

Anyone I’ve ever spoken to that has read Sandman, says the same thing.  That it should never be made into a movie, because it couldn’t possibly be done right.  Yet it has been in development, at one studio or another, for at least ten years.  The reason for this is that it is a beloved property, that many consider comic books first masterpiece.  So why don’t it’s many fans (me included) want to see it filmed?

To start off with it, it is seemingly impossible to film.  The story is long, taking ten years, and seventy-five issues to tell, not including spin offs, and follow ups.  Trying to compress that into a single, or even several two hour movies, would be very difficult.  Beyond that, it is a story that jumps around in time, and space, and worlds (Faerie, other planets, heaven, hell, and most often dreams).  It often requires a strong background in history, mythology, religion, and DC comics, to fully understand.  And it sports a cast of characters that number in the hundreds, many of whom are important, to the tale as a whole, and absolutely essential to their small part of the story.  In short it is a story that has already been told, in the best way it could be.

Still in the right hands it could be done.  There could be someone out there, talented enough to simplfy that complex narrative into something satisfying, that still holds the charm and beauty of the original.  And we would all still have the comics for when we wanted the real thing.

The bigger issue in my mind, is how integral to the story, the art is.  Not just because, it being a comic, all the action is drawn, but because of how the various artists chose to interpret it.  The artist usually changed every time a new story arc started.  Which meant the characters often looked different each time you saw them.  Which gave the reader a fresh perspective on them.  Many of the characters appearance changed according to whom they were speaking to, or where they were, at any given time.  Which could get very confusing, if it was attempted on film.

The main reason I don’t want it filmed, is because I love it so much.  Anything short of brilliant would be heartbreaking.  And there is so much potential for failure.  I have often said if it was made into a movie, I’d boycott it , just to spare myself the agony of seeing what was done with something I hold so dear.  That is a lie, though.  I would absolutely see it.

Partly because I want to support, Neil Gaiman and all the artists that worked on it, by paying for a ticket, and hoping a little of the money gets back to them, after the theater, the studio, the director, the cast and crew, all get their cut.  Mainly, on the off chance, that somehow it turns out like that other beloved franchise, that people claimed was utterly unfilmable, Lord of the Rings.  Even though those films were not a direct page by page adaptation of the books, most fans agree that Peter Jackson got it right nevertheless.  And it caused many people to buy and read the books, that likely would not have otherwise.  If the Sandman movie did the same for the comics, more the better.

No, I could not resist seeing it.  Although I am totally one of those assholes, who would complain loudly afterward, if it was bad.  Actually, I doubt I could wait until the end, I would likely  jump to my feet, screaming “No! No! No!” the second the credits read, “and Jennifer Lopez* as Death.” And I would keep screaming the whole two hours, or until I was asked to leave.  I’m not proud of it, but it would happen.

I am also the type of person who loves coming up with fantasy casts, for movies that haven’t been made yet.  I seriously once stayed up most of the night, coming up with the ideal cast for a production of Pride and Prejudice, as done by a mix of humans and Muppets.

Which brings me to the point of this long winded post.  I have decided to do a series of posts, in which I pretend that by some twist of fate, I am a bigwig, hotshot casting director, who has been tasked with putting together the cast for the hypothetical Sandmam movie.  I will do individual  posts for each of the major characters, and subsequent posts will have two or three of minor characters lumped together.  We will see how far I get, before running out of steam.  I will try to avoid divulging too many details of the character’s fates, for anyone reading who has not yet read Sandman, but still may.  And if you like comics at all, I suggest giving it a try.

My pick for the person to play Morpheous, will be coming either later today or tomorrow.  I will choose my directer right now.  The only director I think could do the project justice, would actually be the combined forces of Guillermo del Toro, Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry, and Alfonso Cuaron.

*I actually don’t universally hate Jennifer Lopez.  She was very good in Out of Sight.  She just should under no circumstances be cast as Death.

This podcast, featuring Marty, Florence, Jason, Angela, and Susie, was actually recorded over the course of two nights. We talk about our impressions of the first Hellboy TPB, Seed of Destruction, and also some about the second TPB, which only some of us had read. Additionally, we do go into how it compares to the first Hellboy movie, which loosely follows the same storyline.

Listen to ReadComics.org Podcast Episode #047 (18 MB, 40 minutes)

In this episode of the ReadComics Podcast, Marty, Jason, Florence, and Susie revisit the world of Scott Pilgrim, giving Florence and Susie a chance to weigh in with their unique thoughts and opinions.

Susie also shares her list of ten nine black and white movies that Marty should watch, and Jason finds and shares a recipe for Tequila Mockingbird.

Listen to ReadComics.org Podcast Episode #046 (25 MB, 55 minutes)

This episode was a joint podcast with our friends (and cohorts) over at the Film Confessional podcast. Jason, Justin, Angela, and Marty discuss at length the recent release of Scott Pilgrim Versus the World, which is, of course, the movie adaptation of the much loved Scott Pilgrim comics by Bryan Lee O’Malley.

Angela and Marty also share their experience seeing a very sneak preview of the movie RED, which is based on a short comic series by the same name written by Warren Ellis and illustrated by Cully Hamner.

Listen to ReadComics.org Podcast Episode #045 (105 MB, 114 minutes)

I saw an advanced screening of the movie adaptation of Kick-Ass last night, and I’m happy to report that I was very pleasantly surprised.

We’ve talked a lot about Kick Ass here on readcomics. I posted a trailer a while ago (there are more over at apple). Jason reviewed the first issue back in March of 2008, a little over two years ago. (That’s right, comic to movie in two years.) I gave my impressions of the first two issues the next month, and formalized our protest of the comic because it used gay labels in a negative context. We also talked about the comic in various podcasts, but I’m not sure which ones. Definitely in episode #27.

Even though I said I wasn’t going to buy any more Kick-Ass (I didn’t!), I still ended up reading the whole series before seeing the movie. And thankfully, I can feel good about writing a positive review, because the gay-bashing found in the comic did not appear in the movie. Those who have read the comic will know there is one other gay-themed plot point, and if you found that offensive in the book, you’ll probably also find it offensive in the movie, but I actually felt it was handled rather well. Without giving too much away, it’s one of those “it’s supposed to be funny because people think he’s gay even though he’s not” situations. Not necessarily original or good writing, but it certainly could have been worse.

On the topic of writing, you can’t deny that the comic was a page-turner. It was hard to put down, and I felt like that sense of urgency carried over into the movie. There were several great quips and one-liners, perhaps the most notable was: “With no power comes no responsibility.”

We talked after the movie about the acting, and while I don’t consider myself to be a great judge of it, nobody I spoke with was disappointed. I thought Chloe Moretz stole the show as Hit Girl, with her foul mouth and adult demeanor. And lets just say that this was one of the better roles for Nicolas Cage in the last few years.

There were several notable differences from comic to movie, but they were actually rather minor, and didn’t mess with the overall plot too much. (Only one really pissed me off. Lets just say they really hollywood-ized the love story.) I also think they gave the comic-book-readers in the audience a couple of curveballs intentionally so we had some real surprises, especially one big reveal toward the end of the movie.

Overall, this Kick-Ass was a great movie!!! Easily a must-see for fans of the comic book, and also equally enjoyable by those who haven’t read it at all. It makes a great addition to more cerebral superhero movie genre, but had plenty of action for those who just want to see some kick-ass fight scenes. Highly recommended.

Excited about the Scott Pilgrim movie yet? Watch the new trailer on apple!!!

(Via io9.)

I don’t know how long this has been out, but this Kick-Ass trailer I just found on youtube mostly features Hit-Girl… kicking ass.

I don’t really know where this came from, but I think it’s way more interesting than the official trailer, personally.

Apparently it’s from the movie Dariya Dil. This scene is well worth watching. Hysterical.

I have known about and avoiding this manga sequel from TokyoPop to the classic Jim Henson movie the Labyrinth, for a few years now.  The Labyrinth is one of those special movies that I have watched many times since I was a child, and treasure as much now as then.  So when, around  five years ago I stumbled across the listing on Amazon for the first volume, I was taken aback.  I could not help but be worried that the people producing this series would miss the charm and wonder of the original.  I did not even want to take the chance that it would disappoint, so I left it alone.  I am not sure what made me check if the library had them now, but I am glad I did.  No, author Jake T. Forbes has not quite created a story as brilliant as the movie.  He has crafted a narrative that pays homage to the original, while cutting it’s own path through the Labyrinth. This time it is Toby, whom you may remember as the baby that heroine Sarah had to rescue from the Goblin King, who is the teenage hero. He finds himself pulled into the Labyrinth and makes friends both new to the audience as well as familiar ones.  His adventures in the first volume while not boring, do feel a little like a retread. However  it is as the story progresses and we learn of King Jareth’s designs for Toby and his motives and also as we get a broader view of the world he inhabits that I found my self truly invested in the story.  Volume 3 took the plot in a direction I was not expecting, and of course left us with quite the cliffhanger.  There is one more volume  in the works however it looks like the books have been released at least two years apart and number three  just came out last May, so I will be waiting for the conclusion for a while.  I especially appreciated that the author planted references to other Jim Henson fantasy works, such as the Dark Crystal, Fraggle Rock and the Story Teller.  Jim Henson’s work from the Muppets and beyond, was my very first fandom and it is still my most favorite.  Sorry Joss, I love you too!  I am really glad my fears for this project were completely unfounded.  If I have a small complaint, it is that the creatures that were created just for the manga don’t look like they were created by the same person who created the creatures for the film.  And of course they weren’t, Brian Froud designed the firies, Ludo, and Hoggle for the film, while Chris Lie is the artist on the manga.  It also would be nice if the series was in color, but then it would take even longer to be published.  The series has it’s own website and forums at goblin.net.

The director’s cut of the Watchmen movie will be hitting theaters Friday, July 17th, for one week only. And only in four U.S. theaters. Luckily one of them is in the Twin Cities – at Apple Valley’s Carmike 15.

Zack Snyder confirmed again that there will be a limited theatrical release of an extended director’s cut of Watchmen in July, and revealed that the opening title montage featured two deleted shots

Apparently one of the scenes depicts the brutal murder of the original Nite Owl, Hollis Mason. If you can’t make it to the theater this weekend see it on YouTube, or wait for the director’s cut release on DVD and Blu-Ray July 21st.