If GC was a movie

[Mezzaphor]

Nov 10, 2008 4:55:02 GMT preus said:

Introduce Kat earlier, have her help build Robot. It could work.

While that does make sense, I also think it's an interesting point of character development that Annie's first acquaintances in the Court are a supernatural creature and a robot, rather than children her own age. (Also, Kat's ignorance of Robot's inner workings is a bit of a plot point in ch 18.)

And upon further thought, I think a mix of live action and CG could work, if they go crazy with the green screens. Sort of like how Zack Snyder's team was able to make 300 look exactly like a live-action comicbook, and the Wachovskis' team made Speed Racer look like live-action anime. If something similar could be done in Tom's art style, then that'd be the next best thing to hand-drawn animation, I think.

Whatever the format, however, Annie must have pink hair.

[preus]

Nov 10, 2008 5:36:44 GMT Mezzaphor said:

While that does make sense, I also think it's an interesting point of character development that Annie's first acquaintances in the Court are a supernatural creature and a robot, rather than children her own age. (Also, Kat's ignorance of Robot's inner workings is a bit of a plot point in ch 18.)

And upon further thought, I think a mix of live action and CG could work, if they go crazy with the green screens. Sort of like how Zack Snyder was able to make 300 look exactly like a live-action comicbook, and the Wachovskis made Speed Racer look like live-action anime. If something similar could be done in Tom's art style, then that'd be the next best thing to hand-drawn animation, I think.

Whatever the format, however, Annie must have pink hair.

The fact that Annie needs Kat to help her piece Robot together would work perfectly with that plot point. But you're right. It's important that Shadow 2 and Robot are the first 'people' Annie gets close to.
Interesting idea with the green screen fusion. I wish you'd used non-terrible movies as examples, though. And... why would Annie have pink hair?

[Mezzaphor]

Maybe pink isn't the right name for it, but this is the color of Annie's hair in the comic:

It works in the comic because of Tom's mad color scheme skills. So I hope that any hypothetical movie would also use color to the same effect, in Annie's hair and elsewhere.

(Considering that those hecklers called Annie "carrot top", I assume that this color is supposed to represent a shade of red hair that wouldn't be that out of place in the real world.)

[preus]

Nov 10, 2008 6:00:47 GMT Mezzaphor said:

Maybe pink isn't the right name for it, but this is the color of Annie's hair in the comic:

It works in the comic because of Tom's mad color scheme skills. So I hope that any hypothetical movie would also use color to the same effect, in Annie's hair and elsewhere.

(Considering that those hecklers called Annie "carrot top", I assume that this color is supposed to represent a shade of red hair that wouldn't be that out of place in the real world.)

The colour is hard to place. If I had to call it something, I think I'd call it magneta, but that doesn't seem quite right.

[raddishh]

Don't get me wrong, I love Christian Bale as much as the next girl, but personally I think he's just a little bit to frigid to play Eglamore.

Now, as a handsome, tall, friendlier, but still bamf replacement, I offer Lee Pace from The Fall and the upcoming Possession.

Watch the trailer from The Fall. He essentially plays 2 characters and imagine a perfect mix of those two, and I think you've got Eglamore.

www.imdb.com/name/nm1195855/

[Count Casimir]

Nov 10, 2008 5:40:51 GMT preus said:

Interesting idea with the green screen fusion. I wish you'd used non-terrible movies as examples, though.

Matter of opinion, really. I quite enjoyed 300. Didn't see Speed Racer, though, so no opinions from me on that one.

[monkeybucks]

Nov 10, 2008 5:21:11 GMT preus said:

That's true. I think Hugh Laurie would be a good choice for Rey. I think both James Earl Jones and Chris Lee are too calm-sounding for Ysengrin. You'd need someone more wild-sounding, animalistic. I'm thinking Christian Bale doing his Batman voice, but not putting on an American accent. "SWEAR TO ME!"

I soooo hope you are joking. I am the biggest Batman (and Christian Bale, for that matter) fan out there, but me and my brother crack up every time that scene comes on. I think it's probably the worst thing I have ever seen him do.

The voice was slighlty more tolerable in The Dark Knight.

[nateella]

i rather enjoyed 300 too...but my choices i think are these (at least the ones i know for sure).

Reynardine: John McGinley (Aka Dr. Cox) from Scrubs, has the whole sarcasticness, the high and mightiness, the craziness, and the sentimentality all wrapped up in one .

Coyote: gotta be Jim Carrey

Jones: that lady Tom has pickeded

Eglamore: a hard pick...hard to get the right combination of facial features and physical build...maybe Eion Bailey with a good bit of a workout program for him to bulk up the torso?

headmaster: for some reason i could see Liam Neeson doing this

Dr. Disaster: Christopher Lloyd.

Ysengrin: i don't think james earl jones or christopher lee for this...voices are deep and menacing but don't fit the insanity in my opinion...i pick Benicio Del Toro .

[cenit]

Nov 5, 2008 7:26:11 GMT Tom Siddell said:

Here's Jones, as far as I'm concerned:

No she isn't based on her.

of course Jones isn't base on her... this lady like totally stole Jones image!!!! Turn in a lawsuit Tom!!!

[cenit]

The Rock for Muut!!!

[todd]

Nov 10, 2008 4:55:02 GMT preus said:

You'd have to juggle around the sequence of events, have more than one plotline happening at once, but you could make a very good first movie in a series based on chapters 1-9. Maybe cut out chapter 2, it doesn't seem very important.

I'm torn on whether Basil should appear in the movie or not. He's (so far) a one-shot character, so he could easily be deleted without any trouble. But his take on the Theseus legend does help prepare the audience to believe, along with Annie, that Reynardine (when he shows up in Sivo's body) is a noble "monster" being persecuted by a bullying warrior - because we saw something similar in Basil's account of Theseus crashing his party at the Cretan Labyrinth.

I think that a movie based on Chapters 1 through 9 should focus on the following threads:

1. Annie sending Robot across the bridge and its consequences.

2. Annie meeting Reynardine and his becoming trapped in her plush wolf doll.

3. Annie meeting Kat, and how their friendship helps to heal Annie of the pain from the loss of her mother and learn to be a kid again.

(I'll confess that I'm more interested in the adaptation of the story than in the casting - particularly because my awareness of the various movie actors out there isn't that much better than Annie's.)

[yerocha]

I kinda always pictured Reynardine as the voice of Gig from Soul Nomad and the World Eaters. It just seems to fit his character.

[preus]

Nov 10, 2008 23:51:14 GMT todd said:

Nov 10, 2008 4:55:02 GMT preus said:

You'd have to juggle around the sequence of events, have more than one plotline happening at once, but you could make a very good first movie in a series based on chapters 1-9. Maybe cut out chapter 2, it doesn't seem very important.

I'm torn on whether Basil should appear in the movie or not. He's (so far) a one-shot character, so he could easily be deleted without any trouble. But his take on the Theseus legend does help prepare the audience to believe, along with Annie, that Reynardine (when he shows up in Sivo's body) is a noble "monster" being persecuted by a bullying warrior - because we saw something similar in Basil's account of Theseus crashing his party at the Cretan Labyrinth.

I think that a movie based on Chapters 1 through 9 should focus on the following threads:

1. Annie sending Robot across the bridge and its consequences.

2. Annie meeting Reynardine and his becoming trapped in her plush wolf doll.

3. Annie meeting Kat, and how their friendship helps to heal Annie of the pain from the loss of her mother and learn to be a kid again.

(I'll confess that I'm more interested in the adaptation of the story than in the casting - particularly because my awareness of the various movie actors out there isn't that much better than Annie's.)

And, of course, Chapter Five: Two Strange Girls. It might seem a little out of place with the other plots, but I wouldn't have a movie without it. Perhaps the science fair could start before she meets Reynardine, and Zimmy and Gamma could continue to skulk through the movie after he reveals himself, maybe even playing some role in the events of Chapter Seven.

[preus]

Nov 10, 2008 9:20:22 GMT monkeybucks said:

I soooo hope you are joking. I am the biggest Batman (and Christian Bale, for that matter) fan out there, but me and my brother crack up every time that scene comes on. I think it's probably the worst thing I have ever seen him do.

The voice was slighlty more tolerable in The Dark Knight.

The voice was awesome in Batman Begins, but overdone in The Dark Knight. The "SWEAR TO ME!" scene radiates with badassery.

[todd]

The one difficulty I can see with having Zimmy and Gamma in the movie is that their story is so complex in its own right that it would be difficult to fit it into a movie (unless it revolved around them rather than around Annie and Gunnerkrigg). It can work in a webcomic, since the format allows for side stories, but a movie requires more unity.

[Rasselas]

I would resolve that difficulty somewhat like an "art" movie does. Having several storylines isn't strange at all in those.

[todd]

What I meant was that Zimmy and Gamma's story is far more tangentially connected to the Annie/Gunnerkrigg mythology than the other threads (to such an extent that you could explain who Zimmy and Gamma are without once mentioning the Court or any of its residents, including Annie). The other elements - Reynardine, Shadow2, Robot, etc. - are closely tied to the main thread; Zimmy and Gamma aren't. Their story revolves around their bonds with each other and Zimmy's anguish over her weird nature and imprisonment in the warped version of Birmingham.

[Mezzaphor]

Until we know the entire story, it's impossible for any of us to say which subplots are unimportant.

Zimmy was the first to recognize what Reynardine was, and Rey seemed to know what Zimmy is.

I suspect Tom is laying the groundwork for a big revelation about how Z & G are connected to the main plot. Big enough that, if Tom had omitted them prior to the reveal, we would all be complaining about Tom yanking major new characters out of nowhere.

ONE LAST EDIT: Morena Baccarin would probably be good as Anja.

[preus]

Nov 11, 2008 14:45:05 GMT Mezzaphor said:

Until we know the entire story, it's impossible for any of us to say which subplots are unimportant.

Zimmy was the first to recognize what Reynardine was, and Rey seemed to know what Zimmy is.

I suspect Tom is laying the groundwork for a big revelation about how Z & G are connected to the main plot. Big enough that, if Tom had omitted them prior to the reveal, we would all be complaining about Tom yanking major new characters out of nowhere.

ONE LAST EDIT: Morena Baccarin would probably be good as Anja.

He wasn't saying their plot is unimportant, just that it has few connections to the other plots. I like your big reveal theory, though. Probably won't happen fro a few chapters yet, since Z&G always have a sizeable gap between appearances. And Morena Baccarin is too young and flawlessly beautiful.

[exdevlin]

How about Marina Sirtis for Anja? She's a bit more aged, but I'm not sure about her hookish nose. She was Deanna Troi in Star Trek: Next Gen.

Also, I'd be happier if Annie had red hair. Not fiery per se, just a light red or so. Pink would look too Sci-fi/Lexx.

edit: Actually now that I look at her photos, her nose isn't as big as I thought it was...

[eightyfour]

I think Hugh Jackman could make a good Ysengrin. Or maybe even Jack Nickolson - ugh, I only now realize that both have played "wolfish" characters before. ;D For the headmaster I somehow can't help but to think of Robert DeNiro.

[lingus]

Honestly, I think Mezzaphor is right. I'd want to wait to see the "whole" story before deciding what plot points are relevant to adapting the comic to a movie format. The idea (at least I think) is to cut out a lot of the side story and "irrelevant" material that is not completely necessary to telling the main story. Since we aren't entirely sure what the "main" story is at this point, and we don't know what side stories are "irrelevant" to that main story, we can't really decide which characters and plots to keep and which to throw out.

With that said, I imagine that a single movie adaptation (one with no sequals or anything) would start with Annie showing up at the court, being all new and everything, meeting Kat and probably a couple other people. Eventually she learns that there's something "odd" about this place and goes to investigate. Probably at this point meets Reynardine and Eglamore. Basically, the story would probably end up being Annie learning about the Court and the forest and the connection between the two (whatever that may be) and what part she plays in the scheme of things(again, whatever that may be).

Much of the side story and characters (again, I'm assuming) such as Robot and Shadow2 and Gamma and Zimmy might not even be necessary to tell that story. And, even if it is essential in the comic, ussually when movies get made based on books and other things, they cut out things like that anyways... of course, ussually to the fan's dismay...

[todd]

Nov 12, 2008 15:04:37 GMT exdevlin said:

How about Marina Sirtis for Anja? She's a bit more aged, but I'm not sure about her hookish nose. She was Deanna Troi in Star Trek: Next Gen.

Also, I'd be happier if Annie had red hair. Not fiery per se, just a light red or so. Pink would look too Sci-fi/Lexx.

Sirtis also did the voice of Demona in "Gargoyles" - one of the great villains of animation.

And Annie's hair looks red rather than pink to me.

[fjodor]

Coyote should have the voice of Jeremy Irons.

[fuzzysocks]

I personally think Mark Hammel(sp?) would do a good voice for Coyote... after all... he was pretty amazing as the Joker in the Batman animated series.

[Count Casimir]

Mark Hamill is an amazing voice actor. He's in EVERY CARTOON EVER (possible hyperbole).

[fishf00d]

Jeremy Irons would make an exelent something, I'm just not sure what.

[preus]

The problem with most suggestions in this thread is that everyone's naming American actors, forgetting that Gunnerkrigg Court is wholly British. And sure, you could probably get them to put on fake British accents, but I at least can always always always always tell when they do that, and it pisses me off to listen to. What if Annie ends up sounding like Charlize Theron in Arrested Development? Every time she opened her mouth, every one of my brain cells vomited into my ear canals in an effort to block out her horrible, horrible accent.

[Mezzaphor]

Christian Bale is Welsh.

[preus]

Nov 14, 2008 8:01:23 GMT Mezzaphor said:

Christian Bale is Welsh.

I know. That's why I said he should be Ysengrin.

I'm thinking Christian Bale doing his Batman voice, but not putting on an American accent.