If GC was a movie

[todd]

Nov 14, 2008 5:54:58 GMT preus said:

The problem with most suggestions in this thread is that everyone's naming American actors, forgetting that Gunnerkrigg Court is wholly British.

Maybe a lot of people on the thread are Americans, and more familiar with American actors than British actors.

It would make sense to have Coyote done by an American voice actor, though, in light of his mythological origins.

[Yin]

Come to think of it, what's Coyote doing in Britain anyway? Or do I mean England? Was it Scotland? (Yes, my memory's like a sieve.)

[Mezzaphor]

There is a real River Annan, in southern Scotland. However, Kat's "here in Scotland" comment in her first letter to Annie seems to imply that the Court is not in Scotland.

I would guess that the geography of the Gunnerverse is slightly different from ours, then. Maybe the Annan flows further south, or maybe the borders of England extend further north. Heck, maybe Gunnerkrigg and Gillitie are a separate country between England and Scotland.

[todd]

Maybe Coyote will reveal why he's now in Britain and not in the southwestern United States later in this chapter. (Though I think he's more likely to talk about Reynardine's past than his own.)

[Mezzaphor]

Something Tom said in his interview with Wizard:

One thing I like most about mythology is that the stories and characters are very malleable. I'm of the opinion that mythology shouldn't be set in stone just because it's written down somewhere. Some of the best myths probably started out as campfire stories retold over and over again, shaped to become more dramatic and fantastic and I think it would be a shame if that were to stop once a story is recorded and catalogued. That's why the trickster Coyote is hiding out in a forest in England in my comic. He's the same Coyote from legend, but I'm not going to confine him solely to those stories.

[snes]

You know, if Keanu Reeves had a way to gruff-up his voice, he'd make a half-decent Ysengrin.

[fjodor]

A really mean Morgan Freeman would make a great Ysengrin too.

[snes]

Nov 17, 2008 21:55:48 GMT fjodor said:

A really mean Morgan Freeman would make a great Ysengrin too.

I don't think Morgan Freeman can get that scary.

[preus]

No, but he is one of the world's greatest narrators. Just imagine this in his voice...

"Gunnerkrigg Court does not look much like a school at all. It closer resembles a large industrial complex than a place of learning. Within the first week of my attendance, I began noticing a number of strange occurrences. The most prevalent of these oddities being the fact that I seemed to have obtained a second shadow. At times I would see this creature jump from shadow to shadow. Once in a while hiding in the dark recesses of the Court. This made difficult my attempts to convey the situation to members of the faculty as my uninvited guest seemed to shy away from attention. More often than not, however, this grim spectre matched my every step. I decided to confront this being."

[fjodor]

Brrrrrrrr.... I'm scared already! You are rght Preus, it's particularly his voice that would do it. And with a bit of special FX, he'd be terrifying!

[Count Casimir]

...Morgan Freeman as Annie?

Awesome, if a bit strange.


Sean Connery as Kat!
"Aw'll shev you, little gel."

[exdevlin]

preus: I have Freemanic Paracusia, I could TOTALLY hear his voice there.

Casimir: Sean Connery definitely fits that line. I think my entire office heard me snerk right when I read your post.

And while we're on the subject of British actors, how about Kate Beckinsale? Maybe if we gave her a blonde dye job and she practiced an extremely impassive expression, she could do a Jones.

[preus]

Jones' total lack of expression perfectly suits Kate Beckinsdale's acting ability.
Yeah, it could work.

[Midnight Meadows]

Nov 14, 2008 12:22:20 GMT todd said:

It would make sense to have Coyote done by an American voice actor, though, in light of his mythological origins.

Whenever I read Coyote's lines, they're always in Mark Hamill's Joker voice from Batman The Animated Series.

Video related: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ld0uIhst3TA

[snes]

I wonder...would Raynardine have a different voice depending on what his body was? Like, would his toy form have a different actor than his wolf form? Or would it be better to have the same actor and just have him speak more refined as a wolf and more obnoxious as a toy?

[fishf00d]

Nov 18, 2008 20:58:19 GMT exdevlin said:

preus: I have Freemanic Paracusia, I could TOTALLY hear his voice there.

I see what you did there!

Also, I think morgan freeman might be able to pull off Ysengrin, but I dont know.

[todd]

Nov 19, 2008 2:43:32 GMT snes said:

I wonder...would Raynardine have a different voice depending on what his body was? Like, would his toy form have a different actor than his wolf form? Or would it be better to have the same actor and just have him speak more refined as a wolf and more obnoxious as a toy?

I asked Tom about that in the "Questions to Tom" thread (the second such thread), and he favors the latter.

I imagined it as being a bit like Keroberos in "Cardcaptor Sakura" (though I've only seen the dub that aired on Kids WB some years ago), who also had two forms - a stuffed toy and a majestic animal (though more lion-like than wolf-like), and had different voices for those forms - the toy voice being high-pitched and comical, and the lion voice being grand and majestic.

[Mezzaphor]

Tom also said that he imagines Rey's voice is like that of the robot teddy bear from the film A.I.

[msbee]

So, who would direct (other than Tom, of course)? For animation, I feel like a good mix of Pixar and Tim Burton would be nice, but it is hard to imagine. Haha.

I picture Muut voice being that of Hugh Jackman. (Weird, I know.)

[Tierra Y Libertad]

No way. The only route of adaptation for Gunnerkrigg Court to be adapted for actors would be in an animated series to be seen on television and collected into season-long DVDs. Each of the "books" denoted here, here and here.

[the bandit]

Note: It's poor form to define an actor's abilities / style within the framework of a single role. Match actors to characters, not characters to characters. Dr. House is a very different person from Wooster.

I wish I could see the pic Tom had for a "Jones" person, but all I get is [image].

[Mezzaphor]

It shows up if you copy-and-paste the url into your browser: www.gunnerkrigg.com/junk/elizabeth_rohm.jpg

[pepoluan]

Nov 4, 2008 22:52:23 GMT Mezzaphor said:

Well, I say it should be traditionally animated rather than live-action or CG.

But if it must be live-action, then Christian Bale as Sir Eglamore.

Find a way to make Kate Rusby and Orbital collaborate on the soundtrack.

I concur. A traditional animation.

[pepoluan]

Jul 9, 2009 22:26:53 GMT Mezzaphor said:

It shows up if you copy-and-paste the url into your browser: www.gunnerkrigg.com/junk/elizabeth_rohm.jpg

Whoa

That's an uncanny resemblance...

[Casey]

Having watched a LOT of Law and Order in my day, I can tell you that Elizabeth Rohm (I don't know how to make an umlaut o) would make a very good Jones, even if Jones weren't based on her.

[man]

i think clint eastwood would play the wolf doll thing

[Uncle Putte]

Aw, darned. Too late for this, I was just going to drop by and say that the movie would be animated, and Reynardine would be voiced by Mark Hamill. Ah well.

[Ulysses]

Mark Hamill would do all the voices. Mark Hamill is the Voice Master.

What do people think of Ellen Page as Kat? I tried her in my head as Annie but it didn't work, but give her curly black hair and I think she'd make a good Kat.

[Nemmy]

Very few ideas, here...

Annie - Saoirse Ronan (or possibly Abigail Breslin could be cute?)
Anja - Emily Mortimer
Surma - Kate Winslet (difficult to pull of the uncanny resemblance with different actors, I guess, but she does look rather like a grown-up version of Saoirse, in my opinion.)

[Robo Alchemist]

Nov 12, 2008 20:28:19 GMT lingus said:

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...

Also, when a book is adapted into a movie it usually has some 30 chapters or so. We're only starting chapter 24. If you were to cut down the time you read the comic so that it matched up with real-life reactions, took out that time it takes you to reach up, click on the forward arrow, wait for the next page to load and start reading again, you would probably read the whole thing in about an hour and a half. about the same length of a movie with around 22-23 chapters.
So I agree with Mezzaphor and Lingus, before we can even consider making a movie, we need to finish at least 28 chapters AND have a TON of plot and side-plot resolves.


But I don't mean to kill the fun of dreaming

In chapter 20, when coyote talks about placing the stars and constellations, he says how he met the "great spirit" placing the stars first. if this comic were to get legitimately religious (which it most likely won't for the consideration of the diversity of the readers), Morgan Freeman would be required by law to play the role of "God"/"The Great Spirit".