Sci-Fi Thursday Miscellaeny
By Steven Lloyd Wilson | Posted Under Trade News | Comments (35)
Hey, it’s that time of the month again, when the moon aligns just right so that there are a stack of small science fiction stories on a certain day, but nothing particularly big enough to warrant its own post. And the good news, is that it’s not all terrible news.
First up, J. Michael Straczynski has acquired the rights to Harlan Ellison’s legendary short story “‘Repent, Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman.” Ellison has resisted any attempt to adapt it into a film, saying:
Scripts are, in a hundred ways, more difficult and stylistically demanding than a straight story. It takes a conscious paradigm-shift in thinking to adapt something from narrative to visual media. With only a half dozen exceptions in my forty-plus years here, I’ve never allowed anyone else to stir my porridge. And as far as ‘Repent, Harlequin!’ is concerned, well, even I consider this gig to be a ball-buster. I wouldn’t trust it to anyone else. If anyone should fail at the task, it ought to be me, just to be fair.
Ellison has a special relationship with Straczynski though as they worked together on “Babylon 5.” It’s a fantastically different sort of dystopian story in which lateness is considered to be a theft of time, which is then of course deducted off of your life. It’s been in any number of short story collections over the years, and is well worth your while tracking it down if science fiction is your cup of tea.
Next up, Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome has gotten its first casting announcements out. They’ve cast Luke Pasqualino from the UK version of “Skins” as Adama and Ben Cotton from “Hellcats” and “Riese” as his commanding officer. I know absolutely not the slightest thing about either of these actors, other than this picture.
Well, they don’t immediately offend me, but that’s all I’ve got.
Finally, the NY Post, that paragon of responsible journalism, is reporting that Christian Bale is the front runner to play Roland in the massive film and television adaptation of The Dark Tower. I’m mixed. On the one hand he’s a fantastic actor, but on the other he just seems a shade too young to pull off the Gunslinger. Bale’s 36, and while it’s never quite clear how old Roland really is, it’s made abundantly clear that he’s worn and weathered. It’s just got to be a face with lines on it.
But I wouldn’t spend too much contemplation on the news because first of all, it’s the NY Post, and second of all they go on to say that the same source informed them that Jennifer Carpenter is in the running for the role of Susannah. Despite the nuanced arguments of Mac and Dennis for blackface, I just don’t see anyone getting King’s blessing to cast a white woman as Susannah, a character whose race is absolutely inseparable from her story.
But then we’re talking Ron Howard here, so who knows?
(sources: Blastr, InsideTV, NY Post)
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Comments
Posted by: TylerDFC at January 27, 2011 10:13 AM
AICN posted the Dark Tower news today but refuted the Bale news and said it was Javier Bardem. Also that Wizard & Glass would make up the TV series in between the 2 feature films. I doubt it will be Bale or Bardem, but Bardem is at least an interesting choice. I'm hoping that the Post is wrong (HA!) and what they mean is Jennifer Lawrence and that she is up for Susan Delgado.
But changing a black woman to a white one won't have any adverse consequences in the press either I'm sure.