From: Dan Parmenter <dan@lec.com>
Subject: (urth) Casting Call
Date: Wed, 13 May 1998 07:39:05 

From: "Alice Turner" <al@interport.net>

>Dorcas: Sissy Spacek. Claire Danes might do as a younger version.

Agreed, though maybe Mia Farrow would work too.

>Baldanders: that guy who's in the Billy Crystal movie, though it could be a
>computer-enhanced Arnold, I guess.

Nah, how about Arnold as Piaton and the head of Yul Brynner for Typhon?

>Jolenta: Well, Marilyn, but can we think of someone still alive?

The Marilyn fit is awfully good, and given that you've allowed us to
walk the corridors of time in search of the right cast at the right
time in their lives, why not her?  The Marilyn thing runs deep in our
culture.  Just last week I came across a copy of the classic PLAYBOY
Marilyn nude that I had totally forgotten about tucked away in amongst
some other posters and prints.  It was like finding buried treasure!

>From: "William H. Ansley" <wansley@warwick.net>

>My Worst Case Scenerio BotNS Cast
>Dr. Talos: Wallace Shawn

Well actually that wouldn't be bad at all.

From: Robert King <bobking@gate.net>

>Oh, and I could see Karen Allen (circa Raiders of the Lost Ark) as Agia.

Bingo!

Okay, so these are the ones I agree with from other people.  

God, if Charlton Heston were a little taller.  I mean let's face it,
this movie would have to be pretty much an epic on the scale of
BEN-HUR.  And about 12 hours long!  If I were to play devil's
advocate, I'd call it unfilmable, just for its length, but I've heard
that some brave soul is putting together a new production of LORD OF
THE RINGS in New Zealand, so one never knows these days.  Back when
there seemed to be a less-than-remote chance that WATCHMEN might be
made into a film I vehemently argued against, arguing that it was far
too tied into the comic book form and that indeed, its plot was almost
secondary to the subtle mechanics of its manipulation of the syntax of
comics.  This is one of the reasons that I think BOTNS is unfilmable:
it's too tied into the literary form itself and indeed, seems to
almost comment on it.  In a sense, Gene Wolfe has given us the perfect
SF story: time travel, spaceships, robots, giant bugs (Hethor's),
scantily-clad girls, the works, but to simply present these elements
in the usual Hollywood way might leave the less imaginative members of
the auidence scratching their heads.

I wouldn't mind seeing an animated version of it.

D


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