UFO Movie - Cast suggestions

[Hiram K Hackenbacker]

I made this video with my choices for the cast in a UFO movie. It was made last August, before much was really known about the film and it's a pretty A-List heavy cast, so it's not at all realistic, but have a look anyway and post your own ideas :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eYyGKiG2Ag

[Steve Gerard]

Well done. I like the video and the choices are good.

[Colonel Foster]

I had this response on the IMDB forum re casting and it made interesting reading!


There are quite few actors able and suitable to portray Ed Straker, who's most certainly not the easiest role to take over from past TV series.

If they stay true to the series and use Joshua Jackson as Col. Paul Foster (a horrid choice in my book), then this movie would take place 4 years after the series. Jackson is 32 to Billington's 28 at the time. That would mean a 41-42 years old Ed Straker (instead of the 37-38 y/o one in the original series). The one actor truly able to pull that age frame off is Daniel Craig. A possible alternate choice might be Paul Bettany (with quite some coaching).

But they aparently plan to center on Jackson and make "their" Straker an old, embittered man. While I disagree quite totally on the angle of making Straker a dissatisfied, bitter character (Straker stayed a basically positive man through a divorce and a dead son!), I could see the movie(s) jumping ahead in time and giving us a middleaged or even older Ed Straker. That would have interesting potential. Needless to say, that in this case Jackson couldn't play Foster, who is just 9 years younger than Straker. The one actor literally springing to my mind for an aged Straker is Mark Harmon, who has several facets of the Straker personality already down to a Tee with his Gibbs, and is an excellent enough actor to add the parts of Straker he lacks. He is also - like Craig - one of the very few actors on a level with Ed Bishop's charisma and looks. He'd make a credible and attractive older Straker.

From what can be read on the movie's website and here on IMDB I really shudder when thinking about the horror they are going to do to the original series with their obvious mainstream, popcorn-munching approach. Brrrr.

The series wasn't about a hot guy having it on with cute babes while kicking UFOs' asses. Already in the late 60ies and compared to Star Trek, UFO was markedly different. It was dark, brooding, downbeat, pessimistic, way more like Brazil or Alien than like Star Wars. The character which was absolutely essential and the main and major attraction was Ed Straker, what he gave up to create SHADO, his struggle with commanding it, often nearly paranoid and definitely driven. The secondary characters were what helped define and temper him, some got more of their own personalisation, others less. And - so sorry - Paul Foster was a secondary character, an important one, but not the one essential to the series.

Bishop was absolutely brilliant in that role and at his personal height of a very seriously angelic attraction. To the day you'd be hard put finding any actor of a like ability with just such perfect looks and especially such a built, which both have gone quite out of fashion.

Oh, and already Gratzner's note that they will do away with Silvia Anderson's fashions for the males in the series quite clearly says it all: there's no understanding of what made U.F.O. tick. To the day the guys' clothes are timelessly elegant and extremely effective. Wrapping a very attractive man most of the time completely up in clothes, from right under the chin down to the wrists of his hands, while showing off his frame and figure is - as Armani also knows - immensely sexy and suggestive. Never mind Gerry Anderson's divorce rancour, but Silvia's costumes were hugely effective!

Naw, whatever I read so far tells me the UFO universe will be just as badly treated as Thunderbirds or Highlander.


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[Steve Gerard]

Naw, whatever I read so far tells me the UFO universe will be just as badly treated as Thunderbirds or Highlander.


Colonel Foster thanks for finding new information. Oh no, it sounds bad. The major problem with remakes is they fail to realize what made the original succeed.:confused:

[Colonel Foster]

I totally agree Earthman. Although there was a flavour of Thunderbirds in the 2004 movie, the series was never able to shine through... " I WANT TO BE A THUNDERBIRD FERMAT!!" ....Says it all really.

Mind you, having re-read Matthew's interview with Forbidden Planet,well, I am still holding out hope. I also believe that the reason for a lack of up to date information on this project is the financing. $130 Million is alot of capital to raise, regardless of the stakes that Transpacific Media could well be putting up, especially against a title that is not that well known. As ever, we shall see!

[Steve Gerard]

I totally agree Earthman. Although there was a flavour of Thunderbirds in the 2004 movie, the series was never able to shine through... " I WANT TO BE A THUNDERBIRD FERMAT!!" ....Says it all really.
...

Colonel Foster, I agree, the Jonathan Frakes' Thunderbirds 2004 movie should be required study at film schools of what not to do in remaking a classic series.

[colin]

Back to casting: I suggest Alan Rickman as Jackson

[Colonel Foster]

I think Alec Freeman. But he's probably not going to be in it!

[john61]

If you read all the posts about this film, you'll see my earliest posts were very pessimistic. I didn't believe the film would actually ever get made. Then I got on board and was optimistic. But now, for a while I've been pessimistic again. I now once again think we'll never actually see this film reach the screen. Too much of nothing as far as info from the people making it has once again convinced me it's a no goer. Time will tell I suppose.

[Derek Eaton]

Not sure its doing it for me with this casting or not?


http://www.fantascienza.com/magazine/imgbank/ZOOM/NEWS/foster-jackson.jpg

[sfgameruk]

...of course, you could do it in CG...

[Sweeps]

As a bit of tribute to the original series, what about Shane Rimmer as General Henderson? It would work well in my opinion :)

[air terrainean]

what about Shane Rimmer as General Henderson? It would work well in my opinion :)

Quite agree !

[john61]

Leave well alone. Forget all about re making UFO, and make something original instead.
You wouldn't get anyone re painting the Mona Lisa would you. Originals should be left alone.
UFO should be left alone.
The longer this has gone on the more I've felt it shouldn't be done. There's no need for it.
Leave it as it is. A classic stand alone tv series that did what all good tv series should do. Left us wanting more.
That's my opinion. Agree with me, disagree with me, or remain indifferent, it's your choice.

[sfgameruk]

...You wouldn't get anyone re painting the Mona Lisa would you. Originals should be left alone...

I cannot disagree more. Apart from the fact that the Mona Lisa is a badly restored dawb, (that whirring sound you can hear is Leonardo spinning in his grave), remakes (or better yet, newmakes) can be at least as good as the originals. Example: New Series Captain Scarlet was superb - all it lacked was a proper network showing and the courage to do 50-minute shows rather than 24-minute ones.

Trek the Motion Picture was a bit of a dog, but Trek Wrath of Khan was magnificent.

(Frakes' cheese-sandwich nightmare re-imagining of Thunderbirds notwithstanding).

a proper UFO remake with state-of-the art FX would be tremendous, but I'm thinking that even better would be a proper go at a live-action Captain Scarlet, with a gritty, realistic touch.

All you need is Simon Pegg to write the script...

RobinH

...SW, A New Hope -> SW, The Empire Strikes Back -> SW, Return of the Jedi -> SW The Phant... er, um, OK, I get your point...

[Steve Gerard]

As the original UFO series was set in the then near future of 1980, maybe this UFO movie should be set in the now near future of 2020.

[john61]

Mind you, as remakes go, UFO itself was a pretty good one. For was it not itself nothing more than a live action remake of Captain Scarlet?
Spectrum = Shado
Cloudbase = Moonbase
Angels = Interceptors
Mysterons = Aliens
Col White = Straker
Capt Scarlet = Foster
And so on and so forth. The only thing UFO didn't have was it's version of Captain Black, there was no human alien agent.
Am I not correct?

[Guina]

I agree with john61 - I'd be happy to hear this thing shelved for good.

By now I am convinced that the only way it might work would be to do completely without the former staff (and please, NO sons and nephews etc. of the original UFO crew) and have an entirely new team up and running in somewhere upwards of 2030 or 2040. It would need to share some core traits, like a mostly European staff, a similar set-up in the UK as before, an equally dark plot and some eye-candy of similar level (both for the modellers AND those who liked the looks and acting of the actors), but else nothing to link it with the old cast. Then - maybe, just maybe, though if it's done by Hollywood it will be a fail anyway.

The only other chance at a revival including Straker would be to go for an actor like Mark Harmon or Scott Glenn (both of whom are gorgeous in spite of their ages and close enough to Bishop in looks) and have him an aged Commander, preferably a slightly mellowed one (an embittered Straker would be puke-country as Bishop so painstakingly walked that line on the better side).

Everything else will harm the original series way worse than Star Trek (2009) harmed STOS. I find myself wishing this gets cancelled and someone acquires the UFO rights and sees to it it gets aired regularly again.

[Hiram K Hackenbacker]

Everything else will harm the original series way worse than Star Trek (2009) harmed STOS. I find myself wishing this gets cancelled and someone acquires the UFO rights and sees to it it gets aired regularly again.


If UFO turns out to even be half the film that Star Trek (2009) was, I shall be very happy indeed.

[Guina]

If UFO turns out to even be half the film that Star Trek (2009) was, I shall be very happy indeed.

Eugh.

That movie was the worst thing I saw within the past 15 years and I watch on average 2-3 new movies per week. It literally killed everything which was interesting in the franchise and left us with popcorn fodder for testosterone ridden immature boys.

Apart from that there were some of the biggest plotholes in moviehistory, godawful camerawork (lensflare anyone) and the ugliest Enterprise ever.

Yuck. Please no. Ufo would be as dead as Star Trek is now.

[Hiram K Hackenbacker]

Apart from that there were some of the biggest plotholes in moviehistory, godawful camerawork (lensflare anyone) and the ugliest Enterprise ever.

Yuck. Please no. Ufo would be as dead as Star Trek is now.

Virtually all science fiction films and series have plot holes. They can be plugged with a little imaginative thinking.

Nothing wrong with the camerawork itself, most of the film was beautifully shot, although I agree the lensflares were a little excessive in places (yes JJ, we get it, it's sunny in space)

I don't really understand the hatred for the Enterprise herself though. It's the same basic ship, you've got a Saucer, secondary hull, 3 connecting struts and 2 warp nacelles all arranged in the same configuration as every other Enterprise out there. It's not half as radical as the transition from SPV to Rhino for example.