Waffling on Anderson Futures... 1

Hi there!

This will continue the tv related stuff, and I can't be suppressed here on my own blog as had happened in the past on the Fanderson's website... (cool people mostly, but Fans will be fans).

The topic here is musings on a subject that is dear to the heart... Gerry Anderson's fantastic vision of 'The Thunderbirds'. I don't own them, but they've been around so long... I just wish they'd been adapted into a large scale cinema 'ultimate' project, or had received "The New Adventures of Captain Scarlet" treatment and gone digital. The 2015 WETA project holds a lot of promise then...

There'd been a string of adaptations, which frankly, didn't fair too well out there in the community:

(the 2004 thing, prior fan projects and adaptations, and potentially counting chickens before they've hatched, the 2015 show might well suffer from that same curse).

Thats why we're musing here, we're waffling about a potential 3D/FFVII:AC style variant of the show

- if we could have anything and anyone from anywhen involved in a 'live action' TV/Cinema adaptation of that iconic show, how would we do it? (how could we take a leaf from JJ Abrams or Joss Whedon's book while we're at it? While staying faithful to the interpretation and perhaps spirit of the original we all know so well...).

So, with that all in mind... and yeah, I have written a few fandom-ish episodes (4 to be precise); I'd probably get a whole load of more writers in on the project hehe.

In my canon, Captain Scarlet and Thunderbirds universes are set in the same common 'Anderson-verse' -- though things like Stingray and UFO or Supercar are set in some other alternate verses...

There may be a slight crossover in this canon with the 'Fallout-verse', that post-apocalyptic-esque styled 'verse that is set in the near future, and which as I've waffled elsewhere and elsewhen about, is likely also the same universe that ST:TOS is supposed to be set in also...

It's gritty, its edgey-er. But not overthetop grim or depressing, nor are there incessant explosions or throwaway characters/lovestory arcs...

The Thunderbirds would have to have been on the radar for some time, and its likely a stolen project/subcontracted massive project: International Rescue must be something like Anonymous, a huge organisation world-wide... over a very long period of time.

 Some disaster happened; maybe global warming, maybe overpopulation etc... and the consequences of those are panning out... in come Thunderbirds, to try and mitigate some of this, as a supra-national organisation.

As with Abrams masterstroke in ST reboot, we want to do a slow reveal to make 'the old new again'. We want to start with vehicles that aren't quite what we know or the full number or completeness... but they morph into the characters and vehicles and ness that we know.

Also, Toshiba's model of Tracy Island, while we're on it, is the Canonical Tracy Island. They made a model for a display in Tokyo: that thing was so massive and so cool! It looked very Derek Meddings!

(same dude that worked on SFX for Thunderbirds and Superman, just imagine if he and Ralph Macquarie and John Eaves and Doug Chiang & Ryan Church and Mike Okuda all teamed up together, possibly with Da Vinci, to work on a project...)

So,  with all that in mind... if you're still reading this and keeping up, you've got some willpower!

Lets get into the fun bit, casting waffleage!

The beauty of 3D is that we can hybridise people! We can make people that resemble hybrids of multiple people all into the one 'character'. We can take people from anywhere and anywhen (unknowingly from futures though). I feel that a little bit of the original supermarionettes would still make it through to the final 'character', but I'd also like some real-world actors to stand in for the roles, possibly with other Voice Actors to do impressions.

So;

Geoff Tracy: Michael Keaton*, Liam Cunningham, Liam Neeson, Kenneth Welsh*

Brains: Brian Cranston*, Robert Downey Jr (as an aside, Brian is an anagram of Brain-s, so he was made to have the part).

Scott: Johnny Depp, Ioan Gruffudd*

Virgil: Ben Affleck, Billy Zane*

Alan: Ryan Reynolds, Channing Tatum, Jake Gyllenhaal*

Gordon: Keanu Reeves, Matthew McConaughey, Chris O'Donnell (no clear favorites here)

John: Freddy Prinze Jr, Neil Patrick Harris, Tobey Macguire*, Nathan Fillion,

Kirano: Temura Morrison, Ken Watanabe, Jay Laga'aia

Tintin: Faustina "Fuzzy" Agolley, Connie Mitchell, Betina Bush

Hood: Ben Kingsley (reprising his role) or Jamie Farr

Mister X (the dude that is Hood's Boss): Hugo Weaving?

Penelope: Helen Miren/Gwyneth Paltrow

Parker: Sylvester McCoy (possibly with Joe Pesci in there), David Suchet + the supermarionette...

Alrighty,

so thats 'the dream team'.

Mark Mitchell would make a guest star/recurring part of his choice (good, bad, whatever),

Jamie Farr would also make a guest star or recurring part.

The Kransky Sisters would make a guest appearance (a rescue set in Beaudesert or Esk...).

David Strassman would also be pretty neat to have make a cameo... (with an actual thunderbird marionette, or is that too much?)

There you go...

We will have to see how the WETA variant in 2015 pans out though, and it does look Clone Warsy in terms of feel and budget... so it's sure to be big budget and explosion/action filled for real!

What are your thoughts on the 2015 Thunderbirds situation? What would you rearrange with the dream team cast list? better yet; what's your dream team list?