I recently had the pleasure and great fun to be interviewed by Gemma from the retro and current video games review site, Juicy Game Reviews. A chance post that I made on Twitter got us chatting about the Nintendo 64, or the SNES game Uniracers, also known as Unirally in PAL territories. Although I never worked on this title myself, I was at DMA Design when all the drama surrounding the game with Pixar was going on. It was a shame that the lawsuit resulted in it getting pulled from the shelves as it's a great game.
Unirally - Uniracers SNES Boxart for the N64
Anyway, we chatted briefly about my early days in videogames when I worked on DMA Design titles such as Body Harvest for the N64, a little bit on GTA, and Zenith. The
first game that I worked on at DMA was Zenith for the N64 and it's one of the
titles that got pulled from production.
Body Harvest Boxart for the N64
It was a damn shame as it was
shaping up to be a really exciting game, and I have no doubt that Zenith would have been a great N64 game. But I won't spoil what we
chatted about here.It's more fun to read about it on the interview. Gemma is really cool and I had great fun with her questions.
Zenith Player Characters
I also got the chance to chat about some of my work outside of games in the acting and film-making industry.
It was fun remembering back to those early days in video games.
Since the earliest news of The Force Awakens started hitting the world wide web, I've been having some fun creating a handful of cheeky images. I have nothing but the deepest respect for everyone who has worked to create any of the episodes in the George Lucas space opera, so none of my new or manipulated images are meant for anything other than having fun and enjoying Star Wars.
Lets start with BB-8 making his debut appearance at the Star Wars Celebration event hosted by J.J Abrams and Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy.
When The Force Awakens trailers came out, I had a great time with those. Yeah the first one is a bit crude but I'm a nice guy... honest.
I
made this image before seeing The Force Awakens and finding out that
Finn works in sanitation. There's a lot of Stormtroopers on the StarKiller base, and that's a whole lot of poop to deal with. I think this is why Finn really wanted out of
the First Order.
It's a dirty job
This next subject is really close to my heart. Who will be the next Han Solo. I
made this header image for my blog on why I believe the very fine
actor Anthony Ingruber should be the first to step in Mr Ford's space boots.
On a much more sombre note, I created this next image in response to the tragic Paris shooting at Charlie Hebdo. This is what actually prompted me to start blogging again.
Returning to more Star Wars silliness, I thought that Kylo Ren was a pretty cool, dark character, and he looked like he could fit right into a slasher horror movie. So I took an existing illustration of Kylo Ren and gave him a Scream makeover. The fantastic original illustration is not mine, I just slapped a Scream mask on him.
In space, no one can hear you Scream
And I'll end with just some plain old shenanigans.
Prequels, sequels, and remakes, just mentioning them will
have many curling up into a ball, rocking back and forth trying to find their
happy place. But some of the greatest movies ever made have been prequels,
sequels and remakes. A Fistful Of Dollars, The Magnificent Seven, Scarface, The
Thing, The Departed, Invasion Of The Body Snatchers - 1978, Zulu Dawn, The
Empire Strikes Back, Internal Affairs II and The Godfather II achieves the
remarkable feat of being both a sequel and a prequel in glorious fashion. The
only problem I have with any prequel, sequel, or remake is if they are bad
movies. Volumes could be written on what makes a movie bad, but one of the
biggest make or break elements is the casting. Get the casting wrong and things
are on a rocky road to hell right from the start. But get the casting right
then you've got something remarkable on your hands and it seldom gets any better
than Harrison Ford playing one of my absolute favourite movie heroes, Han Solo.
Who Me?
I can't wait to see The Force Awakens and the two following movies that will
continue the story with a new trilogy in George Lucas's space opera. But what
about the other movies that Disney has in store? What about all the adventures
all the characters had before everything in the galaxy went all dark side? The
adventures of Han Solo could create a series of movies as enduring as the Bond
movies. His DL-44 Blaster pistol is his Walther PPK, The Millennium Falcon is
his gadget rigged Aston Martin, and even if he doesn't do it all for Queen and
country on account of him being a bit of a scoundrel, he still wins the favour
of a princess. But what about that crucial element of casting a new actor to
play a younger Han Solo? Get it wrong and there will quite literally be riots
on the streets.
I have a bad feeling about this
A few names are being thrown around who
the successor to Mr Ford could be. Some I like the sound of and some I don't.
Aaron Paul is a fantastic actor and he would make an admirable Han Solo, even
if some part of me would be waiting for him to say, "Yeah! Deathstar BITCH!"
Chris Pratt I am in two minds about. He could pull it off up to a point, but he
would have to get rid of the Marvel makeover jacked look. Having an actor who
is as beefed up as that would just look terrible as Han Solo or Indiana Jones
for that matter. While I take my Fedora off to actors who get their bodies into
such great shape, it would just look weird and out of place in a period movie
playing Indiana Jones or playing Han Solo who is by all accounts just a regular
type of guy rather than a superhero type. Harrison Ford had the perfect degree
of athleticism to make Han Solo and Indiana Jones believable ass-kickers. So
please casting gods, no actors with Marvel jacked makeovers for these roles.
Please make the right choice
Being an actor myself I would love to be in one of the Star Wars movies, and
yes a part of me would love to play Han Solo, but more than anything I want the
casting to be as close to perfect as possible. That's why I reckon the first
new actor to step into Mr Ford's shoes should be Anthony Ingruber. Anthony
plays a young version of Harrison Ford in the movie The Age Of Adaline, and he
looks incredibly like a Younger version of Mr Ford.
I first heard of Anthony on my friend Casey
Ryan's very popular podcast show, The Cutting Room Floor where Anthony did this
killer impersonation of Harrison Ford.
Now if the right decisions are made and
Anthony becomes the new owner of the Millennium falcon, as awesome a job of
impersonating Mr Ford as he can do, I don't think he should do a simple
impersonation. I would be very surprised if that was expected of him or from whoever
ends up in the role. What Anthony's performance in The Age Of Adaline and being
able to do such mind-bogglingly accurate impersonations proves, is that he has the
acting chops to pull this off.
Anthony impersonating Harrison Ford
The Age Of Adaline trailer
Like every actor who has played James Bond, he
should bring his own brand of scoundrel to the role. Anthony is the perfect
choice to be the first new Han Solo. Maybe I can play Han Solo's old smuggler
friend Mako Spince and tear around the galaxy on smuggling adventures together.
That would be awesome.
While NASA has us freaking out over these images of giant crab monsters on Mars, we are being distracted away from the bigger picture.
While we are being pointed towards that crab like looking rock, and lets be honest, it's most likely just a rock, I want to know what is going on at the other side.
There is definitely some weird shit happening on Mars.
