Star Trek: Generations Cast Reunites at Montreal Comic Con 2012

Saturday night at the 2012 Montreal Comic Con featured an unexpected on stage reunion of the cast of Star Trek: Generations.

Well, at least part of it was unexpected, anyway.

The 1994 Star Trek movie featured William Shatner, as the original series' Captain Kirk, and Patrick Stewart, as Star Trek: The Next Generation's Captain Picard, together on screen for the first time. The Saturday night Comic Con event, entitled Reunion of the Generations,  featured  Shatner and Stewart on stage together.

The two legendary Star Trek Captains took fans' questions and riffed off of each other for close to an hour,  often whipping the capacity crowd up into a frenzy of applause and laughter.

The two cultural icons regaled the crowd with, among other things, an amusing rant about constantly being asked "What's your favourite episode?" and how they would both love to be in a "J.J. Abrams Star Trek movie". Shatner also added that he, interestingly, is currently working on a documentary film about the making of the Star Trek: The Next Generation television series.

About three quarters of the way through the show, a fan  asked question about about who Captains Kirk and Picard's greatest nemesis was.  Just then, a voice was heard quoting the line "Time is the fire in which we burn".


The line, of course, was uttered by the film's villain, Dr. Tollian Soran, played by none other than Malcolm McDowell (who was scheduled to appear at Comic Con the next day).

While the audience was still contemplating the fact the fan appeared to have just delivered the best McDowell impersonation they had ever heard, McDowell then quickly emerged from backstage to thunderous applause and a standing ovation. 

McDowell and Stewart have,  it turns out, known each other since their days with the Royal Shakespeare Company. Stewart pointed out that McDowell first appeared on stage with him as a "spear carrier" in a mid 1960's production of William Shakespeare's Henry The VIII, Part One. There was some controversy amongst the two about the actual year they met. McDowell saying it was '65 and Stewart '66 (though another online source puts their first meeting in 1964).

Messrs Shatner, Stewart and McDowell then went on to lament the death of Captain Kirk in Generations. McDowell pointed out that "[Star Trek Generations producer and co-writer] Rick Berman could have written you a better death". "They had you shot in the behind", Stewart quickly aware of much of the fan dissatisfaction with the onscreen death of Captain Kirk in Star Trek: Generations.

Throughout the onstage Generations cast reunion, there was no mention of some recent controversial comments McDowell made about the Trek franchise. Appearing at Hero Complex, an event hosted by the Los Angeles Times last June, McDowell said that in Star Trek Generations, he "got to be the guy who shut Shatner up.”, adding, in reference to the Star Trek movie franchise, that he "did them a favor,”.  In the same interview, McDowell continued his unabashed criticism of Trek, "...you have Patrick Stewart spouting off for another 40 minutes. If you find that exciting, hey, go watch paint dry", he said. He then went on to praise J.J. Abrams for "actually making some good [Star Trek] movies".


 

However, as McDowell and Stewart hugged each other on stage Saturday night, it seemed that, apparently, all had been forgiven, or at least, forgotten.

The Avengers and The Movie Crossovers That Never Happened

The Avengers have arrived.

The long awaited big screen adaptation of the legendary Marvel Comics superhero team in is finally playing in theaters. There has never been a crossover movie quite like The Avengers; characters established in their own original movies, made with the express intention of later putting those characters together in one big movie. The hype surrounding the release of Iron Man, Iron Man 2, The Incredible Hulk, Thor and Captain America was not just about the opening of a big blockbuster movie in and of itself.  As much as anything else,  the hype was also about how each movie brought the world one set up closer to The Avengers.

Movie crossovers are nothing new: Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man, King Kong vs Godzilla, Alien vs. Predator...the list goes on. Granted, putting Frankenstein and the Wolf Man in the same movie was as an after thought and not the reason why they made a Frankenstein and a Wolf Man movie in the first place but, still, you get the general idea.

It's all been done.

Or has it?

What about those crossover movies, some potential dreams comes true, some potential nightmares come true, that never quite made it into movies theaters?

 In the world of Hollywood Development Hell that is the movie business, many ideas, crossover and otherwise, are talked about. Few come to fruition.








Some of those ideas can run anywhere from the bizarre to the unfeasible or, in some cases, both.

Take, for instance, these examples...





The Beatles in The Lord of the Rings as Directed by Stanley Kubrick
Speaking as a huge fan of all three of the above, I am so glad this project never came to be.

Back in the day when Beatlemania was all the rage, The Beatles original old school show biz manager, Brian Epstein, signed a three picture deal for the The Fab Four with United Artists. A Hard Day's Night and Help! were the first two films of these deals.

By 1966, things had changed a bit since those two cinematic moptop romps were filmed. The Beatles had performed their last live show.  They started smoking those funny cigarettes Bob Dylan gave them. They were among the first people on the UK to drop acid. And, perhaps most significantly, the lads from Liverpool were replacing lyrics like "She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah. She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah" with lyrics like "No one I think is in my tree, I mean it must be high or low". 

The Era of Beatlemania had officially bitten the dust.

The boys themselves, now Zuckebergesque millionaires in their mid-20's, decided that they wanted to run their career a little differently from here on in. And they had the power to do pretty much whatever the hell they wanted. As anyone who has sat through the Star Wars prequels can tell you, that kind of creative control in not necessarily a good thing.

The Beatles were now, in part, defined by their own reactions against the earlier part of their career. They no longer had any taste for the incredible amount of handling they had undergone during their Beatlemania phase, for instance. Huge stadium shows were out. Rather than making live TV appearances, they made short films of their songs (early rock videos, really) to show on the Ed Sullivan Show and American Bandstand. And they sure weren't into making silly off-the-wall movies designed to sell soundtrack albums. Nonetheless, there was still a small matter of the contractual obligation they had for that pesky third Beatles movie. Well, if the lads were gonna do a film, they were gonna do it their way. Their, it turns out, lead to some -shall we say?- interesting ideas.

In the mid 60's, Italian film maker Sergio Leone had just created the genre that became known as the Spaghetti Western. The genre was typified by films of his like A Fistful of Dollars and The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. Yep, one of The Beatles movie ideas was that they would be the stars of a western; quite possibly a Leone-like Spaghetti Western. The movie may well have featured John, Paul, George and the aptly named Ringo sporting Clint Eastwood-like hair and beards while slinging their genre deconstructing six guns to the tune of an Ennio Morricone soundtrack perhaps peppered with a few psychedelic sounding Fab Four Country and Western songs.

The movie, oddly tittled A Talent For Loving, was actually scheduled to shoot in Spain. The reason for aborting the production was ostensibly on account of weather problems in that country. Though some might say it was the Hands of the Good Movie Gods intervening. If so, The Beatles would continue to keep those Hands pretty busy for some time to come.

The other idea the Beatles had was to do a film adaptation of JRR Tolkein's classic Fantasy  trilogy, The Lord of the Rings.  Back in the Sixties, The Lord of the Rings was seen as more of a mind blowing trippy hippie kinda book and not as much as the celebrated epitome of all geekdom that it is today. The lads were serious enough about the idea to approach the director of the SF classic 2001: A Space Odyssey, Stanley Kubrick. This made perfect sense because, aside from Kubrick being an accomplished A-list director at the time, 2001 was a movie that was very popular with the hippie crowd in 1968.

The Beatles. Tolkien. Kubrick. 1968. Did I mention the part about those funny Dylan cigarettes and being some of the first people in the UK to drop acid?

Stanley Kubrick's Lord of the Rings, Beatles-style, had already been cast too: George Harrison as Gandalf, Paul  McCartney as Frodo Baggins, Ringo Starr as Sam Wisegamgee and John Lennon as Gollum.

Hey, man, don't shoot the messenger.

According to most reliable Kubrick biographies, the legendary director did actually consider taking the job. Kubrick finally passed on the film, though, on the grounds that the books, even with his 2001 visual effects team on the job, were unfilmable. In the pre-Industrial Light and Magic and CGI era, Kubrick was right.

While a Kubrick LOTR would have been fascinating, God knows how much of Tolkien would have actually made it to the final cut. Just ask Antony Burgess, Stephen King and Vladimir Nabokov how Kubrick film adaptations worked out for them.

Not to mention that The Beatles are not actors. They would have been plugging their own personalities into pre-established Tolkien characters. So the movie would have ended up with a Maharishi-like Gandalf, a over-the-top cutesy Frodo, an angry anti-authoritarian Golum and a goofily downbeat Sam.

It's also rumoured that, after Kubrick turned the project down, British film maker John Boorman was approached. Boorman too would have been an "interesting" fit, having gone on to direct films like Deliverance, Excalibur and one of the trippiest SF exercises of all time, Zardoz.

According to Peter Jackson, it was Tolkien himself, by virtue of the fact that he was still alive at the time, who put the ultimate kibosh on the whole bizarre mash-up of a project.

The Beatles finally ended up getting their long desired hippy dippy adventure movie and got to honour their United Artists contract at the same time. The solution to both problems was the animated film, Yellow Submarine. The animated movie was appropriately psychedelic to the era. It also demanded very little of The Beatles, outside of writing some new songs and appearing in a short live action epilogue at the end of the film.

Another crossover that never happened...

Zeppelins, Dinosaurs, Vikings and Nazis
With a line up like that, how could you go wrong? 
Well, let's start with never making it...

While none of the above elements were established movie franchises per se, they were, and still are, elements that, even by themselves in just one film, can make for awesome movies.

Hot on the heels of the success of the original 1933 King Kong, producers and directors Ernest B. Schoedsack and Merian C. Cooper were approached by MGM studios to make a fantasy adventure movie so big that it would make King Kong look like a spider monkey. The movie in question was to have been titled War Eagles.

The basic elements of the movie would have gone something like this: explorers discover a lost valley. In this remote valley, descendants of Vikings lost centuries before continue to thrive. Also still existing in this valley: dinosaurs. Vikings and dinosaurs. Of course. De rigeur for any great adventure epic, really.

In addition to dinosaurs, there are also giant prehistoric eagles (the fossil records for which have yet to be discovered, I guess). Naturally, the Vikings ride these giant eagles majestically through the skies. Somewhere along the way, it being the eve of World War II and all, the Nazis attempt to invade the US of A. Their attack fleet is made up, naturally, of Zeppelins. Oh, yes, indeed, my friends, the climatic battle of War Eagles would have featured Vikings riding a top giant prehistoric eagles fighting off Nazi Zeppelins over the skyscrapers of Manhattan.

Total Geekasm.

For the 1930's, War Eagles have been positively Michael Bay in its scope (though probably better directed). The movie would have been in Technicolor, the same process for making colour movies (a rarity back then) used in The Wizard of OZ and Gone With The Wind. Willis O'Brien, the effects legend behind King Kong, was set to do the visual effects. The screenplay was written by Cyril Hume, who wrote many of the hit MGM Tarzan movies as well as the now classic 50's SF film, Forbidden Planet.

With a premise so rich and a team like that, it begs the question: how did this movie not get made?  Well, the answer had something to do with the real life version of World War II.

Producer Cooper was also very much the adventurer. He was a flier and subsequent POW during World War I.  Not unlike the Carl Denham character in King Kong, Cooper shot wildlife documentary footage in exotic locales like Africa and South America during the 20's. On the brink of  the US entry into World War II, Cooper left Hollywood to join the US Air Force, despite the fact he was already old enough to have been exempt from military service. When he left, War Eagles was put on hold. It was never picked up again. At the time of Cooper's departure, the film was pretty far into production too, as this excellent book tells us.

A novel , supposedly based on the unfilmed screenplay for War Eagles, came out many years later, though, I'm told, given War Eagles' history and pedigree, it is something of a let down. IMDB lists a 2012 version of War Eagles, with a similar plot to the original, as being "in development" but it cites no stars, director, writer, producer or studio attached to it.

Hey, Peter Jackson, you showed a great amount of admiration for King Kong in your 2005 remake. Maybe you could get to War Eagles after that Hobbit thing, k?

Star Trek Meets Eddie Murphy
The best idea in blockbuster movie crossovers since Richard Pryor met Superman.

Back in the mid 80's, riding high on the phenomenal success of the first Beverly Hills Cop movie, former Saturday Night Live star Eddie Murphy was just about the biggest comic on the planet. It seems that somebody got the idea of expanding Murphy's comedic range beyond that of just the planet.

Also not doing too badly in the mid 80's was the Star Trek franchise. The feature film series based the seminal SF TV series was hot off the one two punch of the hit movies, Star Trek II and III.  Leonard Nimoy, director and star of the upcoming Star Trek IV,  felt that, after all the emotionally wrenching death, destruction and resurrection in II and III, it was time for the Trek franchise to lighten up a bit. After all, where was the Star Trek movies answer to the show's classic comic relief episode, The Trouble With Tribbles?

Well, the answer certainly wasn't in the idea that came next.

Apparently some of the suits at Paramount Pictures got wind of the lighter direction idea for Trek. I guess they looked at some Beverly Hills Cop box office receipts and suddenly came up with a brilliant idea. Why not put Eddie Murphy in the next Star Trek movie? Unfortunately, their question was a rhetorical one.

Nimoy played the studio's little game and considered the idea. Murphy, reportedly a huge fan, leaped at even the very idea of appearing in a Star Trek movie. The wacky alien concept was bounced around but, in the end, it was decided that Murphy would be funniest if he were allowed to stay squarely in his mid 80's urban context. Thus the idea of a time travel story line was born.

According to Nimoy's book, I Am Spock, Nimoy met with Murphy in the ascending superstar's new sparsely furnished Hollywood Hills mansion. Nimoy writes that both parties,while remaining enthusiastic, expressed reservations over such a crossover and that both were well aware of its potential for failure.

The story goes that someone at the studio suddenly became aware of Superman III, which featured ground-breaking comedian turned movie star Richard Pryor in a central role. The combo of the very funny Pryor and the very established franchise of Superman was, well, poorly received by critics and fans alike. Superman III did okay at the box office yet still sent the franchise into a slump. Somebody at Paramount got appropriately scared of the idea of mixing franchises and of potentially killing both Murphy's and Trek's reputation simultaneously. Keep the two apart, though, and there was almost guaranteed success for each.

That ended up being the right call. Star Trek IV went on to become one the highest grossing Star Trek movies ever. Murphy's next two movies, The Golden Child and Coming to America, are still among the star's top ten highest money makers ever.

The time travel scenario did stay in the picture, though. The part Murphy was supposed to have played in Star Trek IV eventually morphed in the role of  20th century marine biologist Dr.Gillian Taylor, Kirk's love interest.

Imagine if Murphy had stuck with the part that far ; now that woulda been a crossover.

Which brings us to....

Batman vs. Superman
Wolfgang Petersen's Super Perfect Das Bat Force One starring Jude Law and Colin Ferell. 

Cast your mind back the time just after Joel Schmuacher and George Clooney "killed" the Batman franchise; the time when it was painfully obvious that Christopher Reeve would never play Superman again. Around that time, superhero movies were seeing something of a box office renaissance with the success of X-Men and the first Spider-Man movie. Hulk, Daredevil and Fantastic Four movies were also on the way. Not surprisingly, the idea of of reviving both the Superman and Batman franchises was very much one the minds of the people at DC Comics and Warner Studios. Reportedly, the predominant feeling was that bringing life back to Warner/DC's dormant flagship characters would best done sooner than later. Many different options on how to go about reviving Supes and Bats were explored.

What they settled on was Batman vs Superman.

Batman vs Superman...hmmm....well, the idea of getting those two guys together in a movie is a good one and one that is long overdue at that. However, the "vs" angle can be a bit problematic. Anyone who read World's Finest Comics (which regularly featured Superman-Batman team ups) when they were a kid knows that the two superheroes' alliance was generally an amiable one. Sure, in later Justice League and other comics, there was plenty of tension between The Gothamite and the Metropolitan. However, with the exception of Frank Miller's extremely gritty The Dark Knight Returns, relations between the two rarely broke down the "vs" level.

The battling superhero scenario has certainly been done in the comics. Plenty of times, in fact. It's a premise that can work, within certain limits. You can have The Thing vs The Hulk or The Hulk vs Wolverine and even the monumental Marvel-DC crossover of Superman vs Spider-Man seemed to make sense, but when comes to Superman and Batman, the whole "vs" concept just doesn't quite mesh.

Wolfgang doin' the directan' thang

Nonetheless, Batman vs Superman moved ahead. The studio got Wolfgang Petersen, director of such films as Das Boot, The Perfect Storm, Enemy Mine, The Neverending Story, Troy and Air Force One, on board to direct. Petersen stated publicly that he was very into the idea and loved the film versions of both characters that had appeared thus far. In fact, he still claims that he is interested in directing a Batman vs Superman movie some day.

Possible casting choices that hit the rumour mill at the time included Jude Law or Josh Hartnett as Superman and Colin Ferrell or actual eventual Batman, Christian Bale, as The Dark Knight himself. Apparently, Bale was also at one point considered for the role of Superman.

Wow. Imagine. Bale vs Bale. That, I woulda paid good money to see.

Like the Eddie Murphy meets Star Trek idea, however, Warner/DC got cold feet on the idea mixing franchises. Lighter heads prevailed. They decided that it would be better to revive each character separately. If Batman vs Superman bombed, both characters were screwed at box office. If only one or the other bombed, well, they always had Batman vs Superman in their back pocket to help boost the hypothetically less successful franchise.

In time, Warner/DC finally went with Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins. For the Kryptonian's resurrection, there was Bryan Singer's ostensible follow up to the Christopher Reeve Superman movies, Superman Returns. Batman Begins was a huge hit, as was its sequel, The Dark Night (and most likely that will also be the case for the upcoming The Dark Knight Rises). Superman Returns, on the other hand, did well financially but not so well with critics and fans. Whatever the case, there was never any talk of Bale's Batman duking it out with Brandon Routh's Superman.

In fact, now with The Avengers finally here, the DC superhero movie crossover project may well come full circle. Marvel Comics has just made a huge, bold and more than likely very successful move with a feature film version of their superhero team. Warner/DC have apparently been thinking about a potential movie featuring that company's biggest superhero group, The Justice League (also known for years on Saturday morning TV as the Super Friends) for some time. Now, it may well happen.

All Warner/DC needs to do now, is, after the 2013 Superman movie, Man of Steel, reboot Batman yet again (neither Nolan nor Bale are interested in seeing the Dark Knight join the league). Then they just need to tackle the small matter of making a Wonder Woman, Flash and Aquaman movie. And, well, popular or not, they've already established a movie Green Lantern, who could be ready to join the Justice League any time.

But, you know, after looking at the Development Hell process in detail in this post, it's possible that just about every project on this list may well come into being before we will ever see anything like a Justice League or a similarly ambitious crossover movie happen.

10 Sean Connery Roles That Never Were

Sir Thomas Sean Connery looks back at that which might have been.

Anybody who has ever parused into the depths of IMDB.com or the plethora of internet trivia pages, knows there are a lot of famous roles that were not originally going to be played by the actors that made them famous. There are a lot of stars in cinema history that at one time or another have been offered famous, popular or iconic roles and, for one reason or another, turned them down.

It's fun (or in some cases horrifying) to think about these movie-might-have-been's: Ronald Reagan as Rick Blaine in Casablanca, WC Fields as The Wizard in the The Wizard of Oz, Nicolas Cage as Superman, Tom Selleck as Indiana Jones, Dustin Hoffman as Rick Deckard in Blade Runner, Dom de la Luise and Harvey Korman in Airplane!, Christopher Walken as Han Solo, Marlon Brando in The Exorcist...the list goes on and on. It's not uncommon for a role and the film it belongs to to transmography radically several times over during the process known in the industry as "development hell".

In many cases, the original casting choices are ones that could have significantly changed the role, the movie or both. Poke around in the depths of alternating casting lore long enough and there is one name that reappears more than  any other: Sean Connery.

Once you take a good look at the amount of times it has happened, it is not uncommon for big movie stars to pass on roles that become legendary in the hands of other actors. However, in Connery's case, it sometimes feels like the original James Bond Academy Award Winning Sexiest Man Alive has turned down just about every role he was ever offered.. Few movie stars can match Connery's seemingly pathological commitment to passing over famous, iconic, financially successful, career defining and just plain juicy roles. The guy a legend in that department.

Here are 10 examples for Sir Thomas Sean Connery's incredible knack for the phrase: "Hmmm....no, guys, I think I'll pass this time, thanks."

Tarzan 

in 

Tarzan, The Magnificent

Tarzan and the Plastic Jungle of the Bandanna People

In 1959, the Tarzan movie franchise, which had been dumbing down Edgar Rice Burroughs' jungle pulp adventure hero since the early 30's, got something of a reboot. The same series of ape man movies had been a viable Hollywood franchise since 1932. 27 years on, a new producer, Sy Wientraub, had taken control of the series. He felt it was time to shake the Lord of the Jungle up a  bit. The resulting movie, Tarzan's Greatest Adventure is one the best Tarzan movie ever made (with kudos also going to the 1999 Disney version and the 1984 film, Greystoke).  For the first time in cinema history, the character's childlike "me Tarzan, you Jane" broken pidgin English was dropped in favour of making Tarzan as articulate and intelligent as he was in the pages of Burroughs' original novels.

Muscle man turned B-movie actor Gordon Scott was cast as Tarzan. The evil treasure hunting bad guy was effectively played by Anthony Quayle. In the part of one of Quayle's henchman was a young up and coming Scottish actor by the name of Sean Connery. Producer Weintraub was so impressed with the young Connery that he reportedly offered him the role of Tarzan in the next movie in the the series, Tarzan The Magnificent. Connery is quoted as responding to Weintraub's offer with, "two fellows took an option on me for some spy picture and are exercising it. But I'll be in yours next.".  On account of that "spy picture" thing, Connery's Tarzan was never to be. By the time Tarzan Goes to India (next film in the series after Tarzan The Magnificent) got off the ground, so had a series of movies featuring a spy named Bond, James Bond. James Bond was a massive hit and it arguably remains Connery's most famous role to this day.

Not all trivia sites are in agreement on the Tarzan role, however. Some say Connery was was offered a role in Tarzan Goes to India but not the title role.  Given Connery's Mr.Universe physique, undeniable charm and sex appeal at that time, Tarzan seems a much more likely role for a hot young actor than that of just another baddie. Either way, it is a moot point. Connery was out of Weintraub's price range by that time anyway. There probably wasn't enough money in all of Hollywood to convince Connery to don that loin cloth by that stage in his career.

At the height of Bondmania in the mid-60's, Tarzan's Greatest Adventure was re-released into theatres. The film's second run was an obvious attempt to cash in on Connery's presence in the movie . The movie poster for the re-release featured a new (SPOILER ALERT) slug line: "Tarzan Kills James Bond!".

Connery in the Tarzan role he did actually play, along with fellow bad guy Anthony Quayle

King of the Moon 

in 

The Adventures of Baron Munchhausen

After co-directing one of the greatest comedies ever made, Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1974), ex-Pythoner and budding auteur, Terry Gilliam, went on to create a series of increasingly audacious cult movies. Time Bandits (1981) was followed by the highly praised Brazil (1985). Gilliam then followed that up with his biggest and most sprawling production to date, The Adventures of Baron Munchhausen (1988).

Sean Connery had previously worked with Terry Gilliam in the aforementioned Time Bandits. In that film, a sheltered British kid and a bunch of dwarfs quirkily

The Adventures of Baron Munchhausen is an epic fantasy adventure set in the 18th century...on acid...or to be more historically accurate but still as cliched...on opium. Among about a million and one other visually stunning stream of consciousness adventures, the eponymous Baron sails to the moon. Once there he encounters, naturally, the King of the Moon.

Apparently stipulating that he only play Kings in any future Gilliam movie, Connery was cast as the lunar monarch. Gilliam has a reputation for retooling and rewriting his scripts that puts the like George Lucas and Orson Welles to shame. The Munchhausen script at the time that Connery signed on and the one that ended up being the shooting script were two very different animals. Somewhere in there, the King of the Moon, a substantial role in the first draft, ended up being reduced to little more than cameo role in the final draft. Connery reportedly felt that the part had become too small and so he dropped out of the project.

Gilliam's path at that point was clear: recast the part with the only actor who is as close to Sean Connery as you can get:  Robin Williams.

Robin Williams or Sean Connery? Who can tell?

The Player 

in 

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

Speaking of Terry Gilliam, the screenplay for Gilliam's most famous film, Brazil ,was co-written by British playwright Tom Stoppard. Stoppard wrote (or co-wrote) a number of screenplays including Shakespeare in Love and an uncredited rewrite of all of the dialogue in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.

As a playwright, however, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead remains Stoppard's best known work. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is actually a play within a play. It follows the "off stage" story of two minor characters from William Shakespeare's Hamlet.

Rosencrantz and Guidenstern Are Dead premiered on stage at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 1966. However, it was not until 1990 that Stoppard finally got to make the film version of one of the most wonderfully absurdist meta pieces of theatre ever. Stoppard both adapted his play to the screen and directed the film. Rosencrantz was played by Gary Oldman and Tim Roth was cast as Guildenstern. The role of the Player King is smaller than that of the two leads, yet thematically intrinsic to the play. For that part Stoppard cast, you guessed it, Sean Connery.

I have played the part of the Player King on stage in both Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead and Hamlet. For the life of me, I can not fathom why any actor would want to turn down so juicy a part. Nonetheless, Connery did just that.

There are conflicting explanations as to why  Mr.Connery did so. I remember reading the press on the movie when it came out. The story that I read then was that Connery was forced to drop out for health reasons. The actor had throat surgery in 1989, reportedly to remove benign nodules from his vocal chords. His voice, the story said, had not yet sufficiently recovered from the surgery to take on such a role.

Current Internet commentators, on the other hand, seem convinced that Connery dumped the part in favour of the much better paying and higher profile gig as the Scottish-brogued Russian submarine Captain in The Hunt For Red October. Throat surgery seems a more likely explanation to me. Watch Connery's films and you'll notice that his now trademark and often imitated vocal raspyness only starts turning up in his performances from 1990 or so onward.

The role of the Player King
finally went to the second greatest
Connery doppelganger after Robin Williams,
Richard Dreyfus.  

Thomas Crown 

in 

The Thomas Crown Affair

In 1968, box office superstar Steve McQueen, was cast against type in director Norman Jewison's The Thomas Crown Affair.  McQueen's character, the titular role, is a millionaire businessman (yep, just a mere millionaire, it was the 44 years ago, after all).

This particular member of the 1968 1%  also robbed banks, just for the fun of it. The role of the suave, sophisticated debonair playboy millionaire was a bit of  departure for McQueen. His most famous roles up to that point tended to be cops, cowboys, foot soldiers, street hustlers and other more down to earth every man type characters. Nobody saw McQueen as a "suit". The star had a great deal of trouble convincing the studio to let him play one too.

Some of the resistance to McQueen playing the role of Thomas Crown came from screenwriter Alan Trustman.

Why? Well, in a 2011 interview with the New York Daily News, Trustman explains, " I wrote it for Sean Connery.....when they cast Steve McQueen, I objected violently and claimed that he could not deliver the dialogue."

Connery had already turned them down by that point so Trustman and the studio execs finally relented. The screenwriter did an extensive rewrite of the role, tailoring it to McQueen's personality.

Connery has since said that he regretted not taking the part.  Personally, I'm not convinced that it would have worked. Thomas Crown dresses well, has expensive tastes and seduces the woman who is investigating him. A variation on James Bond, in other words.

Perhaps the best known scene in The Thomas Crown Affair is the one in which McQueen and co-star Faye Dunaway, not so subtly flirt with each other while playing chess. Let's just say that there' plenty of Bishop stroking and leave it at that.  I shudder to think what kind of a grinning smirkfest a 1968 Sean Connery would have turned that scene into. Trustman also seemed to have a strong sense of what Connery's Thomas Crown might have been like. " It would have been very different and I'm not sure it would have been better.", he said.

Interestingly, when Die Hard and Predator director John McTiernan remade the movie in 1999, he too cast the James Bond of the day, Pierce Brosnan, in the title role. The Thomas Crown Affair had come full circle. Said Trustman of the remake, "Brosnan played it as if he were Sean Connery.".

James Bond 

in 

On Her Majesty's Secret Service, 

Live and Let Die 

and 

Moonraker

Early marketing campaigns attempted to capitalize on the idea of a Connery-less Bond movie

Sean Connery had a complex, love-hate relationship with James Bond. Sure, it brought him  international super-stardom, yet in the success of the popular role lurked that which can be both an actor's blessing and curse: typecasting. Connery would not successfully break the Bond mold until years after he left the series. Even so, it took till to the late 80's and early 90's before Mr. Connery really ditched the 007 association once and for all.

It's hard to believe that, as early as 1977, Connery was considering playing Bond again. The projects in question were non-official rogue 007 films spawned by a complicated legal loophole that opened the door to the question of who really owned the rights to the story of the fifth Bond movie, Thunderball .  Such legal machinations would finally result in Connery reprising the role of Bond in Never Say Never Again in 1983 (it and the 1967 spoof, Casino Royale, remain the only two "unofficial"James Bond movies).

Even before that, though, Connery had his fair share of flirtations with 007 movies that would not come to pass.  After Thunderball, the producers of the Bond franchise wanted to follow up that massive hit with On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Based, of course, on the Ian Fleming Bond novel of the same name, that's the movie where James Bond famously (SPOILER ALERT) gets married and his wife famously (SPOILER ALERT) gets killed. There was just one problem with the plan. The film features a hidden bad guy fortress in the Swiss alps which, of course, endows the story with both a ski and bob sled chase. In order to meet the studio's desired release date for the next Bond movie, On Her Majesty's Secret Service would have had to shoot in summer. That made shooting ski chases in the Swiss alps a little problematic. So instead the producers moved ahead with You Only Live Twice, the Fleming book in which Bond (SPOILER ALERT) supposedly famously dies. Midway through shooting You Only Twice in Japan, Connery decided that he was leaving the franchise. So On Her Majesty Secret Service, a fan favourite of the series, which contained one of the most powerful scenes in all of Bond-dom, the death of 007's wife, would, alas, be done without Connery.

Even after all that, Connery was not still quite done with the role yet. After the box office disappointment of the Connery-less On Her Majesty's Secret Service and the thorough critical trouncing of new 007 George Lazenby, the producers and the studio were quite eager to see Connery back in Bond action. They finally struck a deal with Connery to return to the role just one more time.  He was paid the then astronomical fee of one million dollars. Connery donated all of it to charity.

In the late 60's with the Apollo 11 moon landing and the public's general fascination with space, Ian Fleming's Moonraker (the closest the literary Bond ever got to outer space) was considered as the next film. Gerry Anderson, famous for his super successful puppet action adventure shows Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet, was hired to get to work on a space oriented Bond story. For reasons that remain uncertain, Moonraker was ditched in favour of Diamonds Are Forever in which, of course, Connery would star. A satellite in the service of the evil Blofeld and stunningly silly desert moon buggy chase  are all that remained of the space angle (and of Anderson's contributions? Who knows?). The franchise would return to Moonraker in 1979, in the wake of the success of Star Wars and the new Hollywood sci-fi blockbuster craze of the time.

Diamonds are Forever went on to become the number one grossing movie of 1971. That  is particularly impressive box office success when you take into account that the movie was released in December.  Now the studio was more eager then ever for another Connery Bond. Overtures were made. Overtures to the reported tune of 5.4 million bucks. It was an unheard of offer back in the day but the studio really really really wanted Connery in that next James Bond movie. The next film slated for the series was Live and Let Die. As pop culture history tells us , despite the incredible offer, Sean Connery did not appear in Live and Let Die. The producers and the studio, no doubt reluctantly, settled for Roger Moore, the former star of the British TV series, The Saint, as James Bond.

Probably for the best. As Roger Moore took on the Bond mantle, the series would go on to defy itself  in its  rise to all the new levels of super silly-billy-ness.

Imagine what the German release poster for
Moonraker with Connery as Bond would have looked like...

Nigel Powers 

in 

Austin Powers in Goldmember

In early 2001, it was being widely reported in the entertainment news media that Sean Connery and his Goldfinger co-star Honor Blackman (you know, the P-word named woman) had just signed on the play the parents of Mike Myer's mega popular super spy parody character, Austin Powers. The news didn't come as that much of a surprise. Ever since the first film in the Austin Powers series, everybody was kinda expecting something like this, sooner or later.

In said first film, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, it was clear that Meyers was doing a James Bond parody. In fact, it was a little too clear, if you ask me.  Myers' 60's Bond parody concept was very predominant in the media and popular consciousness. It's all anybody was focusing on. There was little or no mention of all the other lesser known 60's spy films and pop culture that Myers was satirizing even more than he was poking fun at Bond. Myers was, in fact, also going after many of Bond's imitators and the super spy pop culture fad of the 1960s in general. That first Powers movie had everything from character names lifted directly from Dean Martin's Matt Helm spy comedy movies to references to the Flinstones' "J.Bondrock" parody. Alas, almost all such references flew right by most critics and commentators.

For better or worse, the Bond references were the most obvious ones to spot. The climatic Austin Powers scenes in the first film feature some shot for shot recreations of similar scenes the climatic battle in the James Bond movie, You Only Live Twice.  Dr.Evil looks almost exactly the same as Donald Pleasance in the role Ernst Starvro Blofeld, the Bond arch villain character (though Dr.Evil was named after the arch nemesis of Captain Action, a popular action figure line at the time).  Then, of courses, there's Powers' comically hairy chest that is most certainly a nod to every time Mr.Connery took off his shirt in a Bond movie.

Never Say Never Again: about as close as we'll ever see of an aging Connery in a spy role.

When Myers decided to introduce the silly super spy Powers' dad, Connery was a natural choice. Sir Sean had even already blazed the trail for the role when he played the dad of a character he partly influenced, in Stephen Spielberg's Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade.

The early 2001 news reports of Connery in the role never came to fruition. There is scarce information on why exactly Connery never joined the cast. My best guess is that by 2002, Connery was starting to take the prospect of life after retirement a lot more seriously and was getting a lot more picky (even by his standards!) about the roles he wanted to play.

The role of Nigel Powers, Austin's dad, instead went to Michael Caine. At first glance, Caine may seem like a lesser second choice for the part in that there is no real thematic connection to Powers or to the spy movie genre. However, Austin Powers' iconic glasses are exactly the same type of glasses that Caine wore when he played British spy Harry Palmer in another series of 60's spy movies (produced by the same guys that produced Bond). In fact, the Palmer character was part of the inspiration for Austin Powers.

See what I mean? Another reference everybody missed.

Sybok 

in 

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

It's gotta be every fanboy's dream crossover: Captain Kirk vs Zed, The Exterminator (you'll get that one later, trust me)...okay...well maybe just this fanboy's.

In Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, William Shatner signed on not just to once again play the Captain of the USS Enterprise but to also direct the fifth film in the then seemingly unstoppable Star Trek movie franchise. In a move that was highly contentious amongst Trek fans, Star Trek V introduced the character of a renegade Vulcan named Sybok. As the story unfolds, Sybok also turns out to be Spock's long lost, never even spoken of  before brother (but let's not dwell on that which cannot be undone).

Shatner's first choice for the role of Sybok was Sean Connery. Shatner (who is -believe it or not- the same age as Connery) believed that Connery could bring just the right amount of gravitas, humour and power to the role, not to mention a lot of international name brand recognition. So much so that the movie probably would have been released in some countries under the banner "Sean Connery in Star Trek V".

The choice was not just Shatner's pipe dream, either. Negotiations with Connery had begun, but before the deal could be finalized, this guy named George Lucas came along and offered Connery the role of the father of some archaeologist from the 1930's. I dunno. Sounds kinda dull, Sean. You sure want to give up Star Trek for that?

Connery and Shatner in the same movie. My mind boggles at the possibilities. All the film would have needed then was Charlton Heston as the powerful alien entity who pretends to be God (you know, it really is kind of a bizarre plot for a Trek movie). Then Star Trek V would have realized the dream team movie cast of my childhood.

No matter, though. Sadly, even with Connery's presence, charisma and popularity, nothing could of have saved that major misfire of a Star Trek movie, either creatively or at the box office.

Okay, this one, more people will get.

John Hammond

 in 

Jurassic Park

Michael Crichton , the renowned novelist, screenwriter, director and M.D., was good friends with Sean Connery.  The two first met when Crichton directed Connery in his 1979 film, The Great Train Robbery. They hit it off and remained friends for years. Connery once said of Chrichton, "He’s got a very big influence on my life.".

Though, apparently almost no influence at all when it comes to roles Sean accepted. Aside from The Great Train Robbery, Connery only ever appeared in one Crichton related project, the 1993 film adaptation of Crichton's novel, Rising Sun (which was neither directed nor adapted for the screen by Crichton).

There could have been one other notable exception: Jurassic Park. For the role of John Hammond, the Scottish billionaire who masterminded the idea of an amusement park populated by cloned dinosaurs, Crichton suggested that director Steven Spielberg cast his old pal, Sean Connery.

Like everything else listed in this post, it was not be. According to an interview with Chricton I remember seeing on Charlie Rose back in the day, their friendship did not run quite that deep. Connery wanted more money than the studio was willing to cough up, according to Crichton.
The studio execs probably felt that the success or failure of  Jurassic Park did not rely on Mr. Connery's presence in the film. They were already shelling out the big bucks for the real stars of the movie, the dinosaurs (and the ground breaking visual effects that would bring them to life on the screen).

Sir Richard Attenborough got the part of Hammond. Attenborough played the part as a naive benevolent happy-go-lucky grandfatherly figure who, although well intentioned, was horribly misguided. The characterization is almost a total opposite of Chrichton's Hammond in the original novel. There, Hammond knows exactly what he's doing and is well aware of the potential dangers (and massive profits) of his undertaking. He darkly uses the term "collateral damage" when people start getting eaten by the giant reptilian Frankenstein monsters Hammond helped create.

Connery tends to play most of his characters as people who, while often facing great conflicts, are essentially happy. It is doubtful that any sense of darkness to the character would have played into Connery's acting choices nor would they have been tolerated by the studio execs who seriously gunning for a big summer blockbuster.

Almost cast as Dr. Grant, the role that ultimately went to Sam Neil, was Harrison Ford. Yeesh, with Connery and Ford under Spielberg's direction, the whole affair might have felt a little too Indiana Jones and the Last Jurassic Crusade.

Morpheus 

in 

The Matrix

Um...no...I'm not doing the doppelganger bit again.

As I start looking down this list of roles that Mr. Connery turned down, one overwhelming thought comes to mind: "What the hell was this guy thinking?".  The list that contains some of the most interesting, iconic, juicy and lucrative roles of the last 50 or so years.

Well, here's one more for you, Sir Sean; you could have easily doubled his 1990's asking price price of 10 million dollars a picture by starring in The Matrix.

Connery has stated in a couple of different interviews that we was approached to star in The Matrix. Many believe that he was offered the role of Morpheus,  the cooler-than-thou leather clad mentor in The Matrix. In addition to making an absolute ton of money, The Matrix redefined the SF action movie genre for the next 10 years and beyond. Better yet, Connery, as far as critical reaction goes, would have the added advantage of being the guy in the movie that wasn't Keanu Reeves.

Yes, according to most sources, Connery was initially offered the part that went Laurence Fishbourne (and single handedly rejuvenated his career). However, here is some speculation out there in Internet land that Connery was, in fact, offered the role of the Key Keeper in the sequel, Matrix Reloaded.

If that's true, it makes even less sense than turning down Morpheus. That decision is at least conceivably understandable. The first Matrix film is so intensely a visual and visceral experience that God knows how the thing ever would have come across in mere written word script form. Turning down the sequel to one of the biggest hits of the decade is much more perplexing. The movie was out there. It was successful. More than likely, they could have afforded Sir Sean. The part of the Key Keeper is relatively small in terms of a time commitment yet at the same time potentially very profitable. Given all that, I'm more inclined to believe that Connery turned down the seemingly risky Morpheus role in the original rather than the sure thing role of the Key Keeper in the sequel.

Morpheus would have worked for Connery too. The action tough guy mentor role is one that he had mastered at that stage in his career, having already played the part in such films as The Untouchables and Highlander.


However, turning down The Matrix is a mere drop in the bucket next to...

Gandalf 

in 

The Lord of the Rings

Connery is on record as saying, "I didn't understand it" in refrence to the roles he passed on in both The Matrix and in The Lord of the Rings (just check out the extras on The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen DVD ). In another interview Connery sold the Lord of the Rings non-comprehension explanation even harder. "I had never read Tolkien, and I didn't understand the script when they sent it to me. Bobbits? Hobbits?", he said.

You might have wanted to take a second look at Tolkien and those Bobbits Mr. Connery. Based on the cut of the gross deal that Sir Ian Mckellan got for playing the role of Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Connery would have stood to make an estimated $253 million from the role. Good thing the guy was already a multi-millionaire when he passed on that one.

Not understanding the script is one reason for passing on the one of the biggest film trilogies of all time  Another, and slightly more understandable, reason why Sir Sean turned down director Peter Jackson's offer was the prospect of the grueling 18 month shooting schedule that would take place on the other side of the world. Connery was in his late 60's at the time and all that wouldn't have exactly been easy for him..

Now, legendary horror movie actor Christopher Lee was ten years older than Connery and yet that didn't stop him from taking the part of the evil Saruman in the same project. Let's face it, though, Saruman isn't as big a role and, with all due respect, Mr. Lee was probably a lot more in need of 253 million bucks than Connery was.

J.R.R. Tolkien's creation of the wizard Gandalf is one of the most recognizable characters in all of fantasy fiction (that was true even before the movies). The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King is the only film ever in the SF/Fantasy/Horror genre to win an Oscar for Best Picture. Yep, Sean, you seriously missed the boat on this baby.

Mr. Connery, however, may have been leery of  "weird" SF and Fantasly scripts sent his way since, say, the mid 70's. Also on the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen DVD extras, Connery says that he did The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen because, "I'm the guy who did Zardoz, after all." That may be a very telling comment in light of his rejections of both The Matrix and Lord of the Rings.

For the uninitiated, Zardoz is a 1975 science fiction film directed by John Boorman (Excalibur, Deliverance) starring Sean Connery. It is a very trippy 70's sci-fi parable that pretends to more dense and cryptic than in fact it actually is.  In other words, it's pretentious.

As if that weren't enough, Connery plays a guy named Zed, The Exterminator (see, I told you that reference would make sense later) who spends almost the entire film in a bright red diaper that looks like it may very well have been the inspiration for Borat's infamous one piece male swimsuit. Or, as Mike Myers referred to Sean's  unique Zardoz wardrobe at Connery's induction into the American Film Institutes's Hall of Fame, a "nutsack". It's kinda like he got to play Tarzan 16 years after he was first offered the part.

When you take Zardoz into account, it's no wonder that, whenever Connery saw an offbeat "cerebral" SF or Fantasy script like The Matrix and Lord of the Rings, he ran as fast as he could in the opposite direction.

Don't get me wrong, Zardoz is a fascinating curiosity in both the genre and in Connery's career. Nonetheless, go watch it and see if you can't blame the guy.

The role that many feel Sean Connery should have turned down.

These are but a few examples of  the Connery Roles That Never Were. The list goes on: Daddy Warbucks in Annie, Captain Von Trapp in The Sound of Music and, most recently, reprising the role of  Dr. Henry Jones, Sr. in Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, to name a few.

Sir Thomas Sean Connery is now quite adamantly retired from movies. The likes of George Lucas and Stephen Spielberg have famously attempted to lure him out of his luxury New York City apartment and back on to the big screen, but to no avail. Except for a couple of voice gigs, no one has succeeded in that endeavor.

I guess Sean Connery has decided to take his notorious reputation for turning down roles to its ultimate logical conclusion.

No, this one's just for fun.

"He Had on a Red Hat"

Xmas is an Adventure.

Hello Everybody!

I hope this holiday season is treating everyone well and that everyone is having on a wonderful hat.

Here is my special Holiday gift to my readers. And, no, I'm not saying "Holiday" to be PC but, rather, to annoy all the silly "War on Christmas" types who more than likely do not read my blog.

This is a special compilation I edited together of some of my fave lesser seen Christmas moments from TV, movies and advertising. Friends of mine may recognize some of this stuff from my "Very Terence Christmas" DVDs.

Either way, enjoy.



Happy Holidays!
Happy Hanukkah!
Happy Kwanza!
Happy Winter Solstice!
Happy New Year!
And, yes...

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

I, Geek : Myth-busting the Comic Book and SF Fan Stereoypes

"These aren't the geeks we're looking for."

Fanboys. Nerds. Geeks. Fans of comic books, science fiction and the like are known by many names. Regardless of word choice, the prevailing image is clear: Socially awkward guys who have no life, have never had a girlfriend (let alone sex) and who still live in their parents' basements.

It is an image that endures in the popular consciousness, perpetuated in part by shows like Big Bang Theory and the Comic Book Guy character on The Simpsons. Millions of us also clearly recall William Shatner's classic 1986 Saturday Night Live sketch in which he tells Star Trek fans to "Get a life!" This month's 2011 installment of Comic Con in Montreal, an annual two day convention for comic book and science fiction fans, drew in over 25,000 people - including me.

Yet the crowd that filled Place Bonaventure's convention hall didn't exactly conform to the stereotype. Indeed, as a I roamed the hall, I thought this might be a good time to challenge some of the myths about me and my fellow "geeks."

MYTH #1: ALL GEEKS ARE MEN
A simple eyeballing of the crowd at the Montreal Comic Con showed female fans very much in evidence. And it's not just a Canadian phenomenon. In 2009, the International San Diego Comic Con, one of the world's largest comic book conventions, reported female attendance at 40%.
The women appear to be more fervent than their male counterparts as well. During the hour-plus duration of the Montreal convention's costume contest, you could count the number of male participants on one hand. Even the contest judges were women.

Lea Phillips, one of a group of four students (all women) who endured the 20hour train ride from Halifax to Montreal, observed that, "There are plenty of guys here, but the girls are just more into it."

Girl Robin

MYTH #2: GEEKS LIVE WITH THEIR PARENTS
"That's the stereotypical fan: A geeky guy sitting in front of his computer in his parents' basement playing video games or something all day long," said Steve Kalinowski, a fan or the popular movie and comic character Wolverine. "But it's not really like that."
An informal (and, to be fair, totally unscientific) survey of Montreal Comic Con attendees over two days turned up just one guy who lived in his parent's basement. (I'll do him the favour of leaving out his name.) Additionally, those surveyed said that they did not know of anyone (geek or otherwise) who lived with their parents past their early 20's. Most attendees told me they had decent jobs.
"It can get pretty expensive," offered Kalinnowski, referring to the extensive amount of booths selling comics, T-shirts, collectables and memorabilia. And that's not even getting into the elaborate costumes some attendees were seen sporting. "You can't do this if you're depending on your parents," added Kayla Fells, another member of the Halifax group. "What parents are going to say, 'Hey, here's $400 so you can go out and buy a costume for a comic book convention?'"

MYTH #3: GEEKS ARE SOCIALLY AWKWARD
"We have many couples in our group," said Wojtek Sawicki, who, along with his wife Nola Fontaine, is a member of the Star Wars costuming fan club known as the 501st Legion.
Sawicki and Fontaine, among others, were manning the club's convention booth. Both were dressed in detailed and authentic Star Wars outfits.

Kalinowski and his girlfriend Alexandra Yanire also dressed in thematically consistent couple's costumes - as members of the X-Men.

Alison and Matt Latimer, a married couple from the Ottawa area, were sporting matching uniforms from the critically acclaimed sci-fi TV series Battlestar Galactica. "I certainly don't have any problems with relationships," Matt said. In fact, their fandom is a bonding agent. "He got me into Battlestar Galactica," she said. "But then she became a bigger fan of it than I ever was," he added.

It's a couple thing.

MYTH #4: GEEKS HAVE NO LIVES
Todd van der Heyden, the anchor of CTV's 6 p.m. newscast in Montreal, moderated panels featuring Comic Con's guests of honour - including comic legend Stan Lee, creator of such iconic characters as Spider Man and Iron Man. However, van der Heyden was not there just because he's a local celebrity; he is also an avowed comic book and science fiction fan. "I've been collecting comics since I was 12," he said. "I now have a U-Haul full of comics.Literally." The man is hardly the typical image of the nerdy fan with "no life." On that issue, he declared, "All of the fans I know are married and have kids."

The 501st Legion, the aforementioned Star Wars costuming fan club, is more than just a bunch of fans hanging out in costumes. "We are involved with charity work and we often visit children's hospitals," said Sawicki.

The group boasts over 4,000 members worldwide, and its website lists over 40 different charities that the group has worked with. "While the 501st was initially founded to unite costumers with a penchant for Star Wars villainy, one of our real-world missions is to bring good to our communities through volunteer charity work," reads the website.

The Montreal Comic Con contingent was slightly smaller than this.

"It's a lot of fun, but it's also a lot of work too," says Sawacki of the club's activities. At the group's Comic Con booth in Montreal, convention attendees got the chance to fire foam rubber darts from a toy machine gun at Imperial Stormtroopers in exchange for donations to The Autism Society Canada.

The "Great Geek Myth," as I call it, might have had some validity in decades past, but it has clearly become obsolete - as many folks are discovering. "A lot of fans avoid going to conventions because they think it's going to full of weird, geeky people," said Lisa Ivy, a Trek fan. "Then when [they] actually do come, they see that everyone here is actually pretty normal."

Geekiness, it seems, is in the eye of the beholder. "Everybody is a geek to somebody else," said Stéfanie Guérin, a fan wearing a costume inspired by the movie Sucker Punch. "You can have a golf geek or a cooking geek. I have a friend, her whole life is cooking. That is what she does."

How is collecting comic books and dressing up in TV-inspired costumes any different?

Reprinted courtesy of the National Post

http://www.nationalpost.com/todays-paper/geek/5462142/story.html