Marshal Zeringue, who previously tapped me for The Page 69 Test: Spider Star, has another blog series interviewing authors about how they see their book being cast and directed in a hypothetical movie. Here it is, in part:

Mike Brotherton’s “Spider Star,” the movie

Now showing at My Book, The Movie: Spider Star by Mike Brotherton.

The entry begins:

My novel Spider Star from Tor Books is a far-future space adventure with starships, aliens, advanced technology, and a lot of astronomy. Unfortunately a lot of Hollywood movies with these elements wind up being pretty dumb, with Armageddon at the top of the heap. With this in mind, my first notion about my book as a movie is that Michael Bay be assassinated if he even hears the slightest whisper about Spider Star. I might become suicidal if my ideas became transformed into a Michael Bay movie.

Having said that, my choice for director would be Zombie Kubrick, but he worked slowly even when he was alive, so let’s go with Robert Zemeckis. He did a good job of making the science fiction elements of Contact realistic, and I love the way he uses special effects as a tool rather than an end product (e.g., Michael Bay).

There are three point-of-view characters in Spider Star. Frank Klingston is an older family-oriented man of Nordic stock who has put his days of exploration behind him, but when his world is threatened, he takes up the challenge. A lot of the book is about him struggling with sacrifice for his family, which he must give up in order to save, and how discovery and risk are a young man’s game that he must learn how to play all over again. I see William Hurt pulling off Frank Klingston, mixing elements from his roles in The Accidental Tourist, Lost in Space, and the Sci-Fi Channel adaptation of Dune. He can do wise patriarch, and disconnected man searching to feel that fire of life again.

While Frank is big, blond, a little soft and reluctant to embark on an extended mission to deep space, his counter point is Manuel Rusk. Rusk is smaller, younger, darker, and much more ambitious and anxious to prove himself. My first thought was Antonio Banderas, but he’s getting a bit old himself, and also perhaps a bit too old would be Nestor Carbonell (Richard Alpert on Lost, and BatManuel on The Tick, and the Mayor in The Dark Knight). I’d prefer a younger, more ambitious actor. Freddy Rodriguez, who played El Wray in the Planet Terror segment of Grindhouse, would be terrific.

The third main character is Sloan Griffin, sometimes lover to Rusk, and fellow Specialist with a passion for security and spotting the things that are out of place. She’s focused, dedicated, and extremely competent in her work. I see Carrie-Anne Moss who played Trinity in the Matrix movies and the mission commander in Red Planet. She seems to exude the qualities in her roles that I think of when I consider Sloan Griffin.

I would trust Trinity to off Michael Bay if his name came up in association with the project.

Read the prologue and first four chapters of Spider Star.

Thanks, Marshal.  That was fun!

Originally published at Mike Brotherton: SF Writer. You can comment here or there.

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The issue of the TV comedy, The Big Bang Theory, came up in comments earlier this week.

Pros: the show is funny and gets its science and geek culture very correct. Here’s a scene about the problem with teleportation:

Cons:  for the most part, the characters are stereotypical nerds who lack social skills, dress oddly, and have trouble getting dates, let alone getting laid. Here’s a scene with the one guy who is portrayed as having a small clue and does get laid sometimes:

I have degrees in engineering, physics, and astronomy, and have hung out in the nerdiest of places doing the nerdiest of things (at the level of the show, if not nerdier). I’ve also gone to trendy clubs in big cities, played drinking games with students (but no keg stands for at least four years), and ran marathons. I know some really attractive social geeks of both sexes who can blend in with lawyers, baseball fans, or the roadies at a Marilyn Manson concert.

There’s truth in stereotypes, however. My roommate in grad school once got set up to meet a girl for a workout date. An athletic date, how could that go wrong? Well, when he got to the gym, she took one look at him and asked, “Math or physics?” He had been a physics major, but had switched to math…

So, what do you think about the show?

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Originally published at Mike Brotherton: SF Writer. You can comment here or there.

Tags: uncategorized