Would you want Alpha Flight in Wolverine or a potential Wolverine 2 ?

[BT18]

Particularly in a second one I think it would be a great way to up the anti. You can't just every solo thing about him being fighting ninjas and getting broody about Asian broads.

Anyway I posted my cast so far for Alpha flight in this thread

I'll quote it if ya don't mind.

All of these actors are actually Canadian and most actually come from the same provinces as their character. If this was ever made it would have to be a labor of love to Canada.

Heather Hudson AKA Vindicator: Rachel McAdams

James Hudson AKA Guardian: Nathon Fillion

Walter Langkowski AKA Sasquatch: Seth Rogen

Narya AKA Snowbird: Rachel Roberts

Michael Twoyoungmen AKA Shaman: Eric Schweig

Jean-Paul Baubier AKA Northstar: Frank Chiesurin

JeanneMarie Beaubier AKA Aurora: Karen Cliche

Eugene Milton Judd AKA Puck: ???

 

[GreatWhiteWhale]

Really like that casting. Alot.

Seth Rogen as Sasquatch is pretty much perfect, and I can see McAdams and Fillon working well together.

Never heard of Rachel Roberts, but she certainly looks like she could go well in the pary.

Schweig is not exactly an inspired choice, but definetely a suitable one. He'd play the part well, but physically I think he is a little too 'full in the face', but thats a nitpick.

What about Ian Somerholder from Lost as Northstar? I don't think he's canadian, but he's pretty effeminate while not being a 'pansy', and all he really needs is a change in hair colour to get the appearance right. If any one saw him in 'The Rules of Attraction' he played a withdrawn, judgemental gay guy was very steadfast in his ideas. Similar to the way Northstar was originally portrayed.

Puck would be interesting to cast, you'd have to cast someone short and stocky, who has that 'tough, experienced vet with a heart' type look. They'd have to be shrunk using Lord of the Rings type photography as casting a person that actual size wouldn't be such a smart move I don't think.

Anyway, I wouldn't mind Alpha Flight in a Wolverine sequel (not in the first one though, definetely needs solo time before any more team interaction of any sort), it could be humourous, visually appealing and exciting at the same time.

 

[MoPlaYa]

I like that casting but who would play Puck??

 

[BT18]

Really like that casting. Alot.

Seth Rogen as Sasquatch is pretty much perfect, and I can see McAdams and Fillon working well together.

Never heard of Rachel Roberts, but she certainly looks like she could go well in the pary.

Schweig is not exactly an inspired choice, but definetely a suitable one. He'd play the part well, but physically I think he is a little too 'full in the face', but thats a nitpick.

What about Ian Somerholder from Lost as Northstar? I don't think he's canadian, but he's pretty effeminate while not being a 'pansy', and all he really needs is a change in hair colour to get the appearance right. If any one saw him in 'The Rules of Attraction' he played a withdrawn, judgemental gay guy was very steadfast in his ideas. Similar to the way Northstar was originally portrayed.

Puck would be interesting to cast, you'd have to cast someone short and stocky, who has that 'tough, experienced vet with a heart' type look. They'd have to be shrunk using Lord of the Rings type photography as casting a person that actual size wouldn't be such a smart move I don't think.

Anyway, I wouldn't mind Alpha Flight in a Wolverine sequel (not in the first one though, definetely needs solo time before any more team interaction of any sort), it could be humourous, visually appealing and exciting at the same time.

Rachel Roberts played the title character in the movie S1m0ne. Other tall Canadian blonde beauties I thought of were Tricia Helfer and Sarah Carter, but Rachel Roberts has the best mystique and devineness about her.

I don't really think it would be prudent to cast Somerhalder as the only gay superhero. He played a gay guy in "Rules of Attraction" but then made some seemingly homophobic, atleast offensive to alot of gay people, comments on it's DVD commentary. I just doubt he'd want to go down that road of that thing being brought up.

I like that casting but who would play Puck??

Puck I don't know if you'd use an actual talented dwarf actor (the only obvious choices I can think of being Peter Dinklage and Warwick Davis) even though the role might be seen as sort of in****ing, or an actual bodybuilding dwarf, which I've seen a few of flipping through on wrestling or the Man Show or stuff like that, or use trick camera work/digital altering to make an actual normal sized person
somehow look Dwarf like. They'd need to have a pretty big head I think.

 

[Cyclops]

No Alpha Flight.

Alpha Flight exists only to be Canadian, so no. If they actually had a purpose other than "We're Canadian, eh?" Then I'd be all for it, but they don't, so no.

 

[BT18]

No Alpha Flight.

Alpha Flight exists only to be Canadian, so no. If they actually had a purpose other than "We're Canadian, eh?" Then I'd be all for it, but they don't, so no.

It was founded to go on missions for the Canadian government. That atleast in the wide array of comic book movies we've seen hasn't been exactly done. A government organized/funded team.

 

[Cyclops]

So? The characters still have nothing to them other than the fact that they're Canadian. They're a gimmick team.

 

[BT18]

I just told you what they had "to them". And any superhero team can be called a "gimmick team" with the same level of vague auspices.

oh wow a superhero team with the gimmick of being oppressed minorities. Gee, a superhero team that's a family. Look how gimmicky it is to put all your spare heroes who can't support their own monthly titles on a team and call it the Avengers.

 

[GreatWhiteWhale]

Hmm if hypothetically Wolverine was set in Japan, and Wolverine 2 was to come about then I see no reason why it couldn't be set in Canada, seeing as there are many plot strands from Wolverines own comics that are set in Canada.

Also I can imagine Alpha Flight fitting into the film given the territory, either as a kind of self-referential super team or a more government organized x-factor type collection of agents.

(And even though Alpha Flight might not be as popular as X-Men and Avengers, there not exactly a 'gimmick' team, some good, layered stories and good characters have come out of Alpha Flight. Great Lakes Avengers and maybe Power Pack and The Defenders could be seen as 'gimmick' teams but I don't see Alpha Flight as one of them.)

 

[S7ilver]

I love that cast, especially who you picked for Snowbird. I'd love if they were in the Wolverine movies, people like special effects and with Wolverine there's really nothing to look at but with Alpha Flight, you could bring in super powers that would looks great on the screen. Of course, that wouldn't be their only purpose but it'd help.

 

[Cyclops]

I just told you what they had "to them". And any superhero team can be called a "gimmick team" with the same level of vague auspices.

oh wow a superhero team with the gimmick of being oppressed minorities. Gee, a superhero team that's a family. Look how gimmicky it is to put all your spare heroes who can't support their own monthly titles on a team and call it the Avengers.

Okay, let's go then. PUCK - A tiny little guy who bounces around dressed in black. Hockey, eh? Gee, a Canadian superhero who's based on hockey!

Guardian - His original name was Major Maple Leaf - No kidding. His costume's the Canadian flag.

Sasquatch - Do we really have to go into this? The Great Beast of the North...

SNOWbird - Her powers are tied to being in Canada or something.

There's a difference between Canadian Superheroes and Superheroes Who Happen to Be Canadian. Now do you understand what I'm saying?

 

[OutcryX]

Radius and Flex werent tied to Canada

 

[Cyclops]

Right, but like, with the Avengers say... how many of them are "patriotic or American-themed heroes"? Just one.

But having at the least four Canadian-themed heroes on a Canadian team? Come on.

 

[X-Maniac]

I like Alpha Flight - not all of them, not all stories, not all of the time...but they could make an interesting storyline if done right. I can see how the Canadian team thing could be an oddity. Their role and raison d'etre would need to be expanded. Some characters would work more than others.

Snowbird is my favourite - there was a white wolf at the entrance to the dam when Wolverine went there at the start of X2, showing him the way. Was that a reference to her?

Puck is named after a fairy spirit in English folklore that was also a character in a Shakespeare play. It's nothing to do with hockey!!!!! Good grief, are people that limited in their knowledge. Please educate yourself here:
http://www.boldoutlaw.com/puckrobin/puck.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puck_(mythology)

Shakespeare also provides the inspiration for the names Caliban (from the play The Tempest) and Psylocke (a corruption of Shylock, a character in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice whose name is also a word meaning a ruthless money-lender, a loan shark, a ruthless and greedy person; the origin of the word might be a Hebrew name for a bird of prey).

Back to the idea of Alpha Flight, they might work in a movie as a team tied to Weapon X, and perhaps to getting back Wolverine. As a government defence for the Weapon X program, and perhaps some of them being a result of that program, they would work pretty well.

 

[Cyclops]

Puck is named after a fairy spirit in English folklore that was also a character in a Shakespeare play. It's nothing to do with hockey!!!!! Good grief, are people that limited in their knowledge. Please educate yourself here:
http://www.boldoutlaw.com/puckrobin/puck.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puck_(mythology)

Shakespeare also provides the inspiration for the names Caliban (from the play The Tempest) and Psylocke (a corruption of Shylock, a character in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice whose name is also a word meaning a ruthless money-lender, a loan shark, a ruthless and greedy person; the origin of the word might be a Hebrew name for a bird of prey).

Please. You're going to tell me that a LITTLE CANADIAN GUY WHO DRESSES IN ALL BLACK AND WHOSE PRIMARY POWER IS TO BOUNCE AROUND is not based off of a hockey puck? Don't be so delusional.

Besides the name, Puck of Alpha Flight has NOTHING in common with Puck of "A Midsummer Night's Dream", but a whole heck of a lot in common with the aforementioned hockey puck.

 

[X-Maniac]

But does a hockey puck bounce around? It sort of slides along....

Surely, as a person of very small stature, he is intended to be a 'sprite' or goblin of some kind? I don't know if Canada is particularly linked with ice hockey...but maybe they incorporated some of that definition of the word as well...

Delusional, moi? That's something I could never be said to be!

 

[Cyclops]

Sure it bounces. When it hits the side of the rink, bounce. Quite frantically too.

Puck has NOTHING at all to do with Shakespeare. I've read the play many times, seen it performed twice myself, it's one of my favorites, and I can tell you in all honesty that the two Pucks have nothing aside from names in common.

And yes, Canada is VERY heavily into hockey. Have been for a very long time now. I hate to dash your hopes and dreams of Puck being based off of high art, but really, he's just a hockey puck.

 

[X-Maniac]

Can you be entirely sure there is no inspiration from Shakespeare?

After all, mutant telepath Psylocke bears no resemblance to Shakespeare's Jewish money-lender from whom her name is derived.

 

[Cyclops]

Yeah. If the two have NOTHING in common, chances are there's no inspiration. You don't just go "I'm going to create a character based on another character, but give the two absolutely NOTHING in common!" Makes no sense. If you're going to base a character off of someone else, you're going to give them common characteristics.

And I sincerely doubt that Psylocke's name was taken from Shylock. Most likely, she was named Psylocke because it sounds cool.

 

[X-Maniac]

But why call her Psylocke then? Where does that name come from? If we are to assume 'psy' points at her psychic powers, as seems obvious, what does the 'locke' part of it mean?

I don't think it was a name invented because it sounds cool. That's a very flimsy argument.

Shakespeare has been an inspiration for characters. Once again I mention Caliban the Morlock, named after the brute in Shakespeare's The Tempest.

 

[Cyclops]

Yeah, but he's actually got something in common with who he was named after... at least he does since becoming Apocalypse's right-hand man.

The thing is, you don't name a character after say, Shylock and make him or her a hero. Makes no sense. It'd be like naming someone after Captain Ahab from "Moby Dick" and making him a sweet-natured, loving, caring kinda guy. Doesn't work out right.

So no, I don't think Psylocke's name derives from Shylock. It just doesn't make any sense. The two have nothing in common.

 

[X-Maniac]

We shall have agree to disagree on this, as we don't have a factual answer.

I feel fairly sure that the name Shylock was the inspiration for the name Psylocke, by a process of word association and phonetic similarity. Claremont was searching for a name that included a reference to the character's psi powers...playing with the word 'psi' and 'psychic' in his head... But I agree that Psylocke and Shylock have nothing in common and that does make it a somewhat strange choice...

I think Excalibur and the whole Captain Britain thing would have made a great TV series over here, something that the UK could call its own as it was based here and had characters from British folklore/mythology. Such a shame that is such a lesser-known Marvel output.

 

[BT18]

I don't accept Cyclops argument that Alpha Flight's gimickery is so beyond the pale compared to other comic book characters that it bars them from being seen in a movie (even a Wolverine movie) but Puck is definetly part of the Canadian theme of the team and his name primarily relates to the Hockey object, although I dunno if the history of the name isn't also a factor in his development. In other words, it works better as a codename due to the fact that it is a name applied to atleast one other "person" in history (a part of fiction in history) and therefor sounds less wierd than if you were naming him after an inanimate object that wasn't at one time used as another characters name. Follow me? Probably not. I did my best.

 

[Cyclops]

Gimmick or not, Alpha Flight doesn't really fit into the tone of the X-Films, and unless they want to make a complete shift into garden-variety superheroics for "Wolverine", I'd think that Alpha Flight just wouldn't fit well.

Shiva, though, could very well fit into a Wolverine solo movie.

 

[BT18]

Gimmick or not, Alpha Flight doesn't really fit into the tone of the X-Films, and unless they want to make a complete shift into garden-variety superheroics for "Wolverine", I'd think that Alpha Flight just wouldn't fit well.

Shiva, though, could very well fit into a Wolverine solo movie.

"Garden Variety Superheroics" ???

It's hard to argue with these ultra-vague negatives. They changed the "tone" of the actual X-Men for the movies, they can sure as hell acheive the same for characters that have far less awareness and demanding fandom.