Tuesday, March 04, 2008

Star Wars by Saul Bass and McSpaced

Do you guys know who Saul Bass is? He Invented the opening title sequence as we know it.
I borrow* from him all the time.
Click here.
Or here.

Then watch this:



Awesome work, random YouTube guy!

In other news:

They are making an American version of Spaced, one of my all time favorite British sit-coms. As far as American remakes of British shows go, I have mixed feelings. While most of the reality based ones like What not to Wear and Antiques Roadshow seem to do quite well (Just look at American Idol or Trading Spaces), Most of the imported sitcoms do not. There are notable exceptions, like The Office, All in the Family and Sanford and Son, but for every Three's Company, we seem to get six or seven Couplings or the horrible Red Dwarf remakes.
I think the reason is not so much that Americans don't get British humor, it's just that they can't translate it very well when you have studio executives pulling the strings. It seems the less they mess with the premise the better, as with The Office. This has a lot to do with the creative team as well. If the makers "get it" and have respect for the source material, then the outcome can be really good. This is not the case for Spaced. The creative team attached is led by McG (McSpaced?) of Charlies Angels: Full Throttle fame(WTF!?!?) Simon Pegg has made his feelings very well known, and is not happy about it. His main problem is that while they do intend on giving them a small payment, meant basically to shut them up, they are in no way otherwise connected to the project, other that having their names mentioned in the press releases and marketing materials. Even there, they oddly omit the series co-creator Jessica Hynes, probably because she isn't as famous in America as Pegg is. Weather or not the remake is any good, Pegg says wh would have at least liked a phone call. Bastards.
Let's hope they don't fuck up the remake of Life on Mars, either. This one I really don't get, because the original would do just fine on Network TV with no changes at all. It is a fantastic show.


That is all

-JP






*read: Steal

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