Strontium Dog - The Movie

[Mark Taylor]

Not really... but it suddenly struck whilst watching last week's episode of Sherlock. Though not quite an exact match the resemblance is actually quite striking. Same shape face and nose. Johnny's mouth is thinner and narrower but where would you find a closer match, I ask you? Eh?

(P.S. Sorry, don't know how to embed the picture in the message properly at full size without some kind of external hosting for the image.)

[Mark Taylor]

Well this seems to do it.

[Dunk!]

Close-ish but take Harry Hamlin from Clash of the Titans and white out his eyes.

Young Johnny Alpha.

[JOE SOAP]

Close-ish but take Harry Hamlin from Clash of the Titans and white out his eyes.

Young Johnny Alpha.

He like "der Happy Stick" too much...

[Mark Taylor]

Close-ish but take Harry Hamlin from Clash of the Titans and white out his eyes.

Young Johnny Alpha.

He like "der Happy Stick" too much...

Problem is Hamlin is now almost 60 years old. What was Johnny when he died, maybe mid-30s or so? Possibly even younger? (Just guessing, I know the timeline in SD is pretty f[spoiler]uck[/spoiler]ed up) Certainly a whole lot younger than Hamlin is now, anyway.

[Leigh S]

Close-ish but take Harry Hamlin from Clash of the Titans and white out his eyes.

Young Johnny Alpha.

He like "der Happy Stick" too much...

Problem is Hamlin is now almost 60 years old. What was Johnny when he died, maybe mid-30s or so? Possibly even younger? (Just guessing, I know the timeline in SD is pretty f[spoiler]uck[/spoiler]ed up) Certainly a whole lot younger than Hamlin is now, anyway.

Alpha born in 2150 and died in 2187, so was 37 when he was (WASN'T!) killed (possibly 36, though unlikely for reasons too geeky to go into here!)

[The Doctor Alt 8]

Well you have a actor.... But which plot would you use or write an original?

[HOO-HAA]

Alpha born in 2150 and died in 2187, so was 37 when he was (WASN'T!) killed (possibly 36, though unlikely for reasons too geeky to go into here!)

Which raises the question for me: [spoiler]what age are they going to do him as now? Feral obiously aged (or maybe the jubber aged him). Middenface looks a little rougher around the ...er... face-middle. But with all this talk of mystic-megging (showing my own age, now!  ) will they keep nu-Johnny in his 30s?[/spoiler]

[Mark Taylor]

Well you have a actor.... But which plot would you use or write an original?

Probably an original but with some obvious similaries to certain classic SD stories. I'd imagine the best way to introduce the character to a cinema audience would be a fairly straight bounty hunting mission against an extremely cunning and dangerous opponent with some link to Johnny's past, enabling the occasional flashback to the mutie wars etc. to fill in some background. If the budget was high enough it'd be nice to see this done in the galaxy-spanning, planet-hopping style of many of the original SD stories. Probably with some competition for the bounty from some of the other, less savoury Strotium Dogs thrown in too.

[DrRocka]

If I remember rightly (sorry - hate using abbreviations), most of 2000ad's "classic" characters (Stront, Rogue, Dredd, Slaine, Halo Jones etc) don't start with an origin story - they tended to start with a fairly typical case for them, and the backstory would be fleshed out later on, after the strip seemed to be proving a hit.
I reckon this is the way to go for any films produced on the characters.
That said, I always though "Portrait of a mutant" would work so well as a tv mini series, if there still is such a thing....

[Radbacker]

couldn't go wrong if you went with the Kreelman Conspiracy, the one thast re-introduced Alpha and started the flashback stories.  That was a reworked TV script IIRC.  Good introduction to the character and the world and lots of bangbang shooty action, oh and Jonny is possibly the badest assest he's ever been (keep in mind i haven't read Rage or that era of stories).

CU Radbacker

[Mark Taylor]

If I remember rightly (sorry - hate using abbreviations), most of 2000ad's "classic" characters (Stront, Rogue, Dredd, Slaine, Halo Jones etc) don't start with an origin story - they tended to start with a fairly typical case for them, and the backstory would be fleshed out later on, after the strip seemed to be proving a hit.
I reckon this is the way to go for any films produced on the characters.
That said, I always though "Portrait of a mutant" would work so well as a tv mini series, if there still is such a thing....

I wasn't really thinking about a full-on origin story in any sense. I would keep the flasbacks to a minimum, just enough to give 'hints' of Johnny's past, really.

As for the above formula (no origin story whatsoever) I think that will work well for the Dredd movie, because Dredd is a character that can be appreciated on a more visceral level. Although we find out as we read on that he's so much more than just a 2-dimensional character, the 2-dimensional Dredd still 'works' pretty well.

Johnny, on the other hand, in my opinion, didn't really start getting particularly interesting as a character in the original stories until parts of his history were actually introduced. I have all the case files books and it's mainly for this reason (again, in my opinion) that volume two onwards are leagues ahead of volume 1 in terms of story quality.

[Steve Green]

If it wasn't for the accent, I thought Vincent Cassel seemed a good fit.

[SmallBlueThing]

Ive always thought we were robbed of the perfect screen johnny alpha when Richard Beckinsale died too young.
Also, Harry H Corbett circa Carry On Screaming.
SBT

[Mark Taylor]

Ive always thought we were robbed of the perfect screen johnny alpha when Richard Beckinsale died too young.

There's another thing he has in common with Johnny, then.