Recast, Recast

It's time again for my favorite game, Recast-Recast. It's not an official game really, not in the retail-box-by-Milton-Bradley sense, but my sisters, friends and I would occasionally play it, and it sparks off a lot of fun discussion. Cheaper than fantasy football, and with nicer special effects.

First, you take a movie that everyone has seen. Let's use the Star Wars saga. Pretty much everyone knows who the roles and actors are-- Mark Hamil plays Luke Skywalker, Carrie Fisher plays Princess Lea, and Lars Ulrich of Metallica on drums (just kidding; everyone knows Ginger Baker is much more suitable).

Then you pick one of the characters, and suggest who you think could play it just as well, if not better. This came from my learning one day that the original actor they had in mind for Indiana Jones was Richard Gere. Richard Gere!? I suppose now that Ford has become such an iconic figure for the role, it's hard to think of anybody else in under that hat. It could have been really different though: one of the other actors also considered was Tom Selleck...but of course! That's about as well-matched as a saying, "hotdog souffle".

The fun part is that not everybody will agree on at least one of characters, and you get really interesting nominations. In Star Wars, almost everyone I know generally agreed Leonardo DiCaprio would have made a pretty good Luke, but we almost always get stuck on Han Solo. Harrison Ford just has that great way of naturally owning a character that many don't want to replace him. Several times I've played this game using Star Wars, and I've gotten answers from Ashton Kutcher to David Lee Roth, to that guy from Smallville, to Clint Eastwood, and everyone in between. Some choices will be okay, and some will be just plain wrong!

Just in case you're curious, here are some of the results I get when my friends and I do Recast-Recast with Star Wars. See if you agree:

Luke Skywalker: Leonardo DiCaprio, Dan Radcliffe
Princess Leiah: Jennifer Aniston
Obi-Wan: The old guy in Jurassic Park
Annakin/ Darth Vader: Michael Clark Duncan
Grand Moff Tarkin: Michael Caine, Michael Ironside
Uncle Owen: Randy Quaid
Aunt Beru: Jane Curtin
Wicket: Troy Vernon
Lando Calrissian: Carl Weathers without the boxing gloves, or John Travolta
Mon Mothma: Betty White, Julie Andrews
Han Solo: Again, anybody from Christopher Walken to Ed Norton to Jackie Chan. But nobody can play it like Harrison Ford, making him nigh irreplaceable.

And there's got to be something for Keanu "I Know Kung Fu" Reeves, maybe a random Storm Trooper, or an X-Wing pilot. And for some reason my friends of questionable stability want to keep Rob Schneider as C3P0. I would agree, but only if the role of adorable R2D2 is given to Danny DeVito.

At this point the only thing you would agree to is the proposition that I have friends with the cinematic casting talent of cake batter, and you probably have better ideas than the ones we came up with. That can only mean one thing: you have now begun to play Recast-Recast.

Tune in next time when we recast Gilligan's Island starring --you guessed it, R2D2 and the Twilek dancers.