AngelusKin

Good call AngelusKin, i loved that cameo too!

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Thank you. ^_^

Slightly off-topic, but as much as I enjoy Ewan McGregor as an actor, he easily puts on THE worst American accent of any "big" British Actor currently working today.  I can only think of the accents he tried to do in "Big Fish" and "Velvet Goldmine" and "Down With Love" (GAH!) at the moment, but all of them made me cringe.

 

Let me put it this way...Ewan doing an American accent is like Dick Van Dyke trying to be a Cockney chimneysweep.

 

What this has to do with Hellblazer?  Erm, well...nothing...

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It was rather bad. :lol:

That's fair enough. I'm just a little defensive about this issue because the "fanboys hate this film because the character isn't blonde and English" card has been played with such tedious and disingenuous regularity by the director and producers of this film that, as a fan of the comic who believes, not unreasonably, that there are far more serious problems with the adaptation than that, I feel the need to stress my view that, in the grand scheme of things, these are very minor changes which are outweighed to a huge degree by, ie., making Constanteen a demon-killing seeker of redemption.

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I completely agree with you, they were trying to make Constantine appeal to a much larger audience then just the comic fans. I'm fine with that I understand why they did it, there are a lot of fans out there who will be up all night crying because he didn't smoke the right brand of ciggarrettes, but I'm not one of them. Like I said it didn't detract from my enjoying the movie in the slightest.

My girlfriend and I were walking out of the movie theater after seeing Constantine and the first thing I said to her was "Now you know Constantine popped that peice of Gum in his mouth and maybe made it down the first flight of stairs before he said 'Fuck it' and popped another ciggarrette in his mouth."

I see absolutely no way in which Keanu having bleached his hair (or even putting on an English accent) would have made him any better for the part. None. Not at all. It's not even a factor for me, and I don't understand why it is for so many other people.

Eh, I'm just being a bitchy fan boy...honestly it wasn't a big deal for me and didn't make the movie any less enjoyable. After all this is just a movie and it's not the end of the world because they didn't get every detail right. I think it was one of the best films I've seen in a long time...I just think the movie would have been better if they kept him british, that's all I'm saying. I just feel it would have added dimension to the movie. *Shrugs* But like I said...that's just me being a bitchy fan-boy...it doesn't happen all that often so I have to run with it when it does. ^_^

I think seeing John riding around in a flying saucer is just a rather silly concept, like you said it just doesn't fit his character....however I think if you had a semi-lovecraftian story going it could be highly entertaining if done right because it would take Constantine out of his element and really test his limits....Constantine is always at his best when he is in way over his head.

Keanu Reeve's wasn't the worst choice for Constantine, the only thing that really bugged the hell out of me was that he didn't have an accent, and he didn't have blonde hair....he was Neo from the beginning of the First Matrix with a smoking habit basically. Keanu Reeve's doesn't have any depth as an actor, he just does the same character over and over just in different circumstances. I could stand him in the role of Constantine, but I think they could have done more.

Though Constantine is loosely based off of Sting I don't think he could have done the roll justice. Don't get me wrong...Sting is a great singer I love a lot of his work but he's just not that great of an actor. If you don't believe me go see the Original Dune movie...he's in it and he's not that great imho.

If they had cast Nicholas Cage I wouldn't even have bothered to go see it.

There is one person I think could have pulled off a perfect, right out of the comic, Constantine on film...when you first think of him you don't see it...but when you consider the fact the guy has a great British accent (not to mention he played a british punk character in an episode of "Tales From the Crypt" that reminded me A LOT of Constantine during the Newcastle period, just arrogant as hell.) but I also think he is such a versatile actor he could pull of Constantine's personality/accent/maneurism/poker-face perfectly....but rather then say the guys name outright I'll just let a picture say a thousand words for me:

I think Ewan McGregor would have been perfect.

It would be pretty cool to see John react to extraterrestrial magic. He could complain about how hard it was just to get used to the stuff here on Earth.

 

Has John Constantine ever dealt with extraterrestrials before?

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I don't really know... I'm pretty sure we've never seen anything like that in the Hellblazer series itself but he might have like in the pages of Swamp Thing or something. It would be interesting to see John in a Lovecraft setting...Lovecraft had a lot of 'outer space demons' for lack of better term...plus a whole lot of other weird stuff. (I'm an H.P. Lovecraft fan) I'm actually working on a piece of fan fiction that's about John trying to deal with some extra-galactic demon types along with a new would-be-apprentice who is about as eager to learn from John, as John is to teach him....as you can imagine they don't get along quite very well.

I had a couple thoughts...

Superman-

The Concept: Every planet has it's own version of heaven and hell...so what happens to the souls/demons/angels of that world when it's destroyed? A demonic creature that is the combined essence of all the people who died when the planet of Krypton was destroyed come to earth seeking the last remaining survivor of their world...drawn to him by a powerful psychic link they attempt to use Superman to re-create their world of Krypton by taking over the bodies of everyone on earth...Superman being weak against magic is forced to turn to Constantine for help...Constantine who is smart in the ways of all earth magic must discover how to fight an extra-terrestial entity that is not bound by the laws of our realm, and help the last son of Krypton bring peace to the restless spirits of his home planet before all the souls of earth are usurped and lost to the void.

Dr. Doom-

The Concept: Dr. Doom, post Avengers Dissasembled, after the death of Thor attempts to harnass the last remaining energies of the destroyed Asgard...he accidentally awakens one of the ancient spirits of Ragnarok who begin wreaking havok on his beloved country of Latveria...Constantine shows up and tries to help the latverians, not at all interested in Doom's plight....hell...I just want to see these two go at it and try to screw each other royally...can you just imagine the mind games they would play on each other?! Honesty Dr. Doom can be every bit the con-man that Constantine is.

Those are the only ones I can come up with off the top of my head...

Welcome, Angelus! You can order the Hellblazer TPBs from any good bookshop - check out the relevant thread in the "Monthly Title" section. Where'd you get your avatar from?

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Hey, thank you. ^_^ Yeah...I think I'll have to order them online, however just the other day I was in the bookstore and I found the Original Sins TPB mixed in with the graphic novels...I'm hoping they will start getting more in but I think they only had that one as a promotional thing for the movie, since it had the Constanine Movie logo over the Hellblazer title. I'm keeping my fingers crossed though.

The Avatar I actually found online, it was a peice of fan art someone did. Here's the link to the full pic:

http://www.melodyherbert.com/fanart/constantine.html

I've got a Constantine Quote I wanted to share. This one comes from Green Lantern #81. During Hal Jordan's funeral Constanine sits next to Swamp Thing in one of the church pews. He lights up his Ciggarrete and says to Swamp Thing:

John: "So what're you doing here?

Swamp Thing: "I was invited, and you Constantine?"

John: "Nah, just came to see the show."

For the rest of this issue all the iconic heroes of the DC universe walk up to the podium and give heartfelt speeches about the late Hal Jordan, Constantine is seen in the background looking bored out of his mind throughout the entire service.

I found his cameo highly amusing.

Hello! My name is Angelus and I'm new here, I'm a 21 year old college student from Michigan. I'm a Theater Major and my hobbies include...well...just about everything. I enjoy drawing, writing, and rescuing my friends from their half-assed attempts at mastering the occult. I've been told I'm like the real life Constantine if he was an American and a little less manipulative (I'm not really sure if that was supposed to be a compliment.)

Unfortunately I recently discovered, in my bid to collect as much Hellblazer comics as I can, that there are absolutely none to be found within a 100 mile radiouse!!! This lead to me finding this board because I was looking for as much info as I could on John Constantine...I've been lurking on these boards for a long time now actually...and today I decided I was actually going to register just in case I had any comments I wanted to add. ^_^