HOT FUZZ: Simon & Nick on Kimmell

I don't watch JK LIVE, but just happened to click into it late Wednesday night, after watching this week's LOST, and serendipitously, was treated to Simon Pegg and Nick Frost's telling of the wondrously romantic moment they shared when they knew they were meant to be together...

I recognized it as soon as he made the sound! The squealing little service droid (I can't remember a STAR WARS geeky proper name for it) that Chewbacca scares away! Isn't that the most romantic thing you ever heard?

These guys are incredible human sfx machines. That's s—F!—x, you pervs.

Not that I'd kick them out of bed, of course...

I tried to come up with a good question for the guys before the Brattle preview, but the only thing I could think of was to ask them to perform some improv "male telepathy," just so I could hear Simon make that high-pitched reverberating dagger-to-the-greyskull sound! I ended up not asking anything, of course. I get starstruck.

* Later that day. Check out this write-up on the influence of STAR WARS on Simon Pegg's life. If you've seen his work/character on SPACED, this will come as no surprise. At the Q&A at the Brattle, he cited securing music permissions as the big issue that was holding back the US release of the two SPACED series on DVD. I'd come across a different explanation/theory from the comic book guy world. If you've seen the show, you know that the troupe explores, honors, and even directly discusses, the Holy Trilogy on many occasions (the ending of SPACED series 1 episode 6 is bloody frickin GENIUS =). Something that Lucas, or at least Lucas's legal team, is notoriously uptight about. But I hear that given the respect that Simon & co give to the movies, Lucas gave them some kind of, formal or informal (not sic'ing lawyers), license to do what they do. However, in the years between SPACED series 1 and SPACED series 2, EPISODE 1 was released...

One word.

Well, one word two times, that is...

Jar-jar.

Yeah, so, you'll find that the references to STAR WARS in series 2 are not nearly so complimentary and reverant. Jar-jar bashing figures prominently. The comic book guy conspiracy theory states that Lucasfilm has been behind the delay in a US release because of the unfavorable light in which Simon Pegg (and his SPACED comic shop assistant manager character) paints the prequel. I personally find that possibility quite reasonable, altho, given GL's appearances and implicit collusion with the likes of THE OC and THE COLBERT REPORT, perhaps he's mellowing out a bit.

The SPACED troupe *does* have an uncanny knack for choosing the coolest tunes (SHAUN and FUZZ have kickass scores), and no doubt, using them in different markets is likely to cause all kinds of difficulties, right? Well, let's just see which and how many episodes BBC America will end up playing for us here in the colonies, eh?

Keep on beepin on~