Comic Con 2008: Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Jessica Hynes’ Spaced Invasion
By
Emily Christianson
, Hollywood.com Staff
|
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Spaced is here! The situational comedy directed by Edgar Wright and starring the show’s creators Simon Pegg and Jessica Hynes is now available on DVD in the U.S. after going off the British airwaves seven years ago.
Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz fans are sure to flock to the series about two twentysomethings named Tim (Pegg) and Daisy (Hynes) who move in together as a pseudo couple in order to get a good deal on their London flat.
Hollywood.com tracked down the trio at this year’s Comic Con to find out the five reasons fans should check out the new DVD. 
Reason #1: The commentaries will be plentiful and not the least bit boring.
Edgar Wright: There are 14 new commentaries on top of the 14, so 28 commentaries in total. We did commentaries with some of our various geeky celebrity fans. It was sort of a geek nexus of me, Simon, Jess, Quentin Tarantino, Matt Stone, Kevin Smith, Patton Oswalt, Bill Hader…Diablo Cody. That’s good isn’t it? Simon Pegg: A lot of it was nice because they were people who had inspired us in the first place, particularly in the instances of Quentin and Kevin Smith. To do commentary of the scene the Pulp Fiction reference we do in episode one series two. Having Quentin in the commentary booth was quite bizarre, sort of a moment of circularity that I think anyone rarely experiences. It was great. Kevin Smith just wanted to talk about other things didn’t he …
Jessica Hynes: Yeah, breast feeding…we talk about lots of different things. I think that’s the thing about DVDs commentary is that you go completely tangential. It becomes a lot more interesting because you get the strange ramblings and actually that sometimes if you are too literal can be boring.
Reason #2: This is the U.S. version of the show, so don’t expect a remake.
Edgar Wright: It was quite an upsetting experience for all of us [when they tried to remake the show in the U.S.] really because you know we were in a situation where we didn’t have the rights to the show. We were in our mid twenties when we made that so we were lucky to get the show made, but we didn’t have the muscle to control the rights so we were in a situation where the show could get made never having to consult us and they didn’t. The sad thing is they didn’t respect us enough as artists enough to get in touch, but still saw it fit to use our names in trade articles about the show so that’s why we were really furious about it. It just started off on the completely wrong foot and I personally didn’t want a remake to happen anyway because the show is very personal and it should be left as it was.
Reason #3: The show and the extras are a direct result of the fans:
Edgar Wright: The first series and the second series have a lot of re-watchability factor because there are lots of little details, jokes and things to pick up on a second watch. I think that came from knowing how much people were scrutinizing it on the internet. As soon as it was shown on TV the fans would pour through every single extra on the DVD and list all the commentary and get all the references like the Homage-O-Meter and all the trivia stuff and I think that influenced the second series and everything we’ve done since.
Reason #4: They went the extra mile to keep all the original music
Edgar Wright: There were a few music licensing issues we had to iron out for North American and we wanted to make sure that the DVD that was released in North America was the same as the one released in the UK. That took a little while, but we are very pleased.
Reason #5: American fans will see a show that was a commentary on pop culture, before the creators joined the pop culture landscape themselves.
Simon Pegg: It is quite like the snake eating itself. I think when we started making references to Spaced in Shaun of the Dead that’s was the most crystal moment of self indulgence ever. In Spaced there is a line where Tim says something about every odd number Star Trek movie being shit which is a huge irony considering I’m starring in Star Trek 11. So it is funny how those things come back to haunt you. Obviously the rule doesn’t apply anymore [laughs].
Spaced is now available on DVD
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