If you are a general movie fan (let’s be honest: if you’re here, you probably are) then you are probably aware how casting works for most films. Directors and producers seeks out the stars, or soon-to-be stars, that they really like for the roles and either build a film around them or make them work into their project.

But what if time and space folded in on itself, causing films like Inception and Drive to get made in the film era of Bela Lugosi and James Dean? Or if John Wayne actually got the part to play Superman instead of George Reeves?

These are questions that digital artist Peter Stults thought would be cool to explore, as he takes popular films and drops them into different eras and genres, with the farthest possible actors taking on the iconic roles.

After the jump, you can take a look at the whole slew of them, which include Sean Connery in The Fifth Element, Fritz Lang’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, and our personal favorite: Leonard Nimoy in Die Hard.

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This week’s pick is the John McTiernan thriller The Hunt for Red October (1990). Sean Connery, Alec Baldwin, Scott Glenn, Sam Neill, and James Earl Jones star in this Cold War classic about a Soviet naval commander and a new invincible Soviet sub which threatens peace between the two super powers.

Set in early 1984 before Gorbachev came to power as the new Soviet premier, the new ballistic missile submarine Red October sets sail from port in the arctic and makes its way to the north Atlantic for a training exercise. Its captain, Marko Ramius (Connery) selects his officers and the crew for a daring mission that they believe will test the might of their old adversary, The United States navy.

The Red October is equipped with a new type of propulsion system, a caterpillar drive, which renders the sub virtually silent to sonar. This feature and its nuclear payload, represent a clear and present danger to U.S. policy in the north Atlantic at the height of Cold War tensions between both the U.S and Soviet Union.

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Happy New Year to all you faithful War Movie Monday fans, and thank you for a fantastic year of classic war films. This week’s pick to ring in the start of a new year is the John Milius 1975 classic The Wind and the Lion, which was loosely based on an international incident which led to possible war between the U.S. and European powers in 1904 Morocco. The film stars Sean Connery (Raisuli), Candice Bergen (Eden Perdicaris), Brian Keith (President Theodore Roosevelt), John Huston (Sec. of State John Hay), Geoffrey Lewis (American Ambassador to Morocco Samuel R. Gummere), Steve Kanaly (Captain Eugene Jerome, USMC), and Vladek Sheybal (The Bashaw of Tangier).

The film open up with a sweeping score from famed composer Jerry Goldsmith, who sets the stage for a fantastic adventure film with a tone of modern era warfare between desert tribesmen and the imperial powers of Germany, France, and Great Britain who are trying to establish their own spheres of influence throughout the Arab world.

Mulai Amhed er Raisuli (Connery) is the leader of a band of Berber tribesmen who are opposed to the Sultan and his Uncle (Sheybal) the Bashaw of Tangier who are corrupt and easily influenced by the European powers. The Raisuli plans to embarrass the rulers of Morocco by having his men kidnap an American woman, Eden Perdicaris (Bergen) and her two children from their home in Tangier, and hold them for ransom for gold, rifles, and sovereignty from the Europeans.

Milius wrote and directed the film which was loosely based on an actual account which was known as the “Perdicaris incident” in 1904. An American man and his stepson were kidnapped by Barbary pirates and were ransomed. Both were unharmed and the incident gave President Theodore Roosevelt a platform to wield the “big stick” of foreign policy for his re-election to office that year in November.

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In celebration of the Normandy D-Day invasion on June 6, 1944, this week’s review is the 1962 “Grandaddy of all war movies” The Longest Day. Legendary producer Darryl F. Zanuck and directors Ken Annakin (British scenes), Andrew Marton (American scenes), Bernhard Wicki (German scenes) and an uncredited John Wayne bring Cornelius Ryan’s 1959 best selling novel to the big screen.

The Longest Day stars over forty two (at that time) of the most acclaimed international actors including Eddie Albert (Colonel Thompson, 29th U.S. Infantry Div.), Paul Anka (U.S. 2nd Ranger Battalion), Richard Beymer (Pvt Arthur “Dutch” Schultz, 82nd Airborne Div.), Red Buttons, (Pvt. John Steele, 82nd Airborne Div.), Mel Ferrer (Major General Robert Haines) and Henry Fonda (Brig. General Theodore Roosevelt Jr., Deputy Commander 4th U.S. Infantry Div.).

It also featured Jeffery Hunter (Sgt. (later Lt.) John Fuller), Roddy McDowall (Pvt. Morris, 4th U.S. Div.), Robert Mitchum (Brig. General Norman Cota, Asst. Commander 29th U.S. Infantry Div.), Robert Ryan (Brig. General James M. Gavin, Asst. Commander 82nd Airborne Div.), and the Duke himself, John Wayne as Lt. Col. Benjamin Vandervoort, Commander 2nd Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Reg.

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This week’s pick is Richard Attenborough’s A Bridge Too Far (1977) which was based on the Cornelius Ryan novel about the Allied airborne invasion of Holland in September 1944. A Bridge Too Far is a sprawling Hollywood epic, filmed in the same tradition as Ryan’s earlier adaptation The Longest Day (1962) which was based on the D-Day invasion in France. A Bridge Too Far has over thirty of the most acclaimed international stars of the seventies, and even today, as the military and civilian individuals involved in what was known as “Operation Market Garden.”

By September 1944, the German army was in full retreat from France and the low countries (Belgium & The Netherlands) as the allied push from Normandy and Belgium began advancing East towards the German frontier. Due to supply shortages having to be driven from the Normandy beach head, to over five hundred miles away, made the advances come to a screeching halt due to Patton and British General Montgomery needing supplies for both their armies in order for the assault into Germany.

Montgomery proposed an idea to American General Eisenhower (Supreme Commander of the allied expeditionary force in Europe) to invade Holland with over 35,000 paratroopers, and seize a series of bridges over the Rhine, and then advance into Germany to capture industrial factories in the Ruhr, which was the industrial heart of Germany, and where most of their war manufacturing plants were located. Like all battles in the middle of long wars, it was hoped that this bold plan was to end the fighting by Christmas. General Browning (Bogarde) was quoted in a meeting with General Montgomery that they might be going “A bridge too far” with such a plan.

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With the number of GPS owners in the country growing at a substantial rate, more and more people are trying to do cool things with their navigational devices, from downloading custom avatars to now custom turn-by-turn voices and points of interest.

P.I.G.Tones, The Politically Incorrect GPS, is, according to their website, “a software company that offers Garmin and Tom Tom users the ability to download cool, funny, and irreverent new voices to their devices, replacing the boring standard voices that come with the units.”

Voices range from Stewie and Peter from Family Guy, to “The Governator”, Sean Connery, Homer, Cartman, and a slew of hilarious others. Granted, these aren’t licensed, which means you won’t get Seth McFarlane doing the official voices of Stewie or Peter, but the impression is pretty spot-on.

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