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Location: Boston, MA | i don't understand why such great series as Asimov's Foundation, King's Dark Tower and Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber are not put onto screen yet! ok, maybe Foundation is a bit too grand in scale to make a proper movie or tv show but Dark Tower and Amber would be fascinating. With current technological advancement in movie-making I don't see any problem with creating good effects described in those books.
I read that J.J. Abrams has purchased rights to make the Dark Tower but so far I haven't heard anything beyond that. I mean come on - Amber series as a tv show?! I'd buy an hd set and subscribe to whatever to be able to watch that!!! |
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Location: Dallas, Texas | I'm rather surprised about The Dark Tower myself. King has been a Hollywood darling for years. You'd think someone would option that series. I think HBO could do an excellent job of it. Of course, they'd sex it up a bit but the quality would be very high. I read the The Chronicles of Amber and I agree that would make a nice TV series as well. I can see SyFy making that one and it distresses me no end. Speaking of SyFy, their adaptation of The Riverworld Saga airs tonight so set your DVR. It's a four hour mini-series. I think it was made years ago but never aired? Something like that. I'll record it and give a few minutes at least.
As far as The Foundation Series goes you may get your wish - and live to regret it. There has been a lot of chatter online about Roland Emerich making it into a movie. Not really sure where it stands as of now because some other reports refute it. It appears to be on and off with each new story. This one I'm not sure of. Love the series but I don't know if it would translate well. Emerich mentioned how poorly received I, Robot was from fans of the book and he'd be reluctant to do the same with/to Foundation so that's a good sign I guess. To me there would need to be a massive re-write to get it to the screen and I don't like the sound of that at all. I don't want it turned into another action flick.
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Location: Boston, MA | glad to see a likely minded person
foundation carries a vast idea, I doubt it can be made into a good movie
I, robot was a disaster |
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Location: Dallas, Texas | Yes it was. If they had just made the movie without trying to be I, Robot the book I might have liked it for an action SF flick. I'm just tired of the constant remakes of old SF films like The Day the Earth Stood Still or Planet of the Apes that aren't improvements on the originals and usually end up being special effects extravaganzas with crap acting and dialog and silly plot changes to "make them more relevant to today's audience." I want to see new films based on the great body of excellent SF/F books and stories that we all want to see on the big screen. REAL science fiction, not just action flicks with killer robots, shaky-cam work or the other trappings of SF pasted onto a bad plot. Of course, when I hear the "good news" that someone actually is going to tackle something great like Foundation I live in fear of how bad they're going to screw it all up. What cuts are they going to make? How much are they going to "dumb-it-down" for the audience? My God, is Keanu going to be in it? In the end all we can do is hope for the best. Every once in awhile we'll get something great amidst the usual crap.
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Location: Boston, MA | Administrator - 2010-04-18 1:08 PM
My God, is Keanu going to be in it?
good one :D
well, at least they are making some sf movies now ... Moon was good, Halo Legends was surprisingly very good, for a while there wasn't anything at all or so it seemed to me |
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Location: Dallas, TX | The common wisdom is that great books do not usually translate into great movies, while bad books often make for an enjoyable (if not deep) cinematic experience. Good novels and epic poems just include too much that is unfilmable, such as interior monologues and philosophical asides, and trying to put those on screen usually ends badly. A few movies, like Blade Runner, actually end up with a pretty good finished product, but at the expense of dropping many of the central aspects of the book. Great books need to have things removed and replaced with more film-worthy ideas if they are going to survive the transition. They also need to be modified to work well within the two-hour time frame most studios demand. All of these modifications are very hard to pull off, which makes me prefer the situation in which some of my favorite books have not and hopefully never will be adapted to film.
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Location: Boston, MA | i don't quite agree with you, jynnantonnyx. i mean what's there to lose if the movie is made? if it comes out good then great, if it doesn't well at least there'll be something to trash-talk about. i agree that some books are just impossible to be put on film and those should be left alone (until some breakthrough, hell we already have 3d tv's now). but the 2 i mentioned above - the dark tower and amber are mostly action packed with a nice story and idea and therefore, i believe, would be great on screen. i completely agree that butchering a story to fit into 2 hour time line is horrid. for such long stories a tv show format is most appropriate. for example a timer traveler's wife was in my opinion very nicely fit into 2 hours. i just want to say it's possible .. |
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Location: Dallas, TX | The problem with making bad film adaptations is that film is a medium that inherently takes greater control of one's imagination than a novel. When you read a novel you need to use your imagination actively to picture the things taking place. When you watch a film you barely have to use your imagination at all, because all the work is being done for you. This means that the images and sounds of the film take residence in your head without you even having to try, and all the hard work your imagination did when reading the novel is in danger of being washed away by the imagery of the film. This is why it becomes hard to re-read a novel after watching a film adaptation without seeing the actors' faces and movie sets as you read. Exercising one's imagination upon a novel is hard work, and it is discouraging to see that work destroyed by a film.
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| I'm with jynnantonnyx on this one, I think comics make much better candidates for faithful adaption. Sort stories too. |
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Location: Boston, MA | hmm, i feel something like that about audiobooks - i just organically can't take someone else reading to me, ruins the imagining.
but do you really think it's not worse to try? there're always reviews and someone else who did go to see it whom you can ask about it before watching yourself. and then there's chance that they actually got it right. |
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| The problem with short stories is, well, sometimes they are too short. Take for instance, the ultra short Richard Matheson "Button, Button" adapted as "The Box" in 2009. I guess you could say twas faithful but greatly expanded. As for comics, though I'm not an avid reader, the example which comes to mind is "V for Vendetta". The movie is one of my favorites but it was so unfaithful to the dark graphic novel that Alan Moore wanted nothing of it. I also agree with jynnantonnyx. It is a matter of perception and expectations, and regardless, a movie will destroy in some way this fantasy with some notable exceptions (Lord of the Rings?). I guess it is simpler (or is it laziness?), whenever possible, to read the novel after the movie. You can better visualize the story and the characters as you enjoy reading it in much greater detail. I've done that several times and they still captured my imagination, faithful or not. I did read "V for Vendetta" after, though in this instance I still prefer the movie. |
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Location: Dallas, Texas | I think I fall in the middle on the movie adaptations. I usually get excited about new SF/F movies even though I have low expectations. I prefer my SF movies to be unheard of though rather than adaptations of classics. Less let down if I don't have preconceived notions about how characters should look or how the story should unfold. I won't watch a movie if I intend to read the book later but if it's a book that I'm only mildly interested in I'll let someone else imagine it for me. I'm lazy like that. I still hold out hope that these favorites might get made properly and I'll usually go see them unless someone waves me off of them. I figure I should support the movie makers for an honest effort so more SF films will get made thereby increasing the odds that we might get another Lord of the Rings rather than another I, Robot.
My biggest gripe with adaptations is that they usually end up being poor representations of the written work and while those of us in the know can avoid and disown them, on behalf of our beloved genre, those unfamiliar with the original go to see it, realize it's crap and it just confirms to them their suspicions that sci-fi is all lasers and explosions with no substance. I'd prefer that people see the genre at it's best and perhaps grow to demand better from the movies they support.
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Location: Boston, MA | some development on Dark Tower adaptation - http://scifiwire.com/2010/04/kings-dark-tower-heads-fo.php
i had high hopes with Bad Robot steering the project. now though .. why, oh why |
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Location: Dallas, Texas | @hihik: A turn for the worse. Who would you rather see direct Dark Tower? |
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Location: Boston, MA | JJ seemed like a chap for the job  i liked cloverfield and lost (uhm, ok, first couple seasons), never watched fringe though. |
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| "My biggest gripe with adaptations is that they usually end up being poor representations of the written work and while those of us in the know can avoid and disown them, on behalf of our beloved genre, those unfamiliar with the original go to see it, realize it's crap and it just confirms to them their suspicions that sci-fi is all lasers and explosions with no substance. I'd prefer that people see the genre at it's best and perhaps grow to demand better from the movies they support."
** I agree with you that adaptations are usually poor representations of the written work but not to the point of disowning them. There are many reasons for this to occur: Cost, feasability, interpretation, length, cost, wider audience, contemporary update, cost, and others. I never expect a true adaptation, therefore, with few exceptions, I'm rarely disappointed. For me, it is two separate universes: the vision of the author and the vision of the Director.
Simple classic stories are rare indeed.
Dave, I can see you are the number 1 fan of Transformers.  |
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| On your subject of The Dark Tower, the verdict is in today: Ron Howard. It could have been worse. I think my 1982 illustrated special edition of The Dark Tower just gained a few cents.
Edited by Pierre 2010-05-03 5:25 PM
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Location: Dallas, Texas | To my great advantage I've not read any of the Dark Tower books. I won't be saddled with any preconceived notions about the story or accuracy of the film. I like Ron Howard pretty well so I'm looking forward to the film but I'll temper my enthusiasm for now. |
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| After 28 years, I haven't read it either, and I have little interest in it. The movie might be a different story though. |
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Location: Boston, MA | 28 years .. so you just read the first couple books? |
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| I was referring to the one I have, the first one. Actually, I have the second one also, hmm somewhere. As I said, I have no interest in reading them, nor in King any more for that matter: Call it a permanent King indigestion from the 80's. |
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Location: Boston, MA | hmm, i see. he took it quite far from what The Gunslinger is. i read all seven. not without a bit of pushing after book 4 though. |
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Location: Dallas, Texas | I've read a few of King's books but I'm content to watch the movies that inevitably come from them. The Dark Tower series has some sizable gaps between volumes. I've heard some others say they had to struggle through some of the middle books.
I was going to give Under the Dome a try but I saw it at the library and decided it was just too long to attempt. I'm just not that interested to go 1,000 pages.
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| http://www.sfx.co.uk/2010/05/04/unfilmable-sf-novels/1/ |
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| How about Rendezvous with Rama?
http://www.boingboing.net/2010/05/05/amazing-fan-created.html |
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Location: Boston, MA | ontopic blogpost and nice discussion in the comments - http://scifiwire.com/2010/05/the-10-most-awesome-sci-f.php#more |
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| Just finished Forever Peace by Joe Haldeman. It would make a great film combining CGI with real actors.
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Location: Dallas, Texas | @hihik: There are some good ones on that list. Rama seems like a great choice for the movie treatment. The studios like any excuse to do some great special effects and the story is simple enough. No Ender's Game on that list which is surprising to me.
@MT in Austin: I've not read Forever Peace but I could certainly see a film version of some of Haldeman's other works like Camouflage or The Accidental Time Machine on the big screen for the same reasons as Rama. Simple stories with lots of opportunities to show off some special effects. A shape-shifting alien running amok as an evil Nazi doctor? Time-traveling guy with no control over where and when he'll end up? That's the plot to dozens of shows and movies by itself: - The Time Tunnel
- Sliders
- Primer
- Time Trax
- Time Cop
- The Butterfly Effect
- Journeyman
- Quantum Leap
- The Time Traveler's Wife
That list goes on and on. Hollywood loves them some time travel.
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| Camouflage is just begging to be made into a film, its reads like Haldeman was imagining it as a film script as he was writing it. |
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| Just finish Camouflage yesterday. I agree, it would make a good movie.
I liked it but not as much as Forever War or Forever Peace.
Edited by MT in Austin 2010-05-19 3:07 PM
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Location: Boston, MA | apparently a screenplay is already written for Neuromancer and it will be filmed soon.
and Dave to answer your fears:
One thing Natali can promise is: NO KEANU REEVES. Sorry, dude, you had your day as the cyberpunk. "I hate to say it, but Keanu Reeves is far too old, because Case, the character in the book, is supposed to be 24 years old."
http://scifiwire.com/2010/05/greatest-sci-fi-novel-ever-to-finally-... |
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Location: Tulsa, Oklahoma | I want to put in that I feel like HBO miniseries are the way to go. A lot of the best SF books would require a ton of CGI and when I watched the making of John Adams, I couldn't believe how much of it was computer generated. For the first time ever, I was watching almost wall-to-wall CGI and wasn't complaining about how phony it looked... I didn't even know it was there most of the time. Hollywood is so dead to me and ninety minutes to two hours doesn't do most books justice.
Having said that, is it just me or is a surprising number of PKD adaptations good, even when they totally butcher the source material? I loved Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report, and A Scanner Darkly and... well, I guess four isn't really a "surprising" number, but it is pretty good when you're talking adaptations. I'm not even sure King got four good adaptations out of, what? A hundred?
I'm not sure about Camouflage. I mean, the whole multiple story/time lines thing would probably make a movie producer go, "We need to dumb this down for the summer blockbuster audience." Thus the butchering begins. Same thing for Foundation. I have a feeling they'd compress characters, events, and everything else to make it look more like your average movie. You know: one hero, a smaller time line, etc. A lot of the time, what they come up with didn't even require paying for the rights to the source material. (See: Next and Paycheck, both allegedly based on PKD stories). Also, if Rolland Emmerich has ANYTHING to do with Foundation, it's all over. I'm serious, I have no faith in that guy making a good movie.
I would enjoy a Rendezvous adaptation if it got a super serious director.
My vote goes for The Demolished Man. When I was reading it, the villain made me imagine a fat John Malcovich for some reason. |
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Location: Dallas, Texas | Fraa Grant - 2010-05-27 5:00 PM I want to put in that I feel like HBO miniseries are the way to go. A lot of the best SF books would require a ton of CGI and when I watched the making of John Adams, I couldn't believe how much of it was computer generated. For the first time ever, I was watching almost wall-to-wall CGI and wasn't complaining about how phony it looked... I didn't even know it was there most of the time. Hollywood is so dead to me and ninety minutes to two hours doesn't do most books justice. I am in agreement with this. HBO has produced some quality series with excellent production values and loads of atmosphere. If I was to quibble, I'd say they like to sex it up a bit more than is really necessary but really I'm not going to complain too much.
Having said that, is it just me or is a surprising number of PKD adaptations good, even when they totally butcher the source material? I loved Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report, and A Scanner Darkly and... well, I guess four isn't really a "surprising" number, but it is pretty good when you're talking adaptations. PKD has been a Hollywood darling for a long time. I like the movies too even though I've never read any of his works. Seems like there was no reason to do so since they keep on making movies. I know. I know. I own my shame. I've got a couple on my list starting with The Man in the High Castle so I'm working on it.
I'm not even sure King got four good adaptations out of, what? A hundred? I'm not sure about Camouflage. I mean, the whole multiple story/time lines thing would probably make a movie producer go, "We need to dumb this down for the summer blockbuster audience." Thus the butchering begins. Same thing for Foundation. I have a feeling they'd compress characters, events, and everything else to make it look more like your average movie. You know: one hero, a smaller time line, etc. A lot of the time, what they come up with didn't even require paying for the rights to the source material. (See: Next and Paycheck, both allegedly based on PKD stories). Also, if Rolland Emmerich has ANYTHING to do with Foundation, it's all over. I'm serious, I have no faith in that guy making a good movie. I would enjoy a Rendezvous adaptation if it got a super serious director. My vote goes for The Demolished Man. When I was reading it, the villain made me imagine a fat John Malcovich for some reason. You're probably right about the butchering of Camouflage but I think it's a story that could survive the tinkering. It's not a deep work with a ton of nuance that would get lost in translation. It's a fun and fast paced read. Two different aliens hidden among us, one good and one evil, on a collision course of destruction! It sounds like a summer blockbuster already. Story and acting would come second to the special effects but that's to be expected. I'd have a harder time if we were talking about a book like The Sparrow or A Canticle for Leibowitz . Those are near and dear to my heart and the cuts would be savage and unforgivable. I'm content to let those play in my head, thanks. I'm with you on Rama and The Demolished Man. Those both seem doable to me... in the right hands. Fingers crossed it's not somebody like Emerich, McG (damn his eyes!) or Bay.
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| The word out is Pierre Morel will be directing a new Dune movie.
I've liked the movies of his that I have seen although they are all action films -- From Paris with Love (2010) , Taken (2009), District B13 (2006).
I know this is supposed to be books that have not been to the big screen but I would say David Lynch's Dune did not do the story justice and is better off forgotten.
I saw that thing in the theater the week it came out. If I had waited a week, I would have heard how poor it was and saved my $5 (yes, it was only $5).
I read the book and still had trouble following the movie. Especially the parts he added which weren't in the book.
How do you add elements to Dune and leave other important stuff out?
That movie angered me so much I could never watch Twin Peaks. I just couldn't stand to see David Lynch's name on the TV. |
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Location: Dallas, Texas | @MT in Austin: I'm not familiar with Morel but I welcome another Dune movie. It'll be interesting to see what he brings to the movie. I understand it's going to be a faithful interpretation of the book and you know the special effect will kick ass. I hope it's not going to be 3D. I'm already tired of 3D and I'm not a big fan of the inflated prices they're getting for it either. I'm quite the opposite of you on the Lynch film. I've always loved it but it may be that's because I saw the movie long before I ever read the book. I had no preconceived notions about it at all. I just read Dune recently, you can see my review in the blog, and found that my familiarity with the movie actually enhanced my enjoyment of the book. I even liked the SciFi channel version too - also seen before I read the book. But I know how you feel. I, Robot was a terrible movie to me because aside from a few names and the Laws of Robotics it did not resemble the book at all. A book I thoroughly enjoyed. I think I would have liked the movie just fine if it was called something else.
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Location: Boston, MA | Dark Tower got canned - http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/19/us-darktower-idUSTRE76I06... |
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Location: Dallas, Texas | This is disappointing. I'm interested enough in the series to watch a show based on it but not enough to actually read it myself. I'm sure there will be mixed reactions from fans. It's always a hope/fear battle when something you love gets the Hollywood treatment. |
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Great stories not on screen