Slashdot Mirror
'Rendezvous With Rama' - The Movie
DesignMerc writes: "2003 is the posted release date for the movie version of Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama. It's being produced by Revelations Entertainment with David Fincher directing (Fight Club, Seven, Alien 3) and Morgan Freeman as part of the cast. There are production sketches at their Web site." Nothing too meaty here yet - mostly concept art.
Unless I'm mistaken, the actual reason the pilot had to be careful not to fly off axis would be due to the Coriolis effect of the air in Rama. If he flew off axis, the air would start pushing him sideways, making him move about the axis, and causing acceleration towards the 'ground' of Rama. This 'downward' acceleration will be felt at any point in Rama that isn't on the axis IF you are rotating about the axis.
Anyone who has read the book knows about the space chimps (simps). And a movie with monkies in it can't go wrong.
That site got slashdotted fast!
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Joe Hamelin
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
I've read all four, and I much prefered the original. I'm probably being far too generousto Clarke when I say this, but much of the weak characterizations in the second seemed to show all the signs of an ineffective collaboration. I never did like the gratuitous "Eleonor of Aquitaine" stuff. The plot was interesting, though.
Hahahaha :)
:)
:)
great post
great post
great post
Still confusing thorn with eth, I see (or was that intentional? I forget)
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Fuck the system? Nah, you might catch something.
They already did the Mule saga. It was called "The Usual Suspects."
Breakfast served all day!
Heh. I live in northeast New Brunswick. That's all we speak here. "Flippez le switch", etcetera. Causes lots of heart attacks to linguistic scholars of both languages. It gets even weirder hearing a native Newfoundlander speak Franglais...
I don't know about making Foundation. Didn't Bicentennial Man make dear old Isaac Asimov spin enough?
And about the money, that's the dilemma. The only way a studio is going to spend a lot of money to make a movie is if they expect to make a lot more money back, and most people would rather watch Ah-nold make explosions than some no-name actors quietly recite the intricate conversations of something like the Foundation trilogy. You either get really good but small-screen sci-fi like Lexx and Babylon 5 or you get overhyped crap like Mission to Mars, Red Planet and Starship Troopers.
I can't wait for the days to come when home computers are powerful enough and cheap enough to do the work of a Hollywood crew. Maybe we'll see some good sci-fi on the big screen then, when anyone who knows a fairly decent theatre troop can create a big-screen quality movie. Or maybe I'm just dreaming for an impossibility.
To the folks at Revelation: Please, if you really *must* do this project, don't fuck it up too much, huh? And stick to the original book. ACC hasn't done too great as of late as an author...
Because they chose only to produce the first book, we will now have great CG shots, but not enough plot to keep most interested.
Said with a different inflection, one might imagine that very sentence being used to pitch the film.
(I wonder if our alien overlords will ever tell us exactly how much tapioca was required to replace all those brains in Hollywood.. the electronic subsystems required to maintain the limbic responses and keep up a moderately-responsive Eliza script must be wonderfully advanced!)
Your Working Boy,
The thorn/eth confusion is in the sig of the post he was replying to - what makes you think he didn't get the joke?
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rant
You small-minded idiot. Posted by a xenophilic white guy whose first friend was black (so I had no concept of racism until encountering the white culture once I started school. And knew immediately it was bullshit) and has friends of all races.
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Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die
It's supposed to be entirely CGI. And it sounds like Freeman will be a principal contributor to the project - not necessarily just a (voice/cyberscan) actor.
because the ramans(sp?) always do things in threes.
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Insert Witty Sig Here
any company that puts a mission statement on their web page absolutely sucks without exception.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
actually, he had a previous bit of dental work removed. much like jim carrey in dumb and dumber, he already had a chipped tooth. its not like he sat down with a file or something....
I think Starship Troopers was an excellent adaptation of the novel for the big screen. It is no small feat to adapt such a novel to an action film while managing to retain the same atmosphere as the original. It is no point complaining about the lack of depth in which Heinlein's political depiction of a possible future society is treated, that kind of subject simply isn't very suited for a Hollywood production.
-- Spelling and grammar errors tend to be a sign of erroneous thinking.
... considering the French (Norman) invasion and subjugation of Britain. Didn't quite turn out the way intended; the natives simply appropriated elements they desired from the upper class (French) language and culture, building upon their own resources rather than displacing them. The end result was that the English language got bigger (through words like "rendezvous" and the like). But don't feel bad: the English language has a long and storied history of appropriating other languages. For example, most of the initial "th" words (like "this," "that," "them," and "their") are descendents from a Norse (Viking!) invasion along the northeast coast.
The phenomenon that is the English language is like an insatiable virus, absorbing everything it comes in contact with. Left to its own devices, English probably would have eliminated several major languages by now simply through the act of making them obsolete.
"I came here to kick ass and chew bubblegum. I'm all out of bubblegum." MSE USC APX AIA CSI CASp
The Director's cut cleared up all of the confusion (and probably added at least 45 minutes to the running time).
I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
It's probably been 15 years since I read the book, but didnt the 'spider' have 3 legs? One would hope the artist had actually read the book and understands why it's terribly important they not make a concession like that for the sake of cinema or practicality or whatever. Maybe it's a Python production - "Ramans do everything in 6's" "Uh, threes, sir!".
Ringworld would be cool... However, I think that Varley's Gaia series (Titan, Wizard, and Demon) would be even more interesting, while being set in an equally visually impressive environment. If you haven't read those three books, by the way, they're highly recommended...
It is rare that a Slashdot summary of a website is more informative than the actual website. Let us savour this moment, and hope that this has begun the era of the new, better Slashdot.
=)
as fot the presentation:
Look at all those $100 Millions. Wow. This must be a great movie.
... I dunno. Why are they throwing these megabucks at us? Or is this site aimed at movie money-men?
D'oh! I thought the thorn/eth comment was based on the posters, to me, apparent lack of understanding on the joke made about threes. I didn't know it had to do with the Dragons comment. Thank you for the correction, and my profuse apologizes for my misunderstanding.
"Don't mind me cutting myself on Occam's Razor"
Here all along i thought i was going to get to watch a Ranma movie on the big screen here in Canada... Then i read the headline again. Damn you /. for getting my hopes up!
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Or Brunner, or Gibson, or Bear.
... Wrap my head in duct tape, run around on fire. Thingy
Please, Clarke is old school, a sociologist. Let it rest.
I wanted to explode, but I was too tired.
I just hope we don't end up with another "Eyes Wide Shut". (A movie that had huge potential, but just came up short.)
The biggest compliment I had for "Fight Club", and this is no minor feat, is that the director didn't get in the way of the story. There weren't too many distracting gadgets between the characters and the audience.
If this film can be pulled off with the same impressive subtlety, it will be worth seeing.
I've never brought a tear to any mother's face, and that's a desperate way to look at a man who is still a child. Big Country
Not THAT much. And almost all of it was instantly recognizable as compter animation. CGI just isn't as advanced as some movie makers (*cough* George Lucas *cough*) seem to think it is.
Free Hans!
movies based on these sf novels don't really seem to pan out. You always lose a lot of the details which make the novels so thought provoking and always spend crap loads on FX so you can drag the average punter in.
Fans of the novel go away thinking what a waste (the book was way better), Joe Average Citizen leaves thinking that was boring, and those who go to see it becuase they heard the book was so good go away thinking that it was no big deal (that clarke guy mustn't be such a great writer).
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'Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson...'
Its been a little while since I read it but doesn't the book end without any revelations about Rama at all? Apart from the everything in 3's thing.
So how will they end the movie to satisfy Joe A Citizen
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'Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson...'
pathetic eh?
I agree, Rama seems far too grand to really translate to the big screen without being cut up so much that aside from the character names and a general plot line, it would no longer tell the actual story. Basically, I could see this turning into another Dune, a good enough movie in it's own right but in the end, it wasn't Dune.
Now the Foundation could work, but it would have to be a mini-series. To do it proper justice it would have to be several parts which would cost a lot.
Truth is, a lot of the classic science fiction is just too intelligent for the big screen.
ChodaBoy
- The preceding statement is the product of a deranged mind and the sole property of the voices in my head.
I'm shuddering at the thought of the hacks who did Mission to Mars working on Ringworld; picture Nessus shedding a big CG tear. Ugh.
-Legion
Yes yes. A fan of Known Space myself, I recall dicussing this with a fellow Ringworld fan a while back. Ringworld has sooo much potential for good visuals. Even if only the puppeteers were done right, it would be good. The idea of a world in which the horizon disapperas up in the distance, in which night becomes day like that, a world hundreds of million sof times larger than Earth.... Done right, it would be pretty impressive.
One thing I remember seeing was a website which was a collection of detailed renderings this guy had done of the Ringworld's surface, from various heights, orbits, etc.
Anyway. You're right; Ringworld would be a cool movie the same way Rendezvous would.
Heh, you ever play the computer game? I found it recently and installed it on my 486... aieee, wretched thing. I can't get past the rishathra bit...
-J
Karma: T-rexcellent.
Does anybody else remember the computer game? I never played it, but I heard it was good?
Aieee... a friend of mine had it on his Mac. Being a stickler for accuracy in such thigns, I hated it, but I can't speak to its merits as a game.
Basically, they went through the whole series and took every aspect which lent itself most to a computer game and put it in one game.
Memorable experiences include getting eaten by biots, shocked by electric fences, eaten by other biots, being puzzled by this weird bird creature that should've been one of the flyers from the books but looked like a biot, getting eaten by more biots, and, um, I think I got eaten by biots at one point.
-J
Karma: T-rexcellent.
It's really a poorly phrased sentence that they use. The impression I got was either real actors in a CG world or else entirely CG with "real" voice actors. Though I don't think a computer voice actor would work... I'm sure we've all used simpletext, yes? ;-)
-J
Karma: T-rexcellent.
Hehe, excellently put.
-J
Karma: T-rexcellent.
Exactly as I said.
There was so much potential for a good explanation... but instead, whoever was writing at the time decided to just blame it all on god. Well. Talk about deus ex machina...
-J
Karma: T-rexcellent.
Agree totally - human colony is the neat thing. It would be possible to compress a bit, not necessarily making one movie from each book ..
it's in my head
Well put. And more importantly that pretty much sums up what the sequels lack, badly. Stay away. Because they don't have any of the drama or sense of wonder. Just ACC out of his depth.
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Listen. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Moebius has also done production design work on some science fiction films, including Alien, Tron, and The Abyss. The latter was a rotten movie, but ...
The theater version of The Abyss was abyssmal. I urge you to check out the director's cut, however. It's much better. Totally different ending.
"boiling gas" is a contradiction in terms...
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
Umm, I think that's the point that nomadic was making.
The real Captain Avatar is a fictional character, so I suppose he doesn't mind if I impersonate him.
That explains so much! That sequence precisely parallels the decline in my appreciation of the Rama series. (I quite enjoyed Rama II, but by Rama Revealed I wished I'd just stopped with Rendezvous.)
The real Captain Avatar is a fictional character, so I suppose he doesn't mind if I impersonate him.
I've always described Clarke's books to the uninitiated as not much happens, but there's a lot going on. Sadly Hollywood is guarenteed to choose action over sublety. I think we can look forward to the same treatment Starship Troopers received. I hope we don't get 90 minutes of buff astrostuds battling the very marketable maintenance spiders. OK I admit it, I'd buy one!
I usually try to fool myself into thinking I should avoid screen adaptations of favorite books so as to avoid any lingering taint; of course I see them anyway. However, of all Clarke's books this is perhaps the most easily transferred to screenplay.
There's a spider on your shoulder.
The first book was for art's sake, the rest were for money's sake. Blame the damned publishing houses.
wouldn't a "xenophile" be someone
who "loves foreigners"?
maybe xenophobia.
oops, I see what you meant.
sorry.
Yes he did do Alien 3. The first was directed by Ridley Scott , the second by James Cameron (I think) , and the third by Fincher. The fourth ( which I think was the best although no one agrees with me) I don't know the director, but the cinemetography was done by Darius Khondji who also did the beach I beleive.
This Wiki Feeds You TV and Anime - vidwiki.org
Bzzzztt!!
No, no, no - if you look up The Internet Movie Database, you will see that Fincher directed Aliens 3.
The first Alien movie was directed by Ridley Scott (Black Rain, Gladiator, Hannibal) and came out in 1979. Since Fincher was born in 1962, he would have been only 17!
One interesting fact a lot of people don't know - Fincher got his start by making music videos, most notably the Madonna videos from the early 90's (Express Yourself, Vogue). I really admire his creativity, especially with Seven.
Here's the website you're probably thinking of. I like the bit about single precision floats not being sufficient (yep, this is one of my bookmarks, not a 10 second rummage on Google for karma).
I hope he does a good job with it.
It would be nice to think that because 2001 was so good that Rendezvouz With Rama will be the same. The difference tho is that as I understand 2001 was written by Arthur C. Clarke as a script for Kubrick and was apperantly something like the 3 script he wrote. Hopefully Rendezvouz with Rama will be a great film, but it is much harder to work from a book than from a script.
This may be a new land speed record ('net speed record?). Someone should've mirrored that stuff.
- W
Jake
Dating: while( 1 ){ call_girl(); get_rejected(); drink_40(); } return 0;
I'd love to see the scene where the Mayor pulls the plug on all the power in his enemy's empire. So funny.
- W
Jake
Dating: while( 1 ){ call_girl(); get_rejected(); drink_40(); } return 0;
nah, fincher is about as good as you can get these days. i don't dwell on dead directors. (hows that for alliteration)
yeah he does. he makes damn good movies, and f*cks up his looks to do it also (he taped his eye in seven, and chiped a tooth for fight club). i think hes a pretty cool actor, who knows what his "image" is, yet doesnt care about it.
Fight Club, FIncher's last film, had a large amont of CGI... Most of it well done enough that it seamlessly fit into the rest of the movie (with a few exceptions).
Josh Sisk
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"Rock over London... Rock on Chicago..." -Wesley Willis
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"Rock over London... Rock on Chicago..." -Wesley Willis
I was interested to see this, since I read the book only yesterday!
Although I liked it in general to my mind it has one huge problem that I just could not see past - the artificial gravity.
ACC seemed to think that spinning things create their own magic gravitational aura. For example, when the pilot (Jimmy?) was flying along the axis of rotation towards the spike at the southern end he has to be very careful not to get too low or he would be caught in the down force and not be able to get back up to the axis.
Was ACC smoking crack or is it just me? Jimmy could have flown down until he was a fag-paper above the surface and still not been attracted to it unless he was in contact with it and in circular motion (being accelerated toward the axis of rotation). He would have been able to see it go whizzing past his nose rather quickly though...
I can't be right, can I?
Its not that Rama isn't viewer friendly, its just more picky about who its viewers are.
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Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
For the past few months I've been on an SF binge and decided to read Clark's older stuff. I just finished Rendezvous with Rama a week ago, and am halfway through Rama II. You hit the nail on the head - the sequel is full of extemporaneous character building, complete with childhool-memory-recollection BS. Pure Clark is a rush to read - you get in, you get out, and your brain expands because he wallops you with unexpected ideas.
A Boy and his Dog. Now that was SF.
yes! it was also made into a movie, although the critics thoroughly panned it. i've never seen it, but what i've read about it implies that it was a pretty faithful adaptation, aside from leaving out some arguable innuendo about just how close the boy and his dog were.
i have to say that harlan ellison is one of the most rewarding reads available. he has all the bizarre alien landscapes of space-opera SF, the WTF?! effect of psychedelic SF, and the imaginative plot-lines of hardcore SF, while never letting you, the human reader, off the hook. he's a very... emphatic person, and his writings reflect that; demanding that you confront some issue other than the fact that you wanted something entertaining to browse while waiting for your dental appointment. yet he does this without resorting to the sometimes embarassing theatrics of, say, Spider Robinson, who tried with Time Pressure and other works to do for the eighties what Heinlein did for the sixties.
except that, at the time, Heinlein was still with us.
and it was the eighties.
again, though, everyone should at least read a few selections from the Essential Harlan Ellison collection. even if you're turned off by his sharpness, you'll not easily forget the experience of reading it.
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Hollywood, Television, has become the dream machine. We need to take that back; each of us is a Dream Machine
heh, i'm not flaming you or anything, but that's the first time i've heard anyone say they liked Alien:Resurrection BEST of the 4!
i know airing personal opinions online isn't always fun, since the hordes are always waiting to ream us for their expression, but i'd be interested in hearing what it is you liked about Alien:R above the others.
me, i'm just a sucker for a long, detailed, well-developed character study, and since i view Alien3 as the logical end of Lt. Ripley's "Struggle" Arc, i couldn't really take her role in Alien:R seriously. i almost wish they had started over with a new generation (or central character) -- although that type of thing is usually a gimmick to boost the ratings of children's television programs, and, given the aliens as subject, would invariably draw references to "Gremlins 2: The New Batch" or whatdya whatdya. but i don't know if that's any worse than soap-opera-style, "oh, wait, Victoria isn't dead after all!", genetic science or no.
personally, i think the Fates zapped them because they desecrated the numerological 7-power of the release dates -- Alien released 1979. +7years Aliens. +7years Alien3. +5years Alien:R???
to be honest, though, i kinda know how you feel, since i thought Alien3 was shatteringly good because of the incredible, tragic beauty of the sets and cinematography; and most people seemed to think it was a horrid betrayal of the first two. sure, it had a few awkward, discontinuous points, but the overall effect was so strongly accomplished that i ignored the plot holes and even, god help me, got teary-eyed at the end.
plus, the music kicks ass. i used to put the CD in while playing Doom][. very creepy.
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Hollywood, Television, has become the dream machine. We need to take that back; each of us is a Dream Machine
It was kind of like watching everyone die at the beginning of Alien3 and wondering "Well, fuck, what was the point of Aliens?"
i couldn't agree more. although elsewhere in this topic i talked about how much i loved the mood of Alien3, i think it's desperately uncharacteristic to think that Ripley just accidentally didn't notice a couple egg pods attached to the walls of the cargo hold.
here is a woman that has repeatedly gone through the horror of surviving a species whose one purpose is to kill and multiply. after just barely surviving, twice, and then having that final battle at the end of Aliens, this intelligent, resourceful, and [with good reason] danger-paranoid spacefarer JUST GOES RIGHT TO COLDSLEEP WITHOUT THOROUGHLY CHECKING THE SHIP for pods, spare aliens, let alone structural damage. i mean, the pods are a couple of feet tall, and about 1.7 feet wide, and any place large enough for the Queen to deposit them is also plenty large to allow a human to at least shine a lite into.
i know, i know, "it's just a movie, however it happens is how it happens". well my theory of enjoyable fiction is that fiction should be a scientific study in which certain properties are initially fixed, and then other conditions are varied to determine their effects on the fixed items. if you, external to the system being tested, suddenly change even one of the properties of the test subjects, you have destroyed the experiment, and your data cannot be usefully correlated. so i don't particularly care if a story is set in a believable, or even likely, universe, but unless the characterizations are consistent, there's no point, no tension, in finding out what happens to the people. you might as well have them suddenly grow wings and fly away or wake up saying "i can't believe it was all just a dream..." and then who cares?
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Hollywood, Television, has become the dream machine. We need to take that back; each of us is a Dream Machine
For what it's worth, it was this series that brought me into SF. A friend suggested Childhood's End (awesome) and I liked it so he recommended the Rama series. I was hooked on SF and especially Clarke ever since.
I sure hope this get's done, it seems like a quality production company (amazing how Freeeman adds class to anything he does). I'm afraid nothing will ever come of this though I desperately hope otherwise. Is there a movie equivalent to software's vaporware?
Vote Quimby.
I agree Rendezvous with Rama is one of Clarke's best books. When I read the slashdot article I immediately dreaded the possibility of film sequels. The rest of the series descends into total garbage with a conclusion that is, well, whatever it is, it isn't a conclusion by any intelligent standard. The sequels had a co-writer , Lee Gentry, and were clearly propelled by the huge market for sci-fi at the time. They were more than a disappointment, they were an insult to my intelligence.
Has anyone played the games based on this series? I would love to hear comment on them...
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
Clarke must be scandalized! Everyone knows "2001" ushered in the new Millenium.
"To travel the paths of human imagination you have to be willing to unlearn all you know"
At least the first poster acknowledges his ridiculousness through posting such as an obvious attempt at non-PC humor. You, on the other hand, disgust me, you racist-in-denial self-righteous pig.
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Those who can, do. Those who can't, post on Slashdot about it.
This is a sad day indeed.
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Those who can, do. Those who can't, post on Slashdot about it.
IMDB used to have this film listed as "pre-production" for a year or so, until summer last year when, to my dismay, the entry disappeared completely. (still hasn't resurfaced)
When it was listed there, Morgan Freeman was Commander Norton in the cast credits.
Anyone read Return to RAMA and like it? I did and didn't.
Hi ho.
obligatory link pimp
The The game can be located at The Home of the Underdogs . I'm also aware of an Apple ][ version, but I couldn't say where to find it.
As a diehard Heinlein reader, I was disappointed with the movie. The book was an expanded essay on man's place in government. The movie tried to address the book's theme but fell flat while trying to blow everything up. The screenplay writer took too many liberties with the Heinlein text and alerted it to the point where all the ideas where lost. The book's main focus and time was spent on Johnny's time in basic training and before the bug war started. In the book, neither side is evil or good in the classical sense. No explanation is given for the war, only that it started and the ground-thumpers are in the middle of it. Heinlein out did himself by making Johnny and his company sound like true grunts and not cut-outs of them. They don't care how it started, only that they are going to finish it.
"Everybody get out of the way this idiot is going to go press his luck!" -Engineer "Martian Successor Nadesico"
hrm...the babelfish doesn't translate well all the time does it....
*jumps with joy* :-)
oooooo....i've been waiting for quite a while for this one
hmmm...i liked the sequels. but that was when i was in my clarke phase.... now i'm in an asimov / heinlein phase, and i haven't read any clarke lately. but i'm still looking forward to this movie greatly :-)
I just finished the book yesterday, what a nice suprise!!!
Bring on the SIMPS!
-A6
Well, whatever you do, please make sure you judge it based on knee-jerk assumptions about CGI and NOT on any merit the movie itself might contain. Also be sure to dismiss it as "just CGI" when the time comes.
Foundation might translate fairly well as a mini-series, but I'd hate to see it as a movie -- especially the first book, which takes fifty-year leaps of time with regularity. You'd have to have three different sets of main characters, and Hari Seldon would appear for all of ten minutes before he dies off and spend the rest of the movie being talked about in hushed tones. Frankly, I'm not sure I'd want to see that in movie form. As a miniseries... a definite maybe.
... Since the game was semi playable, and it is Arthur C. Clarke... I don't know. Might be a toss up between Mission to Mars and Red Planet. Sounds really interesting though, and seeing as I played that old game as a kid, should be "nostalgic" to one member of a generation that grew up on Thundercats and Snarf
blah
Who the hell would even be interested in this shit?
I like meat helmets.
it was by my ignorant brother
*wipes off sweat
I like meat helmets.
Morgan Freeman. Mutant sharks. Are you sure he can't go wrong?
That this movie doesn't end up like the adaption of Battlefield Earth to the big screen. I am still trying to recover from that...I saw it for free and still felt cheated.
Unfortunately, since George Lucas ripped off all their ideas, if they made it then people would say it was a Star Wars rip-off.
I didn't pay for my operating system either
I didn't use Babelfish. My post was a perfectly correct rendering of the little-known language Franglais.
I didn't pay for my operating system either
Pas en Anglais. C'est "Rendezvous". L'Anglais d'assimilatez les mots Francais. Embracez, extendez, extinguishez. C'est le motto de l'Anglais, n'est pas?
I didn't pay for my operating system either
And why has the message I'm replying to been mod'ed as -1?? Seems relatively on-topic to me.
I'd do it, but have no idea where to start, being a telecommunication programmer rather than a graphics programmer.
I never thought of it being done that way - cool! :)
This was an excellent book (the rest were, OK). Its a VERY visual experience. Everything is large, no, HUGE. With current CGI they can do it justice. I just hope they dont bugger it up.
Moebius! FANTASTIC! The movie will look GREAT!!!
Too bad Stanley Kubrik is dead, though... :(
(When are they gonna do the INCAL series in film???)
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I first heard about this movie at the end of 97. It was originally intended to come out December 31st, 1999! So this movie has been on hold for 2-3 years now. I don't expect it anytime soon. Which is a shame, as this would probably be my most anticipated movie of all time, and hopefully my most favorite movie of all time. The rama series, all 4 books, has been my favorite since I read the first one 15 years ago when I was like 7 or 8. I've have both the commodore game and the myst-like one. Both sucked at conveying the books, but they both weren't bad. My biggest worry is that the movie will try to target the mainstream audience. Most people (99%) would not get the concepts in the book. They would wonder why the aliens don't start shooting at the humans and attacking earth. I would like it to be as true to the book as you can make a movie, and sell like sh*t in the box office. that would be the best =)
Nicodemus
Part of the Second American Revolution!
The movie could go into all the details of how wipe deletes data irrecoverably from hard drives, the Perl implementation of the Solitaire crypto, the way the window manager and keyboard were hacked to prevent shoulder surfing while the protagonist was in prison...
Hell, If that's not a mass-appeal blockbuster, I don't know what is!
(Okay, I'm done being sarcastic for the moment.)
Part of the Second American Revolution!
Sorry if I am hammering away on what may turn out to be a very nice film but we have to wait *2* freaking years before we *may* see this! I really don't care right now. Tell me when it is 2 *months* from the screen and then I will get excited.
Personally I am sick of hype for 2 years and then a final product that rarely stands a chance of standing on its own legs because of the "press machine".
P/.
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What, me worry?
Nope.
Fincher did do The Game, however he had nothing to do with Alien. He worked on Alien 3, as noted above. It would have been difficult for him to contribute to the original film, considering he was 17 when it was released (1979).
Still not convinced? Check here: http://www.davidfincher.net
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Someone else may have mentioned this, but the design of the website and the language suggests that its not really being made as much as they're desperate for investors, too bad considering this is definitely one of Clarke's better books, would make a damn fine movie
Monty Plourd
It wasn't an ornithopter, it was a flycycle.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Warning: Teaser
In the case of Rama, I would definately recommend people read the book before watching the movie. If we're lucky, then state-of-the-art graphics should prove to be an expidition. The complaint that the movie might ruin one's imagination is halfway offset by the several pictures within the books. I'm curious to see what was so awe inspiring about "New York City". But I can't wait to see the cynlindrical sea; Just imagine sitting on a boat with an entire ocean above and all around you, including waves...
-Michael
-Michael
*gleeful cackles*
Rendezvous may be one of my favorite SF books ever. The imagery (which might turn out really well in a movie), the mystery, the adventure... damn, the man can write.
The sequels, however, are most disappointing. While there are interesting concepts - like the octospiders - the rest of the saga as a whole is an unpleasant read. The mystery is essentially shattered, and not, in my opinion, very well. I think it has something to do with Gentry Lee's involvement. My theory is that Arthur C Clarke writes a good SF novel and gives the manuscript to Gentry Lee, who takes out all the best parts and puts in weird sex. String, mysterious powder, and a man "screaming like a jungle animal" have no place in a series with such a spectacular beginning. (also see Cradle for this phenomenon)
I think Rendezvous will translate well into cinema. It was very much, to me, a book about this one concept, about the author's vision. That is a thing which can do well as a movie. Some authors have most of their strength in the writing itself (Terry Pratchett comes to mind), and those authors' books would make inferior movies. But Rendezvous With Rama is all about the alien spaceship... and that chilling final line.
I just hope they don't try to make any book-based sequels...
PS: Clarke's Imperial Earth is also a fascinating read. You'll be playing with those little puzzle pieces for days...
-J
Karma: T-rexcellent.
Maybe it'll also usher in a new "millenium" of spelling errors and powerpoint presentations!
While the original book was very good, they got worse as time went by. The last two were just plain horrible. I'd see a movie based on the first book, but I hope someone has the sense to spare us all the horror of any sequels.
While I wish them luck with this project, the book did not seem to lend itself to the big sreen in my mind.
In my opinion, Asmimov's Foundation series would translate to the screen more easily. I'd love to see this on the big screen. Has anyone heard any rumors about this? At the very least, it would make a great mini-series.
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Listen. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
If they'll change the ending. The ending was very anti-climatic. Clarke made the anticlimax work well, but there's danger of it not carrying over well in movie form. Will they change it?
Maybe the state's highest function is to grind out insoluble problems. (Zelazny, Hall of Mirrors)
On the one hand I have the same dread most people do when one of their favorite books is going to be turned into a movie. Especially since Clarke's books in general, and Rendezvouz With Rama in particular, are more thoughtful than action-packed. Hopefully they don't try to throw in anything that wasn't in the book.
On the other hand, 2001: A Space Odyssey was in my opinion the greatest movie of all time. So who knows, this one might turn out halfway decent.
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Does anybody else remember the computer game? I never played it, but I heard it was good?
Tell me what makes you so afraid
Of all those people you say you hate
Morgan Freeman is a nice addition. It's been so long since I read the Rama series that I'm not sure who he'll be playing but you can't really go wrong with him in a movie. It's like casting Kevin Spacey. You know you'll get a good performance.
It does tend to make you wonder what Stanley Kubrick would have done with it though.
Didn't the spider-type robots have 3 legs in the book? The artist drew one with 6. I hope this isn't an indication of how faithful the rest of the production is going to be. This was one of my favorite sci-fi books of all time and I'd hate to see it mulched into unrecognizability by Hollywood. ("Mr. Fincher, we marketing droids think that it's important to have a six-year-old boy and a dog in the cast. And can this take place in Altoona instead of outer space?")
Ok, I went to the Reveleations Ent. site (the producers of Rama (yay!) and I was glancing throuh their other upcoming projects (including "The Day no Pigs Would Die", and EXCELLENT book I might add) and Morgan fricken Freeman is in EVERY ONE! does he own this production house? seems odd to me... Anyway, just wondering if any one knows just how involved Freeman is in the project (i.e. getting it off the ground) As for a sequel, I hope they do them all, the Rama series is a powerful commentary on (wo)man's ego.
I am become Troll, destroyer of threads
but, sin duda Garden of Rama is the real winner of the series, partly because of its greater relevance to This Modern World of Ours. Rendez-vous is infused with all the tensions and militaristic reactions of the US-USSR Cold War era, which doesn't necessarily make it irrelevant; but it does make Garden of Rama a more important portrait of "spaceship earth 2000", especially as pertains to racial, religious, and economic conflict. it tells us something about ourselves, and i find this type of fiction much more interesting than, say, Ringworld, whose popularity puzzles me. yeah, it's a great big world with lots of mystery and potential, but the first book never did enough with that potential to make me care -- the "Luck of Teela Brown" twist was quite clever, but on the whole Louis was a little to swashbuckling for me.
i mean, any five-year-old can come up with fantastic landscapes and jarring, surreal plot twists. if all i was after was mere stimulation of my imagination, i can put down the book, stare out the window, unfocus my eyes, and do it myself.
anyway, it doesn't matter that much, because i think the other Rama books would be impossible to film. although come to think of it, they could make a great B5/DS9-type series. [i always liked DS9 more than TNG for the same reasons discussed above -- plus there wasn't enough conflict on TNG. aside from Dr. Pulaski, who got axed quickly, everybody pretty much sat around waiting for Geordi to tachyon-ize the Main Deflector for the zillionth time, while they spent the hour sucking Picard's Ethical Cock].
that's why whenever these admittedly excellent sf books get made into movies i just don't go. the subtextual nuances that make characters interesting or enlightening don't translate to the screen, and the parts that do are boring.
same thing with the upcoming LOTR. oh sure, Bakshi's rotoscope version may not do much for the modern audience, but his commitment to the spirit and literary merit of Tolkien's work cannot be denied. Check out this recent Interview from the Onion to see what i mean: but i generally don't even understand the need to make a movie out of everything. it's the same thing as liking both Mocha Almond Fudge ice cream and Meat Lovers pizza -- and then thinking it would necessarily be tasty to pick the almonds out and throw them onto the cheese along with spicy sausage, pepperoni, romano cheese, tomato sauce, and hunks of carmelized fudge, then sticking it in the oven to bake. [there are certain to be a few who claim to like chunky, coffee-flavored pizza, but i think you get the idea].
although our instincts may tell us otherwise, two goods do not always make a "gooder".
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Hollywood, Television, has become the dream machine. We need to take that back; each of us is a Dream Machine
You will see one other before Rendezvous With Rama, tough. As previously posted on Slashdot here, the movie based on Final Fantasy will be there soon (release in 2001). They seemed to have focused a lot on the characters' faces (see the amazing wrinkles animation on the web site). So maybe Rendezvous won't be so bad in 2003.
First Dune, then Ender's Game, now this -- I'm silently elated. Hard sci-fi movies are like evangelism for geeks. I mean, it would be better if everyone thought like Stanley Kubrick did and realized that rockets don't make any sound in outer space (2001), but I know we can't have everything.
Anyone else know of other plans to start bringing "real" science fiction to the silver screen? I'd love to compile the definitive list.
I just re-read all of the Known Space novels, and I think that a movie would waste it.
But one thing that might work would be a television series - one season involving everything from early exploration and failed Mars missions, The Belt, the Slaver, Protector, Gift from Earth, a Kzin war (not too heavy on this) and the purchase of Hyperdrive. Beowulf Schaefer stories, the introduction to Louis Wu, and then follow up with two movies - Ringworld, Ringworld Engineers, and leave it at that!
A nice thing about the series is that it could build up the known space stories for everybody who hasn't read the series.
I agree that Rama will turn out to be a cool film, but The Known Space stories would make an even better television series.
I donate all spillover Karma to the charity of my choice... Ada was still a babe despite what people may say...
"Nothing too meaty here yet - mostly concept art."
Taco intended this as a comment about the site, but it works even better as a comment about the book. Rama (especially the sequels, but even the first book) is the main reason I've stopped reading Clarke. Think about it, what's the plot: Some people explore a big can in space. No conflict. There's mystery, but the solution isn't given so no drama there. No characterization. Nothing except pure "Ooohh" factor.
On the other hand, if the purpose is to attract crowds with special effects, I have to admit there's nothing in Rama that will get in the way of that...
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MailOne
Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
(Hey Ryan! Here's your proof!)
Kid, the fact that your attention span is too short for Clarke - and probably Heinlein, Asimov, Dick, Lem, and the century's other great writers of science/speculative fiction - is no reason to assume that Snow Crash (or whichever of Stephenson's urban dystopia stroke books is your favorite) is automatically better.
And what the hell is wrong with being a sociologist? At least such authors actually examine the human condition and comment on it, rather than the three-bong-hit gadget inventors who seem as though they must spend all day saying, "DUDE! Wouldn't it be so cool if, like, you could be on the Internet, like with swords and shit?"
<rant>
What is it with people who can't get their heads around fiction that moves at a more contemplative pace, or doesn't involve swords, guns, virtual reality, martial arts gurus, and oh-so-boringly-stereotyped, lone-wolf-with-a-cheesy-Jungian-dark-side male protagonists? I thought reading was supposed to encourage deep critical thinking, but more and more it just seems to be encouraging the TV generation in their degenerate mental habits.
</rant>
Anyway, if it's what you enjoy, get out the Vaseline and cue up Johnny Mnemonic and New Rose Hotel in your DVD player, kiddo - because that's the kind of crap cinema that comes from the flash-heavy sci-fi you think is so much better than the "old school" you like to dis.
Call me back when they produce something as interesting as 2001
OK,
- B
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http://www.bradheintz.com/
- updated
I have never once seen satisfactory blending between digital and real environments and the integration of actors.. only in Titan A.E. have I seen realistic environments created this way, and that was a cartoon!
Even the slightest falsehood in lighting, texture or movement destroys the experience and makes me long evern more for the day when a fantastic, alien environment can truly be created digitally.
Goat sex free since 2001
Doesn't the promo say CGI actors? If one is good enough, why not all? I suspect this project may be overreaching itself. Or may not even be well-formed yet, much less baked, as it seems to consist of some softfocus airbrush work at the moment.
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Am I the only one that apreciated the last three books more than the first one?
The first book was independent of the last three. Clarke wrote Rendevous first not even planning on writing sequels, but still leaving the door open by adding at the last minute 'The Ramans do everything in threes.' as the closing line. While being technical, the first book was empty, it was the final three that brought real human character to the series.
Because they chose only to produce the first book, we will now have great CG shots, but not enough plot to keep most interested.
I would love to see the insect creatures and their mana melons or the octo creatures that communicate with color more than the vast empty landscapes. The story of the self-destruction of the human colony is the real story here, finding a giant spacecraft and studying it is rather mundane for sci-fi. Scientist studying an immense metallic tube isn't as exciting as sex, violence, aliens and of course, the big tube.
Read the books. (except for the first one, i didn't like it
... but procrastination pays off now.
On the other hand why has no one yet made a movie of Ringworld? Rama was the most complicated thing I could imaging until my concepts and mind were blown by Ringworld (Actual I read book #2 first - Ringworld Engineers).
I heard once that there was a plan to make it into a movie back in the early 80's but it would require so much CGI (Like 2/3's of the movie) but at the time, the technology was not there, and the cost was too high.
But now, the CGI part could probably be done in someone's home. The main cost would now be the normal filming parts.
Other interesting tidbits concerning Jean Giraud: Has worked on Fifth Element, Willow and (gah!) The Masters of the Universe movie. He is also an uncredited contributor to Blade Runner. ( see His Bio )
Close collaborator with Alejandro Jodorowsky, they were the original team that were hired to produce the Dune movie instead of David Lynch. Jodorowsky is one of France's more "exotic" author, known for his work in disturbing movies and phenomenal comic book writing. Jean Giraud has also done work with Marvel Comics on some Silver Surfer albums/issues.
If any of you is interested in comic books as art, you will be fascinated with Giraud's portofolio. Go visit this site
That would be oooooh so much easier than, say, finding the book at half.com or even gasp your local meatspace used book store or even shudder library.
Actually, like all of Clarke's books (the ones really written by him, I mean, as opposed to the ones ghostwritten for him like all the Rama sequels) Rendezvous is very fast paced, almost clipped, with minimal characterization and each short chapter punctuated with a Clarkeian "twist." If a gamer would enjoy any book of such a length at all, this would be the one.
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Moebius? I'd hate to see how long this movie is going to be...
Hey, I think I just saw that part... Only in mirror image!
Dancin Santa
I mean, c'mon, you expect me to believe that the same guy directed both Fight Club and Alien 3?
Born Jean Giraud, he is most famous in Europe for his Western character, Blueberry, whose exploits Giraud signs with his given name. Blueberry still appears in various ongoing series of graphic novels.
In the US, however, Giraud is most widely-known by the pseudonym Moebius. He is the author of many popular comics stories in the science fiction genre, including the Arzach series, as well as The Airtight Garage, which was used as the inspiration for the video arcade in San Francisco's Sony Metreon entertainment center.
Moebius has also done production design work on some science fiction films, including Alien, Tron, and The Abyss. The latter was a rotten movie, but it had a visually interesting version of what alien spacecraft and technology might look like. Should work well for Rama.
See? You can learn something new every day.
Breakfast served all day!