Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama going Hollywood?

Doug writes "Arthur C Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama is being made into a movie! I first saw it at this interesting article about Pixar. And sure enough, there is a website set up for the movie! Staring Morgan Freeman and Lori McCreary. Its about a huge several kilometer long space craft passing near Earth, visited by humans who are taken across the universe. The trilogy was awesome, and I hope the movie is on par with Clarke's 2001!"

Comments

Ok, reality check...

[march]

The trilogy was awesome, and I hope the movie is on par with Clarke's 2001!"

First of all, I, too thought the trilogy was good. But, as with most trilogies, it got worse as it went on. And, as with _2001: The Movie_, it paled in comparison to the book, especially when Kubrik and Clark started to disagree towards the end.

I am hoping that this will be a great movie, just like I am hoping that the Matrix II will be great. I can only keep my fingers crossed and my hopes not too high to minimize the disappointment.

Re:Ok, reality check...

[actor_au]

..especially when Kubrik and Clark started to disagree towards the end.

The reality was that Clark wanted it on one of Saturns moons(for the life of me I can't remember which one) because it had the unique trait of being brighter when seen from differant sides of Saturn and having an unexplainable black dot in the very center of it or something which was meant to be TMA-2(forgive me please for every error in that sentence I haven't read the book in a very long time) Kubrick wanted it on Jupiter because making Saturn out of models and making it look real(non-tacky) would have been very expensive and couldn't have worked anyway and that a floating TMA-2 would have been more visually impressive against the backdrop of Jupiter.

It wasn't so much a disagreement, the two were good friends based on most accounts, as an understanding that the two mediums would have to be differant to portray the vision that they each had.

The follow-up books(2010, 2061 and 3001) were pretty good although the 2010 movie wasn't as good as it could have been (the Russians wern't as human as the books made them out to be, instead portrayed as near robots, curse you cold war, curse you).

Re:Ok, reality check...

[metlin]

The Movie was different, and it echoed different sentiments, in a very different way.

You should see this run-through on the movie.

Very neatly done, provides insights into certain parts of the movie that are a little puzzling.

Re:Ok, reality check...

[Ajaxamander]

First of all, I, too thought the trilogy was good. But, as with most trilogies, it got worse as it went on. And, as with _2001: The Movie_, it paled in comparison to the book, especially when Kubrik and Clark started to disagree towards the end.

Now, back when I read a lot of Clarke, one of his essays was about the inception of 2001. It was designed as an elaboration on one of his earlier short stories "The Sentinel" (about the black Monolith) I forget which short story collection it was in, it wasn't "Tales from the White Hart" but the another one. Anyway, when Kubrick and Clarke sat down to write 2001, (yes, they both co-authored both works, according to Clarke) they decided that Clarke would take full billing on the book and Kubrick would take full billing on the movie, so it's not like they got in some big argument about the end. Then Clarke decided that since the movie was more well known than the book (go figure) that 2010 would be a sequel to the movie instead of the book.

Sounds like a mix of R with R and Rama II

[wass]

Hmmm, sounds like they are mixing Rendezvous with Rama and Rama II. Potential Spoiler but nothing you won't see on the back of the flap.

.

.

In the first book, astronauts visit Rama, but are only taken several AU through the solar system. They explore the ship, but must leave Rama before it's course takes them straight through the sun (IIRC).

In Rama II, then Rama returns to Earth, this time taking some humans with it on an interstellar journey that spans the next 3 books (which degrade in quality in each subsequent book).

So, if the astronauts are really taken across the universe, as the poster has suggested, it sounds like this movie will be a mix of several of the Rama books (or at least with many more creative liberties).

Or some purist will say that a trip of only a few AU within the solar system is still technically a trip around the universe.

What about Ringworld

[Anonymous Coward]

Rama was incredibly cool and mind-opening when I first read it. It could be a cool movie, but I think a lot of it was trying to imagine what it would look like. Moving to the screen means instead of my view I will see someone else's view. I hope it is good.
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.

Dang, I had this domain ...

[adzoox]

This was one of the domains I registered in 1997 and I let it expire in 2000 when movie theaters started things like www.rendezvouswithramathemovie.com and www.sony.com/rendezvous

This is truely a great series - only thing is I think the world is almost at war and different countries are fighting over commodities during the process of the book on earth. Is that correct? This could be a politically incorrect move, such as the movie "Collateral Damage" and World Trade Towers in the SpiderMan Trailer.

Finally!

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally! About a year ago I first read the Ranma series, I was a Freshmen in High School, I'm a sophmore now. I loved the Ranma Trilogy, so I went online to see if I could get a copy of the whole series. (I had found all three books in my school library.) I came across a news article describing a director in hollywood (I can't remember the name) looking to create a Ranma movie.

It's really great to know the guy succeeded, I can't wait to see the movie. However, (it's ironic that I'm a sixteen year old telling some of you who don't know any better) A book and a movie are not the same things. In a book, you create your own image of the story, the movie will be a interpretation of the Director's Image. NOT YOURS. Don't expect the movie to fit your own interpretation.

Addressed To Any Who Bitch:

So sit down, shut the hell up, if you could do it better yourself, get off your fat ass and do it.

That site has been up for like 3 years...

[Anonymous Coward]

...and it hasn't changed since.

Re:Old news...

[Telecommando]

Yes, it was even on /. back in
2001
Isn't it supposed to be done by now?

From http://www.hsx.com

[sbillard]

From Hollywood Stock Exchange

Rendezvous with Rama
Symbol: RRAMA
Status: Active
Genre: Sci-Fi
Phase: Development
Price: H$23.04 Change: 0 Volume: 1,801,012
Gross: $0

Based on the book by Arthur C. Clarke, Rendezvous with Rama is the story of a gigantic alien spaceship named Rama which entered our Solar System in the 22nd Century. No one knows where this mysterious craft came from. Earth decides to send out an exploration team to the advancing vessel to determine its intentions. Once onboard the spaceship, which is in the shape of an immense cylindrical tube, the explorers observe a self-contained world, less one thing-living beings. It seems to be abandoned-or so they think. Director David Fincher and Morgan Freeman are attached to the project.

HSX is a play-money stock exchange of prospective movie projects set up like NYSE stocks. They also offer mutual funds of varios portfolios, (star) bonds if you want to invest in "J Lo" or Rodney Dangrefield or Tom Berringer. Long, Short, Buy, Cover. Options too. It's focus is the movie industry. There is another "market" for the music industry. I know we all dislike the MPAA and RIAA for their shortsighted efforts at futile legilation, but this site is fun to kick around once a day - or week - or whatever.

BTW - I'm invested in a Phillip K. Dick story.
Again from: Hollywood Stock Exchange

Paycheck is a thriller based on a story by Philip K. Dick. After an engineer agrees to have his memory erased after working on a top-secret project, he decides to stick around and piece together the mystery. John Woo directs the film scripted by Stuart Hazeldine and Dean Georgaris

I'm not completely sure the name of the story is indeed "Paycheck". I've only read a handuful of Dick's work and some short stories, but some movies based on his stuff make up at least 2 of my all-time top ten favs: "Bladerunner" and "Total Recall".

Re:The site looks fake..

[chrisseaton]

And what's more, slide 3 says it will be out "christmas 2003" and slide 6 says "october 2004". This must be bollocks.

Re:The site looks fake..

[ruprechtjones]

I've worked on these kinds of pitches before (although never on the interweb).

When the artists put these pitches together, they usually add some kind of "coming soon" date, both to make the poster look more genuine to potential investors, and to show that yes, there is a release schedule planned. Some material will even have the full credits at the bottom, despite the fact that nobody's been signed to the crew yet. I always add my own name to "Senior Directing Producer" or some such nonsense.

But no, this site is not bollocks. The biggest message it shows is Freeman's dedication to the project, to those who are interested in writing checks.

Re:When will people learn?

[Mzilikazi]

After seeing lots of beloved books turn into really horrible movies, I did finally come up with a case in which I felt the movie was better than the original book, namely "High Fidelity".

I'm probably going to get flamed to hell for saying that, but since music was such an important part of the story, actually getting to hear it made a big difference. (I do think that a hypothetical radio drama based on the book and set in London would be the ideal version, but I'm quite happy with the movie.)

I agree with the parent post, that good science fiction novels don't make for good movies, and vice versa. Most of the best literary science fiction is too complex or too introspective to make for a good 2-hour movie. Likewise, I don't think that "The Matrix" would have been very enjoyable in novel form.

Cheers,
Mzilikazi

Re:The site looks fake..

[Prune]

This site has not changed for at least a year (when I first saw it), probably more. I loved the book, but I'm afraid this movie might be vaporware.

SPOILER! The problem I had with the "sequels"

[wowbagger]

SPOILER WARNING - if you have not read the so-called "sequels" to RwR, and you do not wish to have the surprise spoiled for you, read no further. However, the advice "read no further" can far better be applied to the sequels themselves.

In RwR, the sense of wonder was everywhere - here's this BIG HONKING SHIP, build by somebody for some reason we don't know. All we can know is that whoever they are, they put a lot of work into this ship. You felt awed.

Fast forward through the sequels - the ship was Created By The Hand Of God HimSelf as part of A Grand Experiment To Celibrate His Greatness. To me, that takes the wonder out of it - for mortal beings to build Rama would be impressive, for God to miracle it into existance is trivial. All the wonder went out of it, right there.

Furthurmore, the "three-ness" of Rama was intrinsic to the first story - the folks who build Rama did everything in threes, with trilateral symmetry. Why? What does it mean?

Nothing, we find out in the sequels. It was just made that way for the purposes of the experiment.

No, if you are given the choice between reading the sequels or ramming red hot forks into your eyes.... Make sure they are at least red-hot - that way the pain doesn't last as long.