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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!"
excellent... lets hope they dont make the rest of the Rama books into films.. they were terrible.
Next everyone will go around raving what a wonderful work the Rama Series is, without having read a single line of the book.
Just like the way they killed LoTR. Atleast hope that like in LoTR, they mention that the movie has been inspired from the book, rather than an adaptation.
As one of my friends once said, there's just about one person who can make movies out of Clarke's books just the way they are meant to be, and that is Kubrick*.
*For those of you who do not know, Kubrick did the 2001 - A Space Odessey.
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.
Rama will be ground breaking and possibly even record breaking in its digital effects. That is why we're taling to "all the usual suspects" for special effects bids. We are also in serious negotations with Intel to become a major technology partner in the making of Rama."
More info can be found here.
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O'WONDERWe're working on it.
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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.
make world, not war
I first remember looking at the site and reading about this project at least four years ago. While it's something going ahead, and four years is probably an acceptable time for developing the technology to create such a world (the technology has been demonstrated at various trade shows many times).... I can't help but wonder what/if the final result will look like.
:)
I could easily manage a production plauged by the same problems as Duke Nukem Forever - constantly changing base platforms to keep up with advances in technology. And given the huge leap in CG capabilities over the last four years, I also have to wonder how the Rama team has dealt with it. Hmm, a interview with Morgan's crew would be intresting
I just don't understand the mentality of "wow, that was a great book--they should make a movie of it!". Does anyone truly think that it won't be changed drastically to get on the screen? I mean, hell, there weren't really any bad guys, so they're probably going to add some.
Another 2001: A Space Odyssey would be great, but I doubt it's going to be anything like that. That movie came out during that tiny window between the bland, silly, middle-american movies of the 40's, 50's, and 60's, and the soulless blockbusters of the 80's. Right now the chances of a decent, introspective, philosophical sf book being faithfully copied to the big screen is close to nil. Probably just be focus-grouped into mediocrity.
Am I the only one who thinks the site looks like a fake? Hardly a typical movie site - complete with clip art navigation buttons and cheap looking posters.
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.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
...they don't film the last three books.
That Gentry Lee dude is one perverted mother.
Director: David Fincher
Starring: Morgan Freeman
Morgan Freeman owns the rights to this book, and has been keen to do it for a number of years. He's the one who approached Fincher about doing it. And scuttlebutt is that Moebius is doing the conceptual art.
Lots of info can be found here
Because the book was only mediocre. The second two followed Arthur C. Clarke's general method of piling pointless philosophizing on top of boring exposition, killing off everything that made the originals any good. I can't even go near 2001 after reading the idiotic tripe that was 3001. The last two Rama books (especially the last one) were truly buffalo chips.
Unless they do a completely bangup job and completely ignore the book, I will be staying FAR away from this one. Oh, and Kubrik's dead. No one else on this planet could do 2001 as well as he did. Get over it.
See Corona Coming Attractions for Rendevous with Rama for more details (*cough*rumours*cough*).
The things that make a good book are not the same things that make a good film or TV series. How many good film adaptations of books can you name? How about the other way around? The same goes for Film / TV crossovers. Books thrive on deep character development, usually involving an insight into the character's mind. Films relly more on the 'Wow Factor'.
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Yes, it was even on /. back in
2001
Isn't it supposed to be done by now?
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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".
The sequence of slides shows what roughly look like the Octopods, so it seems this movie will span several of the books.
End Spoiler
The first book is the best IMHO, but is mainly hard sci-fi, and would make a movie that would probably please geeks, but definitely not the general public. Though the plots are vastly different, a movie made of the first book would remind me of the movie Andromeda Strain. In this movie, lots of cool science is done (in a cool high-tech secret lab). But I bet most people not interested in science thought the movie was mostly boring. I envision a movie based on the first book only to be like this.
Going into parts of books 2,3,4, then adding some fantasy flightsy kind of stuff, it'll he more in line for an actual movie plot that Joe Public would be used to and possibly enjoy.
BTW, you should read RWR regardless of this movie. It's a pleasant read, and goes quite quickly. In fact, it's one of the two books that I've read in a single day (the other being the first book of Hitchiker's Guide).
make world, not war
In truth all great movies are usually done out of a desire to make a film unlike any other. If you end up using another movie as a measuring stick, you end up with something that's derivative. So it would be best to get off of Fincher's back and let him make a movie instead of living up to another one.
(And I'll ignore the fact that it was Kubrick's movie based off of Clarke's book).
What is music when you despise all sound?
Rama
Rama II (Rendezous with Rama I think)
Garden of Rama
Rama Revealed.
I think that's the order...
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Wasn't this movie already made. I swore I saw the Rama spacecraft in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. It was looking for whales ;-)
BTW, this article is a Dupe from Jan. 16, 2001 Perhaps it just doesn't have much priority on the rendering farm. I think it'll make for a very dull movie, though the graphics will make for some extraordinary eye candy.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Am I the only person that thinks that the entire series is awesome? I enjoyed the first book for it's technicality and vision, but let's face it... characters are not Clarke's strong point. The following trilogy, however, have the best characters and aliens in any SciFi I've ever read. They are fully realized, have very different personalities, and are very believable with plenty of flaws. Just look at Wakefield and Des Jardins for very good examples. Hell, even O'Toole isn't perfect. I've read everything that Gentry Lee has put out so far, and it's all top quality stuff, especially if you love good characters. The combo of Clarke and Lee is definitely the BEST combo I have ever seen. Clarke does the technical SciFi type stuff, and Lee adds the human touch.
I'm beginning to wonder if people who didn't like the series are the type that think Star Trek and Star Wars are SciFi, and are really only happy with Pop SciFi or mech anime. For those of us that actually enjoy literary tales, the whole Rama series is breath taking. The rama series is always the first books I recommend to anyone, followed closely by George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. So if you're on the fence on whether to read this series, do so. I've even gotten several females to read it that aren't into SciFi and they all ate it up ravenously.
Nicodemus
Quite right -- my Dune comparison was off-target.
The original Rama was excellent, the sequels sucked horribly.
The original Dune was excellent, the sequels didn't all suck horribly. Come to think of it, the second was the worst of the lot. (Pressure on Herbert to publish in haste?)
Nonetheless, the original Dune stirred me in a way the sequels didn't.
-kgj
...interstellar journey that spans the next 3 books (which degrade in quality in each subsequent book).
It's dirty old sf-writer effect at it's worst:
Female Protagonist: Hey grandpa, you and me and my sister have to repopulate the human race!
(I'm not making this up- I thought only the Old Testament could get away with this stuff)
Does this malady afflict other genres? It's not that I'm completely uncultured, it's just that I tend not to exhaustively read every book good-or-bad by of a given author outside sf.
Although, most of the worst books were co-written with Gentry Lee, perhaps we can blame it on him.
Somewhat true. The initial work was classic Clarke -- cut to the chase, no-nonsense, present the story. I don't think I've read more bloviated prose than Gentry Lee's additions in the sequels.
Although terse, Clarke's approach is very effective. He cleanly gets across the main ideas and issues in the story, and lets your imagination take it from there. Lee's approach was to stifle through belabored description that last, important part of good sci-fi: your imagination's interpretation/expansion.
I wouldn't say the later novels outright suck. They don't, and there is several good ideas in the later books. But skipping 20-30 pages at a time becomes routine with no lost content as one will see.
I'm not going to deny that this is one of the all time greatest sci-fi novels. It is. I absolutely loved this book.
What I worry about is that it's the type of sci-fi which mostly revolves around characters who spend most of the story simply gawking in awe and wonder at whatever they stumble across. In a book, this is alright, as the author can stop and explain in detail what a character's looking at and why it's important. However, this is exactly the sort of thing which creates lousy sci-fi movies.
2001 is possibly the only movie ever to make this sort of extended gawking interesting. I might hear some objections, but I thought the first Star Trek movie came pretty close to pulling it off too. More recently, however, we've seen movies like the Solaris remake and Mission to Mars do this in exactly the WRONG way.
I'm going to have to say I'm going to wait for this one with nervous anticipation. There's so many ways this movie can go completely wrong, yet, somehow I still want to see them make the attempt.
I mean, what if they do it right?
It'll be damn cool, that's what.
"Isn't that the sweetest little well-balanced undergraduate-level philosophy of life."
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.
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Gentry Lee's style added an additional human element to a lot of the sequels that were not to be found in the original. However, Lee also filled the books with a lot of bullshit that no one really found interesting, either. :) And the plot twists in the series (Rama II and on) were not to my liking (or many other people's liking). In my estimation, Lee took away more than he added to the mix.
That said, I realize they've only announced the first movie. It's a risk (it's not as popular as Clark's other movies and the last one--that I'm aware of, Deep Impact--based on Hammer of God was completely eclipsed by the inferior Armageddon), so the Movie Studios aren't going to risk a three or four movie deal and blow the first one to hell.
That said (if the first movie does well), Hollywood should do the following with the movies in order to have a most successful investment.
- Hollywood needs to make the first movie true to the heart of the first book. The book is a classic. And it seems that they are off to one hell of a start with the cast. They need a true script and complete the arc of the story as much as possible with the first movie. Add a little crap-Hollywoodness to it, and they will have a successful start.
- "The Ramans do everything in threes." That was the last thought that Clarke left us with the book. And then he forgot the whole damn thing until people started complaining that they weren't seeing sequels. And he came back to the table thinking, "Thats a hell of an idea!" So what's he do? Come out with three more books (not two, as it would suggest). So Hollywood should correct this grievous error and pull a LOTR-butchery.
- Yes dammit, I think LOTR movies became butchered in the 2nd movie. However, some may argue that it was to the good of the whole. I disagree on it mostly. However...
- It can only be to the benefit of a Rama series to order it logically in a 3-movie deal. Three visits by the alien ship, three movies. Three reactions. Three plots. The books are, to some extent, already charted out this way. Due to the fleshing out process of Lee's and Clarke's writing, they felt that their storylines were too large for two additional books, so they arrived to the conclusion of three. This worked out for the books just fine (though I don't like them as much), but the movies are going to cut out a lot of the bullshit anyway, and with some stealthy cutting in the script area, they can come together quite nicely in the trilogy vein.
- Finally, they need continuity. Which destroys much if not all of the latter books. In the books, the first ship comes in the year X (can't remember offhand, and I ain't looking it up). The 2nd ship comes X+150 years later. Holy God. Buuuut, the 3rd ship comes only 30 years or so later. That continuity is crappy. It works for the books, but not for a movie. Unless you're working in the horror genre, and you're not. You're going to need repeat actors in order to mesh the movies together intelligently movie-style. This destroys much of the future storylines in the additional books, but people will think it sucks if not done this way.
Ah well... forgive my not-very-well-put-together rantings. I'm thrilled to death about the whole thing. I can't wait for it. Can't wait, can't wait, can't wait.And both Seven (don't call it "Se7en", that pisses me off) and Fight Club were very good. If you enjoyed Fight Club, you should read "Choke" and "Survivor" by the same author - but you might want to consider avoiding "Invisible Monsters." You have to be ultra-intelligent like myself to properly enjoy "Invisible Monsters" and, without the ability to test you, I can't say one way or the other as to how intelligent you are. Oh, and in that vein "American Psycho", "Less than Zero", and "The Rules of Attraction", all by Bret Easton Ellis are also some books you might enjoy. Don't go to movies. They're bad for you and usually lead to pants-shitting.
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