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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!"
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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 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.
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".
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 ;-)
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
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.