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Realising Sci-Fi Novels w/ Modern Film-Making Techniques?
caitsith01 asks: "Like many of you I recently downloaded and watched the full-length Matrix Reloaded trailer . The glorious special effects contained therein caused me to reflect on how, up until very recently, it would have been impossible to effectively realize many great science fiction novels on film. In many instances, the sheer grandeur of what is described and the inherent difficulty in representing complex future technologies realistically would be nearly impossible to overcome without using computer-aided special effects. A case in point are the novels of William Gibson: apart from the lamentable Johnny Mnemonic and the little known New Rose Hotel (both based on Gibson short stories rather than novels) there have been no major films based on his work. With today's computer generated effects Gibson's descriptions of cyberspace and future technologies in Neuromancer and Count Zero could finally be presented in visual form. What other sci-fi novels would you like to see turned into movies with the benefit of modern special effects? Before the flaming about how plot and characters are more important than eye candy starts, perhaps you should take some time to reflect on how far we've come."
It's called 'animation.'
Actually, most scifi movies now are just animation, but at a much higher resolution and framerate.
All the technology in the world doesn't make the storytelling any better. (*cough* Star Wars Episode 1 *cough*)
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I was rewatching Attack of the Clones the other day (yes, it sucks, but it does have cool eye candy) and thinking that if anyone spent as much money as Lucas and if ILM put in the same effort they applied to the Star Wars films, almost anything would be filmable. Instead, they blow it all on crappy stories, poor direction, and mediocre acting. Look at the chase scene on Coruscant and think about all of the work that went into that -- all of the 3d models of speeders and buildings, the alien billboards, the crowds. Many man-months of work and they all flash by in a few frames.
However, when I think of the adaptions of "classic" SF that I have seen, none of them really impress me, yet I can't pin the fault on the SFX (weak as they have been). I love movies, but I think that books are superior -- the movie in my head is *always* better than the movie on the screen.
Having said all of that, it I had a huge budget to work with and ILM or WETA at my disposal, my dream project would be a "straight" adaption of one of the Heinlein juveniles. It would be set in an alternate universe/timeline where the future progressed exactly as it did in the novels -- Mars is populated, Venus is a smelly swamp, digital computers never really kicked in -- interplanetary ship pilots plot their courses with sliderules, and we built huge wheeled space stations in the 1960's. Red Planet, Space Cadet, Have Spacesuit, Will Travel. None of them campy, just done as top notch period pieces...
-- stream of did I lock the front door consciousness
Here is some information about the possibility of mini-series by SCI FI Channel and old news (1998) about Ed Neumeier (Starship Troopers) planning to make a movie.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
Blade Runner was great, by Ridley Scott, as adapted from "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" by Philip K. Dick. Not too many advanced special effects, just good acting, a good concept, and a good story. These days, it's becoming too much about the effects and they start to all look the same. To me, the original Star Wars looks ten times better than the new ones. THat's because they actually BUILT the sets and the robots/aliens.
There are no trolls. There are no trees out here.
Awesome books/stories that should never be put on film:
Asimov - The Gods Themselves
Vinge - A Deepness in the Sky, A Fire Upon the Deep
A big part of these books is imagining things yourself, and using the hints in the text to clarify your concept of the world until you suddenly understand what is going on. I still remember the thrill of discovery as I "figured out" the Tines - awesome!
Awesome books/stories that would make great movies but the plot is so fucked up/hard to follow that it will never happen:
Zelazny - Creatures of Light and Darkness
You could easily CGI Typhon and Anubis and the Norns etc. But what I really want to see is Wakim and the Steel General in a temporal fugue fistfight.
Zelazny - Lord of Light
Could this be a good movie? They might have to re-order things, i.e. get rid of the flashback or at least make it obvious that a flashback is happening.
Stephenson - Snow Crash, The Diamond Age
Too many subplots to make a coherent movie. Hell, when I read the last 10 pages I wondered if there were too many subplots to make coherent books!
Le Guin - Left Hand of Darkness
Heinlein - Stranger in a Strange Land
I loved em, but waaay too weird to make a commercially successful movie.
Books that might make a good movie
Huxley - Brave New World
Very film-able. People would come see it, as long as they include the orgies.
Heinlein - The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
A good book, easy to follow, and enough action to keep people interested.
Halderman - The Forever War
Great book, lots of gunfights, fairly straightforward plot.
Niven - Ringworld, Footfall
Ringworld (done right) would be a visual masterpiece, and the plot isn't too complex.
Footfall has more then enough action to keep people interested. Doing it right would make a fairly long movie, though.
I'm not sure if I'm just getting cynical as I get older or what... but I don't want any big screen adaptations of the books I love.
The main reason for that is how bitterly disappointing I find the finished product. The media corporations that make the movies typically:
a) dumb it down for Joe Sixpack
b) change the story to make it main-stream compatible
(obviously a and b overlap)
c) shrink the story to make it fit the 1~2 (sometimes 3) hour movie format
d) merchandise the hell out of it (which I find offensive)
Even LotR, which people rav on and on about, wasn't that fantastic IMO. It was pretty good.... but even with all the hype it screwed with the story to satisfy elements in a-d above. (Some would say it _had_ to for all sorts of reasons... I don't care)
Forget it. I would much rather filmmakers come up with new and exciting SciFi instead of converting books to movies. Gattaca, Star Wars IV/V/VI, Highlander, Blade Runner (if you read the original short, you'll know that the movie is a whole new story), Matrix, Alien, Terminator, Back to the Future....
Give me more original, interesting and exciting SciFi and forget about mutilating my favorite novels.
Sukotto
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Here's the real challenge: a 120-minute movie has about a 120-page shooting script. This is wide-spaced, large-margin dialog and some scene directions.
The flowery descriptive language is gone (production design is done elsewhere), but you've pared a 400-page novel to the bone to get this to work. Look at Stephen King's filmography. Some of the best adaptations were novellas (and not horror either, but that's not the point): Stand By Me (The Body) and Shawshank Redemption.
If you have a 400-page novel, get a 400-minute mini-series (9 hours on commercial TV).
So today's 10-pound novels are not great fodder for films. And publishers have little interest in novella-length, except as kids' books (Coraline by Neil Gaiman is being made by the director of Nightmare Before Christmas).
Pre-1980 novels might be better sources, as you had some really short stuff out there: Heinlein, Zelazny and others were known for 95-page novels in really cheap paperback form.
Design for Use, not Construction!
either way, I'd call bullshit. If artoo just showed up right at the climax of the scene, out of nowhere, because all of a sudden he could *fly*(??), I'd have thought "Fucking bullshit!" He never flies later on (when he should have; like getting off the X-Wing on Dagoba, or off the Jabba's sand ship on Tattoine, etc.) In this case, I just thought it earlier.
Instead of the tired old damsel in distress gets rescued routine, Amidala is able to get out herself, using powers of the force which she never really knew she had (but which are supposedly present based on conversations from other movies, and which I'd assume are supposed to be the explanation for why she falls out of a moving plane, and then gets up and says "Gee, not a scratch on me. Let's go jogging.")
I knew that movie would be a piece of ass when I saw the first preview on TV, showing a scene of Amidala running and ducking under mechanical chomping machinery. "Hmmm", I said. "That looks kind of like the scene in Galaxy Quest where they parodied the use of chomping machinery in some random part of the ship that threatens the lives of our heroes. The quote in that movie was 'This episode was BADLY written.'"
And thus, Star Wars Episode II was parodied before it even came out.
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