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."

Comments

Redshift Rendezvous

[wowbagger]

OK, there are the obvious biggies: Ringworld, Rendezvous with Rama (but definitely NOT any of the so-called sequels), Have Spacesuit Will Travel and so on.

But here's an interesting story that would be pretty damn cool as a movie:

RedShift Rendezvous. Here's a brief excerpt.

Basically, just as Flatland used geometry to explore social mores, Redshift Rendezvous uses general relativity to set up a pretty good whodunit. The basic postulate of the story is that there are hyperspacial universes that are accessible to us that have 2 interesting properties - they are smaller than this universe (but map point-for-point onto this universe), and they have a slower speed of light. However, as you go "up" in hyperspacial layers, the rate at which the universe gets smaller is much larger than the rate at which the speed of light slows. So that in hyperspace layer 10, the speed of light is 10 meters per second, but traveling at 10 meters per second in that universe is equivilent to traveling 1024 times the speed of light in this universe. However, with the speed of light so low, you experience relativistic effects just walking around.

Making this story as a movie would be pretty hard, and probably wouldn't make lots of money given that the norms would be "cornfuzed" by it, but it would be pretty cool.

Maybe in a few years some indie will make it on his desktop 8-way 10GHz machine....

Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash"

[Judg3]

That would be a great one to see. I'd love to see if the directors vision of Hiro and the Aleut racing their motorcycles at the speed of light in the metaverse would match my own.

Or how about "The Diamond Age"? Cities made entirely of Diamond where glass used to be, that'd be pretty slick.

Ohhh, hey, I think seeing Orson Scott Card's "Ender's Game" would be sweet as well. The battleroom on the big screen!

Man, the list is almost endless now that I think about it. But I think I'd have to rate "Snow Crash" up at the top of the "wish I could see it" list.

It's all about telling a story

[Mononoke]

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.

Actually it is quite easy to 'realize' a great scifi story on film. Unfortunately, most people would dismiss it as "a cartoon" and wouldn't allow themselves to enjoy it.

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*)

The lost Gibson adaptation

[ngibbins]

[...] 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 [Gibson's] work

There is a third, even less known adaptation of Gibson's work, namely Tomorrow Calling. This short (11m) film is a fairly faithful adaptation of the Gernsback Continuum, if you ignore the change of location from California to the British northwest (plenty of Art Deco buildings in Blackpool), that was made for Channel 4 (UK broadcaster) and featured a post-pop career Toyah Wilcox. Well worth watching if you can track it down.

Squandered Resources

[cmpalmer]

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...

It's not the effects, man

[Glass of Water]

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.

a few thoughts

[Clover_Kicker]

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.

The whole Amber series by Zelazny

[Randym]

Because of the peculiar effects of hell-riding, movies from these books simply could not be made with traditional techniques and would benefit from the new technologies.

(For those who don't know 'hell-riding': as a man is riding a horse [galloping], he is also seamlessly changing the landscape around him using his abilities. The landscape changes, the weather changes, the flora and fauna change, etc.]