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Scifi Channel to Make Ringworld Miniseries
Snaller writes "The Sci Fi Channel has listed its programming for the upcomming year, it includes the Farscape miniseries already mentioned by Slashdot, it also includes a miniseries based the legendary scifi story by Larry Niven: Ringworld. In the far future 4 travelers crash on a ring around a sun in a distant system. Shall be interesting to see how they depict the Puppeteers."
According to the article, they're making Le Guin's Earthsea, too!
Well, do you remember a few years ago? George Lucas made a movie called Episode One. Well they're thinking of using the actor who played Jar-Jar...
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
It's about time some one makes this. Too bad it really needs to be on an IMAX though.
Well, a rendition of one, anyway:
/ br ain.html
8 94 803247/002-9348466-3390413?v=glance
http://students.biology.lsa.umich.edu/bio208_11
The image is taken from this book, which is definitely teh awesome:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0
Mikey-San
Karma: +Eleventy billion (mostly affected by watching Celebrity Jeopardy)
Not as interesting as rishathra.
Yours Sincerely, Michael.
... the Discovery Channel will be releasing its new parody miniseries: Ringworm
I really had the hots for her in Breakfast Club and Sixteen Candles...
As long as they keep the whole sex bit out of the series
Why, what's wrong with alien sex?
Yours Sincerely, Michael.
"THE MAN WITH THE SCREAMING BRAIN: When a upscale banker suffers a traumatic head injury, part of his brain is replaced with that of a street hustler. The movie will be written, directed and stars EVIL DEAD's Bruce Campbell. Shooting begins this spring. "
Come on, it's got Bruce Campbell. It must be good!
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
His book is obviously an unimaginative rip-off of Halo. ;)
"As long as they keep the whole sex bit out of the series"
dont worry. I am gathering that the 'Sci-Fi' channel is american so you wont see anything but precious precious violence.
*rocks back and forth, slowly carressing his sweet sweet gun*
As long as they keep the whole sex bit out of the series, it should be very cool miniseries
True. Goodness knows that we shouldn't think of sex as part of normal human behavior, so it should never be depicted, nor even talked about in polite company, especially around the children (We MUST Protect the Children!). And then once we perfect in vitro fetilization and artificial gestation, there's no reason to have that disgusting sex whatsoever.
Hopelessly pedantic since 1963.
Ender's game is already being made into a movie by the same people as XMen2! :)
Rishathra -- Furries in space.
"Times have not become more violent. They have just become more televised."
-Marilyn Manson
In the open scenes of Ringworld, Louis Wu travels around the Earth for his 200th birthday -- using transporter booths to jump to the next timezone and have a 48-hour long birthday party. In the very rare first edition of the book, he travels from West to East, which is the wrong direction. Later versions corrected this.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
You may not want to bother with the sequels.
Ringworld Engineers was almost as good as the original, maybe, but Ringworld Throne was a huge disappointment. I'm not the only one who gave up on it halfway through. It's almost like Niven let somebody else write some of it, or decided to fuse unrelated plots into one book, or something equally horrid. Just stay away.
After reading (half of it), I'll probably never read another Niven again.
I'd ask for other book recommendations - but somehow the Slashdot structure isn't very suitable for recommending stuff (books, MP3 players, whatever) and rating it on a regular basis, so we have to make do with a roundup story once or twice a year.
Homer: Urge to kill RISING, RISING...
Please see this one.
Apparently, a pair of ostriches. But.... maybe not.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
I'm wondering exactly how much material from the books they're going to include.
The original Ringworld book doesn't really end with a tense climax. It's a satisfying ending for a book, but I think it would fall a bit flat in a movie/miniseries.
Ringworld Engineers ends with a good fight scene, but including that would mean they'd have to explain Pak Protectors and a lot of other things. I don't think that much material can be adequately handled in a four-hour miniseries.
Ringworld Throne just wasn't very good at all, so let's not go there.
And how faithful will they be to the books? Will they have the "invulnerable" General Products hull? Will they have the Slaver shotgun? Will they include the Puppeteer Fleet of Worlds?
This has so much potential to be great or awful.
TheFrood
If you say "I'll probably get modded down for this..." then I will mod you down.
It's about time some one makes this.
I've been hoping for this movie since I read the book in 1989.
I'm glad they waited until now, though, because I'm old enough to actually be in it.
Well, old enough to audition for it, anyway.
You're thinking of "The Integral Trees" - another Niven work. Not "Ringworld".
This was like a show I saw when I was ten years old. There was this family living in a flying saucer. They had two robots: a tall gold one and a short one like a trash can. There was a Doctor, who always said "Dammit Jim" and insulted the robots all the time. They were running from bad silver robots with red eyes who were trying to kill them. Wish I could remember the name of that show.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Halo consisted mostly of shooting aliens on an artificial planet, while Ringworld consisted mostly of having sex with aliens on an artificial planet.
Eh, close enough.
The Louis Wo character is over 200 years old.
Thanks for solving the speculation of who gets to play Louis. Keanu Reeves will get the part.
Just imagine "Shadow square wire: Wo."
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
I'm sure this is flamebait but...
Ringworld: Nebula Award 1970 (Best Novel), Hugo Award 1971 (Best Novel), Locus Award 1970 (Best Novel), and the Australian Ditmar 1972 (Best Novel).
The setting certainly was important and sparked conferences, debates and papers (including some thoughts from Freeman Dyson).
But the characters and civilizations certainly were deep, this was the first in-depth look at the Kzinti who became the centre of many later novels written by other authors. There have been a series of (at least) ten novels on the time of the man-kzin wars, Poul Anderson anyone?
As for stereotypical characters:
-A two hunded year old Asian man who travels deep in to space every few decades when he gets bored.
-A female lead who is charmed by sucessive generations of fertility lotteries.
-A diplomat from a race of eight-foot Lion people.
-An emmisary from a race of herbivors who are fleeing the galaxy in a convoy of five planets that rotate around each other.
so cliche
The PC police believe that Jar Jar is an offensive caricature of black people (correction African-Americans). Similarly, the trade federation people were caricatures of Asians. And Watto was a Jewish stereotype.
Of course, all of this could be the result of George Lucas being a mere caricature of a good screenwriter.
Gratuituous cross-species sex to seal contracts is not part of normal human behavior, it's just some guy with weird sexual hangups playing out his bizarre fantasies in print.
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
And don't forget, Ringworld Fans, the new book, Ringworld's Children, comes out June 1!!! Woohoo!
:) )
It trails the children of Teela Brown and Seeker (Who it turns out was also the product of a "Breeding for Luck" selecting breeding project.), and what happens to them. (Before Teela turns into a Protector, and also explains why Protector-Teela wanted to lose the fight with Louis Wu!
Not to rehash a years-old argument (how did you miss it?), but Jar-Jar reminded some viewers of how Jamaicans and African Americans have been caricatured in popular entertainment (e.g. loping, dim-witted, exaggerated mouths, speaking pidgin English). Some of the other aliens in SW:TPM were bore some resemblance to racial stereotypes as well (e.g. the trade federation reps =~ Chinese, Anakin's master Watto =~ Jewish), leading to some spirited debates about the subject.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
My personal favorite is:
Louis Wu, I found your challenge verbose. In challenging a kzin, a simple scream of rage is sufficient. You scream and you leap.
--Speaker-to-Animals, "Ringworld"
Other good quotes (almost all of which belong to Speaker-to-Animals/Chmee):
If you can heat some bourbon, I can drink it. If you cannot heat it, I can still drink it.
--Speaker-to-Animals, "Ringworld"
Exercise is wonderful. I could sit and watch it all day.
--Louis Wu, "Ringworld"
A docile kzin. You sought to produce a docile kzin, Nessus. If you think you have produced a docile kzin, come and rejoin us.
--Speaker-to-Animals, "Ringworld'
It does not disturb me to play a god. It disturbs me to play a god badly.
--Speaker-to-Animals, "Ringworld"
To kidnap a kzin is probably a mistake.
--Chmeee, "The Ringworld Engineers"
Scars are like memories. We do not have them removed.
--Chmeee, "The Ringworld Engineers"
Hindmost: The easy way to find out is to accelerate until something happens.
Louis: I do not believe I heard a Pierson's puppeteer say that.
--"The Ringworld Engineers"
Chmeee: With such a weapon I could boil the Earth to vapor.
Louis Wu: Shut up.
Chmeee: It was a natural thought, Louis.
--"The Ringworld Engineers"
Chmeee: Furthermore, they [kzinti] of the Map of Earth have fulfilled an ancient daydream of my people.
Louis: Oh?
Chmeee: Conquering Earth, you idiot.
--"The Ringworld Engineers"
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Hey!
This guy brings up a legitimate point. I don't think he deserves to be modded "troll."
I loved Ringworld back in the day; it was one of the first grown-up genre SF novels I read, and I flipped head over heels for it and Niven's other stuff. I read it and the other "Known Space" books many times.
Now, I wonder what the heck I was thinking. It's heavy on sense-of-wonder, but there really is not much to the story.
The setting itself turns out to be kind of shabby: Niven had to add all sorts of kludgy patches to keep the poor Ringworld together and viable. If your aim is to create lots of secure living space, you are far better off building lots of self-contained space habitats.
Looking back, I suspect I was blown away by the Big Thingness of it, and the intricate background material that added versimilitude. I know more about people now, and more about science and engineering too. Ringworld just doesn't cut it for me any more.
Before I'm accused of having "too small a mind" to appreciate it, go read another book I first read way back when but still respect: Olaf Stapledon's Star Maker.
That non-novel fictional future history is utterly lacking in interesting characters, but dang, talk about scale! Talk about scope! Star Maker details the rise and fall of galactic civilizations over a span of billions of years. There are battles involving mobile planets and nova bombs. Dozens of bizzare races. Water-filled artificial worlds full of aquatic sapients linked together with webs of nervous tissue. The good guys have something like the Prime Directive. Their big ultimate project runs so long that it is threatened by the heat death of the universe.
And, hey! This Stapledon guy? He INVENTED the Dyson Sphere . . . go ask Freeman Dyson*. The far-future super-civilizations in the book use enveloping spheres to gather every bit of sunlight from the few remaining stars.
Stefan
* Or, if you don't have his email address, go read Disturbing the Universe, where he directly credits Star Maker for the "sphere" idea.
So cliche, character-wise. Let me count the ways...
- We have a brave genius human (male, naturally) who solves the problems. Check.
- We have an attractive but ditzy girl for him. Check.
- We have some sex. Check.
- We have some fierce aliens. Cat people'll do. Check.
- We have some cowardly aliens. Check.
But wait! the twist!
- We have *another* attractive girl for him, and the first attractive girl goes off with someone else, hence giving brave genius male some more sex!
I'm not even going to *start* on Engineers and Throne - too many targets, too little time. If erotic furries is your thing, knock yourself out. Otherwise read something better.
Like Asimov and Clarke, Niven has a major failing as an author - he can come up with astounding technical details, and then wrap them with a story that's for shit. Niven's obviously done *amazing* research into stuff, and invented whole civilisations and past histories like Tolkein would be proud of, but the story (which basically means things happening to people and how people react) could be any trash novel from anywhere.
Grab.
I really liked the concepts presented in Ringworld, but the character interactions just seemed ... juvenille ... to me. Sorry if that runs counter to your own (well-reasoned, I'm sure) opinion.
If the sex scene contributes something to the story, by all means, include it. But if it's <pun>inserted</pun> only for shock value, then replace with with something clever that does further the plot.
Anonymous Kev
Proudly posting as AC since 1997
(Finally got a dang account in 2004)