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War of the Worlds Remake Already Shot Overseas
AlphaJoe writes "In regards to remaking War of the Worlds, Steven Spielberg has apparently been beaten to the punch by an English rival, director Timothy Hines, as being reported by SF Crowsnest. Principal photography has already been completed, and a Spring 2005 release date is anticipated. The English version is staying true to the original story, which was set in the late 1800's, where as Spielburg's version will be drastically modified to a more modern version. Hines feels there will be room for both films to exist, as they will be drastically different in story and scope."
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The English version is staying true to the original story, which was set in the late 1800's, where as Spielburg's version will be drastically modified to a more modern version.
But will it have JarJar?
http://www.transparencynow.com/welles.htm is a good article talking about the broadcast that... upset a few people.
That's what I was thinking.
But will it have JarJar?
Yes, and it'll be shooting a walkie-talkie.
-Those who dance are considered insane by those who can't hear the music.
War of the War of the Worlds.
"Hines feels there will be room for both films to exist, as they will be drastically different in story and scope."
READ: Hines knows that he will be 0wn3d by Steven Spielberg and he is leaving himself wiggle room.
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Spielburg => Spielberg
The original WotW was a classic film, beloved by many (including me). Why remake it? Why remake 2 versions? They're out of ideas, folks. This is why we get craptacular stuff. They must not have an original bone/idea left.
But does it really matter, as long as *one* of them has the Americans crapping in their pants again thinking it's real, just like the radio series (with Orson Wells) did way-back-when...
:o)
--#voxlator
I would imaging, then, we'll be going to see
"Steven Speilberg's War Of the Worlds"
T.
but IMDB has no entry for they're film, so I'll just have to use The TV series for now.
I loved that show, cheesy as it was.
There is no spork.
They still are inspired by the same book, so, why wouldn't Spielbu^Herg switch to something else ?
Trolling using another account since 2005.
The human race meets the Aliens in space and all shoot at the same time.
-- i am jack's amusing sig file
spielberg will probably make yet another blockbuster.
and that other dude will do a great movie without the overused hollywood cliches...
I think it's a huge relief that Hines is beating Spielburg to the punch. I don't understand why we even bother making movies from books if we are going to change the stories completely. There is a reason many of these books have become classics. I guess that movies "inspired" by books rather than adapted by them are good for reading (you see the movie; you like it; you read the book, and it's better), but I think it hurts our culture in general. Maybe with Hines's movie out first, people will be less likely to think Spielburg's interpretation is Oscar-worthy.
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Hasn't War of the Worlds already been remade about 50,000 times? Independence Day? Signs? Heck, even the old 'V' mini-series was basically the same story. I am sure I am forgetting another million movies that were basically the same plot line.
Deep Impact and Armageddon?
Volcano and Dante's Peak?
You know the battle is lost when multiple movie makers are RE-making the same movie at the same time.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
War of the Worlds? There's already been a shot overseas? Don't RTFA, head for the hills!!!
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For his next spoof. Will the Speilberg movie be title "Band of Martians"?
> Ignoring ACs since 2002.
time for a new sig, bub.
That's great. One movie for literate fans, and one for the NASCAR crowd (Hint: if you don't know which is which, you're in the NASCAR crowd).
Proverbs 21:19
You wait for a WotW film for decades, then 2 come along at once... seriously, though, the idea of doing a production of the original version, not the godawful american update (why must EVERYTHING be set in the US with US actors?) can only be a good thing. The original WotW was full of social commentary on the europeans in africa etc and colonialism. Cheesy spielberg remakes will be terrible.
Actually, the commonly-believed story that there was mass panic was really a newspaper-fueled fantasy. The number of people who actually were scared enough to go ape-shit was quite small. You can read more about the overhyped-hysteria here -- go down halfway on the page until you get to "Book Excerpts, by Prof. David L. Miller".
By the way, the rest of that page has a lot of interesting material on the War of the Worlds broadcast, if you are interested.
GMD
watch this
I mean, the original movie version. When was that made - 1960's, 1970's or so?
It is probably the quintessential sci-fi movie: the professor and the "cute girl" trying to survive a terrible horror, the place of faith and science, and then the classic ending - with a bit on the usefulness (or, uselessness) of atomic energy.
I need to get the DVD of that and show it to my kids. I don't think this is nostalgia talking (I hate nostalgia the way some people hate liver), but some of the sci-fi movies of the 60's-70's had more style, or at least made more sense and prompted deeper questions.
Look at "The Time Machine". The original left you wondering "You know, if I was going to rebuild civilization, what three books would you take?" I remember having discussions with people over this issue, the sheer philosophy and rational behind such a decision.
The modern version? You wondered how the hell those guys grew brains out of their spines, and how Weena learned English. Yeah. Lots of thought put in there.
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... where as Spielburg's version will be drastically modified to a more modern version ...
Hasn't that been done by Emmerich already? If you take a look at the plot of ID4:
- Aliens attack earth
- Their weapons are far superior
- Our weapons cannot hurt them really
- A virus kills them
It has a very close resemblence to the book War of the Worlds, the difference is that it is set in modern times.
Keep open minded - but not that open your brain falls out...
This is why more art source need to be in the public domain. English copyright laws are much better than American. Disney raids the public domain : Cinderella, Pinnochio, Pocahontas, Sleeping Beauty, etc. etc. Then moans and groans that copyright laws to be extended forever and ever.
In comparison, H.G. Wells died in 1946. If Wells had lived under current US copyright law (life+70), WotW would not be public domain until 2016.
The article successfully compares how people can be easily deceived by simulations.
1938 - War of the worlds (Fake news broadcast)
1950's - Game shows (Fake game shows)
1990's - Milli Vanilli (Fake singing)
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
I don't understand why we even bother making movies from books if we are going to change the stories completely.
Oh, come on! That's an easy one! Two words: name recognition. Making a movie is an expensive proposition and is always risky. By co-opting a well-known name and slapping it on their product, the studios already have a built-in market. They can save money on promotion and marketing as well. We saw this a few years ago when Tri-Star took the internationally-known brand-name of Godzilla and slapped it on the front of a movie in which the monster bore little to no resemblance to the real deal.
Never underestimate the power of a brand-name. Remember when we were kids and you just *had* to have Pac-Man on your home console? The fact that the home versions really, really sucked didn't matter all that much? Remember how you were more happy to have a 3rd-rate version of Pac-Man rather than a 1st-rate version of, say, Mousetrap or some other Pac-Man-like maze game? That's what I'm talking about here. So it is with movies as well.
GMD
watch this
I usually agree with you. For that matter, I was disappointed when the original War of the Worlds came out, because they'd moved the setting into contemporary times. I was hoping to see the big mechanical tripods, but I like the retro look, so I'm also looking forward to seeing Sky Captain.
But I have one counter example: Overdrawn at the Memory Bank.
I first saw this as a low-budget PBS movie starring Raol Julia. Sometime later, I came across the short story by John Varley. It seemed to me that the short story had a bunch of excess crap, and the movie cut right to the core theme. I wonder if this is because I saw the movie first. I wonder if I had read the story first, I would have thought, "They cut out all the details!"
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
There are some stills. But only of the actors. Nothing on how the war machines look yet. Or the thunderchild.
Should check out the Chrome trailer, pretty interesting.
In 2002 they had finished filming, and moved the release date from 2005 to 2004:h tml
http://www.pendragonpictures.com/CRMtrlr1.
Now, apparently, today in 2004, they are announcing a release date of 2005.
Chrome - back then finished and ready to hit cinemas in 2003 still has not emerged yet - here in 2004.
Apparently they searched high and wide for acting talent (wantint to cast unknowns) and auditioned over a thousand people, only to decide to carry on with a lead actor from Chrome.
Is this some sort of joke? Anyone got an inside scoop?
would be great timing for a new WOTW movie to be released at the same time that they decide the 'interesting' SETI signal actually was real ETI.
Would be really interesting to get a series of ETI signals, and find out they're coming this way fast
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
The Orson Welles adaptation of H.G. Wells' work was a classic in its own right. I think both can coexist.
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I like literature _and_ NASCAR !
Speilberg will again warp the original story for the US audience so that the plot will now incorrectly have American heroes instead of Brits, a la U571, or worse still, American actors trying to do British accents.
Hasn't War of the Worlds already been remade about 50,000 times? Independence Day? Signs? Heck, even the old 'V' mini-series was basically the same story.
I'm not sure what you mean by "basically the same story". You mean they all featured mankind trying to repel an alien invasion? Because that's where the similiarites stop. Indepedence Day follows the trials and tribulations of the heros who are going to stop the bad guys. Signs is a focused study on how one family reacts to the threat. "V" examined whether a group of rag-tag freedom fighters could actually win against a technologically-superior advesary. War of the Worlds, on the other hand, largely deals with how society as a whole deals with the invasion. Remember the encounter between the newspaper reporter and the artillary man? Or with the parson and his wife? I think any similiarities between War of the Worlds and the movies you list above is pretty superficial.
GMD
watch this
In all seriousness though, I find myself more excited about this version than the Hollywood version. I hope the Peter Jackson philosophy continues to trickle through movie making.
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Sadly, I'm sure the British production will be a better rendition of the original source -- and relegated to distributino in the US only via NetFlix.
I loved that show, cheesy as it was
Here's another link with an episode guide
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To keep the budget down they just created one video of the aliens in alien shaped spacesuits standing around in a circle and wobbling about a bit, and the script would be dubbed over at a later date.
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As always, see the orig first for the 'full' story: War of the worlds (1953). Will be interesting/weird to see how they update it, special effects non-withstanding.
CVB
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All I can say is thank goodness! Spielberg, Cruise, modern day setting -- it practically had all the makings of another Battlefield Earth.
One of my little lottery fantasies, for years, was to do a War of the Worlds true to the original book, which I found utterly gripping while reading it in 6th grade (I still find it an excellent read!)
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Spielburg's aliens won't even have death rays, most likely they will just have a new improved orgasmatron :)
The Earth ends up winning when we subject the aliens to 24 hour round the clock election coverage
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Spielberg used to be pretty dang good. However, his "updated" version of ET was laughable; I particularly like South Park's spoof about "Saving Private Ryan" with all guns replaced by walkie-talkies.
Let's take "I, Robot" for example. It didn't really capture the complexities of Asimov's short stories, but for what it was, it was an alright flick. It was a summer action flick with some parallels to the themes in Asimov's book, particularly the end. Yeh, it was obvious, dumbed down, and action-packed; but what else would you expect from a Summer movie with Will Smith?
Depending on how it looks, I might go see it, or at least wait until it's available "On-Demand." Will I expect the quality of story-telling from the original? No. Will I expect something visually stunning with perhaps some decent directing? Probably.
I'll have to wait and see, but I'm not going to put it down simply because Spielberg cannot possibly live up to the expectations of movie-buffs everywhere. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, for now.
Hey, at least Lucas isn't involved.
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If you saw 'aroung the world in 80 days' please don't believe the original story is anything close to the movie. Actually the movie is an insult once you understand the beauty of the book.
I hope Spielberg doesn't ruin the story too much..
Privacy is terrorism.
It probably got outsourced to India where it will be filmed in Hindi by Mr. Dalliwallispielbergi, then badly overdubbed into English.
Hines feels there will be room for both films to exist, as they will be drastically different in story and scope.
Spielberg's hacked version will suck but will make millions. Hine's version will be sweet, but will make far less (if anything).
Why does Hollywood think everything has to be brought into present day? Remember Godzilla 2K? (not if you're lucky).
After all, it was supposed to be a sequel to the 1954 series. Will this movie be a sequel of both sources? The aliens aren't going to end the invasion just because of bad TV rating.
Bring on the animated Jeff Wayne version!
You must think in Russian.
"history never repeats itself--but it does rhyme" -Twain
Most of the people that acutally went out looking to drive off the invaders with their shotguns assumed that the radio reports were incorrect and that the US was actually being invaded by the Germmans.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
A classy on-screen rendition of the ironclad destroying the Martian walker. That was the most powerful scene in the book for me.
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US Copyright has nothing to do with a British author or his books.
I think you're thinking of European copyright law..
In the US, anything published before 1923 is out of copyright. Some stuff published after 1923 but before 1968 or so may be out of copyright if it wasn't renewed on the due date... Project Gutenberg has loads of books that are out of copyright under the pre-1923 rule, that are still copyright in Europe (including most of H.G. Wells's books)
I'm growing sick of the big-budget Spielberg/Lucas style of cinematography.
For my part it's not as much the cinematography but their dickering with good stories. The original tale is a classic. Great things could be done with it using modern technology... by to revise it? To alter it? That's something we simply do not need.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Hines feels there will be room for both films to exist
That's a very calm reaction to someone who's work will inevitably be compared to Spielburg's. It sounds like he has a lot of faith in his project, I hope it turns out as good as he seems to think it will be. I'd much rather see a remake that's faithful to the story than a hollywood bastardization.
Punctanym: alternate spelling of words using punctuation or numerals in place of some or all of its letters; see 'leet'
Honestly, how different is Independance Day? The original WotW had the Earth get lucky by having a germ take out the invading aliens. Independance Day, they have some lame-ass computer virus that magically works on both Mac and Alien Ship OS!
Do really dense people warp space more than others?
British version vs. Spielberg version... GO!
1. lead actor: Someone that can act! vs. Ashton Kutcher
2. lead actress: Someone that can act vs. Kelly Osbourne
3. Special effects budget: 406 pounds vs. 406 million dollars
4. Days in advance for ticket line: 1 vs. 45
5. Amount of spinoff merchandise: 0.003 vs. 15 million tons (landfill volume to be occupied when the 10-year old boys turn 11 and have to have the next toy in line)
6. Awards won at Cannes: 46 vs. 0
7. People fooled by the broadcast: all in attendance (because it's that good) vs. only the way-too-young kids that parents continue to drag to movies (because what other reason would they have to scream through your $9.50?)
stuff |
english version:
set in london. remains true to the war of the worlds story
american version:
set in new york. features U.S fighter planes zipping by and the main character defeats the "terrorist freedom-hating aliens" by hacking into their mainframe with a ibook and bits of string. apple pie all round and the salt-of-the-earth hero gets to shake the president's hand when its all over.
This is why the story is changed before it gets to the screen. You can't just port a book to the screen, you have to write a good screenplay for the movie first. Ever wonder why there is an entire category for this in the oscars? You know, the one for adapted Screenplay. It's there because the book has to be ADAPTED. IF you want to maintain the "culture", read the book instead. As for what the point is, its really just branding. And it all makes perfect sense. The question is wheather it is a good movie or not, not wheather it's accurate to the book. You're basically putting a movie down that not only you haven't seen, but it hasn't even been filmed yet.
It has probably been outsourced to India where it will be filmed in Hindi by Mr. Dalliwallispielbergi, then badly overdubbed into English.
Whether Spielberg sticks to the original theme of the story or focuses on shock and awe remains to be seen. He is capable of doing a decent prestige film, but when you see Tom Cruise associated with the picture, well, you can kinda see down which sewer it's likely to go.
Granted, we can't speak for everyone, some people actually like Independence Day (with Will Smith) which started as a remake of War or the Worlds, though I found it preposterous and only good for some decent artwork on the alien ships. Smith's acting, as with most of the other acting in the picture was tripe and far below the level required for Victorian Britain (then the world super power) being decimated -- the story is watching the humbling of an empire, not a bunch of flashy weapons and macho talk ('You did not fire that heat ray at me!')
I honestly don't see room for both and expect Spielberg to abandon his plans, which didn't seem to be going anywhere anyway as he's got his hands full at the moment.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
i dont know but i could have sworn there was a modern version done already and that is was a big summer block buster..
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
I don't see any reason why a movie shouldn't be different from the book. As long as it it is a good movie. After all it is a different medium.
The real problem, is that Hollywood seems to be out of ideas. Fortunately, making movies is getting so cheap that we have other choices. The best films last year were from independents. I even enjoy the $10 budget films that are made for our town's ameteur film festival. They are not all good, but they are quirky. And they are filled with local humor.
Bipedals?! We don't need no stinking bipedals!
"Scenarii"?? I've seen some bad ones on Slashdot in my time, but some of you people aren't even trying to mimic the English language anymore.
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Someone would have to acquire the rights from the copyright holder, so there wouldn't be two films.
Wells died in 1946 so "War of the Worlds", published in 1898 wouldn't enter the public domain until 2021. That's a whopping 123 years of copyright protection.
And we could look forward to Sherlock Holmes finally entering the public domain sometime next year.
-dameron
-----
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Now we just need Battle of the Planets, and we're set.
Okay, I'm sick and tired of the hollywood crew basically turning out the same damn thing over and over. And instead of coming up with a new idea and story, they rehash the old ones. And if the old ones don't fit a demographic or specific plot, it's altered to match it. Movies like I-Robot and A Sound of Thunder were great as sci fi stories, but movies took the very concept of those stories and twisted it into another action thriller with special effects. The movies are practically the same damn thing, and the written stories are drastically different!
Now, sometimes remakes or book based movies are okay. This is because the director puts his artistic interpretation on the books that's based on art, not money.
The Thomas Crown affair was an interesting remake. It put a great spin on a classic movie, and that spin was based on good movie making, not making a movie for the masses that would turn a quick buck. Both the old and new version of the movie stand on their own as good movies in my opinion.
Another example is Harry Potter. Many of you zealous slashdotters don't like HP, but I like it as nice escapist and imaginative reading. It's just fun. Now the movies turn a tidy profit so it's not to say that there isn't money involved, but the books practically read like a screenplay, so taking the book to the movies and showing everything off is not a bad thing, because a director's artistic interpretation is not going to alter the feel of plot dramatically or change it to anything drastically different than what J.K. initially created. It's further cool to see J.K.'s world visually as well as to read about it.
Hollywood types create screenplays based off of kneejerk reactions of what will make money, not the quality of the work. "Hey, that Bradbury story was cool, but let's turn it into a thriller to attract more people. Who cares if it changes the theme, we need to make shitloads of money."
I'm so sick of bad remakes and the like. I'd rather have Hines take the story and attempt to stay true to the story and flop miserably, than Spielberg make a copy and turn it into a blockbuster action ride that has no deeper meaning and makes a mockery of a great classic Sci-fi story.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Some old movies hold up better then others. I doubt there will be any need any time soon to remake Gone with the Wind.
But Science Fiction fans are somewhat more demanding. And its easier to suspend your disbelief when the clothes and slang terms aren't 50 years out of date.
And ultimately, if you dont think that a remake of such a movie is a good idea, then dont watch it.
END COMMUNICATION
Doing a Google search bring up an interesting first search result. I'm sure glad a search for my name doesn't turn up similar results!
Can anybody remember what they are?.. mmm....
1. Unrequited love
2. Tragic lovers (Romeo and Juliet)
3. Hero's quest, through failure and self discovery to success
4. World saved by hero's self-sacrifice
5.... err...
Anybody help me here with the list?
1) Aliens invade
2) Mass panic
3) A virus saves the day.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Some movies e.g. Dracula, Superman, are re-made over and over. One reason is superior F/X technology. A second reason is current cute actors/esses. A third reason is to modernize a timeless story. WOTW is essentially a reflection of the brutality of war. The first movies reflected the horror of WWI. However we now have the mideast terrorism.
Maybe that would be a good thing, maybe the copyright holder would refuse the Lucas version and only allow good films to be made. Maybe, maybe, maybe.
In Horsell Park, near Woking? I've seen the sand pits there. They're pretty cool. Woking council have even put up a large model of a 3 legged Martian fighting machine in the town center.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Why is everyone saying this? Why do people always throw Lucas and Speilberg into the same 'style'. They are nothing alike.
Nothing could be further from the truth! Are you saying Saving Private Ryan and Schindler's List were bad? Or maybe you're thinking of Minority Report (who's budget wasn't that big). No? His earlier films like Always and Close Encounters? Maybe Jaws?
I fail to see the connection.
-Mark
Dovie'andi se tovya sagain.
From reading the article I get the impression it was shot here, in England, and the overseas version is still to come.
In a global medium, "overseas" is a silly thing to say.
Actually, thanks to the Berne Convention it does.
DNA just wants to be free...
This is very true, even down to the nuclear bomb not working, a virus finally being the alien's downfall, and the number of days the aliens needed to completely destroy humanity: "The same number of days it took God to create it" - General from the original WotW. (can I use that acronym?)
From Yahoo! News:I emailed that to Lessig, and he was at a loss to explain it at the time.
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You might be interested in knowing that Gulf War2 started in 2003 and ended on May 1st, 2003. I don't know where you're getting 2004 from.
Speak truth to power.
Thanks. That's bizarre.
Well. They do have Spielberg's version mentioned on imdb.com with Tom Cruise *shudder* as credited cast.
a few years ago, by flying a couple of jets into American skyscrapers by legal and illegal aliens.
When the American president at the time heard the play on the radio, he had to wait 7 minutes to get his pants dried up a bit, before he could even start thinking of how to escape.
But will it have JarJar?
Ok people, repeat after me:
Spielberg != Lucas
Spielberg != Lucas
Spielberg != Lucas
ET phone home jokes are probably called for, but JarJar? WTF? We're supposed to be geeks, sticklers for trivial facts. I mean, Lucas and Spielberg don't even look alike.
[insert relevant joke] Maybe the martians will be velocoraptors with Unix computers [insert relevant joke]
Strangely, the 1953 WotW is one of the 50's sci-fi movies that I feel has better withstood time. The effect still seem to work for me. The only problem is the 1950's society and technology they use, but then, I look at it as a period piece, so that doesn't detract from the movie.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Wasn't there already a remake staring Will Smith ?
I.e. Independence Day?
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
Saving Private Ryan was an awful film, Schindlers List was OK but got a lot more credit for it's subject than the actual film. Minority Report was also a bad film as was Close Encounters. I haven't seen Always. Jaws wasn't great either.
Other people may well like these films but I don't. And let this post be a warning to any budding film makers wanting to market films to me !
However, because Hollywood royally fucked the first book in the ass until it died of blood loss, that ain't gonna happen. God, I hate that fartsucking place.
--- Ban humanity.
Indeed. IANAL, but I wasn't aware that contract law could trump copyright law. If someone sold a company the film rights in 1951, how long is that contract actually valid for? Perpetuity? I realize now days film rights are done with "options" that can expire, be resold, etc., but I'm guessing that the system wasn't that sophisticated (read, people weren't looking for loopholes so much) back in the 50's...
This sig intentionally left justified.
Heines version might have......English people in it!
Actually, I think RA Heinlen got the last one of the basic dramtic plots with "Boy meets girl, boy gets girl pregnant, boy runs off, girl has baby, learns that she is a hermaphrodite, has sex-reassignment surgery, gets job in the time patrol, runs into her former self and impregnates her, recruits former self into time patrol".
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Another movie that has been shot off shore from the US. It appears as though many of the biggest movies in recent years have been shot off shore from the US. I talked about this with a person I know well and he was telling me about the spiraling costs of movies in the US. Is this going to be a similar begining to the IT industry moving many of thier technical jobs o/s
Yes, we do agree that Spielberg != Lucas, but let's be fair, the borgs are different from one another and they still do the same things...
Take a look at his filmography http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000229/. There is Shrek 2, Jurassic Park 4, Men in Black 2, etc. To the movies you mentioned it is kind of hard to make a second version. Ok, not impossible, but not easy.
ET: Made before the Version x craze. Sort of hard as well since the alien, well did leave.
Minority Report: Not easy, the main characters were split apart and the entire program destroyed. Part 2 would be an entirely new movie.
Schindler's List: Not even possible. This was a factual movie and part two would seem REALLY tacky.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
This is just stupid. Get on with real sci-fi. Make a movie based on a Larry Niven novel. Farscape level make-up, with some computer animation for backgrounds, and just stay true to the novels, and you could have some good scifi
Mathematics is not a crime.
But their bosses did care about humanity's heritage.
If you liked "Childhood's End", try reading "The Harvest" by Robert Charles Wilson. After that, read "Blood Music" by Greg Bear.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
"Officially, the Martians died of the common cold. Any Londoners died of Martians."
Anyone else remember that? The secret Masonic society using Alphonse Moreau's anthrax-smallpox hybrid to poison the Martians?
Anyone?
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
And Jet Li fights Martians with his high-flying Kung Fu action! A slam dunk hit!
If you believe Alan Moore, the disease used in War of the Worlds was human-created---a biowarfare hybrid weapon created by Dr. Moreau. The freemasons covered it all up, of course.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
H.G. Wells is a brilliant writer, and arguabley the greatest Sci-Fi writer. He is also my favorite author. Unfortunately, his stories have a long history of being butcherd by hollywood, although I haven't seen some of the early adaptations from the 30's (and an Invisible Man from the 60's)- which seem to rate fairly well. Please let him rest in peace. Here is a partial listing:
The Food of the Gods - misses the point
The Empire of the Ants - a disaster
The Island of Dr. Moreau - 96 - aaaaagrh!
The Island of Dr. Moreau - 77 - fair
The Island of Dr. Moreau - 33 - haven't seen, might be good
The War of the Worlds Tv Series - Why?
The Time Machine - Fair
The Invisible Man - too horrible to contemplate
Oh, the pain...
A true-to-the-book period piece will be great! The original H.G.Wells novel is a great read, and great social comment. Think "Merchant/Ivory film, with Martians and death rays!"
;-)
The George Pal movie from the early 60's was quite good, but it was a modernized version. A Victorian version, set in England, will be a treat.
Who's in this version, anyways? I want to see Hugh Grant smoked to a cinder by the heat ray. (Early on in the film, please)
Film set in present day about aliens attacking earth, destroying everything, then finally being killed off by a virus... Haven't we already had this with Independence Day?
I find myself more excited about this version than the Hollywood version.
Of course you do. This is Slashdot and groupthinking by shooting for the little guy always gets you free karma.
Hey now, nothing wrong with Godzilla 2000 - it was a prefectly decent godzilla movie made by the Japanese. The steaming piece of dung was Tristar's version with some kind of speed iguana. THAT sucked almost as much as Wild Wild West.
Pendragon Pictures has agreed to Remake E.T. the way it Really happened.
Karma is more than just a number
'Forever Autumn' is Justin Hayward's contribution. One of my ex-bosses (who is also a fair guitar player) described the work as "a B musical with A players". I tend to agree.
Mail? Put "slashdot" in the subject to pass the spam filters.
The main character is witness to a Martian landing and the ensuing chaos of the attack, then wanders around a bit, seeing a lot of things happen but not really doing anything (heroic or otherwise). He encounters a succession of characters, most of whom are insane, then when all seems lost, we get to the film's finale and a chance for the hero to show his true colours... he wanders alone around London in a depressed funk, then discovers that the Martians have been defeated not by any human agent but by bacteria, in a deus ex machina ending unrelated to anything else in the movie.
I'd watch it... but come on, it would tank at the box office. To Joe Public it would be the worst film ever.
And probably a half dozen more I'll remember 1 minute after hitting the submit button below....
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
In my classical mythology/literature class we learned there are 7 stories. I am not going to go through my old books to find the reference, but yes, as far as I know you are right.
500 dollar reward for tip(s) leading to the arrest of the person(s) who stole my sig.
english movies suck anyways.. who cares.
It's called milking a cash cow.
No, that's called beating a dead horse.
Milking a cash cow would be Rocky 0: The Prequel! See Stallone, with considerable plastic work and makeup try to ape himself as a 15 year old getting beat up on the way to school for his lunch money and swear he could take the bully in a rematch.
At least he's given up on trying to do comedies.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Same here. This is one of my favorite books. I was really dissappointed when I heard that they would be "modernizing" the new one. I'm looking forward to this one more than Spelbergs now.
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
I'm sure both versions will be fine. Both good for their own merits. I'm not sure why one has to be 'better than the other' in order to have a conversation about them. This is my first post on slashdot.org after much hand wringing about not allowing myself to reply to the inane commentary often encountered here. I choose this topic not because it's more worthy than any others but because it's really a reflection of how little thought is given to replies. Spielburg has product dozens of brilliant films and several really poor creations. However, on the whole he's done a great job and doesn't overproduce. He isn't Lucas. Also the topic, Movie Made Overseas beats Spielburg. The world is "overseas" including the US. Many, most, modern films aren't even filmed on location in the US so this commentary has little to no bearing on the topic at hand. In fact, it's just a cynical bend to attack Spielburg. Which I do not understand. valder.
Man, fuck War of the Worlds. Do a remake of X-COM.
Some of the largest grossing films of all time employed little know actors and played hardly at all on current popular themes of films. As examples Star Wars and E.T.
We saw this a few years ago when Tri-Star took the internationally-known brand-name of Godzilla and slapped it on the front of a movie in which the monster bore little to no resemblance to the real deal.
And it was gone from the local cinema in 2 weeks, by many accounts it was an expensive flop.
Never underestimate the power of a brand-name. Remember when we were kids and you just *had* to have Pac-Man on your home console?
It would surprise me if they did make a Pac-Man movied after Mario Brothers was a massive flop and awful too boot (like that rushed ending? "Hey! I'm king again!") Many flops have been built around stars or recognizable names. The public is fickle. The Cat in the Hat was horrendous and raked in the dough, even though it made the Bottom 100 on Imdb.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
War of the worlds has not been shot 'overseas' - it was shot here in the UK. The Speilberg version will be shot overseas in the US. The word 'overseas' depends on your viewpoint and we're not all US citizens.
init 11 - for when you need that edge.
I was under the impression he uses mostly unknowns. They only become big names after the movie's release.
Yes, but when Spielberg changed ET (replaced guns with walkie-talkies) you could still watch the original. My brother has the ET special edition DVD set released a few years back and it has 2 full-length movies - one with the guns and one with the walkie-talkies.
I doubt that Lucas will release the version of ANH with Han shooting first.
Minority Report was awesome. There really is no denying that it is both a wonderful movie and an engaging story.
A.I. was good. I can understand someone not being in love with this movie, but he tried. I think that if he had tried to mimic Kubrick's style, he would have fallen short.
Jurassic Park was good in my opinion. He is responsible for the only dinosaur movie that I can say was decent.
Hook is not so much Sci-Fi as it is fantasy, but it was highly entertaining.
Even Close Encounters and E.T. were good given their target audiences.
So personally I don't think it is right to attack Spielberg as a marketing sell-out, or whatever your post is trying to say.
And besides that he has made films outside of the Sci-Fi realm that are awesome. He directed two of the best war films that I have ever seen.
And what does it matter that he is able to cast high profile stars. If they are good in their roles, what does it matter if they are household names or not. Can you honestly say that Cruise wasn't good in Minority Report?
And to address the fuzzy teddy bear comment: Minority Report, Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan, Jurassic Park, The Color Purple....these are all pretty gritty movies.
Or have you seen them?
It will only have "Jar" because both Jars will be said at the same time.
See, slashdot is not the only shop with dupe story problems.
Table-ized A.I.
Ugh are you serious? Jackson can't hold a candle to Spielberg. While some of Jackson's earlier movies were fun, his LoTR was obviously way too big a budget for him to handle; the trilogy wound up being a massive snorefest.
"I hope the Peter Jackson philosophy continues to trickle through movie making."
Which philosophy is that?
The one where the director makes large changes to the story and characters, creating plot holes and needlesly destorying the way in which key characters work? The one where the director fucks up the editing and pacing so much that they have to delete an important encounter from the film for timing reasons? The one where the editor re-writes the story in a major way because he feels like it?
PJ's approach was already long-established within Hollywood. I'm just hoping his "philosophy" is not allowed to continue to spread and that instead we can have directors who can edit properly and who don't fuck about with characters for no reason and who do not drastically rewrite the story for their own purposes.
People should not be afraid of their governments - Governments should be afraid of their people.
The original text of the decision can be found here:
e s/May%202002/Hallmarkdec040202.wpd (no idea what format this is; WordPerfect document?) but if you search google for the terms:
http://www.nycourts.gov/comdiv/Law%20Report%20Fil
wells v paramount 2002 new york
it's the second hit (don't put quotes around the search terms) and you can view it as HTML.
I read the decision and I guess I don't understand it either; maybe the judgment is ignoring copyright law because the original agreement was made in 1951, before the copyright expired (in 1954), so the whole suit is from the point of view of a copyrighted work. So if you look at just this decision, it looks like the copyright is still in effect and this contract is still relevant; but if you take this decision in conjunction with the fact that the work is in the public domain (which is not at issue in this suit), THEN it becomes essentially pointless.
It's possible that the decision means that, even though it's in the public domain, the Wellses signed a contract saying that they would not sell the rights to a television broadcast to anyone else, and they tried to do so anyway. But why they would try to do so if it was in the public domain already, I have no idea.
IANAL.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
Of course you do. This is Slashdot and groupthinking by shooting for the little guy always gets you free karma
Slashdot is full of wankers and Fucktards. That is Fucktard with a capitol F. Talking about slashdot groupthink is like argueing with a retarded person.
With Richard Burton playing a journalist and the music done by The Moody Blues.
The chances of anything coming from Mars...are a million to one. But still, they come.
I, for one, welcome BOTH versions of our new alien overlords.
Four versions in the last ten years is probably overexposure.
Actually, kids will be the heroes. I heard that kids will stop the alien machines by getting suck in the air vents and suffocatting the aliens.
I am surprised that this got modded up. What with all the retarted moderators and all.
Peter Jackson may not have put together a 100% accurate tribute to LOTR but he treated it a lot gentler than any other Hollywood director would have. For God's sake man, what could a hack like Joel Schumacher have done to it!!! Imagine some Hollywood deal maker trying to get Chris Rock a bit part as a wisecracking Orc or something "So it will resonate better with the urban youth". Sweet jumping baby Christ, some people don't know when they got it good.
Anyway. Colour me confused, I thought war of the worlds was by Orson Wells in the 1940's?
My god. How can people be so ignorant. I would expect this kind of idiocy in an AOL forum but on slashdot? Oh well. The % of real geeks on slashdot has been steadily declining for quite some time now. Where have all the true geeks gone?
They certainly don't inhabit slashdot, that is for sure.
If the film keeps true to the book and was filmed on location it should feature Chertsey (where I was born) and Shepperton (where I used to live) in Middlesex, UK.
However, the house where I used to live, which is by Shepperton station, wasn't yet built in 1898. Although it was built only about 10 years later.
What hollywood has been about in the past is taking something with a built in audience, just like LoTR, and putting out something that was crap because it already had a built in audience. Rick "f'n" Berman is a prime example of this with his Trek offerings. Instead Peter Jackson kept a reverence for the books in his movies that I truly do think came through. Because of that, more people read the books than they otherwise would have, and the legacy of Tolkien was strengthened. That is the philosophy that I support.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
I see a lot of antiLucas sentiment thrown around in this discussion.
George Lucas is a hack. Steven Spielberg is a consumate director. The fact that he is commercially succesful does not mean he's not talented. Check out his filmography (no link, it's not that hard to find).
neither version will be any good. Hines is a no-name foreign director who isn't French, Taiwanese or Iranian, so it can't be good, and Speilberg is disliked by the art house crowd (except for A.I.) for his inability to confront adult issues.
Wow. Those are a huge cross-section of films.
... one of the best science fiction movies out there in my opinion.
Do you just not like the style of the film or the genres? The acting?
I mean, SPR is probalby the most accurate war movie ever made.
Schindler's List was your classic man vs. man struggle and also quite revered.
Minority Report (granted the worst of the ones I listed) was a typical by fun action movie.
Close Encounters
Jaws...again, the classic man vs. beast film. One of the best in that category.
What movies would you place above them (staying consistent with genre)?
-Mark
Dovie'andi se tovya sagain.
In an effort to be more politically correct, and not to offend anyone from overseas - the Aliens did not shoot first
Damn, I still get goose bumps thinking about Jeff Wayne's 1976 musical version of "War of the Worlds" with narration and acting by Richard Burtons. If you have never heard this version, get it!
Letter To Iran
my Dale Ernhardt Painting was done by Marc Chagall.
Alan Parsons' Project and the Moody Blues figure in there anywhere? ~:D
"The English version is staying true to the original story, which was set in the late 1800's, where as Spielburg's version will be drastically modified to a more modern version. "
Yeah, the books is a great story, good sci-fi, and an interesting read just to get a glimpse of the era.
lines like:
"with a man ejaculating behind her"* had a whole different meaning 100+ years ago.
I hope the do the naval scene right. When I read it in the book I was like "hell yeah, take that!"
*yes, that is an actual line.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
true.
My only gripe about his 'version' was the ending. Tolkien is making a ver good point with the destruction of the shire. Something the world needs to remember about war.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Maybe it's going to be part of the not-used parts of the film? The original cut was almost 5 hours, and they cut it down to just under three for the theatrical release.
As a counterexample, what about "The Phantom Edit"?
DNA just wants to be free...
In the US, anything published before 1923 is out of copyright.
Duh! He meant IF current copyright law had applied in 1920, THEN WoW would still be protected in 2015.
Thanks to archive.org an older version of the site with some concept art showing the martians and fighting machines.
The gallery on the new site has no glimpse of anything non-human.
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
Even bad publicity can be good publicity. That advertising agency certainly succeeded in getting its name out there.
It would be interesting to know if business has picked up or slowed down because of that joke.
Genre for genre I would rather watch any of the following films:
War movies: Das Boot or Stalingrad
Man Vs Man: City Of God, Once Were Warriors, Rabbit Proof Fence
Fun Action Movie: Kellys Heros
SCI-FI: City Of Lost Children is always amusing
Man Vs Beast: Alien
I'm not saying my selections are definitively better - different strokes for different folks but for me these are far better.
Try reading the book where there is no atomic bomb.
Well I've wrestled with reality for thirty five years doctor, and I'm happy to say I finally won out over it.
My thoughts on the matter...
Judges are only supposed to rule on the evidence brought before them. If neither Paramount nor the Wellses introduced evidence that says TWOTW is in the public domain, then the judge is not supposed to consider that when rendering a decision.
In fact, it would be in the interest of neither party to assert in the case that the book has fallen out of copyright protection, because arguing that would indicate that (for Paramount) there can be no exclusive rights, so Paramount can no longer claim them, or (for the Wellses) future filmmakers do not need to pay the family for any rights for the book, because those rights have expired.
The case in question dealt only with the issue of how the contract should be interpreted.
If the book is entirely in the public domain, then a filmmaker should be able to produce a series based on the book without consulting either Paramount or the Wellses.
davidh
as in "overseas from Spielberg"
A good book can not always be shot page by page for a movie.
Indeed, and you'd probably be safe to say "never." The Hollywood rule of thumb is that one page of screenplay equals one minute of screen time. (Oddly, this rule holds regardless of whether it's for dialog, action, or description.) Add this to the fact that screenplays have far fewer words on a page than the average novel, and it's easy to see that all but the shortest novels are too long for page-by-page adaptation. With Lord of the Rings, we're talking about roughly 1,200 pages, and even if those were less-dense screenplay pages, that translates to 20 hours of screen time!
Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot
"Hines feels there will be room for both films to exist, as they will be drastically different in story and scope"
Normally this would be ok, but theses two movies have the same name. It's going to be very confusing at Blockbuster.
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
Why do I get the feeling that the one that is least like the orginal will be called "H. G. Well's War of the Worlds"?
Why is it that when a movie/book gets remade and changes a lot from the orginal, they prefix the author's name to it?
You know, in 50 years, Star Wars will probably get remade. I wonder how that will turn out.
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
I don't know. After "Steven Spielberg presents Taken", I don't know if I want anymore scifi from him.
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
The one where the director makes large changes to the story and characters, creating plot holes and needlesly destorying the way in which key characters work? The one where the director fucks up the editing and pacing so much that they have to delete an important encounter from the film for timing reasons? The one where the editor re-writes the story in a major way because he feels like it?
You jump to the conclusion that PJ made changes just because "he feels like it" because your have no understanding about the differences between a good novel and a good movie.
I will be eternally grateful that the movie LotR was not made by an individual or individuals of a mind at all like your own.
No, those are all excellent too. You're more of a 'classics' kinda guy. :)
:)
Das Boot is excellent. As is Alien. Hell, everything you listed is good.
You're officially "OK" in my book.
-Mark
Dovie'andi se tovya sagain.
When it was originally made as a movie it is conceivably possible that if someone had at that time filed for trademark status there might (and maybe not even then) be other issues but not now. Thus it is possible for anyone to make a new book, movie or TV show on the ideas and can use the name for it because nobody can own the name.
The lessons of history teach us - if they teach us anything - that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.
Maybe it's going to be part of the not-used parts of the film? The original cut was almost 5 hours, and they cut it down to just under three for the theatrical release.
No, it was 3 and a half hours long in the theater.
Secondly, there was no Scouring shot. The closest they came to that was in the first film when Frodo looked into the mirror of Galadriel. After hearing people complain the ending was too long anyway, I think having another fight scene that only involved 100 troops and took another half hour would have gone over like a lead balloon.
Personally, I was disappointed that Saruman wasn't in RotK, and I would rather see Samwise confront the Watchers than see Legolas take down an Oliphaunt singlehandedly, but there is no such thing as a perfect movie adaptation of a book. I recommend the movie Adaptation for those upset about the conversion from one form of art to another.
-Dead Lesbian Witches! Think about it!
Ditto. I have often wondered why, out of all the versions of WotW that are out there, we couldn't have one, just ONE period version even remotely like the novel. (Oh, and hopefully it would be a good film, too!) Thankfully, the answer appears to be: there's no reason why not, and here's the film you requested :)
The real Captain Avatar is a fictional character, so I suppose he doesn't mind if I impersonate him.
Read the article again.
Not really, since in Mars Attacks the aliens were hurt by yodeling. A live performance would've done them in just as well. In Zahn's story (more spoilers follow), radio waves actually cause the aliens pain and are capable of killing their children and destroying their "Elders," which are basically the spirits of dead aliens kept alive through the preservation of a special organ in the aliens' bodies. Because of this, the aliens did not develop radio communications of any kind, so when a human ship broadcasts a greeting, the aliens return fire.
The books required several big suspensions of disbelief, but I enjoyed them. The information above isn't revealed until the second book, which is written entirely from the aliens' point of view (unlike the first, which is written entirely from the humans' point of view).
You go on to give reasons why specific movies didn't get a sequel. But maybe that's just one of the ingredients of a good movie. It's not just a bunch of characters that you can resuse again and again in a number of adventures. It's a story with a definate end.
To attack Speilberg for having sequel hooks on the end is unfair.
As is widely known, HGW was a Fabian. As such he was very much concerned about how the rich and powerful oppress the ordinary worker. "The Time Machine" was an indictment of Victorian social class divisions, extrapolating class distinctions into the far future. "War of the Worlds" was a criticism of British Imperialism: note that humans in the book regarded the Martian's technology with as much fear and apprehension as 3rd world natives would have feared british artillery in the late 1800's. That was the whole POINT of the book. There is NO WAY that Spielberg would be able to capture this message. I have my doubts the Brit would be able to do it, but I can only hope.
It's been done. See "Mars Attacks". Great flick! Hideously and deliciously over the top!
So you think Peter Jackson will go against the Hollywood grain and not come out with a "LoTR 2: The Revenge" offering in a few years?
Global warming is neither science, nor politics. It is a religion.
Some futurists have already termed the 21st century as the century of mankinds "resource wars". Wars not only over oil, but over water, arable land that gets adequate rainfall and doesn't need expensive irrigation, strategic minerals, etc. 6 billion and counting hoo-manz, and not enough "stuff" to go around.
So what do we do? Simple! Devote the dwindling resources on the planet to develop masses of advanced weaponry so we can all fight each other over those resources so we can have weapons to go get more resources!
yossarian would have loved it....
Tarentino does a good job of 'inside the characters' in pulp fiction as does Scorsese in Taxi Driver. Then there's eraserhead which is nothing but insides also Texas chain saw massacre has lots of good innards but the best for innards is itchy and scratchi which would make a great full length film, especially if the characters are real cats and mice rather than animated. I can take or leave the mouse, but some splattered cat innards alwasy generate warm feelings.
"Yes, and it'll be shooting a walkie-talkie."
And Greebo will shoot first
Not quite accurate. It's quite common that two movies get greenlighted around the same time that have the same basic premise or story; 3 movies at once is extremely rare.
I have demonstrated in another post that it is in fact quite common. You deny it based on your elusive definitions of "basic premise or story". That doesn't make it any less true.
This started with someone pointing out a portion of what I too have observed: "movie makers are RE-making the same movie at the same time". I told him that not only had I noticed the two pairs of movies he mentioned, but that I saw that as part of a bigger pattern.
buy each year, there's a significant change that
Since you like to point out typos, reread that sentence. Feel free to reply to yourself with belittling comments about your own typing.
That sentence didn't inspire confidence in me the first time I read it, but it cracks me up now that you've claimed the typist's high road. Teeheehee!
It begins with studio A buying a script about, let's say, a giant asteroid smashing into the Earth. Let's assume studio B finds out the very same day that this script was bought, and decides (that day) to make its own giant asteroid movie.
- Studio A has a huge lead-time because the screenplay has already been written;
Studio A does not have any sizeable lead time because stubio B just buys an available script with the same basic premise or story or uses one they had already bought.
So if it wants to beat studio A's film to theaters
You assume they want to beat it to theatres. They could use that strategy, or make a lesser movie with a smaller budget and ride the wave of interrest generated by the previous movie's promotional efforts once its theatre presence has died down.
Studio B STILL has to hope that, even if they do cut those corners, they finish their movie first.
Not really, they only need to be close enough. Within one year, according to my observations. Sometimes, like with Armageddon/Deep Impact, they come out head to head (within 2 weeks for these 2, if memory serves), but usually there is a bigger gap.
On the flipside, if B deliberately takes longer so that it comes out with its movie months after A, it has to hope that its movie ends up being better than A's, because otherwise it will just look like an also-ran. This is not trivial.
It is trivial if all they hope for is a reasonable return on their investment. Who cares if they made an "also ran", they care for revenue and profit.
Paramount is not going to see Universal buy a script about a volcano exploding and rush its own into production.
Depends on the timeframe. I think they start at about the same time with about the same amount of preparation. There's plenty of scripts floating around. Finding one filled under action/catastrophe/natural/ that has a volcano in it is a matter of hours. The rest is business as usual.
If they both happen to have bought the same story around the same time, and then one announces that it's going into production, the other might then rush its own into production -- but they've already got the script, so it's a more even race (and since they've already spent the money on buying the script, they don't want to waste that investment. Nevermind that 95% of the scripts they buy, they never make, but when there's suddenly a competitor to a particular script they bought, it makes them macho).
Exactly.
They buy them, they sit on 'em. They are sitting there, just waiting for someone to find a reason to use them. Like, say, your rival is making one, and you want to one up them, or leech of their investments in promotion, etc.
That is part of the awnser to the question of "why is there a pattern of superficially similar movies repeating itself in subsequent fads".
I saw the pattern, read around this post, others saw the pattern as well. Its there to those who look. You can deny it all you want, but to quote an Italian that died five hundred years ago "and yet, it turns".
You can't take the sky from me...
Since both parties clearly had vested interests in the work not being in the public domain, I suspect they neglected to mention the date of original publication. The judge therefore drew his conclusion (which seems to me, BTW, perfectly valid) based on the evidence presented to him (as he is required to do, I believe) without considering the possibility of the work being public domain.
Anyone interested in the MP3 version of the 1938 broadcast can download it here (please be gentle on the server):
a rworld.mp3
http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/pub/multimedia/wave/mpeg/w
However, the life+70 rule was adopted by the UK in 1988 and made retrospective, which resulted in some works that had fallen out of copyright because the previous life+50 rule had expired, re-entering it.
So Wells' books are still in copyright in the UK, and have never left it. I wonder quite who Pendragon films got the rights from?
More likely "LoTR 2: The Wrath of Sauron".
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
It sounds crazy. What's to stop someone selling the "book rights" to a book. Does that mean it is never in the public domain?
"It will star Schwartzenegger [as] a Mossad agent"
Funny, he doesn't look Jewish.
You should check out Chopping Block by Lee A. Herold. I have a feeling you and Butch would get a long well;-)
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
No. he's going to do a PREQUEL. LoTR 0.
The whole movie in Sindarin and Quenya, subtitled.
I wonder if he will keep the names of key characters similar just to confuse everyone, or subtly rename them to Bob, Chris, John, etc.
Nouvelles de jeux et technologies en français. TC