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10 Best S/F Films That Never Existed
Jamie mentioned (via a Metafilter discussion) a great article entitled The 10 Best Sci-Fi Films that Never Existed. From the piece: "There was a movie that perfectly captured the Douglas Adams experience, the combination of bitter sarcasm and sharp imagination, the droll British wit and whale-exploding slapstick that infused his novels. And that movie was Shaun of the Dead. That movie was not, unfortunately, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a movie that floated around Hollywood for about 20 years before it finally appeared in theaters as a flat, lifeless, americanized lump that was mostly hated by people who liked the book and loathed by people who hated the book. "
At least Gibson's treatment for Neuromancer didn't get filmed. His script for Johnny Mnenomic did, and it was a complete and total atrocity.
(That said, his script for Alien 3 would probably have been better than the abortion that Fincher foisted off on us.)
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
...who has struggled for years to fund my various off-the-wall projects, like Best Served Cold I know how hard it is to do anything different.
:)
I've been working on the project that follows BSC for a year now. It's a cheesy B movie pisstake with zombies and alien bugs, and it'll be a scream. But can I get funding? No! My low budget productions are well made and funny as hell, but fundraising when you're deliberately making cheesy movies, or movies with gorgeous fat chicks, well, it's tough.
Anyone got $15,000 I can use?
I agree completely, the thing I did was not going in to the movie expecting everything to be exactly the same. I did bring a couple friends to see it with me, who had never read the books, they said they liked it after seeing it. A few days later they were telling me that they loved it after it had sunk in. Now they have my copy of the DVD and won't give it back.
Guess they weren't concerned with novels. Little things like Mote In God's Eye and Ringworld. Even Lucifer's Hammer blew away any of the meteor films that got made, although many stole from it. Science fiction novels done properly for cinema are virtually nonexistent. There are rare exceptions like 2001 but the script was by the writer of the novel and Directed by Kubrick of coarse.
Although I'm sure many only know the character of Conan from John Milius' big screen romp with steroid-giant Ahnold (or possibly from the even more wretched TV series or the comic books), no one has yet had the guts to film a real movie based on the original Robert E. Howard stories from the 1930's.
The real REH Conan wasn't the dumb as a board Ahnold, he was a multilingual leader of men, an accomplished horseman, a stealthy and dextrous thief, and many other things that neither Milius nor Ahnold understood (and still don't to this day). He was a product of the pulp era and the Great Depression. He was the toughest guy not because he was chained (for no apparent reason) to a wheel for his entire life, but because he had survived as only the fittest did in his environment.
Hollywood very rarely avoids the trap of going for the "easy story". Why create a complex character that is truly interesting when a one-dimensional revenge-fest is so much easier to explain to a suit? Why respect the original stories when just grabbing the trademark name to use for promotion takes less time? Why cast an actor who can actually act when a steroid-giant looks so cool on screen?
I've given up on any story or book adaptation ever coming close to the original and hence am no longer disappointed. And that way I enjoy the very rare occasions when they do actually get it right. But for every Maltese Falcon there are hundreds of I, Robots.
An imperfect plan executed violently is far superior to a perfect plan. -- George Patton
I remember reading somewhere that Stephenson's original plan for Snow Crash was a graphic adventure game. He had the outline worked out, but found out that the top "multimedia" platforms of the day (Atari ST, Amiga) weren't powerful enough for his ambition, so he turned it into a novel.
After reading that, I thought back to the end of the book and said to myself, "Ah, so that's why Hiro was carrying [spoiler] in his inventory!"
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His point was that Shaun of the Dead better captured the feel of Douglas Adams' sense of humor than the Hitchiker's movie: ironic, considering that he actually wrote the novel (and radio show, and TV show) upon which the film was based.
And I haven't seen Shaun yet (bad Sammy! bad!) but I have to say that I'm inclined to agree. The film adaptation of Hitchiker's was awful. About the only good thing to come of it was the music video created to endorse his presidency.
it was better then I expected when - taking into account the fact that it was backed by disney. note: I'm a die hard H2G2 fan.
Not that it was perfect, far from it. It was a pretty good effort IMHO, with some great moments. some of them (the knitting stop-animation scene, for example) were great, even though I doubt DNA scripted them in. It was a worthy effort. Much better then the TV series, for example (and even better then some of the books).
Granted, the missed some of the better jokes ("I wish I listened to what my mother told me.." for example), but all in all, it was a good film. the fact that it wasn't a great success says more about the american audience then the quality of the flick - take a look at Kiss kiss, bang bang, which I thought was a great flick, but it totaly Bombed in the box office.
And then there's all the weak sellouts of Philip K Dick's work
Actually, at least one good PKD adaptation has been done that I know of: Screamers, based on the story "Second Variety".
Granted, not one of his major works -- nor an awesome film -- but a credible one.
(Frankly, I think that A Scanner Darkly looks like it might actually be a good adaptation, despite Keanu starring in it. We'll see...)
...people fantasize about the fucking sequels they'd like to see... What about Ringworld? Neuromancer? As for comparisons to the Matrix, The Futurological Congress would stop that shit - that's a story that could out-Matrix the Matrix.
I spend most of my time in bed, darling.
I'll throw in another "me too". I've read the series multiple times (as well as Adams' other books), and heard the radio series. I went in to the theater not really expecting to like it, and enjoyed it quite a bit. I figured I may have set my expectations too low - thinking anything better than crap was good enough - but the next time I watched it, I enjoyed it as much as the first.
"Think you can take me? Go ahead on. It's your move." --Joe Don Baker in Final Justice
In all honesty, Ford was about the only good thing the movie had going for it. Mos Def did a fantastic job and gained more respect (from me) in one movie than any other actor since Jack Nicholsen in Batman. He just _felt_ right.
:]
Everything else was essentially repulsive. I'll stick with the books -- but now I'll always (happily) imagine Mos Def as Ford.
At least the movie was good for something...
Forget Doom...
Enders Game
Stranger in a Strangeland - purchased by Tom Hanks is the rumor
The Cat who could Walk Through Walls - Heinlin again
I have no mouth and I must Scream - Ellison
---In a time of Chimpanzees I was a Monkey.
It has already been made, and it's called Blade Runner. Gibson was working on Neuromancer when the film came out, and he came out of the theatre buzzing. It was exactly the world he envisioned for Neuromancer.
I don't know what book it was based on, but he is seen in the movie with a copy of Simulacra and Simulation, by Jean Baudrillard that closely relates to the concept of the movie. The book is well-known in postmodern philosophy circles. I haven't read it, but some of that French stuff gets pretty strange-- good, but strange.
Wishing for novels or computer games to be made into movies, or better movies, is to be ridiculously naive about the moviemaking process. The problem with, say, the DOOM movie is that it's a dumb concept so it doesn't attract good people. Good people are a necessary, but not sufficient, precondition for a halfway decent movie. You options are to pay lots of money to find someone obviously good (e.g. Ridley Scott) and try to get them interested in your movie, or try to pick someone you think will be good, and hope...
Why has StarCraft not been made into a movie? It's not so incredibly well-known that someone with $50,000,000 can be reasonably sure that folks will watch it despite it having a no-name director and no-name actors, and it isn't that interesting a concept. Aliens, only bigger. People in power armor. More aliens. Big deal. Any fool can come up with this concept, and many have.
And even if you have a great concept, there are other obstacles.
Why has Snowcrash not been made into a movie? Not because of any conspiracy, but because it's in creative purgatory somewhere. I guarantee you that (a) someone owns the movie rights, (b) that person has been trying to put the project together since the book was written (or he/she got the rights from the last person), and (c) the project has looked like it might happen at least ten times. The same thing happens to pretty much every halfway decent novel. "Forever War" -- for example -- has been optioned since it was published, and has had directors such as Ridley Scott interested in it, but there are only so many projects a top guy (like Paul Verhoeven, for example) can take on, and stuff gets left by the wayside. Meanwhile, do you want your brilliant SF movie directed by Ridley Scott in ten years or whoever's available today? Down one path lies a movie that never gets made; down the other lies DOOM: The Movie.
Look at the books that do get made into movies... They're either something that has grabbed the attention of someone with serious clout (e.g. Clint Eastwood or Oprah or whoever) or they're absolute no-brainers ("The Da Vinci Code").
Aside:
Hitchhiker's Guide was originally a radio play, so statements (from TFA) such as "since most of the comedy was in the narrative language and descriptions" are baloney. This reminds me of the director of "The Saint" (the version with Val Kilmer) who referred to having researched "the original TV series" (sorry, bud, it was originally a series of books).
I want to see an ExoSquad movie! One that picks up where the series left off. They wrapped up one arc pretty well, but the last episode still left you hanging. Man it would be awesome. Sure it was a cartoon, but if you actually watch the entire series, it's damn good.
"This thing does science so hard, you say, 'I've never seen that much science.'" -Sam
You know what would have worked, if Lucas wanted to do prequels, is, say, a movie dedicated towards the ancient history; say a movie about the first confrontations between the Jedi and the Sith. A second could deal with the rise of the Republic, and then one single movie to deal with Anakin becoming Darth Vader.
I think that would be way too much history to cover with only 3 movies. One of the things I liked about the OT was that it didn't try to tell the whole story of the rebellion, it focused on the adventures of a few key characters. The civil war served as a backdrop, with the story threads winding in and out of it. So you end up with a grand universe that allows for many interesting stories to be told in the EU in parallel with the OT events.
I agree with your description of the first 2 prequels. The problem I had with those movies, is that there was no sense of history (the OT had allusions to the republic, clone wars, etc), the universe seemed revolve around the main characters. That is what made them so shallow, Lucas tried to handhold the story of the creation of the empire entirely through a handful of characters. The thrid prequel had more of that sense of "a grand universe" that was in the OT.
I think Lucas decided to take his space opera and turn it into some sort of political parable. The problem is that Lucas isn't a very good writer, so loads of nonsense like midichlorians get loaded into the brew just so he can progress his almost-plot with as little effort as possible. He's so busy with his wannabe-political-philosophy nonsense that he forgets that a movie has to be interesting, whether it aspires to greater things or not.
If he was a good writer the prequels could have been very interesting. He does bring up several good points on the failure of democracy during crisis, liberty vs security, law vs morality, but ends up skimming over them. The prequels could have been filled with political intrigue, backstabbing, the grey of good vs evil. After watching the TV series "Rome" on HBO, I thought a similar story would have been great for the prequels. The underlying elements were similar (political disputes, assassination, self-interest, etc) just Star Wars didn't make it interesting.
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
(I slightly rewrote the scene for effect. Director's license...)
"The White House is not an intelligence-gathering agency," -- Scott McClellan, Whitehouse spokesman.
Here's a plot outline I did for the Prequels a few months ago, it would have kept the story that Lucas told in them but would have given a lot more depth to the characters. Plus Jar-Jar doesn't suck in my version.
Read Errant Story.
The way I figure it, Episode I was a total waste of time. It was dull, badly written, poorly acted and just generally no damned good. What Liam Neeson was doing in this movie I'll never understand, and the introduction of idiocies like midichlorians and Anakin-as-Jesus-virgin-birth crap was nonsensical, and would require the most bizarre explanation for Anakin's brother Owen in the next film.
Agreed. Episode I raped my childhood. I've already gone off about midichlorians. The idea of Anakin being a created being caused by Sith force-manipulation of one of Shmi Skywalker's ova is interesting, but was introduced clumsily in Episode I. This revelation might have been something for a later episode. Or maybe an aside in a single prequel movie.
I always come back to it, again and again: Episodes I, II and III would have made a bitchen single movie.
Another thing that rankled about Episode I was the blatant pandering to the juvenile audience. Jar Jar Binks was only the tip of the iceberg. Young Anakin as a boy genius was just intolerable and gag-producing. Episode I didn't have to be kidvid. "The Phantom Edit" proved that.
Episode II just didn't seem to know where to go. Did it want to be Obiwan's detective story? Did it want to be the love affair between Anakin and Padme? About Anakin's descent into the dark side? The Sith's bizarre machinations (including a Sith apprentice who tells Anakin that "oh yeah, the Sith control the Senate")? Or is it a political thriller? It wanted to go so many places in two hours that it ultimately went very little distance at all. One way to have patched things up would have been for Anakin to become Darth Vader at the end of that film, which would have made the next film much more interesting.
Again, if the prequels had just been one movie, a lot of this weirdness could have been just asides and flashbacks. Also the main weakness of the film was the actor chosen to play Anakin as an adult. Sorry, but Hayden Christiansen falls completely flat as a pancake. He reminds me of the deer-caught-in-the-headlights performance of John Travolta as "The Boy In The Plastic Bubble." He might have been good elsewhere, but he was a bad Anakin.
Everyone screamed when Leonardo DiCaprio was considered as Anakin. However, he had chops as an actor before "Titanic," (Go rent "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" and "The Basketball Diaries" sometime) and he definitely showed he had chops and could portray a character like Anakin in the movie "The Aviator." DiCaprio's Howard Hughes was a swashbuckling, rogueish guy who started coming apart at the seams. Anakin Skywalker always struck me as a swashbuckling roguish guy who came apart at the seams. DiCaprio is going to wind up like fellow ex-teen idol Johnny Depp...a really awesome character actor who can do anything he wants to. I don't know if his oevre will be as quirky as Johnny Depp, whose work I love.
Episode III. As close as we'll ever get in Lucas's post-1980s world to a good Star Wars film. Still clunky, but at least the Emperor comes off interesting (by now he's clearly the only character in the prequels that is really all that interesting). Still, way too much deux ex machina. Anakin still seems to sort of abruptly become Darth Vader rather than a slow descent into evil (which is why I think the more natural transition would have been at the end of Episode II). The whole "my apprentice is in trouble" which gets the Emperor on a ship to fly to Vader's aid was the worst example. The ending was idiotic, the Darth Vader suit sequence seeming anticlimactic, and the whole bit about Padme dying not only ridiculously maudlin but making the Epside VI statement by Leia that she could still remember her mother rather odd, considering Luke didn't.
Episode III would provide the backbone to a potential "Mega Phantom Edit." Every important element that moved the plot forward in Episodes I and II could be told in flashback around the framework of Episode III.
The whole relationship between Padme and A
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
the whole bit about Padme dying not only ridiculously maudlin but making the Epside VI statement by Leia that she could still remember her mother rather odd, considering Luke didn't.
Actually this is not quite as outlandish as it may appear. Leia was raised by people who knew her mother, and would have been able to relate an experience of Padme to her. You or I may not consider this to be a true memory, however I strongly suspect that you have installed memories from your early childhood that if you really thought about it, you can't logically explain how they exist. I know I do. Likewise the fact that Padme was well respected, and loved by those around her would have given the experience of related stories of her a stronger sense of realism than the naration of some history of her.
On the other hand neither Uncle Owen, nor Aunt Beru would have had any memory of Padme to relate, and for the most part they wanted to avoid discussing what became of Anikin, though they would have recalled several of his heroic episodes on Tatooine, as well as some of the more reprehensible events. It would have been better perhaps if Ben had been able to relate some of his mother's history to him as he grew up, so that there would be a bit of ballance to what family history he was taught, but Uncle Owen made the decision to try to keep the Jedi part of the family history out of the picture, which excluded Ben's ability to get involved.
Then again, what do I know. I honestly have not made a study of the subject.
-Rusty
You never know...
You see, that's the whole point -- it was wrong. The Jedi Order from the prequels was getting a little too big for its britches, a little too political, a little too technical. They were starting to abandon the mystical connection to the Force in favor of things that they could see and measure. As a result of this, they started to miss the whole point of this Force business, and the only way to rescue things and "bring balance" was to fucking kill them all, and start over from scratch.
At least, that's how I would have wrote it.
Another book I'd love to see on the big screen is "The Shadow of the Torturer" by Gene Wolfe. I think there was talk of this happening, but it fell through as do so many movie projects.
Oh and just about any Heinlein that has not already been made into a movie. "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", "Stranger in a Strange Land", and "The Number of the Beast" would top my list.
Soylent Green is peoplicious!
The Force, it turns out, is an inherited, genetic trait. If you don't have the blood, you don't get the Force. Which makes the Jedi not a democratic militia, but a royalist Swiss guard. And an arrogant royalist Swiss guard, at that. With one or two notable exceptions, the Jedi we meet in Star Wars are full of themselves. They ignore the counsel of others (often with terrible consequences), and seem honestly to believe that they are at the center of the universe. When the chief Jedi record-keeper is asked in "Attack of the Clones" about a planet she has never heard of, she replies that if it's not in the Jedi archives, it doesn't exist. (The planet in question does exist, again, with terrible consequences.)
Read it all...
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
Imagine a system where multiple authors could contribute to a WIP screenplay, with a group of project leaders at the helm. A movie studio could purchase the rights to a project, and the contributors would donate the proceeds to charities and foundations of their choosing, divided as desired. In exchange, those so devoted and committed would receive rights to approve and nix studio decisions on visualisations, casting, and staffing (i.e no Uwe Boll), in addition to being able to sleep soundly at night, knowing that the works which inspired them will be preserved in spirit.
During the authoring and editing process, discussions much like those which are held on this very page could help resolve disputes or vagaries in the adaptation. Slashcode is great this way. You visit your personalized SlashScript homepage and see all of the adaptations-in-progess that you are interested in, posted by discussion topic and franchise. Click. Read. Participate. If you are so inclined, become a project contributor. If not, add your two cents to a particular issue.
So read the comments in this discusion.
Realize the potential we have collectively to produce works which will encourage future generations to pursue interests in computer sciences, physics, and freaky flights of fantasy. Let Keanu Reeves never be cast as an intelligent character again. Let terrible directors be dismissed, and idiotic screenplays be tossed in the rubbish. Let there never be another "I, Robot", "Alien 3", "Doom", "Resident Evil", or what may turn out to be a very bad X-Men 3.
The incentive for studios? Classics like 2001. Reduced price on screenplays. Favorable press for charitable donations.
WHO'S WITH ME?!? (I've never shouted on /. before)
This would have required only minimal changes to the sequencing of things, and could have shown off off the fall of the Old Republic as an honest-to-goodness tragedy. Having the Sith successfully playing off two honestly well-intentioned sides against each other could have worked out excellently well.
What was also unfortunate is that little more than lip-service was paid to the various "failures of democracy." It seemed to me that when Dooku explained, in Kenobi's earshot, why he was collecting up forces to oppose what was going on in the parliament, he had some pretty legitimate reasons for concern.
Unfortunately, all we saw, after the various "things failing," was that people seized at power of one sort or another to respond to them. What perhaps wasn't clear enough was that seizure of power was, in every case, a mistake.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
I'd be the first to argue that Neuromancer is no great piece of literature, but, I feel the need to say a couple things:
* Sure, it's beginning is slow. But then again, think about it, most of the book really is. It's a langorous journey, not a mad rush. Yes, it has it's action sequences, but like the rest of Gibson's work (all that I can speak of that is.... I still haven't read pattern recognition), it's not the action that defines it. It is the almost dream like quality that his books have, while remaining rooted firmly in their reality that makes them some of my favorites to sit down and just enjoy. Gibson in my opinion has a wonderful ability to take a small topic and weave it into something wonderful, as he does in his short fiction. The movie Johnny Mnemnonic may be infamously bad (I can't, alas, testify), however, the short story is quite a piece of work. Read the New Rose Hotel. Yes, Gibson writes a bleak, dystopia of a future, but it feels bleak much in the way that a foggy beach, or broken neon is bleak. Bleak, but beautiful, and quite enjoyable to take in
* Compare that to Snow Crash, which, while enjoyable, has too much action (In a sense, as that point is arguable), and has a tendency to bend away into plain wierdness. I think that's why I enjoyed Cryptonomicon more, was because it felt more thought out, and showed the talent Stephenson has, rather than just his stylistic (and sometimes shallow feeling) views. I get the impression sometimes that Stephenson is a bit of a topical bulldog, and has a hard time letting go of an idea. Stephenson's writing, at least, in snow crash, comes off as almost a candy coated dystopian vision of the future, filled with neon, lazers and headphones.
So many other folks don't seem to get how the Jedi Order in the prequels was intentionally a bit crap. The "return" in ROTJ means Luke is restarting the Jedi, but it also means that the purity has returned, the Jedi are back to their ideal.
Note how neither Yoda nor Obi-Wan try to teach Jedi culture to Luke. No "council", no rules, no "padawan" or other ranks. If they hadn't the time while alive, they could still do it while blue and glowy - but no. I'd call that deliberate.
Anything by Zelazny, though probably 'Lord of Light' will be first.
/.ers have not mentioned either of these yet. Could it be that reading of books is a dying art and people do not KNOW any stories which are not already in film or computer game?
The Blish 'Cities in Flight' series.
I can't believe that
(and for the obligatory silly item - 'Send for Johnny Danger' by M E Patchett - the first SF book I ever read.)
PS That reminds me - T Pratchett's books should be withdrawn from American circulation, since they obviously don't appreciate them.
A modern version of "The Power," this time true to the novel by Frank M. Robinson. This book is so written to be turned into a movie that there was no good reason to dumb it down and remove all the cool philosophical and psychological bits from the book. Of course, in 1968 movies could not be that dark, but today it should be possible to turn this book into a kickass SF/mystery movie.
ANY book by Philip K. Dick, directed by Terry Gilliam.
Are people still worked up about this midi-chlorian shit? That's the part of the prequels that bothered me the least. I do at least understand why you're all pissed.
The problem is that the prequals were full of crap like this that could have been done in 1/4th the time and with heightened mood in the hands of a college-level competent filmmaker. We didn't really need to see Anakin tossing and turning in his bed for 30 seconds before Amidala comments that he's been having nightmares. We could have had a single line about mind-tricks not working on Toydarians, rather than the silly minute of dialog that just served to make everyone look incompetent. When Anakin gets his sword cut in half, he says "Man... Not again. Obi Wan is going to kill me." That line would have been twice as effective cut in half.
Half of the first two prequals could have been cut. Half. It was full of rambling exposition and clumsy dialog laborously filling in plot points that didn't need to be filled in. Mixed in with these were pod races, trips to the other sides of planets through water, and other useless scenes that should have been cut in concepting.
The midi-chlorian thing isn't even very original. Mitochondria are our little power generators. They are, in fact, separate organisms that reside within the cells of almost all living things, and do the bulk of the work of converting Glucose and ADP into ATP. They are symbionic: without them, life could not exist. Same thing with chloroplasts, which also happen to be green. The whole thing was long, unnecessary, and trite, which sums up the prequals pretty well.
The ______ Agenda
Julian May's excellent Milieu Saga (and the following Golden Torc series). Drama. War. Science. Action. Intrigue and mystery, and some humour. It would make a brilliant trilogy of movies imho.
Why not a movie adaption of H P Lovecraft & August Derleth's most excellent "Lurker at the threshold". I'd very dearly love to see this made into a movie.
Dave
Slashdot can go and get fucked.
But look at the works of hackers. Do we ever finish? How many projects on Sourceforge have actually reached 'Stable' status? How many of Google's toys aren't Beta? How many programs on your computer, that you rely on every day, have a version number looking like 0.99.997, just because of the hacker's fear of declaring something finished?
We never finish. We always keep the lid off the case, we tinker on the fly, we reconfigure at the drop of a hat to suit ourselves.
But Neal Stephenson has publishers. Publishers insist that sooner or later the book must end so that it can go to print. And so after a certain point, he begins looking for an opportunity to bail out, and leaves the story at the next exit.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
I actually did that, just for the hell of it. It wasn't 100 minutes, but 117 isn't too far off. As to whether it flattened anyone's balls, I couldn't really say - but I do know it's now the only way I can watch the sequels, because it made me realise just how awfully bloated and padded and pretentious they are.
The major changes:
All the 'Trinity's death' dream sequence (and references to it) removed.
Film now starts with Smith possessing Bane, then cuts to Neo jolting awake on the Neb as if that's what woke him.
Meeting of the captains shortened.
Arrival at Zion shortened.
The Kid excised almost completely (I accidentally left one shot of him in).
The rave deleted.
Neo's fight with Seraph removed.
The Oracle's conversation with Neo shortened.
Most of the meeting with the Merovingian taken out (including the 'virtual orgasm').
Chateau fight shortened.
Twins fight shortened.
Car chase shortened.
Fight between Morpheus and the Agent deleted.
The scene where the Machines destroy one of the ships re-edited to take out the 'WTF?' accident that kills the crew (now they just get blown up).
The Architect's bafflegab shortened.
Trinity/Agent fight shortened.
Trinity doesn't get shot while falling - Neo simply grabs her, so the scene of him taking out the bullet also goes.
The 'DUN!' ending of Reloaded re-edited using a shot from Revolutions so that the two films blend together.
The entire Mobil Avenue/Club Hel/Morpheus and Trinity meet the Oracle section deleted.
Neo's meeting with the Oracle shortened.
Smith's meeting with the Oracle, ditto.
The standoff between Neo and Bane as Trinity's held hostage removed.
The three stories at the climax are now intercut - Neo's flight to Machine City, the Hammer's Sewer Shark fight and the Battle of Zion now all take place at once.
Huge amount of cutting of the Battle of Zion - the only minor character who now gets any screentime is Mifune (Zee and all her pals are completely gone).
Major re-editing so that Mifune, not The Kid, opens the door.
Trinity's death scene cut by three frickin' minutes!
Super Burly Brawl shortened.
Meeting between the Oracle and the Architect cut - the film now ends with Neo's apotheosis cutting straight to sunrise over the Matrix.
All done using iMovie and iDVD! I know that some Matrix purists were enraged by the mere idea of cutting any of the existential dialogue when I posted about this elsewhere, but screw 'em - if you live your life according to the philosophy of a movie, you've got bigger problems than some guy doing his own edit of it.
You must think in Russian.
Zahn gives us
Perhaps we're better off that Heir to the Empire exists only as a book. Hollywood would only screw it up.
Zarn
You want unfilmable, try Vernor Vinge's A Deepness In The Sky.
Oooh, yeah. Good one. I was going to say, Ringworld by Larry Niven. I would LOVE to see that as a movie.
My vote is for Diaspora , by Greg Egan. Transhuman artificial intelligences discovering alien squids embedded within 16-dimensional Fourier transformed Turing machines, ending in a hyperdimensional universe 267904176383054 duality transformations away from our own.
I swear I am not making this up.
I still think A Fire Upon the Deep would be even more unfilmable. How could you possibly get across the scene where Jefri runs up to Steel and cuddles him?
Background if you haven't read the book: Jefri is a human child, orphaned and taken in by a tribe of Tines, which look sort of like a pile of puppies. Individually, they're about as smart, too, but when gathered into packs of four to six, communicating via short-range ultrasound, they become human-smart. Because it would badly confuse them to hear someone else's thoughts, they only come into close contact with each other for sex or fighting. Steel is the leader of the tribe that Jefri has fallen in with; he's a vicious dictator, but Jefri doesn't know that.
So, on the one hand, you have a cute kid hugging a pile of puppies, and on the other hand, you have the pile of puppies thinking that eww, this is like fucking a corpse. (Since he can't hear any ultrasound from Jefri, see.)
And you'd probably have to subtitle the Tines, anyway. And how can you film a character that has four to six different faces at once? I suppose you could turn the text-only Usenet into some sort of video chat, though that wouldn't be a very good solution. And hell, almost all of the real action takes place far, far offscreen and is incomprehensible to the main characters.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca