Upcoming Film Based On Arthur C. Clarke Story

SoyChemist writes "The Wired Science blog has production stills and a story about a side project that several Industrial Light and Magic employees have been working on. They are producing the short story Maelstrom II as an independent film. The entire thing was shot in front of a bluescreen, so all of the sets and props will be CGI. The lone actor, Chuck Marra, plays a guy that hitches a ride on an electromagnetically launched freight capsule from the moon to earth. When the nuclear reactor that powers the catapult fails, he is thrown into space, but not far enough to escape lunar gravity — leading to an Apollo 13 style rescue mission. The original story was written by Arthur C. Clarke, author of 2001: A Space Odyssey."

Comments

Rendezvous with Rama

[nacturation]

I'm still waiting for Rendezvous with Rama to come out. They used to have some info up at the domain name, which is registered by Revelations Entertainment and was supposed to be sponsored by Intel. If the IMDB page is accurate, this might be coming out in a few years... but it's been simmering for about a decade so who knows how accurate that is.

Re:Rendezvous with Rama

[Scarblac]

Rendezvous with Rama captured the weirdness of an alien species, and to my knowledge, Arthur C. Clarke is the only writer, next to Stanislaw Lem, who toys with the idea that actually communicating with aliens may not be possible.

That description reminds me of _Roadside Picnic_ by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky. Recommended reading.

Re:Great Quote for His Interview

[CRCulver]

I lost respect for Clarke when he began to attach his name to low-quality projects that were mainly written by another writer--such as the Rama sequels written by Gentry Lee which were full of puerile and un-Clarke-like sex scenes--and when he began milking the 2001 universe. I mean, 2010 was alright, but 2061 was fluff and 3001 was unspeakably awful and pointless (and, from the Amazon reviews, it looks like a lot of people agree).

Re:Great Quote for His Interview

[ashitaka]

I don't know why but my favorite Arthur C. Clarke novel would have to be Childhood's End.

Childhood's End would be good but unfortunately the "huge ships settle over all major cities on earth" imagery has been stolen by Independence Day. And yes, a highly-evolved race saying "religion is a common primitive response in dual-parent species" would not go down too well in modern America. (Maybe that wasn't in Childhood's End)

A more timely adaptation might be The Fountains of Paradise. Space Elevators, yes.

Re:Great Quote for His Interview

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I was also very disappointed in the Rama "sequels." You could definitely see that his hand was not involved with the writing. And what was with that Venus Prime series?

He is a very good author, for the stories he's written. He shouldn't be attaching his name to puerile, character-driven trashy space operas.

Re:Who?

[whyde]

Remember, any sufficiently advanced sarcasm is indistinguishable from offtopic.

I thought it was, "Any sufficiently advanced ignorance is indistinguishable from stupidity."

Other notable variations include:

Clarke's Third Law: prov. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Any sufficiently reliable magic is indistinguishable from technology.

Any sufficiently nice person is indistinguishable from someone who likes you.

Any sufficiently advanced communication technology is indistinguishable from random noise.
    --Richard Factor's Corrolary to Clarke's Third Law.

Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.
    --Vernon Schryver

Shermer's Last Law: prov. Any sufficiently advanced Extra-Terrestrial intelligence is indistinguishable from God.

Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
    --Gregory Benford's Corrolary to Clarke's Third Law.

(Go ahead, you know you want to swipe one of these as your signature. Admit it.)

Re:Great Quote for His Interview

[xtracto]

Personally I prefer Mr. Isaac Asimov, his Robot short stories (some of them in the I, Robot book), his Foundation Trilogy and other books are the ones that made me an avid reader. Oh, and he invented (coined?) the term "Robotics".

Oh and Asimov and Clarke used to play saying each that the other was a better Science Fiction writer.

Of course, I believe Mr. Clarke is more popular.