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New Asimov Movies Coming
bowman9991 writes "Two big budget Isaac Asimov novel adaptations are on the way. New Line founders Bob Shaye and Michael Lynne are developing Asimov's 1951 novel Foundation, the first in Asimov's classic space opera saga, which has the potential to be as epic as Lord of the Rings. At the same time, New Regency has recently announced they were adapting Asimov's time travel novel The End of Eternity. Despite having edited or written more than 500 books, it's surprising how little of Isaac Asimov's work has made it to the big screen. '"Isaac Asimov had writer's block once," fellow science fiction writer Harlan Ellison said, referring to Asimov's impressive output. "It was the worst ten minutes of his life."' Previous adaptations include the misguided Will Smith feature I, Robot, the lame Bicentennial Man with Robin Williams, and two B-grade adaptations of Nightfall."
This reader also notes that a remake of The Day of the Triffids is coming.
Sure, they could do the same thing that was done for Dune. Yep, the epic potential of a horrid screen adaption is there. I'd say the potential is high. Pity as Foundation series was classic science fiction at its best.
Something between the lines jumps out and bites your arm off. Soltan Gris / London
After 20+ years of reading science fiction, the foundation is still my favorite. I hope they do the book justice.
Oooh, Foundation - I'll be seeing that first run in theatres and buying the DVDs.
It was based on the earlier Eando Binder short story.
After RTFA I noticed that they are also in the process of making a new Dune movie! http://sffmedia.com/films/science-fiction-films/179-this-time-its-for-real-new-dune-movie-confirmed.html
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
Previous adaptations include the misguided Will Smith feature I, Robot, the lame Bicentennial Man with Robin Williams, and two B-grade adaptations of Nightfall
So why should we be looking forward to the inevitably crappy Hollywood version of Foundation? Bonus link: Maddox reviews the 'I, Robot' movie.
I came here for a good argument
If you're expecting anything better out of Hollywood then you're not paying attention.
How we know is more important than what we know.
And he was good there as well.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
They should have made a movie adaptation of Asimov's Chronology of Science and Discovery. THAT would be epic.
one would think watchmen was unfilmable, but apparently early previews say it is fantastic
one would have thought lord of the rings was unfilmable, and yet jackson made some of the best films ever made
as long as they do it right... for values of "doing it right" that are largely unquantifiable
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The jedis are going to feel this one
This will hopefully make some other kids read those books and i will have someone to talk about them except my brother who is like "remember when you read all those big books? they were scary".
captcha: benefit
As long as Will Smith isn't in any more of them. Between Independence Day, I Robot, and I am Legend I think he has saturated this market enough.
"Chance favors the prepared mind." ~Me
Well, anything could be an advance on the crappy version made in the early 60's (I mean SEAWATER?). My first thought was that it would be a a pile of turgid American crap, similar to the mess Hollywood made of "The Italian Job", but I see from the link that the BBC is going to do the job instead. Having seen THEIR ballsup with "Survivors", I'm now fearing a similar politically correct disaster with "Triffids".
Survivors (1975) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivors
Survivors (2008) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivors_(2008_TV_series)
Look, I love Foundation more than anyone should love a work of fiction, and there are lots of people like me out there. That doesn't mean this is a good idea.
Foundation strikes me as one of the least "filmy" books - because it's really a bunch of short stories, each crisis a little puzzle. I fell in love with the books because they were essentially mystery stories wrapped around a gooey scifi center.
This is like trying to adapt three or four Sherlock Holmes short stories at once, all on top of Hollywood's hatred of smart science fiction. I predict PAIN.
Forgot to mention that Pitch Black was loosely based on Nightfall -- unless it's included in one of the "B-grade adaptations," which I doubt.
...you do realise that The Day of the Triffids was written by John Wyndham, not Isaac Asimov?
The moon is a harsh mistress. Only memorable book I read of his. Ok maybe I remember a few things from foundation but barely.
I saw it around that time, and it was great, not much on special effects but excellent in creating the atmosphere of Eternity. Other people want blinky lights and fiery explosions everywhere, but I'd say this movie is similar to "Stalker".
Read here
The links there say "AVI,DVD" and "HD,BlueRay" but they do not lead to direct downloads, and there seems to be no digital copy to download, only traces of it... but I haven't looked too hard.
I thought it was a good reflection of being human. I have never read an of Isaac Asimov books though so Im sure it doesnt live up to the book, but i thought it was still a good film on its own.
It was based on the earlier Eando Binder short story.
After reading the brief description I, Robot (short story) it sounds more like they pureed both novels and took only the dregs.
The Goal: A long simple life filled with many complex toys.
Novels rarely make good movies, mostly because they are simply too long and involved.
The good movies that come from novels are (almost always) films where the director has told a different story with the characters/setting of the novel. This is why we use the word "adaption" when talking about novel -> film.
Lord of the Rings is a classic example. It's (thank god) not the novels. Master and Commander is another excellent adaption, again, it's not any one of the 20 novels, but rather an independent story within that "universe". Blade Runner is another good adaption -- yet again the story being told is not the novel.
If there was a report saying an Asimov short story was being developed, I'd whoop for joy.
But color me skeptical that either of these will be anything other than I, Robot all over again.
A lot of people think "Fantastic Voyage" was an Asimov story that got made into a movie, but it was the other way around. Asimov was hired to do the novelization of the movie. Asimov wrote fast enough that the novelization was published quite a bit before the movie was released. Furthermore, as a condition of taking the job, he insisted that he be allowed to diverge from the script to fix plot holes. So, when the movie came out long after the book, and had plot holes and science errors that were not in the book, people assumed the book came first, and Hollywood botched adapting it!
Informative? Really, /.?
I'll give the mods the benefit of the doubt, and just assume they all refused to watch the movie.
Yes.
And surely Harlan Ellison would know that it was Robert Silverberg he was quoting about writer's block instead of Asimov, since he was good friends with both. One suspects the submitter either mis-remembers or is repeating a joke that he didn't fully understand.
Having read the books wfirst when I was young, and then again when I was in University I just can't wrap my head around it being possible to show it _all_ good enough in 1 film. A series of films or better yet, several SEASONS of tv shows might be a better idea. Unlike some other epics, this one just can't be compressed.
Take Wheel of Time for example; if you cut out all the 'braid pulling', Aes Sedai scheming, and repetitive explanations of how wonderful 'The Power' is, but you better not take in too much. I think they could cut it down to 1.5 hrs or 500 pages.
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
Speak for yourself. It was a fun, touching story and well done by Williams and company.
Indeed. It was obvious 5 minutes into the movie that the screenwriters had not actually read I, Robot.
Changa hates change.
religious bigotry is akin to a bad film adaptation of a good book
you win the allegory of the month award
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Yet more treasured literature crushed beneath Will Smith's boots.
Oh boy, post the you don't like the LOTR movies, and see one LOTR fan calls your son mongoloid and the other calls you a fucking retard - all within a few minutes.
I guess this sort of answers my question, doesn't it?
After reading your comment, I will just not write what I wanted to. You did that for me.
To make Foundation a movie you need either an entire cast change halfway through or a two part movie.
Not going to spoil one of the best novels I've ever read as to why..
celluloid is the last refuge of the incompetent
It will be interesting to see whether or not they will be able to pull off 'Foundation'; My money would have been on a story like 'The Stars Like Dust' seeing the big-screen before one of the more epic storylines. Nevertheless, we could all (well, slashdotters anyway) use a good space-opera, and I'll put all of my enthusiasm behind the project. I'll even make a 'Seldon for President' shirt...
You mentioned I, Robot and I am Legend. I'll add Wanted, which was based on a comic book looking at how humans behave if they are not bound by the rules of society; instead of the evil, egocentric, violent people shown in the comic book, the movie depicted a bunch of do-gooders trying to save the world.
Any others?
you could go to a sports convention and say football is insipid
you could go to a chess club and call chess stupid
but you will go to slashdot, and call lotr boring
so whether you are a troll or a retard, you are most certainly a masochist
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I'm not sure how I feel about a Foundation movie/s. Perhaps it could be done but I think the epicness of the books might be hard to match though. However, if ever there was an Asimov novel that I thought would make a good movie, it's End of Eternity. Incredibly awesome plot, while still small scale enough to easily make a good movie. In any event, I highly recommend the book to anyone who hasn't seen it.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
I actually believed that the ideads not from 'I, Robot' were from The Humanoids, by Jack Williamson.
Spoilers below:
The plot in which humanoid robots are welcomed into society only to later enslave humanity, in order to protect it, comes right from the novel. Additionally, so does the idea of going to the supercomputer at the center of it all to shut it down.
What you say seems to have some merit as well. I would think that the movie takes ideas from many sources rather than just one, or even two.
Insert self-referential sig here.
...would gladly welcome some Rendezvous-with-Rama--The-Movie-producing alien overlords. 3D IMAX, anyone? Just like Morgan Freeman promised, but never delivered. Of course, that car crash might have put him out of this game for good, but there is still a chance that I will live to see another adaptation (i.e., made by somebody else]. It always seemed to me as a more compact story, and there is an opportunity to shoot some marvellous ramascapes.
Concerning Foundation, well...that would be a huge task. Too epic. "Just effects" won't cut it. I'm afraid I do no trust film producers enough to believe that they won't screw it completely.
Ezekiel 23:20
But Foundation isn't a novel in the ordinary sense: it's a collection of short stories. There are some novellas in the later books, and only the post-Golden-Age ones are actual novels. It's also very talky and lacks most of the space action an unfamiliar viewer/reader might expect.
Also, the original premise (which is later retconned) is nonsense. Predicting future society by analyzing human behavior is impossible because that won't let you predict technological breakthroughs, which drastically change society.
And when we do learn the Second Foundation is manipulating things, the story tries to present them as the good guys. Good guys who shape the future of the galaxy using mind control? No thanks.
Asimov had many fantastic ideas, but was a fairly poor author.
"Why do film makers always do such a bad job with sci-fi classics? Is it just blatant commercialism? Is it that modernisation of a classic story is inappropriate? Or is it something more fundamental - do film makers simply not understand science fiction?"
It could also be economics. Just how much money do you think it would take to do Ringworld on the same scale as it exists in most peoples heads when they read science fiction? Grand usually takes a "grand".
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
Robot novels, anyone?
Strange things are afoot at the Circle-K.
The Foundation is impossible to get to big screen. It's too smart for that.
To just adapt something you have to set aside your ego and admit to yourself that the original writer was a better story crafter than you.
PS. a movie or miniseries could never do justice to the foundation series, perhaps a cartoon series with the length of Legend of the Galactic Heroes.
If they insist on dipping into the Asimov bank of stories, they can't take the Foundation series all the way to the end without some background story about Baileyworld and R.Daneel, unless they cut vast swathes of content from the storyline.
Pro Coffee Drinker
After RTFA I noticed that they are also in the process of making a new Dune movie! http://sffmedia.com/films/science-fiction-films/179-this-time-its-for-real-new-dune-movie-confirmed.html
Interesting article! The porno business must be booming if they can afford Will Smith to star in Handcock! And the original director too!
Silicon & Charybdis McLuhan Kildall Papert Kay
As long as Will Smith isn't in any more of them. Between Independence Day, I Robot, and I am Legend I think he has saturated this market enough.
What, you mean I'm the only one who wants to see Will Smith as the Silver Surfer??? Damn, I feel so burned now...
How can you say Bicentennial Man was lame? It's one of the most lovely adaptations of a novel I've seen to date. Tasteful, insightful, graceful, and more -fuls, all of them good . Maybe you are american and cannot see a movie unless there are car chases, explosions and sex in it (oh, and terrorists, lots of terrorists). As for I, Robot I agree; I'd rather listen to three hours of elevator music than suffer that crap.
...since the novel is placed far in the future. I still have the impression the characters in the book were dressed weirdly
I really can't help but imagine everyone at Terminus dressed in some weird greek togas.
Apparently the producers said something like that it was a great book, with a brilliant story, yada yada yada, but could he tone down the DEATH angle a bit?
Eclectic beats from Leeds, UK
handmadehands.co.uk
115 replies and—as expected—already there's a half-dozen condemnations of Will Smith's I, Robot with only one positive and one mixed to balance them out. Let me tell you that the naysayers are very wrong.
The movie surprised me with how faithful it was to the dozens of Asimov robot stories. Let me repeat: Asimov's themes fill the movie from start to finish. The movie's plot is entirely based on Asimov's four (yes, four) Laws of Robotics. I wonder if those who condemn the movie have actually read any or all of the stories, as I have, multiple times. Otherwise, I don't see how they could have missed (as I posted to Usenet a few years back):
Yes, yes, I know Asimov disliked violence-filled "robots run rampant" stories and wrote his robot stories in part as counterpoints to such. But given the strictures of a Hollywood big-budget action movie (and don't expect a science fiction movie to be otherwise), I, Robot is pure Asimov.
Don't read the book, it'll ruin it. LOTR was a lot of book with several long and tedious stretches, but when they cut the exciting conclusion from the story it rather sucked. I can't even watch my copy of ROTK. I just wanna smack some kiwi ass down the road. Bastards.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
Dude, I grew up with Asimov. He wrote Science Fiction. Well, actually, he wrote a lot of stuff - both fiction and non-fiction. But, his science related fiction was NOT space opera. That is an entirely new phenomenon, which probably had it's beginning with "Lost in Space", then "Star Trek". There is no resemblance between the Foundation trilogy, and space opera, other than the fact that both give tribute to the vastness of space.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Hopefully, they will consider remaking "I, Robot", and use Harlan Ellison's script...as that one with Will Smith was shit; and I think Asimov is still rolling around in his grave because of it!
Michael
http://s1.sfgame.us/index.php?rec=58163
...he didn't pay much attention to standard values of novels; things like, say, human emotions, fast action, sex, or even much real suspense - the plot is usually "logical" and the real thrill of the reader is being taught the fine details that connect Point A to Point B. A lecturer-style, if you wish. In other literary aspects, like narrative structure and command of the English language, Asimov seems quite strong (I'm a non-native English speaker, having read most of his works translated, but as an adult [and professional bilingual writer] I've read a few originals - e.g. Gold - and liked it truly.) Many readers actually love that style in the genre of hard-SF. No literary decorations, no convoluted characters... just the fundamentals: GREAT ideas envolving future technology and its iteraction with society, and a competent and serious development of these ideas. Salvo exceptions like the Lucky Starr space-cowboy series; and even those books were much above the level of "entertainment sci-fi" like Flash Gordon.
Actually, the extended DVD of the first movie is easier to watch and makes sense better than the theatrical release. Adding thirty minutes makes it go faster.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
Hollywood does one thing well. They reduce anything, and everything, to the lowest common denominator, so that it appeals to Joe Sixpack, as well as his retarded uncle, his criminally insane cousin, and the inbred kids. EVERYONE loves Hollywood. I suppose that the works of super-genius world class scientists like Asimov and Clark can be reduced to the lowest common denominator - but don't ask me to believe that nothing is lost in the process. Has everyone forgotten that part of the core story of 2001: A space odyssey was simply LOST when it went to Hollywood? Oh well. Those who can't understand the stories can make do with the movies. I toss meat scraps to the dogs, why not to the public?
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
The Will Smith movies was a disgrace to Asimov's legacy with, as one of the worse cinema whoring of all times, them actually making Dr. Calving fuckeable.
She was anything but cute in the books.
The Skylark of Space was serialized in 1928. Buck Rogers also makes his first appearance in Amazing Stories in 1928, and on the comic pages in 1929. Alex Raymund's Flash Gordon arrives in 1934. Buck Rogers had a fifteen year run on radio, beginning in 1932. When Worlds Collide is published in 1933. The genre has an immediate, cinematic, appeal and has defined Sci-Fi in pop culture for eighty years.
It wasn't even an Asimov story. They used the title and added the Three Laws, but it was NEVER based on Asimov's stories.
The title wasn't even Asimov's...it was a short story by brothers Earl and Otto Binder in 1939, which was twice made into Outer Limits episodes, and the movie owes more to that story than Asimov.
Bicentennial Man was also far from a lame movie.
As for the trashing of Jackson, some people just have to get over the fact that MOVIES ARE NOT BOOKS, and BOOKS ARE NOT MOVIES. They shall never be the same. Jackson did a masterful job with the material and adapting it to the screen. Yes, he made changes, in order to make a MOVIE. He couldn't include everything - they were long enough as it was. His "additions" that Tolkienists get their orcs in a bunch about helped fill in the passive parts of the story without resorting to the lame attempts Lynch used (or much worse, the interminable narration of the Lynch-disowned "extended" version).
The books and the movies are NOT the same. But they CAN be both good in their own right. Some people can't allow that though.
rm
Sci-Fi Storm
Hey.. Ugly, yet brilliant, chicks are fuckable.
Only not really that easy on the eyes.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
All this time I thought it was based on commercials for Converse and Audi.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
The Mule is the only roadblock in their path - and the Mule is sick and sterile. You don't have to defeat him, you only have to survive him.
The only players who matter in this game are invisible, sitting by their chess boards on Trantor.
To me, that is deeply unsatisfying.
No a 16 year old acts much as yourself (a supreme belief that only HIS view matters, and anyone else is an idiot).
I don't mind that you disagree with me, because not everybody has the same perspective, but I do mind being insulted as a person half my age. If you truly are an adult, then you should leave the insults in the playground.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
I doubt a Foundation movie would be a success...
I think doing Clive Barkers Books of blood would be a bloody perfect movie/set of movies... thinking of the one story where the two villages people bind themselves together to become living behemoths that battle each other!
Wouldn't mind seeing some of Harlan Ellisons stuff either, but that would probably be too 'weird' for Hollywood...(From A to Z in the Chocolate Alphabet coming to mind) 8-)
soylentnews.org Go there to enjoy the people!
It would be hard to think of a movie more crammed with special effects than 2001. It would also be hard to imagine a movie looking more like a drug induced hallucination at the end. So much for understanding. 2001 is chillingly cold and remote, an intellectual exercise for the geek. Rather like the Foundation Trilogy in that respect.
I would defend iRobot on the grounds that the central premises - that a sufficiently advanced robot or AI would eventually think its way around the three laws to justify harming individual humans for the greater good of humanity (the short "That thou art mindful of him" and the "zeroth law" from the later "Robots" books) and/or a supercomputer taking control of the world ("The life and times of Multivac") do indeed come from Asimov's books.
I can almost rationalize away making Susan Calvin a love interest - given that, although Asimov's early books were sex free, later installments have (e.g.) Elijah Bailey getting his end away with the chick from "The Naked Sun".
I would... however, nothing can excuse the shameless product placement for overpriced trainers, so a pox on the whole movie!
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
Did you read the book?
It's not that she was ugly, she was old.
Like, great-grandma old.
Technoli
In the main thread she was old, but the book covered most her whole life.
Look, I appreciate your article. I appreciate your comments.
But I do NOT appreciate the big steenking flashy garish loud Rackspace ad in your message. (Or did the Slashdot boys put that in there by default? I'm trying out the Chrome browser and can't turn that crap off like in Firefox.)
Fantastic Voyage was also an Isaac Asimov novel ... in fact, the first one I read. However, it may have been a novelization of a movie, as opposed to a movie adaptation of a novel.
PFD Studio
pfdstudio.com
Was forcing the three laws in. The story had absolutely nothing to do with the book, which was a psuedobiographical series of short stories about Dr. Calvin.
So? It was a movie based on robots, and the Three Laws of Robotics as logically extended (the Zeroth is derivable from the First). Granted that it moved over to Williamson's Humanoids territory, but that was always a possibility, and nobody really knows what was at the end of R. Daneel's odyssey. There were clues to the nature of the problem, and Susan Calvin, while more attractive than the one in the book, was really not all that good-looking by Hollywood standards.
Overall, I enjoyed it, and thought it was aptly named.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Those two views might be alternative perceptions of the same thing. It's only puritans who put a negative slant on what is essentially just vive la difference.
There. I said it.
The characters are boring, the plot is boring, and Asimov's dialogue is juvenile at BEST.
Asimov is incredibly overrated. And the "Foundation" series is the most overrates sci-fi series there is. It's just terrible.
If the film Nightfalls were based on the story, they couldn't help but be lame. The author had a strong premise (religeon destroying civilization) and he undercut it near the end, refusing let the blame stay where it belonged. Cowardly, I suspect.
Arthur Clarke had a similar idea (The Star) but developed it in a completely different manner, not really conducive to film. Read it to learn the true meaning of Christmas.
Fredric Brown had the best treatment of the idea (Answer) and carried it through in a single page. Astonishingly, this could be successfully developed into a good movie.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Humans as species are known to have occasionally fucked a farm animal or two.
So, based on that, I don't see how can a healthy, adult human female be unfuckable.
Heck... humans are even well known to fuck inanimate plastic objects.
As for the act of fucking being esthetically pleasing - that is something completely different.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
PKDick got a lot of adaptations in movies, maybe he is more "visual" than Asimov in his writting or his concepts more extreme.
But with a bit of luck, more and more Asimov books and tales end adapted by hollywood. Cant wait to see The Feeling of Power and The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline as movies. Cant be worse than most produced now.
How will the be able to portray R. Daneel Oliwav and R. Giskard Reventlov and their brain wave mind bending of humans without it looking corny on screen BUT as amazing as it is written?
How will they portray the mule without it looking like a bad version of Alien?
How are they going to be able to flesh out the vast amount of social undertones that are perfused in all the books? Recently I have though "This is becoming like Trantor" when I see infrastructure "collapsing" around me in this real world we live in.
Heck 99% of the conflicts as I recall them are on the mental plane... from the start to mycogen and beyond.
They better be some spectacular screen writer adaptors to even scratch the surface.
I've tried that.
But every time I came close to a playground carrying a pickax and a shovel and started digging the hole kids would start complaining to their guardians and I was asked to leave or they would call the police.
Its not a belief - its a proven fact. Like... with graphs, pie-charts and all.
As for "only mine" perspective... Check the imdb.
Most of the "OMG I LOVE THIS MOVEI!!one11eleven" votes came from "Males under 18", and grades go down after that age.
Add to that the "LOTR is boooring... not enough sex and killing, not at all like the movie" comment I've heard mostly from humanoids born in the '90s, and obvious (probably TV-induced) lack of imagination ("I don't know how it can be adapted to a movie") - I'm afraid that at least as far as movie and book tastes are considered you are underage.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I've run the psycohistoric calculations, and have concluded that the reaction to these movies will be that humanity splits into two space-faring factions which will eventually succumb to social entropy. Fortunately, we are influencing things in such a way as to promote its recovery in as short a time as possible.
"Foundation" would be a joke today. "We can predict the future. With math. In detail. By hand!" People are less impressed with mathematical prediction now; enough of it has been done to make it clear what's possible and what isn't.
Wall Street has had sizable efforts in that direction. You can at best do a little bit better than noise, some of the time. Which was enough to create hedge fund billionaires.
making in 33 years ahead of its time...
http://www.imdb.com/find?s=all&q=2001
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
I loved Bicentennial man - hardly a lame movie IMHO.
I loved Asimov's Foundation series. Actually, the "Foundation Universe" encompasses much more than the Foundation novels. But, as critics say, it more or less a vision of the United States of the Galaxy.
Tkae the asimov stories : remove the 3 laws and they completely fall apart. The 3 law are the condition sine qua non, the fundament of the stories. Take I, robot, the 3 laws are not essential, and actually are just an add-on, a flavor. Which is why it is a treason of Asimov writing and story.
First Speaker!
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Bored of the rings
Now there is a great idea for a movie adaptation. Hell, National Lampoon wouldn't even have to buy the rights - they already own it.
I can almost rationalize away making Susan Calvin a love interest
Having not seen the movie, I can say I probably wouldn't mind. Even when Asimov did sex, it was pretty dry -- he didn't write characters well at all, he wrote ideas. My favorite book of his was Bicentennial Man, which was co-authored with someone who knew emotion.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Nope, I see where you're going with that, but it was indeed based on Asimov's book. He's listed as one of the writers and the movie even has a key Asimov character, Susan Calvin.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0343818/
What ever happened to Rama's movie adaptation with Morgan Freeman? Googling it shows several accounts that it won't happen.
That would have been a good one for a movie, and even a series of movies based on the series of books.
Remember the "Foundation" books at all? Each one was actually a pair of stories, characters almost never carried from one story to the next, and while there is a lot of continuity to the story, there's very little continuity to the people. Centuries pass between one story and the next. Why do you think the movie of "I, Robot" bore so little resemblance to the book with the same name? "I, Robot" the novel was actually a collection of short stories which had no characters, let alone settings, in common.
Combine that with the fact that, while Asimov was undoubtedly one of the best idea men in science fiction, he was a lousy character writer. He enjoyed writing non-fiction more than fiction, on the whole. Worse yet for Hollywood, Asimov hardly ever wrote any kind of action into his stories -- the tension was almost always intellectual, which makes for bad movies.
Asimov's writing is being made into movies left and right for two simple reasons: his name is bankable, and he's dead and unable to interfere with the scriptwriting process.
But in this sci-fi fan's opinion, while Asimov's ideas were great, his storywriting itself was lacking. (I'm reading a collection of Arthur C. Clarke's short stories, and without fail I'm enjoying his better than I ever did Asimov's.) Any Asimov stories that make it to the screen will have to be rewritten at least as extensively as "I, Robot," which nearly defeats the point.
Asimov's ideas have become the foundation (pun not intended) of almost everything that science fiction is today. Almost anytime you see or read about a robot or android that's not trying to pull a Skynet on humanity, it's derived from Asimov's three laws. Even Terry Pratchett's golems owe part of their inspiration to Asimov. Let him live forever that way, not as the basis for a series of bad Hollywood flicks.
I'll give Tolkien credit for creating a great cure for insomnia.
Funny, the first time I got hold of The Hobbit and LOTR, I read them all in a (long) weekend.
FWIW, I think Asimov's Foundation series took me quite a bit longer, but then I read those in about grade 5.
In fact, my favorite all-time review is one for this movie, which also references the despicable 1988 version (and no, it was *not* written by me):
So please, for the love of good literature, leave Asimov alone. Most of his good works cannot be properly adapted to the screen.
Similar to the upcoming US election results
make for horrible movies.
Big budget movies, anyways.
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is "Total Recall 2070"
I don't know why the series carried that name, but it was an excellent robot / human detective stories.
I recommend you rent it or check it out from the library.
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I think the thing that pleases me most is the fact that the Foundation books were largely about the idea that while religion and irrationality tend to mess up a society, science always kinda works. If they manage to convey this idea in the movies, it could be a great message for our culture at this time.
Most of the "OMG I LOVE THIS MOVEI!!one11eleven" votes came from "Males under 18", and grades go down after that age.
It is a representative sample of those that go to the website IMDB.com, have created an account, watched the movie in question and bothered to leave a review (assuming no one lied about their age when creating their accout, or rated a movie they never bothered to see). Taking that limited and obviously non-representative population and extrapolating it to the population at large is ludicrous in the extreme.
Drawing conclusions from small samples and then extrapolating that to a population that they poorly represent is not a "Fact". Nor does it give you license to insult those that disagree with you. Even if it were a represenatative sample, no ones opinion is wrong. It could be the minority opinion, but it doesn't necessarily make it invalid.
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
His bad taste does exactly that. And more.
Not only am I granted an open license to taunt, ridicule, insult and in some case physically hurt such people - it is my duty.
Oh.. I'm sorry... You thought I was giving "reasons" for my "claim".
Hell NO!
I was simply giving examples.
Anyone with half a brain knows what a colossal piece of monkey turd "I, Robot" was.
Anyone claiming watching that movie 3 times clearly falls under the above mentioned category of people with bad taste and should be dealt with accordingly. And lacks the proverbial half of brain.
They probably also indulge a habit of sexual intercourse with poultry, but I can't say if it is so in all cases.
And as long as they take the chicken out to dinner before the act, and there is mutual consent - who am I to stand in the way of their love?
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Foundation just doesn't seem ripe for Motion-Picture fodder without changing the story beyond recognition. The first book is just a loosley connected book of short stories, without a single protagonist to tie them together. I'll bet we'll see something like I, Robot, where they shoot a different movie and just title it "Foundation"
I'll see you Slippery Jim and raise with Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers Now that's an epic story Hollywood could sink it's teeth into. Aliens, conspiracy, Terra uber alles and plenty of sex and violence.
...Or the extended DVD of the third film, but they sort of blew it when Grima didn't go flying after the palintir, (and then HE kills Saruman? WTF). The book was not written from the human point of view. Without the original POV, very little plot is left to develop, hence the fluff that everyone else seems offended by. I haven't had to condense any novels into screenplays myself, but somehow the main plot point needs support. Three times was kind of the rule of thumb that comes to mind. I have done some film work, BTW. The essential plot point of LOTR was the protagonists having to reach deeper within themselves to find resources and strength that they didn't know they had, in order to succeed. Boromir fails, kid brother Faramir comes through. Saruman fails, junior wizard Gandalf defies the laws of physics and triumphs. Isildur fails, Aragorn gets to stage a big comeback. The Hobbits were the most humble and peace-loving of all, there is no warrior pride or arrogance, but they stood up when the time came, even Smeagol has his moments. The final section, where the Brandybuck and the Took answer their heritage and raise up the folks at home, WAS the whole point being developed. If you want to see superior might steamroll over groveling malefactors, look for Chuck Norris. It has been said that LOTR was an allegory for a "Nation of Gardeners and Shopkeepers" rising up to stand against Hitler. (By Godwin!)
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
Old school Sci-fi wasn't written as an "action packed adrenaline rush" it was written to explore the nature of humanity by introducing as-yet untested variables. (like the social implications of space-travel, etc)
It doesn't translate well. Somebody pointed out I, Robot, but I think that Heinlein's "Starship Troopers" is a better example. The book had nothing to do with nukeing bugs and everything to do with citizenship and the fascist tendencies of wartime.
They bought the title. IIRC there wasn't an awful lot of story in the book that would attract the unwashed.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
When you get right down to it, the reason Asimov's work doesn't adapt well is because not enough stuff goes BOOM!
Asimov's stories function more like a small stage play than they do big, epic, violent lightshows. They generally don't encompass more than a handful of lead characters. They always revolve around someone just sorting something out.
For as big as the entire Foundation + Empire story is from beginning to end, the stories always stay small within the scope of the characters.
Even when you read Forward the Foundation -- a story just begging to explode into bigness -- you really never see more than two characters do much more than talk out a few issues.
That's fine for a series of novels and short story collections. It would be disastrously boring for a two or three hour feature film.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
Fire in particular has enough big explodey things (Rebirth of the Blight and destruction of the frigate, attacks on the High Beyond, destruction of Relay & Sjandra Kei, battle at Harmonious Repose, final battle with the Blight fleet, and Countermeasure's vengeance, along with several fights on the Tine's World) to sate the stupid masses while the rest of us sit back and watch Vinge's fantastic opera play out.
Deepness I'm a bit more hesitant about... So many of the great things about that book, especially what it has to say about governance, would just be too subtle. The masses would entirely miss the point while 40 years of quiet interplay passed before Pham takes action...
Though I have no evidence to back this up, I think if Asimov had WANTED Hollywood to botch up his stories, he would have encouraged it when he was alive. Instead they wait until he's safely dead and buried.
I'd love to change the world but I can't find the source code.
Anyone remember Millennium (1989) based on the excellent story "Air Raid"? Great story. Great SF concept. Great actress (the very appealing Cheryl Ladd). Great enough adaption to the screen. The movie bombed.
Even WALL-E was pretty decent SF that non-SF fans had trouble following.
Not all great SF makes for great movies.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Back in the 90s, someone was producing all three Foundation movies simultaneously, to be released a month apart. Not a minute of film was ever seen. I'm not holding my breath this time either. Also, these texts are each TWO books, for a total of SIX... it would make a more ambitious project, but a more manageable one per movie, to film them in this sense.
Is that the one with the Cheddite Cheese Projector?
Now why couldn't someone invent one of those!
My favourite has got to be Bill The Galactic Hero.
Or maybe Venus on a Half Shell - but that's Vonnegut at his best.
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
Most of Foundation action scenes are mind control fights. It would be really interesting to see how they manage to translate that to the screen.
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"...it's surprising how little of Isaac Asimov's work has made it to the big screen."
I, Robot sure as hell didn't.
No, it was not. The movie references Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics and has Susan Calvin as a character.
I say let the Russians make the good sci-fi movies, I mean, everybody is referencing 2001 but nobody mentioned Solyaris by Andrei Tarkovsky http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069293/, the brilliant story by Stanislaw Lem I like the totally different approach to science fiction, in a more sensitive way, without big budgets or special Fx. This would be the way I'd like to see future production (yeah, a man can dream) but consider what a good russian or french director with a half decent budget would make with a good science fiction story , since they have different perception of the matter. Also Ripley Scott proofed that Hollywood directors can make good sci-fi movies (I liked Bladerunner and Alien). Luke Beson made a beautiful masterpiece with the Fith Elemen. some director had potential but most of the Hollywood jerks can't get through it. what they made with Indy an Star Wars was just wrong, what they made with the new Bond, wrong, I-robot-wrong, Dark Knight....hell yeah! but the majority of the recent Hollywood movies are utterly bad bad bad... so, pleas let the real artists make the good movies and leave the action-sex-gore flicks to the rest....
The quote, of course, is on the L-space web.
Repton.
They say that only an experienced wizard can do the tengu shuffle.
Asimov has had problems with Hollywood, both during his life and since. His intro to "Waterclap" describes how he rebelled against the Hollywood formula. He once wrote a long rant about Nightfall's adaptation for the silver screen. The movie "Bicentennial Man" wasn't all that great. And we've all seen the nightmare that resulted from "I, Robot" -- not just a rewrite, but a fundamental violation of Asimov's own Laws of Robotics. So it's hard to be excited about more Asimov movies.
If any sci fi authors consequence of are reading this thread, please consider the movie rights to your works before you pass away. Asimov never allowed his masterpieces to be made into Hollywood trash like I Robot. His descendants are cashing cashed in on the gravy train and ruining some of the most amazing formative experiences of our lives.
Stay skeptical, my friends.
This is what struck me as totally crasy in these books: Sheldon was using a slide rule to make his predictions. Will they use them in the movie, too?
I don't recall where I read that, I myself resent allegory in many cases. Good art often leaves itself open to projection, and means various things to different people. I can imagine the horror of seeing my work analyzed by some journalist who is projecting his own POV and telling others what I meant. I have some video of Bob Dylan Trying to talk to reporters in the 60s, I think he finally gave that up as a lost cause.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
Bombadil was a likely character to cut, but IIRC the Fellowship got some ancient weaponry (veterans of the same war in an earlier age) from the Barrows, and (I think) that some point should have been made of that. Anyway Aragorn was a light traveler, and SOME explanation as to why he had a roll of spare hardware would have been in order. Why create new plot holes? A screenplay should tie up its loose ends.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
"Previous adaptations include the misguided Will Smith feature I, Robot, the lame Bicentennial Man with Robin Williams, and two B-grade adaptations of Nightfall." Bicentennial Man was awesome! You musta slept thru this one to call it lame. I-Robot was entertaining and I liked it. Maybe you take things too seriously? Charles
Read the book, it bears no resemblance to the movie.
I've been waiting to see Foundation longer than I waited for LOTR, having first read Foundation as a young teenager.
However, I am not optomistic. Every screen adaptation of every Asimov story I ever saw sucked big sweaty donkey balls. Nightfall was a fantastic short story, it's screen persona was boring drivel that made no sense and barely followed the story at all. Bicentennial Man wasn't offal, but it didn't follow the book well either. The very worst, of course, was I, Robot.
How someone could shit all over Asimov's art like that I'll never know.
I was happy with Dune (you're talking about the version with Patrick Stewart and not the Sci-Fi Chanel one, right?) and thrilled with LOTR. Can we get Peter Jackson to direct an Asimov movie? Please?
Free Martian Whores!