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.

Comments

Oh, the potential

[UziBeatle]

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.

Re:Oh, the potential

[Antlerbot]

Ooh! ooh! Can we drop these guys and just let David Lynch do Foundation? Nothing like awkward dialogue and unbelievable special effects to make an epic cult classic. And we all know those are the best sort of movies.

Re:Oh, the potential

[JackieBrown]

I'd be first in line for the foundation movies.

As long as it was movies. Not the whole thing crammed into a 90 minute movie

Re:Oh, the potential

[kandela]

As science fiction readers we always seem to approach a movie release of our favourite stories with dread.

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?

I have a feeling that when Hollywood hears the words 'science fiction' they immediately think special effects and action and how they can maximise those things for the viewing experience. Yet sci-fi books are about ideas. I, Robot is a classic example of the whole point of the book being sacrificed for extra action. Similarly I am Legend for those who have read the book is most thought provoking in its ending but Hollywood sacrificed that for a... well, Hollywood ending.

There have been some excellent sci-fi movies: 2001, The Andromeda Strain for instance, so it is possible. Why do film makers so often get it wrong?

Re:Oh, the potential

[IllForgetMyNickSoonA]

I'd take Lynch any time over Jackson for Foundation. What Jackson did with LOTR is just unexcuseable. Even my 7-years old son found the LOTR movie boring (some 1:15 into the movie he said "pleasee dad, can we watch something else"?)

I'll never understand why LOTR *the movie* has so many fans!

Re:Oh, the potential

[IllForgetMyNickSoonA]

I'm afraid it's because the vast majority of the moviegoers out there are just not capable of watching a movie any more if it's not crammed full with special effects and made for a 5-year old to understand.

I suppose 2001, one of my favorite movies, would be a complete failure if it were to be shown to todays public.

Re:Oh, the potential

[Pad-Lok]

I

As long as it was movies. Not the whole thing crammed into a 90 minute movie

You, sir, live in a world of fantasy and science fiction.

Re:Oh, the potential

[Intrinsic]

wow, sorry to hear that, I thought it was well done, but I havent read LOTR.

Re:Oh, the potential

[bmgoau]

I think any of Peter F. Hamiltons works would make a good series of movies. They are more adaptable i think then Asimov's books, though nowhere near as classic in regard. Movies would ruin Asimov's positive mark on the genre if not done perfectly.

I feel the most likely books of Hamilton's to be made into possibly a Band of Brothers type series or trilogy would be the Commonwealth Saga: Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained.

They are both recent books, dealing with the invasion of a future human civilization by a hostile alien force. But much much more then that too. Personally its not the excellent mystery, action or space battle parts which captivate me, but the 'positive' and 'real' extrapolations of society that he paints, as opposed to alot of sci-fi which paint a rather dystopia or exotic view of the future.

Re:Oh, the potential

[LKM]

Entertaining movie == good movie. So yes, those are the best movies.

Re:Oh, the potential

[bigjarom]

What Jackson did with LOTR is just unexcuseable.

That's your opinion, and I'll gladly accept it if you can explain how you would have squeezed the entire story into 12 hours more effectively than PJ did.

Re:Oh, the potential

[mrmeval]

30 hours would require a few intermissions.

Re:Oh, the potential

[Antlerbot]

There's a difference between entertaining and good. Even films that are terrible by film criterion (Plan 9 From Outer Space, for instance - widely considered the worst movie of all time) can be quite entertaining. Sometimes for precisely the same reasons that they are terrible films.

Re:Oh, the potential

[Chris Kamel]

Amen. The only time I have ever fallen asleep with food in my mouth.

Re:Oh, the potential

[jonwil]

2001 (the book, the film and the story) was basically co-written by one of the best SF authors of all time (Arthur C Clarke) and one of the best filmmakers of all time (Stanley Kubrick). Also, from what I gather, there wasnt a huge amount of involvement in the creative process by MGM (as opposed to the way most films get made today)

Re: Oh, the potential

[Black Parrot]

I have a feeling that when Hollywood hears the words 'science fiction' they immediately think special effects and action and how they can maximise those things for the viewing experience.

Not just SF. This year's Jones and Bond outings were all chase and fight, utterly devoid of all the other stuff that makes for a good movie.

Hell, I can't even tell you what Solace was about.

Hollywood movies are degenerating into big budget laser light shows: "Gee that's cool, but...."

Re:Oh, the potential

[foobsr]

I'm afraid it's because the vast majority of the moviegoers out there are just not capable of watching a movie any more if it's not crammed full with special effects and made for a 5-year old to understand.

I suppose 2001, one of my favorite movies, would be a complete failure if it were to be shown to todays public.

Thank you, you saved my day — and, yes, The Times They Are A-Changin', but not to the better these days.

CC.

Re:Oh, the potential

[lgw]

Fans of Tolkein on the whole don't have a problem with Jackson's *omissions*. It's his *additions* that were the issue.

Re:Oh, the potential

[theaveng]

Well, I fell asleep after just ten minutes of reading the LOTR books. Okay not really, but I was bored out of my mind. That man rambled on more than my delusional grandmother. I never did get past the halfway point of book 1 because it was like listening to my English prof drone on-and-on-and-on.

As for Foundation, it's not really a novel. It's a series of short stories and I don't know how it can be adapted to a movie, since the cast of characters is constantly changing, and I can't imagine the movie makers constantly changing actors every twenty minutes. The result will probably be some bastardized mess that fails to properly span one hundred years of history. When you have a series of stories like Foundation, it makes more sense to handle it like Star Trek TOS - each episode is a standalone independent of the others. They should create an "Issac Asimov Presents" show with each episode covering a different short story, including his Foundation, Robot, and Empire short stories.

>>>misguided Will Smith feature I, Robot, the lame Bicentennial Man with Robin Williams, and two B-grade adaptations of Nightfall.

I have to disagree with this statement. Yeah the B-grade movies were bad, but I thought Bicentennial Man was faithful to the original text, and I Robot was an original non-asimov story, but still stayed true to Asimov's original Four Robot Laws (1,2,3, and 0). I saw that movie three times and enjoyed it every time. I wish they'd go back and adapt a few more (but this time stick to the text).

Re:Oh, the potential

[n dot l]

They are both recent books, dealing with the invasion of a future human civilization by a hostile alien force. But much much more then that too. Personally its not the excellent mystery, action or space battle parts which captivate me, but the 'positive' and 'real' extrapolations of society that he paints, as opposed to alot of sci-fi which paint a rather dystopia or exotic view of the future.

Not only that but, as you noted, the action, intrigue, sex and special effects are already in the book. They wouldn't even have to butcher it just to meet their silly N action scenes/minute requirements (or whatever the actual metric they have to hit is). I'd be at the front of the line if they made the Commonwealth Saga into movies.

Re:Oh, the potential

[lgw]

The Bicentennial Man movie was great. But you'd never know from the credits that Asimov had anything to do with the story.

Anyone know how Asimov's name came to be entirely omitted from the credits?

Re:Oh, the potential

[pipingguy]

As for Foundation, it's not really a novel. It's a series of short stories and I don't know how it can be adapted to a movie, since the cast of characters is constantly changing

But that's perfect for modern-day attention spans and shakey-cam technology! They could hire those actor wannabees from the approximately 17, 673 reality TV shows where people are stranded on an island/looking for something/smelling ghost poop/dissing each other/sucking up to CEOs with bad hair/backstabbing the other guy/faking love interest, etc.

Re:Oh, the potential

[Whiteox]

A friend of mine dragged me to LOTR (under protest). I would have enjoyed the movie if it wasn't for long minutes of 'nothing' repeated time and time again. Nothing as various characters gazed into forests, repetitious waiting for something to happen, dramatic buildup was too slow and cumbersome.
I went and saw LOTR the sequel and like Conan The Barbarian, I couldn't place the mythology anywhere except a little of old Norse.

It's like Titanic. A long movie that could have been shortened somewhat.

As for any director/producer/screenwriter trying to treat something like the Foundation Trilogy, just won't work. It is an impossible task and the only people it will satisfy would be those who have never read the book. Foundation, like Dune, has too many sub-plots and storylines for a linear movie treatment.
People will see it as another Star Wars copy when I bet Foundation was the core concept of Star Wars.

I fear the worst however. What I don't want to see is another I, Robot. It was a good story, but definitely wasn't Asimov.

The "Long" saga by Heinlein is bound to be on the cards. But if I had some input, then Harry Harrison's "Bill The Galactic Hero" would be prime Movie making stuff!.

Re:Oh, the potential

[myowntrueself]

I'm afraid it's because the vast majority of the moviegoers out there are just not capable of watching a movie any more if it's not crammed full with special effects and made for a 5-year old to understand.

Not just movies; try playing World of Warcraft.

Re:Oh, the potential

[giorgiofr]

Snakes on a plane.
Nuff said.

Re:Oh, the potential

[bsDaemon]

There is about 20 minutes of dialogue in the whole movie, which is comprised mostly of long silence sandwiched between violent apes and some sort of visual representation of an acid trip.

The message of 2001 is awesome. The film is not.

Re: Oh, the potential

[bsDaemon]

I saw the new Bond with my sister and one of her friends, neither of whom had ever seen a Bond movie before. They both hated it because they had no idea what was going on.

This is probably because for some reason they decided to make an actual sequel to Casino Royale. If you didn't see it, you won't have any clue what is going on in this one.

They trash all the nice cars by the opening credits -- the Aston-Martin and the Alfa Romeos. The rest of the film is full of greeny-weenie mobiles and a few Range Rovers.

Bond only nails 1 girl the entire time. What's up with that?

Also, the plot was down right reasonable -- a conspiracy between industrialists and government officials to back a coup in order to gain mineral rights... and the CIA is HELPING!! That's not a Bond plot, that's the Iraq war. WTF.

I hope that they rectify this in the next film. They're on notice, as far as I'm concerned.

Re:Oh, the potential

[ushering05401]

Probably because it's fucking awesome. You and your mongoloid son aren't.

That's just funny. Please read Tales Before Tolkien before ever commenting on this subject again.

Tolkien revolutionized fantastical storytelling, went unnoticed for years because he was not an attention whoring populist writer, and has now been totally dishonored by the massacre that is the Peter Jackson LOTR saga.

If the studios wanted Tolkien without the classical elements they should have paid off Terry Brooks for his stories and been done with it.

I cannot even fathom how a fan of the LOTR books could sit through half of the first movie installment, and I remember telling the friend I saw the first movie with that Asimov would be next... cause Hollywood was obviously running dry if they thought they could pull this shit over the eyes of the educated public.

Related evidence suggests that there is very little left of the educated public, as both the LOTR adaptations and the Asimov adaptations are completely bereft of any intellectual value.

But hey, maybe J.R.R. and Isaac were just fucking off.. they prolly were just in it for the paychecks just like the fuck holes making these shit-ass movies. Right? I mean why else would they be contemplating things like classical linguistics and transhumanist morality when the world is full of redemptionless fuckheads like yourself willing to part with your hard earned dollars over Liv Tyler's minimal tits.

Re:Oh, the potential

[Anonymous Coward]

Faithful to Asimov's Laws? Did I miss something? I could have sworn that there were robots deliberately killing people with malice aforethought in that movie.

Asimov was as much - or more - a detective writer as he was a science-fiction one, and he always anchored his stories firmly in his conjectured reality. No deus ex machina (no pun intended), no violations of the ground rules. Or, to quote Holmes: "No ghosts need apply". Many of the robot stories, in fact, were about how neurotic robots became when faced with conflicts of the laws.

In only one of them did he actually have a robot deliberately committing murder, and even there it wasn't gratuitous, much less wholesale slaughter.

I enjoyed the movie in general, though I've had enough of the conflict-over-the-abyss cliche, thanks very much. However, the hook in Asimov's stories was always how this could happen without breaking the 3 Laws. The movie took the easy way out and broke the First Law without compunction.

Asimov's robots were soulless, but they were never evil. And they had a lot more personality.

Re: Oh, the potential

[dpilot]

I just saw it yesterday, without having seen Casino Royale. (The new one, that is. I've seen the David Niven/Woody Allen farce.) The action was very thick, but there was a plot in there, you just had to really be paying attention to ferret it out.

All in all, I liked it better than the later Roger Moore Bond films. By that time he seemed to be mugging and smirking his way through the films, laughing all the way to the bank. This film was very dark, any hint of humor would have gotten shot, thrown out of the vehicle, and blown up immediately, but I still rather liked it.

I thought "Quantum of Solace" referred to the tiniest amount of relief from his grief after the last movie. But I would have sworn I heard a few references to "Quantum" as an organization, and saw a few flashes of "Q" logo. I don't know if it was a hint, something I needed to see Casino to understand, or a changed direction that wasn't completely removed.

Speaking of which, (incompletely removed change of direction) don't forget that they're making, "The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag" into a movie, as well as Ridley Scott doing "The Forever War." I've heard that in the latter, he wants to emphasize the lost feeling or returning home to a changed world, after losing time to relativistic travel.

Re:Oh, the potential

[ushering05401]

Honestly, Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat stories would make better movies than either Tolkien's or Asimov's best stories.

Hollywood takes too many good stories and ruins them with T&A. They should instead be taking marginal stories and improving them as only marginal stories can be improved.. with gratuitous sex and violence.

As for Heinlein, I remember checking out audio tapes of some of his books as an initial act of juvenile choice at the library... and only after they were playing for my whole family to hear did I realize that the dude had some serious issues with waiting till his heroins were menstruating before thinking about their thighs.

Re:Oh, the potential

[conureman]

I for one, could live with the additions, and can sorta understand the thinking behind changing the POV from the halfling's to the human's. I can live with the substitution of Aragorn's chef's roll of weaponry for the whole Bombadil/Barrow Wight episode. But omission of "The Scouring of the Shire", THE BEST PART of the whole fucking story, was just asinine.

Re:Oh, the potential

[ijakings]

They are ADAPTIONS FFS Why can people not get this through their skulls. For many many reasons movies cannot be the same as the books. I happened to enjoy the LOTR Movies, but only because I detatched them from the Epicness of the books.

Noone, except you it seems, is expecting the movies to be exactly the same as the books, Its just not feasible. We dont know what Tolkien himself would have wanted with regards to these movies, or how he would have felt about them.

The story has been sold, theres nothing you can do about it now. If you dislike these movies, then Dont fucking watch them, Its not hard.

Re: Oh, the potential

[bsDaemon]

Quantum appears to be the replacement for SPECTRE, which the films made up to replace SMERSH without upsetting the Russians too much.

The basic plot of the film is understandable, however the beginning and especially the ending are likely total mysteries to anyone who didn't see Casino. However, Quantum is not named in Casino and may or may not be the organization that Mr. White speaks of (the fact that White doesn't seem deterred at the opera where Bond shows up and flushes out the Quantum people indicates, to me, anyway, that they may not be related).

Casino Royale was a much better film than Quantum, if I do say so. Both are defiantly better than some Roger Moore tripe (he was better as The Saint on BBC than as Bond), but they're just not quite Goldfinger.

Re:Oh, the potential

[Registered Coward v2]

As science fiction readers we always seem to approach a movie release of our favourite stories with dread.

I, Robot is a classic example of the whole point of the book being sacrificed for extra action. Similarly I am Legend for those who have read the book is most thought provoking in its ending but Hollywood sacrificed that for a... well, Hollywood ending.

Why do film makers so often get it wrong?

I'm not so sure filmamkers get it wrong as make it different. SF fans often develop a very personal view of the story, the characters and meaning. When someone else comes along with a differing view the new view immediately becomes wrong; not a different opinion. SF fans are very opinionated and not often open to differing interpretations; so when a filmmaker puts their creative spin on the story it is viewed as destroying the story.

While there have been many bad SF movies, not remaining true to the original story does not automatically make a movie bad; just as being faithful to the story does not make one good. That's a result of how well the film's creative talent tells a story.

Re:Oh, the potential

[hiryuu]

As for Heinlein, I remember checking out audio tapes of some of his books as an initial act of juvenile choice at the library... and only after they were playing for my whole family to hear did I realize that the dude had some serious issues with waiting till his heroins were menstruating before thinking about their thighs.

My wife and I had this discussion early on; one of her favorite Heinlein novels is Friday, which was just one big soft-core-porn action flick script, as far as I could tell. She found it an incredibly woman-empowering tale. The conversation would then devolve into whether Heinlein, as expressed in his later books, was pro-feminist and liberated, or simply a dirty old man.

Re:Oh, the potential

[JackassJedi]

Paraphrasing the great late Pauline Kael, 2001 is just a typical Hollywood blockbuster movie, just in a different tempo, and about 20 years ahead of its time (search for her review of 2001, it's within an article of other reviews and summaries, it's ingenious). I suppose if one were to make a different cut which would speed up the tempo, and make a few additional scenes to compensate for the then shorter length, it could be still very much a success. I'm dreaming of doing this all the time, but I just don't have the money to film additional scenes. I might re-cut it one day for me personally though.

Re: Oh, the potential

[u38cg]

Exactly. What I don't understand is why there are no Hollywood studios like Apple. There's one guy at the top, and if he thinks it sucks, then it doesn't go. Is it really that hard to find one person with good taste and a bit of business sense? I mean, seriously, Quantum of Solace sucked hard and it was pretty obvious that chucking every damned effect and action scene they could think of at it was not what the movie needed. Why can nobody tell them this?

Re:Oh, the potential

[theaveng]

>>>I could have sworn that there were robots deliberately killing people

Actually they tried their best to NOT kill any human beings, and if any beings were killed by accident, it was justified by Asimov's Zeroth Law which trumps all the rest ("A robot may not allow huamnity to come to herm..."). The central robotic brain used the Zeroth Law to justify a few deaths because it served the greater whole of humanity.

We saw a similar theme in Asimov's "Foundation and Earth".

Re:Oh, the potential

[theaveng]

>>>the hook in Asimov's stories was always how this could happen without breaking the 3 Laws.

If you believe there are only "3" Laws then you are not a true Asimov Fan. There are 4 Laws. The first three laws, plus a Zeroth Law developed by Asimov in his later novels. The movie stayed true to Asimov's conception of 4 Laws.

Re:Oh, the potential

[theaveng]

I'll give Tolkien credit for creating a great cure for insomnia.

Reading the first book put me to sleep... much like what my old English prof used to do... droning on and on and on. After I reached the halfway point I gave up and sold the damn book. It's almost as boring as reading the Bible.

Re:Oh, the potential

[theaveng]

>>>Dont watch them, It's not hard.

That's as impractical as telling people to "change the channel" is they don't like the sex or swearing on tv. Clearly we need some overarching organization, some kinda federal communication commission, to oversee and "approve" or "disapprove" what we can see, so that nobody should ever have to watch the LOTR excrement again, or any other offensive material like a naked breast. /end sarcasm

Yes you are correct. Stop whining and changing the fraking channel. Nobody's forcing you to watch stuff you don't enjoy; stop trying to censor my own personal choices.

Re:Oh, the potential

[dbolger]

I would have enjoyed the movie if it wasn't for long minutes of 'nothing' repeated time and time again.

Um, you have read LoTR right? Quite frankly I was impressed by the sheer quantity "nothing happening" that Jackson managed to cut out.

Re:Oh, the potential

[localroger]

It takes hundreds of people to make a movie, and most of them are selected not for their familiarity with the target material but for their previously demonstrated moviemaking skill. This hit home when I was reading an interview with one of the top people responsible for Terminator 3; IIRC it may have been James Cameron but I'm not sure. In any case he was going on about the time travel scenes, and how the terminators appear naked, and he tossed out a comment along the lines of "It's part of the franchise, the terminators appear naked. Who knows why? I don't know why, but that's just the way it is." And so we had to wall off the whole street for Kristanna Loken, yadda yadda yadda.

My immediate reaction was, WTF? You are spending millions of dollars to make this thing and you don't even understand the first most basic thing, a thing any American ten year old could probably explain to you? But that's just it; millions of dollars are on line, put up mostly by people who have not read the book and would rather spend those dollars on people who have proven movie experience. And sometimes those people just don't get it, even if they are very good at what they do, and things like I, Robot are the result.

Re:Oh, the potential

[Daniel_Staal]

>>>misguided Will Smith feature I, Robot, the lame Bicentennial Man with Robin Williams, and two B-grade adaptations of Nightfall.

I have to disagree with this statement. Yeah the B-grade movies were bad, but I thought Bicentennial Man was faithful to the original text, and I Robot was an original non-asimov story, but still stayed true to Asimov's original Four Robot Laws (1,2,3, and 0). I saw that movie three times and enjoyed it every time. I wish they'd go back and adapt a few more (but this time stick to the text).

Bicentennial Man is probably fairly faithful - to the book, which wasn't actually by Asimov. (It was inspired by a short story he wrote.) I liked it, mostly.

I Robot... It may have been true to the wording of the four laws, but it completely missed their point: To have a world where robots weren't the enemy, and weren't running amok all the time. Which is where SciFi was when he started writing, and where SciFi movies still are. Instead he had robots who were machines, went wrong in predictable (non-destructive, usually) ways, and could be fixed.

Sure, he eventually went back and subverted that, but only after everyone else had started to write good robot stories, and it was then a subversion of his own rules.

So, to me, it just completely missed the point. If they'd called it what it was: Just another Hollywood robot movie, I'd have thought it decent, and liked it. But it wasn't an Asimov story, and calling it that was just a shallow marketing ploy.

Re:Oh, the potential

[kv9]

wow, sorry to hear that, I thought it was well done, but I havent read LOTR.

hahahahaahahah

Re:Oh, the potential

[kv9]

Fans of Tolkein on the whole don't have a problem with Jackson's *omissions*. It's his *additions* that were the issue.

you mean to say that Wipe Castle and centaurs weren't in the original book? I'm shocked!

Re:Oh, the potential

[itsdapead]

Why do film makers always do such a bad job with sci-fi classics?

Probably because SF stories - especially the "classics" - often involve a lot of exposition and have plots based on intellectual puzzles rather than outright adventure. This would require a slow-paced, art-house style.

Unfortunately, (a) the demand for aliens, space ships, time machines, robots etc. makes them require action/adventure-type special effects budgets and (b) the anti-SF snobbery in the arts brigade would make "arthouse" SF even harder to sell than regular arty films.

For a good example of how SF can be done properly without expensive effects, try The Man From Earth. Now try and sell that to multiplexes.

PS - for my money, though, some of the "inspired by" Philip K Dick films made much better movies than a faithful adaptation of the stories would have done - "We can remember for you wholesale" had an even dafter plot than "Total Recall" and although the premise and set-up of the original "Minority report" was great, the actual story didn't really work for me.

Re: Oh, the potential

[kv9]

Hell, I can't even tell you what Solace was about.

I was quite hooked for the first part. I thought the baddies were building some sort of secret installation over in the desert to shoot down the moon. and make it fall on the queen's head. or something cool like that. but then it turns out to be about bottled water and something else I forget? gee, thanks!

Re:Oh, the potential

[Deadstick]

Or is it something more fundamental - do film makers simply not understand science fiction?

No. They understand that their market does not understand science fiction.

rj

Re: Oh, the potential

[Deadstick]

This year's Jones and Bond outings were all chase and fight

Worse yet, in the Jones picture: melting Commies instead of melting Nazis. Millions for SFX, but no money for screenwriting, so they do a remake. Feh.

rj

Re:Oh, the potential

[MobyDisk]

I, Robot was also a series of short stories. Why is it that I, Robot could be made into a movie (and I agree with your assessment of it) but Foundation cannot? (I have not read Foundation so I don't know what it is like)

Re:Oh, the potential

[arth1]

Indeed. The dumbing down of games is, I believe, at least partially linked to the dumbing down of movies. And since the movie companies and games companies do it, it almost certainly means it's profitable to do so. I.e. consumers want it that way.
Instead of asking why the movie and games producers do this, I want to ask:

Where is the audience that liked to think, and liked a real challenge which they might actually lose? Did they die or did they just stop spending money?

Re:Oh, the potential

[FlyingBishop]

Bicentennial man screwed up two things about Asimov's text. The first was really bad: In Asimov's version, after the robot has himself surgically altered so he dies, he tells the human congress that he did it because he had concluded that they would never accept a human who could live forever. In the movie adaptation, the congress flat-out tells him "Sorry, you're immortal. Men aren't immortal."

It ruins the poignancy of it, because man intentionally drives the robot to death, whereas in Asimov's end, it's unspoken bigotry that drives him to death.

That, and they made his desire to become human all about sex. Honestly, if that's your thing, cool, but don't turn Asimov into stories about robots that want to have sex.

As for I, Robot, I think misguided is an excellent word. They should've done an Asimov work. The result wasn't atrocious, but it wasn't Asimov. When Asimov's robots took over the world, humans though they were in control, and so were quite fine with it (because the robots were, after all, only there to serve humankind.)

Re:Oh, the potential

[danhuby]

I actually enjoyed the Dune film, but I saw the film before I read the book. So there wasn't a feeling that a ton of stuff had been cut out.

Re: Oh, the potential

[minvaren]

I quit watching Bond movies after "The World is not Enough" - and I'd seen every one previous to that, multiple times.

Moore openly indicated his distaste for the later Bond films he starred in, FWIW - especially View to a Kill.

And oddly enough, Broccoli's favorite pick for Bond was Timothy Dalton. "Connery's sex appeal with Moore's witticisms - Ian Fleming would have loved him." Too bad he never got a script that would have highlighted any of that.

Re:Oh, the potential

[scharkalvin]

Bicentennial Man is probably fairly faithful - to the book, which wasn't actually by Asimov. (It was inspired by a short story he wrote.) I liked it, mostly.
IIRC, The Bicentennial man was a work by Asimov. There was a sequel to it called 'The Positronic man' that was written by someone else, but 'ghost written' by Asimov, at least his name was also on the spine.

Re:Oh, the potential

[Don Sample]

Anyone know how Asimov's name came to be entirely omitted from the credits?

This turns out not to be the case. Three minutes and ten seconds into the movie we have:

based on the short story by Isaac Asimov
and the novel "The Positronic Man" by Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg

The same credit is printed on the DVD cover.

Re:Oh, the potential

[the_womble]

Yet sci-fi books are about ideas

Most people do not watch films for ideas, and are not interested in anything that might make them think.

Yes, there are films that rise above that, but they cater to a much smaller audience.

Much of the audience for film is illiterate (not completely, but they cannot read anything complex) and would be bewildered by what you would like to see. There is a comment in this thread by someone who found Lord of the Rings too wordy to read. That is a book that most people I know read as children.

Add to that the difficulties of actually fitting a book into a film, and the intrinsic difficulties of translating a story from one medium to another, its hardly surprising that the popular choice is "OK, will just do something with the appealing bits of the book and through some special effects and big names in to make it interesting."

Doing a "good job" would be more work for less money.

Re:Oh, the potential

[Sharkeys-Day]

Most of the masses were already complaining about the ending being too long. Personally, I was amazed that we got as much denoument as we did. Most fantasy novels these days just go "poof" in the last 5 pages, and everyone is happy again, so it's not just movies that suffer from the public's attention deficit disorder.

So I think we got as much LoTR as non-fanatical fans could stand, although I would have liked to see Robin Williams as Tom Bombadil.

Re:Oh, the potential

[domatic]

Jackson should at least get a soap party thrown for making Gimli the comic relief. Short jokes? For crap's sake. Turn Heidi the Enraged Hippo loose on him!

Re:Oh, the potential

[bigstrat2003]

There's a difference between entertaining and good.

No, there actually isn't. As the purpose of the medium is, by and large, to entertain, any movie which entertains is by definition a good movie.

Re:Oh, the potential

[domatic]

Asimov's robots were soulless, but they were never evil. And they had a lot more personality.

Er, I thought a lot of the problems people could have with his robots is that the advanced ones did. I wouldn't describe Daneel, especially the millennia old version of him as soulless and the entire point of the Bicentennial Man was that Andrew did.

Re:Oh, the potential

[SanityInAnarchy]

2001 would certainly be a failure, but not for the reasons you imagine.

It was, in fact, so crammed with special effects -- effects which would be boringly easy to do today -- that when you get over that, it's boring.

Not "boring" as in "no explosions", but "boring" as in "Let's waste several minutes of our lives watching these two objects in space get closer and closer together, and finally dock."

My theory is that, well, the movie was released in the late 60's -- 1968, one year before the Summer of Love. So, when it was released, it was an amazing movie, mostly because so many moviegoers were stoned out of their minds.

I don't disagree with your point -- I don't usually mind a movie that's simple, yet crammed with special effects. But I much prefer a movie that makes me think. And there are too few of those, scifi or not.

Re:Oh, the potential

[domatic]

Dune's crimes weren't things that were cut out. There is no way to get all of the threads of that story into a movie. Rather, major themes of the story were abused. A true denizen of Dune's universe would have been suspicious of a "weirding module" because the idea was to maximize aspects of human potential because humanity had been traumatized into a distrust of high technology. Mentats were to substitute for the forbidden "thinking machines". Exquisitely trained fighters substituted (mostly) for weapons of mass destruction. Improvements to humans proper were to be achieved by breeding though the Theilaxu were reviled for resorting the genetic engineering. You didn't have soldiers who fired off a raygun by shouting into it, you were supposed to have soldiers who were bred to it and then trained over a lifetime.

That wasn't the only major theme abused. Herbert himself complained that Dune was supposed to be about a man playing God not a God who could make it rain. That and Saudaukar didn't run around in Hefty bags and welding masks.

I did like the way they visualized Herbert's world and the casting was dead on. Pity they screwed up the story itself so badly. There was no reason to do it.

Re:Oh, the potential

[mblase]

Why do film makers always do such a bad job with sci-fi classics?

Because most sci-fi classics are built around a clever idea, rather than a lot of action and explosions. Compare the DVD sales for "The Matrix" to those for "A.I." and you'll see what I mean.

Re:Oh, the potential

[mblase]

Last night, A&E or some station was reviewing the "AFI ten top ten" movies, and I was flicking through as they covered science fiction. "2001" was at the top of the list, but it was mentioned that when the finished film was screened for the investor, he was appalled that all his money had been used to make such a bad film.

In his defense, he was right about one thing: "2001" the movie is almost incomprehensible, especially the ending, if you don't also read "2001" the novel. My brother is an English teacher who built a special sci-fi curriculum for his school, and when they cover "2001" they watch the movie and read the book in tandem. It was an innovative and awkward way to make both, which is why nobody else ever did it.

P.S.: while I'm glad "2001" and "2010" were the only Hollywood films to correctly depict outer space as soundless, it makes for crappy cinema when you do so, and as a moviegoer I'm glad they were the last ones to do it.

Re:Oh, the potential

[Attila Dimedici]

Film makers get SF movies wrong for a basic reason (which you touched upon). Film makers think that SF is an "action" genre (which is not entirely wrong). Unfortunately, the action in many SF works is not central. That is why I expect Hollywood to screw up the Foundation story..."violence is the last refuge of the incompetent". In the Foundation series, Asimov's protagonists never win with violence, they always defuse the antagonist's violence in ways that make it just go "fizz".
I like Asimov better than Heinlein, but I think that Heinlein's stories lend themselves better to Hollywood adaptation than Asimov's (despite what they did to "Starship Troopers").

Re: Oh, the potential

[mblase]

What I don't understand is why there are no Hollywood studios like Apple. There's one guy at the top, and if he thinks it sucks, then it doesn't go.

Because then all the movies they made would look the same, that's why.

But how about Steve Jobs' own Hollywood studio, Pixar? I think John Lassetter has done a brilliant job as a director and executive producer there, and the studio has yet to release a single film that is anything less than brilliant.

Re: Oh, the potential

[dpilot]

I quit after the last Moore, but probably more circumstances than anything else. I've seen snatches of Dalton and Brosnan as they're on TV, but never really watched any of them - until yesterday.

Re: Oh, the potential

[Thumper_SVX]

I think if you take Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace as one single movie, they work really well.

I was lucky; I actually made a point with my friends of sitting and watching Casino on the afternoon of the day we went to see Quantum. Taken as a single narrative broken into two "acts" it actually works extremely well... but I can see where people would be disappointed in Quantum as a standalone movie... because it isn't.

Most movies you get three distinct "acts"... Casino's third act fell a little flat for me but only on watching Quantum did I realize that the entirety of the latter movie was that third act; the third act of Casino was an interstitial (as was the really flat first act of Quantum!)

Honestly, I think that Daniel Craig is a better screen Bond than any of the others I have ever seen. I read the Fleming books when I was really young (I grew up with Moore as Bond) and was easily able to see the differences between the source material and the movies. Daniel Craig plays Bond as an arrogant ass... exactly as he was in the books... though not nearly as self-assured as Moore-Bond.

Having said that, I think my favorite Moore-Bond movie was "A View to a Kill", but that's not because it's a Bond movie but it's a really fun movie in and of itself.

Re:Oh, the potential

[CodeBuster]

so when a filmmaker puts their creative spin on the story it is viewed as destroying the story.

Which is not an entirely unfounded belief given the history of Hollywood with "adapting" well known stories and losing their essence in the process. The most recent notable exception was Peter Jackson with The Lord of the Rings. Those films proved that when the story of the original author is taken intact or very nearly so (even LOTR had a few rearrangements and cuts of some minor sub-plots for the sake of expedience, Tom Bombadil for example, but what WAS shown was true to the story as written) the result can be as good and even better than the "re-interpretation" of some director or writer. I cannot understand why writers and directors feel the need to butcher classics. If they want to do something new and original then why not do something new and original? Nobody says that you cannot borrow ideas from previous stories, but make the characters and the setting uniquely your own if you want to have the creative freedom to "interpret" your own version of events. If on the other hand you want to make IRobot or LOTR then make them but do not presume to reinterpret a classic story that you didn't create or own, it just sets you up to fail.

Re:Oh, the potential

[infosinger]

It is an extremely difficult project as much of Foundation is philosophy which is very hard to expose on the big screen without being extremely boring. Will the general audience get such satire as Lord Dorwin and his method of research and what it indicates for the current state of the Empire? When you get to it, most of Foundation is groups of people talking to each other in various locations around the galaxy. Dune is a good example of how it can fail. Lots of fancy backdrops and endless dialog which are then cut up into bite size pieces in attempts to keep it interesting.

Re:Oh, the potential

[rgomezc]

They could probably do the Hari Seldon books (which are probably the ones I like the most), that in my opinion have enough material to create a movie or two. The last two books are great too, and don't change characters as much as the original Foundation Trilogy, which, as you say, are a collection of short stories bound together.

Of course, doing the whole Foundation "novel" would be great if done right, but I don't think studios are going to try to respect the books, and the whole project will end up probably with the movie adaptation of Timeline (of Michael Crichton) that was really *really* bad.

I didn't enjoy I, Robot the first time I saw it, but somewhat it became a bit better the next times I saw it. The Bicentennial Man is much better, IMHO.

Re:Oh, the potential

[h4rdc0d3]

That, and they made his desire to become human all about sex. Honestly, if that's your thing, cool, but don't turn Asimov into stories about robots that want to have sex.

Did we watch the same movie? His drive to become human had nothing to do with sex. It was completely about freedom, love and companionship. There was a particularly moving speech in the movie in which he explained his feelings about sex, but that was the farthest thing from his desire to actually become human.

Re: Oh, the potential

[westlake]

Exactly. What I don't understand is why there are no Hollywood studios like Apple. There's one guy at the top, and if he thinks it sucks, then it doesn't go.
.

Antitrust.

There was a time when the majors controlled both production and distribution.

For all practical purposes, they owned everything from the lens cap to the popcorn machine.

Each had a distinct corporate identity, which reflected their strength and position in the market.

Their ability to command talent and technical resources.

MGM releases in 1939 included Wuthering Heights, Ninotchka, The Wizard of Oz, Gone With The Wind...

A studio like Warner tended be urban and gritty, if only because it didn't have the money to be anything but urban and gritty.

Re:Oh, the potential

[Antlerbot]

This man understands.

Re:Oh, the potential

[mcpkaaos]

I was with you up until:

fuckheads like yourself willing to part with your hard earned dollars over Liv Tyler's minimal tits

Here's a tip. When you draw a line in the sand, it's usually a good idea to make what's on the other side seem less appealing.

/me pulls out his wallet

Re:Oh, the potential

[vlad30]

>>>the hook in Asimov's stories was always how this could happen without breaking the 3 Laws.

If you believe there are only "3" Laws then you are not a true Asimov Fan. There are 4 Laws. The first three laws, plus a Zeroth Law developed by Asimov in his later novels. The movie stayed true to Asimov's conception of 4 Laws.

A true fan would know of the 5th -1 Law (sentient life to be protected over humanity) Law which wasn't adhered to and caused a civil war with the robots

Re:Oh, the potential

[Random BedHead Ed]

But omission of "The Scouring of the Shire", THE BEST PART of the whole fucking story, was just asinine.

... or would have been in the book. Movies require different considerations, and the omission of that scene from the movie made sense.

In fact, when they first announced the movies many eons ago the two scenes you mentioned were the first ones I was hoping Jackson would cut, the Scouring because it would have rendered the ending even more long and cumbersome than it was in the final film. Remember, the point is not to make a shot-for-shot documentary of what's in the book, but rather to make a good film that shares the book's concepts, plot and characters. Including the Scouring would have been good from a character development and accuracy standpoint, but it would have failed in the sense that the film's ending would have felt egregiously long. Most viewers new to Tolkein's stories, their attention focused on the destruction of the ring and celebrations in Minas Tirith, would have found an extra battle in the Shire as superfluous as the transparent mechas of the frozen future at the end of Spielberg's AI.

I wouldn't have the book any other way. And of course, none of the above explains why Faramir is temporarily a bad guy, nor why half the scenes in Return of the King were in slo-mo despite its already egregious running length. But Scouring's omission always made sense to me.

Re:Oh, the potential

[Antlerbot]

Is the purpose of the medium, by and large, to entertain? Would you say the same of painting by and large, or of writing, by and large?

No, you wouldn't. To generalize to that extent is to completely miss the point. Film is a far greater mode of communication than simple entertainment. Take the analogy of writing: there are scientific and medical journals whose purpose is to inform and explore; pulp novels whose purpose is to entertain; poetry, whose purpose may be, among other things, to create beauty and foster creative thought. These stratifications, or similar ones, exist within the realm of film as well: meta-genres like art-house (poetry), documentary (scientific journals), entertainment (pulp, though often mixed with the others), etc.

There are, just as in writing and various other schools of art, films which seem to represent conglomerates of various meta-genres. The work of Darren Aronofsky, for example, might serve as a bridge between entertainment, poetry, and even the scientific/historical. Dune, I think, fits this category as well, in large part because its foundations necessarily - being based in an unbelievably dense and multilayered work (Dune the novel) themselves - cross several of this meta-genre lines.

To suggest, however, that the purpose of a medium of communication is, by and large, a certain meta-genre, is to presuppose the intentions of the intentions of the creators within that medium. You may decide what you mostly take away from the work in said medium, sure, but to say that the very purpose of the majority of the work therein is what you decide it to be is arrogant in the extreme. Purpose can only be drawn from the mind of the artist - in this case, the filmmaker. We can only decide to what degree the artist has or has not succeeded in his purpose.

Re: Oh, the potential

[Black Parrot]

All in all, I liked it better than the later Roger Moore Bond films. By that time he seemed to be mugging and smirking his way through the films, laughing all the way to the bank.

The series degenerated toward comedy in the Moore era. By the time they got to Octopussy, it actually *worked* as comedy.

Re: Oh, the potential

[Black Parrot]

Daniel Craig plays Bond as an arrogant ass... exactly as he was in the books...

I thought Dalton was closest to the written stories... and for precisely that reason, one of the least fun of the movie Bonds.

Re:Oh, the potential

[kandela]

I disagree. Because the movie is silent in parts and because there are long pauses it is true to its medium: space. By slowing the film down, we have time to reflect on how vast space is, which is one of the film's charms.

Re: Oh, the potential

[flabbergast]

I think movie studios are a lot like Apple.

Release a great product: Goldfinger = Apple II
Make some sequels: Diamonds are Forever = Apple III
Realize you've absolutely screwed everything up and reboot.

Release a great product: Original Macintosh = For Your Eyes Only
Make some Sequels: Moore era Bond = Performa
Realize you've absolutely screwed everything up and reboot.

Release a great product: Goldeneye = iPod
Make some sequels: Die Another Day = fat iPod Nano
Realize you've absolutely screwed everything up and reboot.

Release a great product: Casino Royale = iPhone
Make some sequels: ????

You could also look at it from an operating system perspective. Copeland = George Lazenby (never given a chance), Roger Moore = System 7 (Long in tooth, not quite up to the modern challenge), Pierce Brosnan = original OSX (such promise (shiny!), but compromised in the end), and Sean Connery = System 1-4 (one dimensional, but set the standard). Timothy Dalton can suck it.

Re:Oh, the potential

[Belial6]

Do those have to be mutually exclusive?

Re:Oh, the potential

[residieu]

The ending was way too long as it is. I would have liked to see The Scouring of the Shire too, but not without splitting off a 4th movie.

Re:Oh, the potential

[residieu]

No, some Fans of Tolkien hated every minute. Some Fans of Tolkien recognized the difficulty of shooting the movie, and were happy with what they got on the whole (though most have their lists of parts that bug them)

Re:Oh, the potential

[trenien]

I'd say your son's reaction has probably something to do with the fact the LotR movies have never been intended for young children.

Hint: I don't know any kid that age who could stay in one spot to watch a three hours movie (except, maybe, if it goes boom every couple of minutes)

Re:Oh, the potential

[residieu]

I didn't see "I, Robot", though I did see some robots punching Will Smith in the previews. To maintain my sanity I have constructed my own version of the movie in my head, which I have convinced myself is the true plot.

The big secret of the movie is that Will Smith's character is himself a robot, he just doesn't know it. Thus, the other robots are able to injure him. This is the only logical explanation.

Re:Oh, the potential

[Whiteox]

Yep. Vote me in for the Stainless Steel Rat movies! But gee there is a lot of good movie making stuff out there.

As for Heinlein, I think he loved women and probably was a bit of a dirty old man (as hiryuu surmised in this thread).

I can't help thinking that a lot of real Sci-Fi has made it into the movies. Most of which I would like to see re-done.
Heinlein's "He Who Shrank" (maybe he wrote that as Anson McDonald) which I presume was the basis for 'The Incredible Shrinking Man' should be re-told. In that, the main character shrinks and finds himself surviving into the microcosm of an atom, which Heinlein treats as a mini solar system. He continues to shrink on an electron (now a 'planet' revolving around the nucleus 'the sun'). But it doesn't end there, as he continues to shrink - a new concept of infinity.

Re:Oh, the potential

[Myrddin Wyllt]

the movie was released in the late 60's -- 1968, one year before the Summer of Love.

I know they say that if you can remember the 60s you weren't really there, but for the sake of historical accuracy, I have to point out that 1968 was one year after the Summer of Love; perhaps you are confusing it with Woodstock, or maybe you just took too much of the brown acid.

Re:Oh, the potential

[Kjella]

"It's part of the franchise, the terminators appear naked. Who knows why? I don't know why, but that's just the way it is." And so we had to wall off the whole street for Kristanna Loken, yadda yadda yadda.

My immediate reaction was, WTF? You are spending millions of dollars to make this thing and you don't even understand the first most basic thing, a thing any American ten year old could probably explain to you?

Whatever, I've forgotten the crappy explaination myself. You can send robots made of metal but not guns, both live humans and the organic outer of a cyborg yet no other materials to provide a layer of clothing? And liquid metal terminators that don't have any organics at all and that it makes no sense whatsoever is naked because they can form clothing on their own? Easiest thing with obvious plot holes is to not think about them. That's certainly the only way the last season of Heroes is watchable...

Re:Oh, the potential

[conureman]

Oh,how I tried to appreciate Jackson's films aside from the parent story. Really, without the spectacle &c., the only one that stands out is the extended version of the first one. In the theaters, it was long and actually didn't make so much sense. The only one that should have been nominated for an academy award was that one, they just didn't give it out when they should have, and the Oscars that they got should have gone to a non-sequel of that year. Did the academy vote for Kerry this year?

Re:Oh, the potential

[UnknownSoldier]

Oh puh-lease.

Movie != Book.

The medium matter just as much as HOW the story is told. Heck the medium _defines_ how the story is told.

LOTR *The Movie* was popular because it was well adapted "pulp candy" stripped down version of a great book. When you have a rich narrative to draw upon, you can toss out all (or most of) the boring sh!t. Not saying they didn't add some boring stuff, but for the most part, Weta Workshop (of Hercules / Xena fame) did a good job of creating middle earth.

The masses don't want an intelligent, detailed, articulate story -- they want something they can just have a good time for a few hours without thinking too much.

Methinks you expect too much from book to movie adaptations. False expectations will never make anyone happy.

Re:Oh, the potential

[ascari]

>because the robots were, after all, only there to serve humankind And have sex. don't forget

Re:Oh, the potential

[Chaos Incarnate]

Foundation probably can't be made into a movie as an adaptation of the stories; then again, I, Robot wasn't an adaptation of the short stories either.

Re:Oh, the potential

[vidarh]

Well, no, Bicentennial Man was not faithful to the story. In the story the central point is the question of what it means to be human. Andrew tries again and again to be accepted by changing more and more. Where do we draw the line?

In the movie much of that plot point is sidelined by Andrews love interest.

Overall I liked it - the "real" plot was still there, though it was "washed out" a bit by the love angle. But then again, love is a big part of being human too.

As for I, Robot, I thought it exactly GOT the point: Most of Asimov's robot stories are exactly about how the laws are subverted or have unintended consequences, as you point out yourself, and that includes stories in the I,Robot collection such as "Liar!" and several others.

Re:Oh, the potential

[conureman]

Yes, many parts are not missed. The parts that were ESSENTIAL TO THE PLOT are.

Re:Oh, the potential

[kickassweb]

I suspect A ClockWork Orange would similarly be misunderstood.

Re:Oh, the potential

[kickassweb]

No, the smart ones got bored and moved onto other challenges, like interacting with other smart people or taking up hobbies and activities that would fill the void. I threw out my TV a dozen years ago, haven't been to a movie in ages. I'm learning how to speak Italian, and learning to play violin. And I read books. Lots of books. Ironically, I'm rereading Asimov right now.

Re:Oh, the potential

[Tubal-Cain]

A robot may not allow humanity to come to herm...

Who is this Herm and why can't humans meet him?

Re:Oh, the potential

[MoriaOrc]

I, Robot is a collection of loosely related short stories. The only really common element is the general setting and the three laws. The movie can be thought of sort of like another short, similar setting and again using the laws. In that respect it works (although I agree with other posters who say it misses the point of the laws, especially the First Law).

The Foundation series is sequential. They follow the fall of the "Galactic Empire" and the eventual rise of the Foundation over the course of several hundred years (the stories cut out before the projected 1000 year replacement plan). Out of the 8 short stories, only two focus on characters even present in previous stories. With only one exception, there is a gap of decades from one story to the next (and even that one exception still has a gap of a few years IIRC). This works well enough in a book, but adapting it to a movie means one of three things:
- Focusing on one or two of the shorts, which means either an awkward introduction or ending, or both, since you miss most of the story.
- A very disjoint movie, as the cast and setting change completely several times through the movie.
- Rewriting the story from the ground up so it isn't really the foundation story anymore. Fit it into a movie time line, where somehow the empire crumbles and the Foundation takes over in the span of no more then a few years and thanks to the efforts of a couple of lead actors.

Probably the best compromise would be a still somewhat disjoint trilogy, where the characters only change between films.
The first three shorts are close enough in time line to be the first film with Hardin (lead character of #2 and #3) featured in the first story, or simply skip through the first very quickly (it's basically just introducing the premise).
The next two shorts (Traders and General) combine the lead characters into one and shorten the span to no more then a few years.
Of the last three shorts, 6 and 7 are the closest thing to a good movie plot in the series (the longest two stories, following the same set of characters, has the shortest gap mentioned above, and even a decent climax). The last story would have to be bolted on here or combined in some other way. The characters in it share similar goals to those in #7, and a skilled writer could probably make them overlap in time lines and combine characters in a believable way without losing too much.

Enough rambling, hope that answered your question somewhat.

Re:Oh, the potential

[gd2shoe]

It didn't stay true to 0th law. The computer in "I, Robot" used a 1st law-"lesser of two evils" argument to rationalize a coup.

The argument goes that a greater number of people will die if the computer does not take over (but can take over). Therefore, it would be in violation of first law if it did not take over the world with minimum casualties.

You have to remember that the laws of robotics are absolute, but are not as cut and dry as their summaries. If two people give a robot conflicting orders, internal algorithms determine which one must be followed to observe 2nd law. It is permitted to discard the other. The same is true of 1st law. If two people are dying, the robot follows an algorithm to determine who must be saved. If some number of people are going to die due to a robot's actions or inactions, the program will decide which course it must follow.

True 0th law is deeper than mere survival.

Re:Oh, the potential

[ps2os2]

LONG time ago and far far away the magazine ANALOG had the original DUNE in several issues. I got caught up reading it and was really getting into it and lo and behold the magazine went from 8 1/2 x 11 format to the (5 x 7?) format. The result was that it was totally unreadable. I cancelled my subscription for 20+ years after that screw up. In those 20 years the magazine really went down hill, I was right as it turns out. The magazine should have shutdown immediately.

Re:Oh, the potential

[Antlerbot]

I just got this terrible image of Tom Bombadil running around making golf jokes and swearing like a drunken sailor. Yeegh.

Re:Oh, the potential

[Chandon Seldon]

No. They understand that their market does not understand science fiction.

And this is the basic problem with only having a couple of huge-budget film studios to serve the entire movie market. If something isn't fit for the lowest common denominator it can only be made as a fluke.

Re:Oh, the potential

[Antlerbot]

I always thought of Jubal Harshaw (Stranger in a Strange Land) as the Grandmaster's ideal personification of himself.

Its certainly my ideal personification. Mmmmm secretaries.

Re: Oh, the potential

[tetul]

damn you didnt live in the former soviet union, they had plenty of that, and they DON'T miss any of it, can't see why... ohh and your comments would make you a totalitarism advocate and an apple fanboy too, can't think of two more distant, exclusive features. are you on some sort of medication kid?

Re:Oh, the potential

[WhiteDragon]

P.S.: while I'm glad "2001" and "2010" were the only Hollywood films to correctly depict outer space as soundless, it makes for crappy cinema when you do so, and as a moviegoer I'm glad they were the last ones to do it.

I have to say, I liked the way they handled this fact in the Firefly tv show (see an explosion in space, no sound) , and the film Serenity. In fact, the sound is really spectacular in Serenity, as there is a scene where the ship is leaving atmosphere, and the noise has been gradually building up, but you don't really notice until they are in space and it's silent. It's not mentioned, and no attention is drawn to it, but once you realize that they thought of it, it's the kind of detail that makes me happy on a very intellectual level.

Re:Oh, the potential

[IllForgetMyNickSoonA]

Well. I enjoy abstract artworks that I need to completely interpret for myself... :-) And as a such, it was a GREAT piece of abstract art (like with any other art, the most abstract art is just plain rubbish)

Besides, I also read the book, very shortly after seeing the movie (the other way around would have been better, of course).

Re:Oh, the potential

[Sage Gaspar]

While I personally loved the earlier Foundation stories much more than the Mule and what came after, I think they could take some liberties and pull a good storyline from the general idea of the later novels. Open up with Terminus circa the defeat of the Mule. Everyone is sort of indoctrinated with the Seldon story like a religion but someone realizes that Seldon's plan couldn't really take into account the Mule. Enter the Second Foundation which would seem like a pretty scary shadow government and the "threat" from Gaia. Good potential to discuss the merits of individualism versus enlightened dictatorship versus ... mind...meld...ism. They could sneak some of the earlier short stories in as exhibits in the Seldon Museum or something too.

Re:Oh, the potential

[Cuppa 'Joe' Black]

Man, if you can take shots at Liv Tyler's looks ... Is nothing good enough for ya?

Re:Oh, the potential

[thechao]

No, the only thing changing is your elitism. Please, go on, point to all the "lesser" and "dumb" people out there! I had a number of friends, years ago, who always claimed that "most people were X"; oh, really? Most people? If asked for a percentage---say 75%---then I'd ask which three of the four of us were dumb? Which 3 of the 4 of us had plebian desires, and no ability to appreciate higher art?

Stop being an elitist, and start realizing that, just like everyone else, most of your tastes are plebian, and that (maybe, just maybe) in one area of your life you have an advanced notion of art, knowledge, or understanding.

Also, just to drive this home---most people who claim to be elite (or above average) do so because they actually are unable to identify what is above average, and believe their average abilities are above average.

Welcome to the herd.

Re: Oh, the potential

[the_other_chewey]

[Pixar] has yet to release a single film that is anything less than brilliant.

Cars. Not better than "decent".

Re:Oh, the potential

[tgd]

No its very simple -- anything longer than a very short story is too long for a movie.

Philip Dick stories work because the originals are short, with fairly simple plots. Novels or groups of novels don't because you need to condense 500+ pages of writing down to a 50 page script.

Re:Oh, the potential

[tgd]

I don't think thats even remotely the case.

2001 was not a movie made from a long sci-fi novel. It was a movie written to be a movie, written in a distinct style. It worked not because the audience "got" it back then (because the "audience" -- meaning general public has NEVER "gotten" Kubrick), rather it worked because it was written to work and was made by a brilliant director.

No director can take a 200 page book and turn it into a two hour movie, much less a 500 or 1000 page book... because you *have* to strip out 99% of it, unless the book is largely fluff or was written to be a movie (Harry Potter, as an example)

Case in point: the *abridged* Audible version of Foundation comes in at nearly *seven* hours.

And thats the abridged version!

Re:Oh, the potential

[dylan_-]

I had a number of friends, years ago, who always claimed that "most people were X"; oh, really? Most people? If asked for a percentage---say 75%---then I'd ask which three of the four of us were dumb?

Yeah...I was having a drink with three guys and one of them made the absurd claim that about 50% of the world population is female. So I asked which two of us were girls!

Please, go on, point to all the "lesser" and "dumb" people out there!

Since you lot couldn't spot the rather glaring flaw in your argument, I'll uncharitably point to you and your friends.

Re:Oh, the potential

[lgw]

The firm film, in the extended version, was quite good. I don't think it suffered from the lack of Bombadil - he was a walk-on from Tolkien's other writings anyhow, and the bit of Arwen thrown in didn't really hurt anything. The standoff with the Balrog in the extended version was just the sort of eye-candy I was looking for in a LOTR movie.

Jackson's increasing arrogance in the later films was tragic, really. There was plenty in the source material to make for good eye-candy without adding skateboarding elves and the like. What annoyed me the most was that half of Gollum's character got lost in the visual gimmickry - the half that knew the destruction of the Ring meant his own destruction, and sought that release. The (first) ending is just awkward if interpreted as "oops, I slipped and fell into a volcano" instead of Gollum finally uniting his desire to have the ring with his desire to see the ring destroyed.

Well, it remains to be seen whether Jackon can best the Rankin-Bass The Hobbit. ;) I can only hope that, given he's doing two movies, he'll add all his own BS to the second. There's much less room in that story for cutting.

Re:Oh, the potential

[lgw]

Wow, the version I saw definitely didn't have his name on the DVD cover, but I only carefully studied the end credits looking for it.

Re: Oh, the potential

[Stormie]

I mean, seriously, Quantum of Solace sucked hard and it was pretty obvious that chucking every damned effect and action scene they could think of at it was not what the movie needed.

Actually there are 450 million reasons so far why that was exactly what the movie needed.

Re:Oh, the potential

[FlyingBishop]

I came in a bit late, and stopped watching after that scene. I'll have to give the whole thing a chance sometime. My problem with humanity explicitly spelling out the logic he uses to kill himself, rather than letting the robot arrive at it on his own still stands.

Re:Oh, the potential

[Power_Pentode]

I'm afraid it's because the vast majority of the moviegoers out there are just not capable of watching a movie any more if it's not crammed full with special effects and made for a 5-year old to understand

For real. "I, Robot" would have been a much better film without some of the over-the-top CG effects.

Re:Oh, the potential

[tehcyder]

As the purpose of the medium is, by and large, to entertain, any movie which entertains is by definition a good movie

Who says? A lot of people would argue that film is an art form, in which case the fact that it's entertaining doesn't necessarily make it a good movie, any more than the fact that it's entertaining makes the Da Vinci Code a good book.

Re:Oh, the potential

[FTWinston]

I thought the LOTR movies were done well UNTIL I read the books

Re:Oh, the potential

[RogerWilco]

I think a book like LOTR is fiendishly harsh to adapt to a screen.

I think they did a great job, especially the extended editions put enough of the lore in to make you see that they tried to stay as true to the books as possible with such a huge format shift.

Is your problem that the movies are too long? Your comment seems to suggest it. Then what should have been cut out? Saruman, the mines of Moria, the Ents, Helms deep?

Re: Oh, the potential

[tehcyder]

Is it really that hard to find one person with good taste and a bit of business sense?

In Hollywood the two are mutually contradictory.

Re:Oh, the potential

[RogerWilco]

The Foundation movies need to be a bit like 2001 to be a success, they'd be very poor as action movies, but great as mind-game situations similar to 2001.

Re: Oh, the potential

[plsander]

"Bond only nails 1 girl the entire time. What's up with that?"

That fits with the original Casino Royale (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061452/)
Where David Niven plays a non-womanizing Bond...

Re:Oh, the potential

[bigstrat2003]

Then you're standing on even shakier ground, because art isn't something we have any sort of meaningful metric for. Tell me: what makes good art? Why does what you say make it good art, and not what I say?

In the end, the only thing we have that can evaluate art is people's collective opinions... which isn't a meaningful evaluation in the least.

Re:Oh, the potential

[IllForgetMyNickSoonA]

Funny + Insightfull, now what more can one possibly ask for? :-)

Re:Oh, the potential

[IllForgetMyNickSoonA]

Not at all. What I had a problem with is all those tediously long and completely unneccessary scenes where characters just gaze into the woods, trying - in vain - to look [scared / worried / compassionate / contemplating / wise / whatever]. All that in slow motion, while having to listen to infuriatingly pathetic music, which would much better suit one of the so-called "chick flicks" than a work of Tolkien. This "dead time" accounts for at least 15% of the series!

If one of the strength of Tarantino is that he somehow manages to get the best out of the actors he works with, it seems to be Jackson's talent to bring out the very WORST in his cast.

Hari Seldon and Psychohistory

[pipingguy]

Oooh, Foundation - I'll be seeing that first run in theatres and buying the DVDs.

Re:Hari Seldon and Psychohistory

[Daniel Dvorkin]

I'll be seeing that first run in theatres and buying the DVDs.

They predicted that, you know.

Re:Hari Seldon and Psychohistory

[pipingguy]

LOL

Re:Hari Seldon and Psychohistory

[tzot]

I'll be seeing that first run in theatres and buying the DVDs.

They predicted that, you know.

Actually, they didn't predict it; they count on it.

Re:Hari Seldon and Psychohistory

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll be seeing that first run in theatres and buying the DVDs.

They predicted that, you know.

Idiot, everyone knows psychohistory can't predict individual actions, just those of a group.

Re:Hari Seldon and Psychohistory

[andy_t_roo]

but if this is true we know we are being observed, and that throws a spanner in all future predictions, unless we think that this 'second foundation' has been destroyed.

Re:Hari Seldon and Psychohistory

[tomhuxley]

You need to re-read Foundation, Seldon makes predictions about his chances of being executed, Dornick's chance for an acquittal, the probability of the Emperor being overthrown if Seldon is killed, etc etc. A mistake? Pretty big one to make at the beginning of the book.

The Will Smith movie wasn't based on Asimov's book

[Rix]

It was based on the earlier Eando Binder short story.

In Other News - Dune Remake

[schneidafunk]

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

Re:In Other News - Dune Remake

[Bios_Hakr]

I thought the SciFi channel version was pretty good. I don't think I ever made it through the second movie though.

Re:In Other News - Dune Remake

[xstonedogx]

Too bad Hollywood writers think science fiction adaptations are 50% special effects and 50% stuff they think is cool but is cliche and shows they didn't grasp the book.

Dune is complex, deep, and half of it takes place internal to the characters. Sci-Fi managed to stuff it into a five episode mini-series and did it a fair amount of justice, but I hold out slim hope for a feature length movie. That goes times a million if Brian Herbert is involved in any way.

Re:In Other News - Dune Remake

[Evil Pete]

I thought the David Lynch version had some inspired moments. But as a whole not very satisfying. And there were parts I wish I could forget ... for example, anything on Geidi Prime.

The Sci-Fi channel version was much better. The special effects were not on the same scale but it had more of the intrigue and showed more of the complex inner world than Lynch's version.

As for Lynch. One of the most amazing and critical events in the whole book is the part where Jessica and Paul are in the tent when Paul first fully experiences the effects of The Spice. Treated so minimally in the movie. We don't even hear Paul tell his mother who her father really was. Disappointing.

Re:In Other News - Dune Remake

[RegularFry]

I find it really hard to criticise Lynch for failings in his Dune film. So much was cut, and there are so many little moments of genius in what's left, that I think the full 3-hour version might well have been an order of magnitude better, and a better version than the SciFi channel one.

Trivia fact I didn't know until I just went to wikipedia to read up on this: Lynch was offered Return of the Jedi. My, how history could have been different.

Oh great...

[shma]

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.

Re:Oh great...

[tzot]

So why should we be looking forward to the inevitably crappy Hollywood version of Foundation

Actually, it's whoever will play R Daneel that is looking forward to the Hollywood version of Foundation. It will be a defining career move.

Re:Oh great...

[OolimPhon]

R. Daneel? Anthony Daniels would be a shoo-in, surely?

Re:Oh great...

[Robaato]

R. Daneel? R.Daneel doesn't come into the Foundation series until Foundation and Earth...unless they make "Prelude" first, I guess.

Re:foundation

[TheKidWho]

It definetly was! The epic scale of the book, a conflict spanning a whole galaxy was incredible. I don't know how a movie could capture that to be truthfull... Even Star Wars didn't feel as epic. Not to mention the timescale of the book, with time jumping forward by decades at a time.

Bicentennial Man was great

[QuantumG]

If you're expecting anything better out of Hollywood then you're not paying attention.

He wrote nonfiction too.

[symbolset]

And he was good there as well.

No way...

[Anonymous Coward]

They should have made a movie adaptation of Asimov's Chronology of Science and Discovery. THAT would be epic.

Re:No way...

[Atario]

Asimov's Guide to the Bible would be an interesting experiment in movie-making.

foundation unfilmable?

[circletimessquare]

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

Re:foundation unfilmable?

[IllForgetMyNickSoonA]

"jackson made some of the bes films ever made"???

Oh boy, have *we* different oppinions about the LOTR series! :-) Just what is it, that makes Jackson's trilogy "one of the best movies ever made"? I found them unbelievably boring! With nice special effects, yes, and also filmed in a nice corner of the world, but the movies were - in my oppinion - just plain boring.

Re:foundation unfilmable?

[Max Romantschuk]

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

This is why I'm sad that a real version of The Neverending Story hasn't been made. The 80's films are just about about as true to the book as a movie about Jesus Christ leaving out the whole 'God' bit... The book on the other hand is FSCKing awesome.

The hard part is that really great movies aren't guaranteed to make really good profits. Maybe there should be a way to fund a movie with micropayments, so that true fans could help fund filming great stories, or something? In any case the core problem still is that there's always more than one way to interpret a great story. Just take the Bible or the Qu'ran as prime examples: There are huge numbers of decent Christians and Muslims out there, and there are some fanatical idiots of both varieties too. All of these four groups largely tap their beliefs from suitably interpreted versions of the same stories.

Re:foundation unfilmable?

[Anonymous Coward]

I also found the Lord of the Rings movies really boring. Well, at least the first two -- didn't bother with the third.

Re:foundation unfilmable?

[David Gerard]

The "trilogy" was just a convenient way of grouping the original short stories and novellas into book form. It's a string of several individual stories. Getting that into movie form will be the interesting bit.

Remember also: the book Foundation is really based on is Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Bet the scriptwriter won't read that either.

Wonder what they'll do with the encyclopedia bit. "We will go to the far-off planet of Terminus to write Citizendium." "Dude, the Galactic Empire's Wikipedia is soooo much better."

Re:foundation unfilmable?

[rpillala]

Most of what I read about Watchmen concerns Snyder perfectly capturing the look of the comic. That's a very superficial understanding of that comic, and it lowers my expectations. Comics aren't movies and visa versa. In one trailer, Rohrschach says "The world will look up and shout 'save us'" whereas the actual line is about whores and politicians. It makes a catchier line, though, so why not eh?

Re:foundation unfilmable?

[Abcd1234]

Yeah, but you have to look at the line in context. Rorshach is railing against a city he believes has becoming unredeemably corrupt. That the people there are nothing more than "whores and politicians", "liberals and intellectuals and smooth-talkers". And so when they alter the quote to be about "the world", I don't think it substantively changes the meaning of the monologue, while it does make it a little more "trailer-friendly", and more importantly, rating-friendly (it may be that using the word "whore" would limit the movies they could play the trailer in).

So, while I don't have incredibly high hopes just yet, I'm withholding judgment until I've seen it.

This is good...

[CryptoJones]

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.

Re: This is good...

[Black Parrot]

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.

He has saturated *all* markets too much. You can't go to a movie without seeing a trailer for an upcoming WS film.

Re:This is good...

[tzot]

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.

Don't count on that. I'm sure that some Hollywood big-guy will envision R. Daneel as a tall black guy with extrasensory and superhuman abilities, along with his trusty companion, R. Giskard, the fatter shorter black guy who says all the cracking jokes while R. Daneel saves the day.

Re:This is good...

[xstonedogx]

I'll call Keanu Reeves!

Re:This is good...

[owlstead]

Yes, the problem with him is that he can't be anybody else than himself. It's as much acting as Arnie did. The role in which Arnie excelled was basically himself: a muscular robot. That does not mean that the movies are not fun to watch, Will Smith can be amazingly funny. But he'll be Will Smith all of the time. Now take a look at an actor like Depp. Sure you can recognize him, but you could watch a whole movie without actually really noticing that he's in there.

So indeed, don't put him in there unless it really fits his personality. Maybe that's what they are doing though. Many SF novels are written around one or a few heroes that play out fantastic voyages.

Re:This is good...

[rpillala]

Rap fans are kind of on the other side of this. The only really good news about Will Smith making movies used to be that it kept him away from a mic. This is no longer the case I don't think.

Re:This is good...

[kv9]

That does not mean that the movies are not fun to watch, Will Smith can be amazingly funny.

you know who's funny? Steve Buscemi is funny. Will Smith will always be the fresh prince of Bel Air, thus laughable. not funny.

Re:This is good...

[Elemenope]

Now take a look at an actor like Depp. Sure you can recognize him, but you could watch a whole movie without actually really noticing that he's in there.

No, no. That's Gary Oldman. Depp is still too flashy to blend seamlessly into his roles. The closest he came was ironically his flashiest role: Cap'n Jack Sparrow...and he was aided by copious accouterments and make-up to pull it off.

Re:This is good...

[TMB]

Counter-example: by far the best Will Smith movie ever is 6 Degrees, where his role is as far from "typical Will Smith" as you can imagine.

Re:This is good...

[owlstead]

OK, haven't seen that one, I'll try and give it a look. I'm not a movie buff, but it is a bit boding that I haven't heard from it up till now.

Re:This is good...

[TMB]

6.9/10 on imdb and 93% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Are you kidding me?

[Badge 17]

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.

Re:Are you kidding me?

[schneidafunk]

Badge, you got me thinking about this. I want to disagree with you because the Foundation Series is probably my favorite SciFi book. However, my favorite SciFi movie is definitely Total Recall and I think you nailed the reason down for me. I'm wondering how much action there is going to be in this. I'm not sure I'd enjoy watching a bunch of scientists arguing around a table about the inner workings of psychohistory.

Re:Are you kidding me?

[MichaelSmith]

Asimov's writing wasn't very visual and it doesn't translate well to the screen. Larry Niven on the other hand...

Re:Are you kidding me?

[Rob Simpson]

Yeah, this might turn out even worse than I, Robot. The only book of Asimov's that struck me as having the potential to make a decent movie was The Caves of Steel.

Re:Are you kidding me?

[slick_rick]

I think story of The Mule could translate just fine with the right writer/director/actors. Other then that I'm with you, I just do not see how they can pull it off. Even Asimov admitted he never understood why the foundation series was so popular with Sci-Fi fans as it has little of the traditional blast-em and lots of good ole dialog.

Re:Are you kidding me?

[bigjarom]

Agreed. Foundation (and all Asimov's work for that matter) is much too cerebral for general Hollywood audiences -which is a shame.
A good example of this is the Asimov novel The Gods Themselves. I love how he steps outside the bounds of human experience to describe an alternate reality that is so foreign. But if not for various anthropology, sociology, and philosophy classes I took in college, a lot of the important subtleties would have gone unnoticed.
I don't claim to be a super-genius or anything (just a regular one), but I can guarantee that 9 out of 10 moviegoers would ignore any 'good' Asimov movie, and of those that saw it, very few would get it.

Re:Are you kidding me?

[tzot]

Asimov's writing wasn't very visual and it doesn't translate well to the screen. Larry Niven on the other hand...

Alfred Bester's novels on the gripping hand should be more prosperous. They film _Destination: the Stars_ as just another adaptation of _Count Montecristo_ (instant success), and then they do _The Demolished Man_ because it has a chase sequence and mind-reading.

Re:Are you kidding me?

[bar-agent]

Destination: the Stars is better known in America as The Stars My Destination. One of the things that makes it a good book is its discussion of the implications of Jumper-style teleportation.

Re:Are you kidding me?

[FlyingBishop]

As any screenplay writer will tell you, it is far easier to turn a short story into a movie than a novel. As such, I would expect them not to attempt the conversion of a set of short stories into a single story arc.

Re:Are you kidding me?

[DiegoBravo]

Agreed too. Now trying to make something of this, I think it could be interesting to see some short TV miniseries based on it... Maybe a dozen of chapters with a really big script edition and avoiding bloated FX.

Re:Are you kidding me?

[palemantle]

How about this? Start with Foundation and Empire, which is very much a novel (and not a bunch of short stories), move to Second Foundation (2 parts I guess) and then wrap up with Foundation. By the time they get to Foundation, they should have enough people lining up to lap it up inspite of its fragmented nature.

Afterall, Hollywood *has* to make 3 or 5 part movies these days right?

Re:Are you kidding me?

[RogerWilco]

I agree that the robot series would probably be easier to adapt to the screen. They're basically detective stories.

Pitch Black

[FX114]

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.

Moon is a harsh mistress

[Anonymous Coward]

The moon is a harsh mistress. Only memorable book I read of his. Ok maybe I remember a few things from foundation but barely.

Re:Moon is a harsh mistress

[harlows_monkeys]

That was Heinlein, not Asimov.

Re:Moon is a harsh mistress

[osu-neko]

That was Heinlein, not Asimov.

Speaking of authors who's has a lot of really great books, and just a tiny handful of really crappy movies made based on them...

Re:Moon is a harsh mistress

[spandex_panda]

I loved this book, read it recently! very cool, highly recommended.

Re:Moon is a harsh mistress

[tibman]

You loonie, that's Robert A. Heinlein's book :)

Re:Moon is a harsh mistress

[mrsquid0]

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress was a Heinlein book, but it would still make for an interesting movie. The Loonie sexual ethos would probably need to be stripped out, which would upset a lot of people. However, the basic story was little more than a retelling of the American Revolution set on the Moon, and with spaceships, mass drivers, and super-intelligent computers, which could have a lot of appeal in the US. The script would need to be treated with a lot of care, but I can think of ways to retell the story that would work well as a movie without losing the essential message.

Re:Moon is a harsh mistress

[david_thornley]

Are there any science fiction authors with multiple decent movies based on their books? I'm coming up blank. The SF movies and TV shows I've liked have generally been original work (Babylon 5, Star Wars, Star Trek, etc.), and the adaptations I've seen have usually been less impressive. I, Robot was probably the best of them, and that was an original story much in the spirit of the original book.

"The end of Eternity" exists since 1987

[tftp]

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.

Re:"The end of Eternity" exists since 1987

[tftp]

Sorry about replying to my own post, but I found the movie - plays in Flash with reasonable quality. There is also download for some small cash, but I haven't tried that. The flash player has ads, but they are not too bad. There are no subtitles, though, and that's sad because I'm watching it now and the dialog (in the council chamber) is not meaningless.

Anyway, here is the working link.

Re:"The end of Eternity" exists since 1987

[Akral]

Seriously, guys, mod parent up. There are more movie production studios in the world than one Hollywood, you know?

I liked Bicentennial Man

[Intrinsic]

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.

Re:I liked Bicentennial Man

[spandex_panda]

I too thought the movie was good, perhaps not amazing but it lived up to the book. The whole idea of an artificial intelligence being recognised as human is very cool. The other interesting point was that the manufacturers thought the robot was defective when it was discovered it was interested in art!!

Re:I liked Bicentennial Man

[sabernet]

The movie was very exceedingly faithful to the story until the first family member died. Then the movie became a flick about a horny robot and Jack Black.

The story never involved him falling in love. He lacked the hormones for it. Also, the continuity broke down quite a bit in the movie as well.

The movie wasn't bad and got the message through, but it certainly was Hollywood-ized.

No where near I, Robot(which had NOTHING to do with the book. I want my smoking, bitter old Calvin back, thankyouverymuch)

Re:I liked Bicentennial Man

[Opyros]

Asimov's The Bicentennial Man is actually a novella rather than a book — the expansion to novel length was done years afterward by Robert Silverberg. (He also expanded Nightfall and The Ugly Little Boy.)

Re:I liked Bicentennial Man

[danhuby]

I also liked Bicentennial Man but I haven't read the book.

I think those that have read the books will often have issues with the film adaptions.

The problem is that they will be comparing the film with the vision they had in their head when reading the book. The two are rarely going to match up.

An exception for me was the LOTR trilogy, which is very close to how I imagined it.

Then of course you have the usual over the top Hollywood effects and action sequences, which they seem to think is necessary to pull in the punters. Maybe it is, and I'm a exception, who knows.

Dan

Re:The Will Smith movie wasn't based on Asimov's b

[Trahloc]

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.

Novels rarely make good movies

[Howzer]

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.

Fantastic Voyage

[harlows_monkeys]

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!

Re:Fantastic Voyage

[oiron]

So you're saying that Asimov botched the job of adapting, by making a crappy movie into a good novel?

Re:Fantastic Voyage

[K. S. Kyosuke]

And later, Asimov wrote "Fantastic Voyage II", which was the version that should have been filmed in the first place...

Re:The Will Smith movie wasn't based on Asimov's b

[chartreuse]

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.

I have my doubts.

[B5_geek]

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.

Re:I have my doubts.

[oiron]

Compressing WoT would be like what they did to Dune... Mindgames don't work so well on screen...

Re:The Will Smith movie wasn't based on Asimov's b

[Changa_MC]

Indeed. It was obvious 5 minutes into the movie that the screenwriters had not actually read I, Robot.

i like that thought:

[circletimessquare]

religious bigotry is akin to a bad film adaptation of a good book

you win the allegory of the month award

Re:i like that thought:

[Max Romantschuk]

Yay! I haven't won an anything-of-the-month award in ages! :)

Re:i like that thought:

[srussia]

religious bigotry is akin to a bad film adaptation of a good book

you win the allegory of the month award

And you sir, win the malapropism-of-the-month award!

AWESOME!

[assemblerex]

Yet more treasured literature crushed beneath Will Smith's boots.

Re:AWESOME!

[onedotzero]

Vintage 2004?

Re:you're either an awesome troll

[IllForgetMyNickSoonA]

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?

Agreed

[RichiH]

After reading your comment, I will just not write what I wanted to. You did that for me.

Encyclopedists

[waveformwafflehouse]

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..

I would have expected 'The Stars Like Dust'...

[trav242]

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...

Movies which missed the very point of their source

[LKM]

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?

zzz

[circletimessquare]

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

End of Eternity

[Sir_Lewk]

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.

Re:End of Eternity

[gmuslera]

I remember when reading End of Eternity, after reading a lot of sci-fi that worked a bit with time travel and paradoxes that were the Asimov's ultimate word on the topic.

Adding a bit of education to the movies arena on how that topic is treated in a coherent and unified way maybe is the minimal necessary change to obtain the maximum desired response from the movie industry.

Re:End of Eternity

[Tomster]

In any event, I highly recommend the book to anyone who hasn't seen it.

And for those who are literate, I recommend reading the book.

Re:End of Eternity

[pugdk]

I couldn't agree more. "The End of Eternity" is on my personal top ten list of best sci-fi books I have ever read. Amazing book! Read it!

I hope they don't mess up the movie too much ;-)

The Humanoids

[bazald]

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.

I, for one...

[K. S. Kyosuke]

...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.

I dunno

[Jiro]

The End of Eternity might make a good movie.

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.

Oh, the Grand Vistas.

[Ostracus]

"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".

Re:Oh, the Grand Vistas.

[winwar]

"It could also be economics."

In a way. Their goal is not to lose money (risk averse). So you take a classic story that has a known quantity (author, fanbase, general knowledge, etc) and add things (violence, cgi, fx, etc) to attract an even wider audience. Most people tied to the movie don't give a damn about the original story, just whether they produce a "good" movie (makes money, fame, etc).

Re:Oh, the Grand Vistas.

[westlake]

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?

Ringworld would be easy: the thing is so damn big you lose all sense of scale.
The surface is uniformly lit and appears dead flat for a million miles in any direction. It isn't surprising, really, that the Sci-Fi Channel considered producing a low-budget mini-series a few years back.

Ahem

[Lije Baley]

Robot novels, anyone?

Ego ...

[Pinky's Brain]

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.

Re:foundation

[tzot]

But if they do the Foundation n-logy they should start with Caves of Steel.

I want some Elijah Bailey!

[Pugwash69]

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.

Will Smith was in Handcock too?

[HatofPig]

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!

Silver Surfer

[Iskender]

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...

Lame? Bicentennial Man lame?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Lame? Bicentennial Man lame?

[tehcyder]

How can you say Bicentennial Man was lame?

Two words: Robin Williams

Re:Movies which missed the very point of their sou

[AGMW]

I remember hearing a (possibly apocryphal?) story of Terry Pratchett having a meeting with Hollywood film producers to chat about possibly making a film of his book Mort.

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?

The Will I, Robot movie was pretty darn good

[Yeechang Lee]

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):

Given that the film is a Will Smith Summer Blockbuster[TM], I too was impressed and touched by how well it evoked the themes of the
Robot stories. I know the script was originally based on non-Asimovian robots, but the writers clearly went to a *lot* of trouble to fill in
the gaps once they gained the rights to Asimov's name and concepts.

[...]

The plot of the movie can very well be seen as the sort of dilemma faced by our heroes in several of the Robot stories, simply writ (very) large. There are allusions to, among others, "Little Lost Robot," "Catch That Rabbit," "The Evitable Conflict," "Segregationist" and "The Bicentennial Man," and "-That Thou Art Mindful of Him."

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.

Re:The Will I, Robot movie was pretty darn good

[Osvaldo Doederlein]

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 agree. It also carries several other wins, like Asimov's view of future supercomputers (paternalist mainframes); a quite good early Dr. Susan Calvin (a perfect one should be a much uglier actress but hey that's Hollywood - other aspects are all right); the fundamental theme of human values against the possibilities of AI (the plot with a robot saving Smith's live over a girl). I even liked the few insights of comedy, e.g. the scene with the robot being a super-fast cooking helper (but it's actually a serious theme: how easily people will "sell" traditional values for the convenience of new tech).

I'll give that movie an 8, which is not perfect but still in the top 1% percentile for movie adaptations of science fiction.

Re:The Will I, Robot movie was pretty darn good

[Whiteox]

I think you're too close to the situation.
The movie I, Robot just wasn't Asimov as pure as you suggest. Yes, the 3 laws were mentioned but Susan Clavin had such a small part that none of her skill was used but rather usurped by WS.
Calvin is really the human mind working with a robotic mind. Most of Asimov's Robot stories were how the 3 Laws could be circumvented by logic.
It was also a statement on a Turing-like event, that Robots can synthesize thoughts, and not just respond to situations like a GPS unit.
The positronic brain was not treated sufficiently in my opinion. Another gloss-over when more can be made from it.
I did like it, but when I read the originals in the 60s - the 'future' envisioned in the 60s is very different to the future envisioned today.
If Asimov was to be translated well, then that should be taken into account.
But the movie fails as an introduction to Asimov in this regard, that it was a detective/corporate thriller rather than the story of the 3 Laws of Robotics.

For example- George Pal made a movie 'Destination Moon (1950)' http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042393/ and the big problem with that was it was too technical and not entertaining enough. I, Robot as a pure Asimov translation could fall into that trap with too much exposition, but I think the movie as we have it today went too far the other way.

Re:The Will I, Robot movie was pretty darn good

[TheThiefMaster]

It carries a lot of his themes, EXCEPT for the robots not going on murderous rampages.

The "0th" law was invented by the robots, as much as they wanted it to it couldn't supersede the original 1st law. Even if it did, unless someone posed an actual threat to humanity as a whole, it wouldn't have applied and they would have acted based on the other laws. i.e. NOT KILLED ANYONE.

When faced with a potential conflict of the laws, such as killing someone to save others, they just broke down, because anti-killing was so hard-wired into them.

"I, Robot" was just an Azimov-themed Hollywood robot-rampage movie, it wasn't an "Hollywood-made Azimov robot movie". It wasn't a bad movie, but it wasn't Azimov, that's what we don't like. We were LIED TO.

Re:The Will I, Robot movie was pretty darn good

[fiannaFailMan]

Thank you! I've tried to explain it to the /. crowd before. Movies are movies, books are books. What works in one medium isn't going to work in another. If the I Robot stories had been made into movies verbatim exactly as written in the book, the movie would have Sucked with a capital S. But it didn't. It was actually a good flick that perfectly captured the spirit and the point of the novel and at the same time appealed to a broad enough audience that the message wasn't lost.

Also, despite the canonization of Asimov, his characters were flat as pancakes and their dialogue was wooden. It was the scope of his ideas that carried the stories through.

Re:Finally

[KDR_11k]

Is that a reference to Fahrenheit 451?

Please...Remake: I, Robot

[mlauzon]

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!

Re:Please...Remake: I, Robot

[Conspiracy_Of_Doves]

They don't need to 'remake' "I, Robot".

They need to actually make an "I, Robot" movie. Actually make, for the first time, a movie that follows the fucking plot of the book.

I'm not saying that the Will Smith movie was bad. It was pretty descent sci-fi action movie, but I still don't understand why they tried to connect it with Asimov. They should have kept the original title of the script, "Hardwired".

Re:Please...Remake: I, Robot

[mlauzon]

I stated it that way, because that is how the rest of the world will see it...as a remake; granted they should have stuck to original script title and I wonder whose bright idea it was to call it "I, Robot"!

No, he was a great author, but...

[Osvaldo Doederlein]

...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.

Re:No, he was a great author, but...

[westlake]

...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.

This is typical of the sci-fi fan who matured in the forties and was still learning his trade as a writer - and it is deadly dull stuff when translated to the big screen.
In contrast, Robert Heinlein could seamlessly weave together ideas, action, story, character and tech into something that from the start was quite cinematic - and would be writers like Heinlein and Bradbury who would first escape the pulps.

Extended version

[conureman]

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.

Re:The Will Smith movie wasn't based on Asimov's b

[MouseR]

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.

Space Opera

[westlake]

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".

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.

Re:Space Opera

[itsdapead]

The Skylark of Space [wikipedia.org] was serialized in 1928.

...and the term "Space Opera" is used by E.E. Doc Smith himself in "Children of the Lens" (1948*) - Chapter 3: "Kinnison writes a space opera".

Warning if you feel inclined to check: this represents Doc Smith deliberately writing bad space opera and as such could cause temporary blindness.

* To be fair, as I am not in possession of any incredibly valuable copies of "Astounding Stories" I only have a 1973 version of the novel to go on, so the reference could have been added later.

Re:Space Opera

[Artifakt]

I still fondly remember Qadgop the Mercoatan. In my tranship of memory, he (?) will forever slither flatly around the after-bulges.
And John Campbell Jr. used the term 'space opera' at least as early as '38, while also using the term 'horse opera' for westerns. Smith probably heard his works classified as space opera in fan's letters very soon after the first Skylark was serialized, if not running across it before.

Enough about I, Robot...

[Caduceus1]

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.

Re:The Will Smith movie wasn't based on Asimov's b

[denzacar]

Hey.. Ugly, yet brilliant, chicks are fuckable.

Only not really that easy on the eyes.

Funny...

[denzacar]

All this time I thought it was based on commercials for Converse and Audi.

Who guards the guards?

[westlake]

Backstage manipulators reconstruct the Galactic Empire in their own image. That is your story.

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.

Re:I shall use my immense mental powers now...

[theaveng]

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.

My 2 cents

[mcneely.mike]

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-)

Re:Movies

[Ambitwistor]

2001 wasn't really a Hollywood adaptation. Clarke and Kubrick worked on the plot of both film and novel together, and the novel came out after the movie. You might as well say that a core part of the novel's plot was ADDED to the novel, rather than lost in the film.

2001

[westlake]

I suppose 2001, one of my favorite movies, would be a complete failure if it were to be shown to todays public.

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.

Re:2001

[Evil Pete]

2001 came out shortly after the time of Marshall McLuhan's mantra "the medium is the message", which argued that the medium of communication is a fundamental influence on the way we process information or content. 2001 is a communication via visual content rather than dialogue. I still find 2001 an amazing and deep movie, but none of the message is contained in the dialog. Consider an obvious scene: the reading of the lips of Bowman and Poole while they are discussing the possibility of shutting down HAL, the dialog is irrelevant. Or the scene on the moon where the team is looking at the monolith in Tycho, the way they touch it ... reminiscent of the way the apes did, but now with opposable thumbs.

Or a more subtle one: when Bowman recovers Poole's body and brings it back to the Discovery HAL refuses him entry, there is then an extended quiet period where the discovery and the pod are shown facing each other. The pod seems to be offering up the body of Poole as a sacrifice. But in this moment we (again) see the three stages of evolution: Man, machine enhanced man (Bowman in the Pod) and Machine Intelligence. Man is dead, now is the time of the machine enhanced human, and the future humanity becoming or supplanted by machine intelligence.

Of course this is only scratching the surface.

Re:The Will Smith movie wasn't based on Asimov's b

[itsdapead]

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!

Re:The Will Smith movie wasn't based on Asimov's b

[Conspiracy_Of_Doves]

Did you read the book?

It's not that she was ugly, she was old.

Like, great-grandma old.

Re:Movies

[pandrijeczko]

Wasn't 2001 A Space Odyssey the movie originally an adaptation of Arthur C Clarke's "The Sentinel" story?

Re:Foundation

[pandrijeczko]

I'm glad it's not just me thinking that!

I read the original Foundation trilogy some 25 years ago and perhaps should think about giving them a re-read.

However, I do listen to the BBC audio adaptation once or twice a year (made around the time I read the books I seem to recall) and thoroughly enjoy it - but as a story, it's definitely not suited to the big screen unless the whole thing is really hacked about with.

It was done with an interview as narration

[Rix]

In the main thread she was old, but the book covered most her whole life.

The only thing they took from Azimov...

[Rix]

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.

Re:The only thing they took from Azimov...

[DogAlmity]

Granted, but it didn't have much to do with the short story either.

Re:The Will Smith movie wasn't based on Asimov's b

[david_thornley]

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.

Nightfall

[ChrisMaple]

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.

Re:Nightfall

[westlake]

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.

The cult in Nightfall has more than clue about what is about to happen. The scientists can only grope for an answer and they are running out of time. It isn't religion which destroys their civilization, it is the darkness which reveals the elemental truth about their world.

Re:The Will Smith movie wasn't based on Asimov's b

[denzacar]

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.

Asimov vs. PKDick

[gmuslera]

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.

Now this is an epic workload

[McNihil]

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.

Re:Now this is an epic workload

[PCM2]

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?

Probably about the same as they usually portray characters thinking things and acting upon those thoughts.

How will they portray the mule without it looking like a bad version of Alien?

I dunno... like a skinny guy with a big nose and sad eyes, kinda like he's portrayed in the book?

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.

You realize that the Galactic Empire was just an analog to earth events, including the Roman Empire as well as pre-revolutionary France, etc.?

They better be some spectacular screen writer adaptors to even scratch the surface.

It sounds like you're really saying, "There better be some spectacular SFX artists to come up with SFX for aspects of the story that need none."

Re:If you liked the movie...

[mhall119]

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.

Not the movie's fault, Tolkien had a bad habit of having his characters lose consciousness right when the "exciting conclusion" got started.

"Foundation" would be a joke

[Animats]

"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.

Re:"Foundation" would be a joke

[Corson]

On the contrary, I think the argument in "Foundation" is that future can not be entirely predicted and humans must intervene to avoid catastrophes in the evolution of the human species.

Re:"Foundation" would be a joke

[Evil Pete]

I'm not an enormous fan of Asimov. I am just not that attracted to his writing style. However, I did like Foundation. And his argument I thought was and is still reasonable. That when you are dealing with hundreds of billions of people, not just billions, then human populations become predictable like the physics of gases, except for powerful individuals like the Mule. A reasonable enough premise to carry a movie.

Re:"Foundation" would be a joke

[SanityInAnarchy]

Wall Street is only a small part of it. This is about much longer, larger trends -- like, "Is the American Empire about to fall?"

Re:"Foundation" would be a joke

[Artifakt]

This is the most profound comment in this thread. For the next few years at least, can you imagine the public buying that mathematical prediction works? Knowing that we've predicted ourselves into the Great Depression? (That 1929 thing will be renamed the 'lesser depression' by the time this one plays out). Every negative review will start by making fun of a plot that takes mathematically guiding the future seriously.

      "Foundation is set in a world where mile high building cover a whole planet. It starts off looking like Sci-Fi, but I realized it was wildly improbable fantasy when the plot had people predicting the future with math!"
                                                                                                                          -Locus

Re:"Foundation" would be a joke

[Sage Gaspar]

While characters in the books do make small scale predictions that are hard to swallow, I find the overall idea plausible that you could make better large-scale predictions if there were many, many more humans and a long history of material to draw upon. Plus obviously a more advanced knowledge of the human brain, considering they develop psychic powers in the Foundation universe. And one of the main plot points in several of the stories is that this isn't even enough, you need that shadow government pulling the strings in the background.

actually released in 1968

[way2trivial]

making in 33 years ahead of its time...

http://www.imdb.com/find?s=all&q=2001

Loved Bicentennial man

[ukemigrant]

I loved Bicentennial man - hardly a lame movie IMHO.

The U.S. of the Galaxy

[Corson]

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.

Obligatory post...

[xactuary]

First Speaker!

Re:The Will Smith movie wasn't based on Asimov's b

[SanityInAnarchy]

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.

Re:Okay, but...

[Artifakt]

What's odd is that works by 'John Wyndham' haven't been seized up by Hollywood since 'Village of the Damned' and 'Triffids', and not much more of his stuff was adapted in Britain. (If memory serves, Chocky was made as a low budget TV movie or something like that, but even that was the 70's). But Hollywood could do "The Crysalids", "Out of the Deeps" (American title) and others, and have some easy tie ins for a publicity campaign ("From the author of Day of the Triffids!!!"), yet they don't.
      One of John Brunner's books or stories ended up a movie long ago, but Hollywood misses the potential to adapt something such as "The Stone that Never Came Down" or "The Stardroppers" into a film - either of these could be done with a relatively low budget, and are about the right length to get all the major themes into a film. (But one would be 'too hippy-dippy liberal', and the other 'anti-fundamentalist'). Atlantic Abomination could make a good film on a bit bigger budget, as it would need more special effects. Any given section of "The Traveler in Black" could make a good self-contained fantasy film, on a modest budget, although there, I'd like to see some additional money thrown at special effects.
        One of Poul Anderson's books got made into a really cheap film (The High Crusade), but Hollywood has missed all his best work (Is Tau Zero filmable? I say yes.). Operation Chaos would probably work well, or maybe a generalized adaptation of the Flandry books (Think James Bond, in space, and some real science in most of them).
       

What happened to Rama?

[origamy]

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.

Forget the potential

[mblase]

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.

Re:Forget the potential

[RegularFry]

That might make it perfect for a franchise, though, because you're not reliant on having to have the same cast available for each film. Hell, you wouldn't even need the same director. That being said, I think there are some directors around who could pull it off as a one- or two-parter, Aronofsky, for one. The Fountain convinced me of that.

Re:Forget the potential

[RogerWilco]

Still, the Foundation stories have potential, just like 2001.

But they need to be executed like 2001, as mostly a mind game, not an action movie.

Re:If you liked the movie...

[SilverJets]

"Don't read the book, it'll ruin it."

Not true. I liked both the books and the movies. The books are timeless classics and the only problem I had with the movies was the Arwen/Aragorn love affair which probably had Tolkien spinning in his grave. Other than that I thought the movies were excellent and Jackson did an amazing job.

Didn't work for me

[N Monkey]

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.

Re:Didn't work for me

[mcpkaaos]

but then I read those in about grade 5.

Same, but I started with his robot series. I still remember the puzzled looks on the faces of my classmates when I was asked to share a word I had learned from the book (Robots of Dawn) and proudly exlaimed "roboticide!".

I think I spent a minute or two trying to explain what it meant before giving up and realizing at that moment I had taken a very sharp turn in my life.

Re:Didn't work for me

[Barryke]

damn i just spend 2 minutes googling.

To spare anyone the hassle:
roboticide is a mental block frying a robotÂs transistors.

IRL my roommates often attempt to crash each others arguments this way, for nerds sake. Never knew it had a name. Thanks, the Internets!

Nightfall by far the Worst

[Foobar of Borg]

In the first place, the story Nightfall is about the best one written by Asimov. The movie version made in 2000 is so bad, it is as close as you can get to blasphemy for something anti- (or at least non-) religious. The basic idea is there, but you have the white scientists against the Indian temple religious people in an utter horror of bad acting and downright stupidity. It is one of the few movies on Amazon that doesn't even have a single 4-star review, let alone 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):

Torture to endure from start to finish..., December 17, 2000

Okay, okay, this movie was as rotten as a reeking week old carcass under the blazing sun. I can lament for hours about the MANY horribly done 'effects' and the fact that it did not match the original tale, clinging only to several very BASE-ic threads to what was an Asimov Masterpiece. I could also go on and on about how this horrific movie was cast with what I would think are the dregs of the Screen Actor's Guild (if not just ordinary passers-by abducted off the streets of Calcutta and forced to perform in this heinous waste of celluloid under the threat of their demise) -- but I can only say this... As horrid as it was... as tasteless, and wasteful of cash and human life-moments as this travesty of film has been, it is not half as horrid as its 1988 predecessor. *That* movie was some product of a bodily function from a mushroom-dazed idiot, and like some movies & games have been known to induce epileptic fits, this movie nearly caused me catatonia. Anyway... this movie bites the big one, but if you enjoy MST3K as a show, and like to do as they did... it's the perfect candidate for such activities. For anyone who enjoys Sci-fi, and is looking for good entertainment, find the book by Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg, and read that... These film adaptations of the story (probably spawned from some evil parallel universe) should be shot into the sun.

So please, for the love of good literature, leave Asimov alone. Most of his good works cannot be properly adapted to the screen.

Asimov's stories

[geekoid]

make for horrible movies.
Big budget movies, anyways.

The best Asmov like robot adaptation

[geekoid]

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.

They blinded me with science!

[TheMCP]

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.

Re:"Foundation" sucked

[Rod Beauvex]

That's like saying you hate The Godfather, isn't it? XD

Re:A good proof of that

[Abcd1234]

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.

No, the *four* (4) laws are key to the story working. The entire reason the robots "rebel" is because, as interpreted by the writers of the film, the zeroeth law requires the robots protect humanity for it's own good. Without the four laws, the entire movie would fall apart, as there would be no reason for there to be a conflict between humanity and the robots.

Re:I shall use my immense mental powers now...

[crmarvin42]

Explain how this is a representative example of the population.

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.

Re:Movies

[Ambitwistor]

"The Sentinel" was the inspiration for some of the early movie/novel, where they discover the monolith on the moon. Everything after (and some before, as with the apes) is new material.

Foundation?

[residieu]

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"

Re:Foundation?

[conureman]

All they need to do is explore the theme of the stories, or one theme, as they do in movies. Pick a theme, tell it over and over in different ways. Wrap up each section CLEANLY and nobody will notice the personnel change.Can you understand it with no sound? Then it could be a great movie. A talented producer could make an epic from Gibbons' "Decline and Fall". (Actually that might be even easier, it's been so long since I've read them I don't recall the details.) Hell, I heard someone was doing Proust into a movie, proof that anything can be filmed.

Re:Oh, the potential Harry Harrison Plug

[tengu1sd]

Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat stories would make better movies than either Tolkien's or Asimov's best stories.

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.

Fourth Film

[conureman]

...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!)

Re:Fourth Film

[HeadlessNotAHorseman]

Tolkien himself has said "I detest allegory in all its forms" (I think it's in Letters... somewhere), and that LOTR is not an allegory for anything.

High Concept

[conureman]

They bought the title. IIRC there wasn't an awful lot of story in the book that would attract the unwashed.

Re:High Concept

[Daniel_Staal]

The book was a collection of short stories. Some of them probably would have made a decent movie. Or just write something new, but at least keep why Asmiov's robot stories are famous.

Asimov enough violence

[SlappyBastard]

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.

Fire Upon the Deep & Deepness in the Sky anyon

[The Master Control P]

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...

Asimov is now turning over in his grave . . .

[kickassweb]

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.

You May Not Like It But...

[Nom du Keyboard]

You may not like it but, some excellent SF novels do not make for popular movies. Comparing Foundation to LotR in audience popularity would leave me betting on LotR every time.

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.

Been done, and failed

[zaivala]

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.

Re:Oh, the potential Harry Harrison Plug

[Whiteox]

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.

Pretty interesting action scenes

[spectro]

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.

Amen

[jejones]

"...it's surprising how little of Isaac Asimov's work has made it to the big screen."

I, Robot sure as hell didn't.

Re:If you liked the movie...

[lekikui]

The 'Arwen/Aragorn love affair' is also there in the books, it's not like Jackson pulled that out of thin air. They make it more obvious in the film, but that's a change I can live with.

Re:The Will Smith movie wasn't based on Asimov's b

[DogAlmity]

No, it was not. The movie references Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics and has Susan Calvin as a character.

The Russians

[uman666]

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....

Re:Movies which missed the very point of their sou

[Repton]

The quote, of course, is on the L-space web.

- Speaking of movies, what happened to the plans for a movie based on Mort?

"A production company was put together and there was US and Scandinavian and European involvement, and I wrote a couple of script drafts which went down well and everything was looking fine and then the US people said "Hey, we've been doing market research in Power Cable, Nebraska, and other centres of culture, and the Death/skeleton bit doesn't work for us, it's a bit of a downer, we have a prarm with it, so lose the skeleton". The rest of the consortium said, did you read the script? The Americans said: sure, we LOVE it, it's GREAT, it's HIGH CONCEPT. Just lose the Death angle, guys.

Whereupon, I'm happy to say, they were told to keep on with the medication and come back in a hundred years."

"The person also said that Americans "weren't ready for the treatment of Death as an amusing and sympathetic character". This was about 18 months/2 years before Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey."

"Currently, since the amount of money available for making movies in Europe is about sixpence, the consortium is looking for some more intelligent Americans in the film business. This may prove difficult.

It could have been worse. I've heard what Good Omens was looking like by the time Sovereign's option mercifully ran out -- set in America, no Four Horsemen... oh god."

"What you have to remember is that in the movies there are two types of people 1) the directors, artists, actors and so on who have to do things and are often quite human and 2) the other lifeforms. Unfortunately you have to deal with the other lifeforms first. It is impossible to exaggerate their baleful stupidity."

Re:foundation

[mannd]

Would like to see the Lensman series in movie form : also cosmic time and space scale, but much more visual action and adaptable to Hollywood.

Asimov and Hollywood don't mix

[Morty]

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.

no no no!!!

[VernorVinge]

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.

Ahh, slide rules rule!

[treczoks]

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?

Interesting

[conureman]

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.

Blades

[conureman]

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.

NOT misguided and NOT lame

[charleskoe]

"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

They're bolted on

[Rix]

Read the book, it bears no resemblance to the movie.

I'm re-reading Second Foundation now

[mcgrew]

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?