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New Asimov Movies Coming
bowman9991 writes "Two big budget Isaac Asimov novel adaptations are on the way. New Line founders Bob Shaye and Michael Lynne are developing Asimov's 1951 novel Foundation, the first in Asimov's classic space opera saga, which has the potential to be as epic as Lord of the Rings. At the same time, New Regency has recently announced they were adapting Asimov's time travel novel The End of Eternity. Despite having edited or written more than 500 books, it's surprising how little of Isaac Asimov's work has made it to the big screen. '"Isaac Asimov had writer's block once," fellow science fiction writer Harlan Ellison said, referring to Asimov's impressive output. "It was the worst ten minutes of his life."' Previous adaptations include the misguided Will Smith feature I, Robot, the lame Bicentennial Man with Robin Williams, and two B-grade adaptations of Nightfall."
This reader also notes that a remake of The Day of the Triffids is coming.
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?
Conservation of angular momentum makes the world go round.
As long as Will Smith isn't in any more of them. Between Independence Day, I Robot, and I am Legend I think he has saturated this market enough.
"Chance favors the prepared mind." ~Me
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.
I'll be seeing that first run in theatres and buying the DVDs.
They predicted that, you know.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
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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.
-- Sauer
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.
>>>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.
'Sensible' is a curse word.