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Ridley Scott's Forever War In 3D
bowman9991 writes "Ridley Scott's next science fiction film, his first since Blade Runner, will be a 3D adaptation of Joe Haldeman's The Forever War, an action packed novel about the impact of the time dilation effect on soldiers returning from an interstellar war against the mysterious Tauran species. Scott recently decided to move to 3D after watching footage of James Cameron's yet to be released science fiction epic Avatar. The Forever War, Cameron's Avatar, and Scott's other upcoming science fiction project, Brave New World, will make the next five years a fantastic time to be a science fiction movie enthusiast."
The 3D I've seen is more distraction than enhancement. I don't want to have to wear stupid 3D glasses every time I watch a movie. I saw Beowulf in 3D and the effect was sometimes neat, sometimes disorienting.
Have they made any improvements or is this just more of the same?
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
I read the first time this years ago in high school. It is an absolutely fantastic story. I'm hoping Ridley Scott repeats his Aliens and Blade Runner magic on this.
Gawd, wake me before you go
Summary dude needs an enema
...they don't PC it up by female-izing it for a fanciful scifi demographic. That is death to any scifi story. Don't title it "The Forever Romance, And By-The-Way, There Is a War In Here Somewhere--But Don't Worry, The Lead Soldier Is A Woman."
Tell the story, and they will come.
E Proelio Veritas.
I'm blind in one eye.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
.....damn....another sounding-good movie from those Hollywood mafia guys. They keep bugging us with their "intelectual property" plans...They want to bring down The Pirate Bay....must hating them. We hating them.......Damn....trailer looks good....I will download bootleg....damn, it looks too good...oooh shiny...screw it, I will boycot them another time.
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
Alien and Blade Runner was a long time ago. Now his stuff seems more of the big stars, big explosions, lots o camera tricks and not much of the thinking.
And he was a producer of that awful, awful, awful, dreadful, dreadful, dreadful remake of The Andromeda Strain.
from the that-extra-d-is-for-dumber dept.
Shouldn't that be dumbest ?
But "The Forever War", "Brave New World"? I like both books but they wouldn't be my first choice for SF film renditions. ;(.
Jack Vance, Isaac Asimov, Larry Niven, Harry Harrison please!
Ridley Scott, James Cameron, i think they're some of the finest film-makers around,
but why are some of the big IMHO authors not used, or the stories slaughtered (I Robot, cringe).
I'm afraid the law of the lowest common denominator will prevail in the editing room again.
And Leonardo diCaprio
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
Humm.... Mirror(s) anyone?
I just saw Monsters vs. Aliens over the weekend with my fiancee's nephew, which granted, is animated, but in 3D. I was blown away by the quality of the 3D. It's definitely not the red and green glasses 3D!
My one complaint about the glasses is that, sitting on the side of the theatre, I was getting glare from the lights slightly behind me in the aisle. But otherwise, the image was fantastic and very immersive.
If you saw the movie Jarhead, it was all told from the perspective and point-of-view of a soldier -- you never saw the "big picture" of the war...there were no helicopter or crane shots, it was all shot from eye-level.
Forever War is told that same way, from one soldier's point of view...and it's clear that he has no idea what is going on in the war in general...although you also get the feeling that nobody else does, either. The way that the movie skips through time with each long near-lightspeed trip makes his adventure even harder for him to understand -- the whole world changes dramatically with each hop.
I think that unlike a lot of SF books, this one really could be made into a good movie, that would capture the richness of each of the episodes in imagery that takes Haldeman many many pages to describe. I just hope that they just let the audience be as confused and out-of-sorts as the narrator is.
Forever War seems to be one of those "writer's first books" [like Grisham's A Time for a Kill, Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Hofsteader's Godel Escher Bach] that was slaved over, re-editted, re-written, re-thought, and probably submitted to publishers a dozen times before it finally saw print, because it is as tight a book as I have read. There's nothing wasted, there's nothing overly described that is better left to the reader's imagination.
Great choice, Ridley.
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
Anytime is a good time to be a SF enthusiast. However, I am supposed to be excited over this announcement? Come on, at least release 1 good SF film a year would be nice. 2 a year would be great and 3 a year would bring some real excitement.
The novel was really about a government keeping a perpetual state of war (which they themselves provoked) from the soldier's point of view. Written as an allegory about U.S. in Viet Nam war.
I'm still confused over how he's going to excise the homosexuality from the script. The book is terrific, but a great deal of the plot covers alterations in social mores, sexuality in particular. I suppose that angle could be covered in other ways, but it's certainly going to be nothing like the book. On the other hand, I can't imagine whichever studio is behind this allowing him to leave it all in, intact. Wouldn't appeal to their target market.
I saw monsters vs aliens the other day, I have to say that the 3D effects did mostly look good. My biggest problem was that every so often, objects a long way out in front of the screen would go out of frame, which spoiled the effect somewhat.
Blazing Spiders
I recently took my daughter to see the aliens vs monsters movie and we decided to try the IMAX 3D version.
Instead of the cheesy old blue/red glasses, they are now using polarized glasses (having worn my own pair of polarized glasses, I was able to rotate then 90 degrees to see that one of the imax glasses was polarized horizontal, one vertical).
The color was perfect and the 3d looked like the real deal. I was completely amazed at the quality of the movie, especially since it must have been a good 15 years since I had last tried a 3d movie (cheesy red/blue.). They had a few gimicky but good effect in the beginning of the movie, such as a paddle ball toy that bounced the ball straight out into the theater. It actually looked like you could reach out and touch the ball right in front of you.
The only downsides were at the extreme ends of my peripheral vision where the 3d effect began to come apart.
So in summary, I haven't felt any reason to go to a movies theater for years. Ridiculously overpriced, experience doesn't make up for the convenience of home, etc. After seeing this movie though, I would definitely make the trip for a 3D movie. It really it worth it. As far as I'm concerned that is the future of all movies.
I remember the Star Tours ride at Disney Land Paris, which was essentially a 3d film in a flight-sim booth. It was great fun, but I found myself underwhelmed by the brief glimpses you get of deep-space.
As a child I always imagined it would be a dizzying, hypnotic, chilling sight, focussing on a planet against a backdrop of stars at unimaginable distances. Didn't feel that at all with Star Tours.
Is this down to a fundamental inability of human vision to perceive anything with such asymptotically small angle of parallax - the fact that a million light-years is much the same has half a light-year? Is it some strange limitation of the medium that someone can explain to me? Or is it that the fucking robot was too distracting?
Anyway, regarding SciFi epic adaptations: Take off, nuke the site from orbit. Only way to be sure...
Meta will eat itself
some of us don't have perfectly aligned eyes and the "3D" effect isn't cool to people like me it gives me a raging headache for hours
You need to work on your self-loathing issues, nerd.
>some of us don't have perfectly aligned eyes and the "3D" effect
>isn't cool to people like me it gives me a raging headache for hours
This gave me an idea (maybe I should patent it)... how about "2D glasses" for the 3D movies? Offer patrons a choice, either watch it in 2D, or in 3D.
How?
Really simple. Simply make SOME of the glasses with both eyes having identically-polarized lenses. That way, both eyes see the same image, and you just get one of the two simultaneously-shown frames.
So for anyone who hates having stuff pop out of the screen, or gets headaches from the frequent depth transitions, they can still enjoy the movie along with everyone else.
--Brandon / Split Infinity Music
Not a rat gnawing at my face in 3D.
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
Shit popping out at me. It totally breaks the story telling experience, and is just plain annoying. I watched Beowulf with one eye closed.
Here's some simple GIF "wiggle-grams" that illustrate the parallax effect:
http://www.well.com/user/jimg/stereo/stereo_list.html
The "stone gate" is my favorite. (Click the thumbnail for bigger size.) Warning: some "artful" nudity.
Table-ized A.I.
I asked Joe in 2008 when he was on a book tour about new book on Mars about the relationship between MIT's science reputation and his science fiction. He replied his two vocations were almost completely separate. His previous book about time travel the protagonist is a MIT grad student.
What I remember was that the war started thru combination of misunderstanding, accident, and indeed some government agenda... but that the war continued simply because the Taurons simply could not communicate with a species of individuals. Only when humans evolved into a homgenous species "Man" could they talk with us and thus end the war.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
That's a pretty neat effect, but unless it's a disaster movie about earthquakes, I don't really see this technique as useful for films...
Be wary of any facts that confirm your opinion.
That's a bit like saying Animal Farm is concerned with the power struggle between different types of animal - true , but not quite the point.
Some voicing their concerns about 3D ruining their enjoyment by giving viewers headaches or disorienting them with fading transitions, wipes and other common 2D movie tools need to understand that there are already techniques in place to remedy these problems.
First off, the new polarization techniques don't use the older, vertical/horizontal polarized light filters. Instead, clockwise/counterclockwise spiral polarization is used, resulting in less image bleed-over into each eye. Second, directors have the ability to lessen the perceived depth of a frame, making it seem not as if you are viewing reality, but more a bas relief sculpture. This helps during transitions or fast motion to keep people from getting headaches or experiencing vertigo. The recent film Monsters vs. Aliens used these variable depth shots quite a bit. I've had problems in the past myself with watching polarized 3D films, but have no problems watching any of the new 3D tech.
I'd say a much bigger concern is going to be how films done in 3D transition to DVD/bluray. If directors start shooting their films differently in order to take advantage of 3D imagery, how much intention will be lost when the film is converted to 2D? Imagine a director tweaks the depth of everything in a shot to lie in the far background, then pulls one particular item forward to emphasize its importance in the shot. Everything else considered equal, that information will be lost in the 2D version. It's a comparable problem to taking a color film and turning it into black and white. If "the girl with the red umbrella" suddenly becomes just some other person amidst a sea of other gray umbrellas, the meaning of the shot is lost.
Some newer TV's have 120hz refresh rates (or better) to allow for 60fps stereoscopic imaging when using shutter glasses, but that is hardware which is going to have a hard time making it into living rooms.
It baffles me that no one has adapted David Drake's "Redliners" to the big screen. I would have thought it would be a movie long before "The Forever War".
They are both excellent books written by Vietnam vets about the alienation that soldiers feel from the society that sent them off to fight. "The Forever War" is the better book, but it gets that status from book virtues: deep thought, character development, and the reader's imagination about what society looks like each time the main character returns from a mission.
"Redliners", while a more simple story, paints things with a broader brush that I figure makes a better movie. Try reading the first chapter, it's in the Baen free library.
The problem with war was that most technologies could not sustain it. The massive chateaux of the Loire are there because the area around a royal court had trouble sustaining the load of unproductive parasites that most royal courts were. Ditto for armies - there was a limit to the size of army the field could sustain - once they'd stripped bare the local peasants' stores (leaving them to starve) an army either won or departed. Army sizes were limited. Logistics based on humans and draft animals, using the supplies locally available limited the size of armies.
Starting even with technology of the early reneaissance, the city-states Italy or Germany were swallowed up as tehy found themselves rarely able to defend against industrial-scale armies from large countries like France, Spain, or England, with the base to supply armies of thousands with pikes, arrows, ships, muskets, artillery and ammunition.
Once a country is able to produce to a civil-war or WWI level, all-out war becomes inevitable. The only thing that stops it is MAD (mutual assured destruction). The civil war and WWII proved that the way to win was to have the largest industrial base, most protected from enemy assualt. MAD removes this protection.
Which still bring us back to "why do we fight"? The answer is, "because we can". The last few years has shown that even democracy is no protection from misguided leaders with private agendas, propaganda manipulation, and other motivations. Why do we stop fighting? When one side recognizes theirs is a lost cause, but sees a safe exit strategy. Unconditional surrender means a fight almost to the death; armistice means peace in place.
Considering how difficult it was to achieve peace in WWII in Germany (similar culture) let alone Japan (very different culture) would we go to war with aliens, and would we or they accept peace? Even after the total destruction of 2 cities and the evidence that it would continue until surrender, a faction of the Japanese command tried to execute a coup to continue the fight...
OTOH, can a militaristic culture survive? Military action is the ultimate asacrifice of self for group; our personal natures is a perpetual struggle between selfish personal impulses (good and bad) and group support impulses (good and bad). Generally the militaristic culture dies because even the leaders prefer personal satisfaction to pleasing the group.
I have to wonder if that's part of the "immersiveness" of handheld camera shots. You're getting some extra depth information from the very slight change in the camera location.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Let's not think about the Creature from the Black Lagoon sequel in green and red or the potpourri of other thankfully lesser known black and white 3-D films that followed in the 1950s. Let's not remember "Friday the 13th III 3D", which vacillated between flatfilm and 3D shot?. Let's especially not remember "The Revenge of Jared Syn", which was entirely shot in stereoscope 3D?
You'd think that after nearly 50 years, directors would not only have the stereoscopic vocabulary nailed, but have a whole new language! Sadly, they haven't. Stereoscopic movies are a fad that crops up every 20 years or so. Rediscovered, lost. Rediscovered, lost. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Maybe that pattern will change this time 'round? Prediction: as BRD moves further into the mainstream, you'll see more 3D in the cinema as stereoscope, stadium seating, and, for the exhibitionist, room to grope your significant other, is all the future cinema will have over video.
I saw the dog movie that was out last fall in 3D. It was OK, but the glasses-over-glasses is super annoying and makes the focus/3d effect a lot less than it would be if I didn't have to wear glasses.
Do they have any options for the huge portion of the population without 20/20 vision who wear glasses?
I have amblyopia, so my eyes don't point quite paralell. 3D movies are worse than useless to me, I just get my choice of a blurry distorted image or a splitting headache.
Captcha says reject, which is what these movies make me think.
"...an action packed novel about the impact of the time dilation effect on soldiers returning from an interstellar war against the mysterious Tauran species."
If you really think that's what it's "about" than you've missed the central themes of the book entirely and shouldn't be writing a synopsis.
To a deaf person there is no difference between a talkie and a sound picture (assuming subtitles). To a color-blind person there is no difference between a monochrome film and a color film. However, to me and the OP, the 3D films are not simply unimproved from the 2D, they are actually *worse* because of the supposed enhancement.
Hopefully there will also be a 2D release; I seem to recall that my local cinema showed Bolt in both 2D and 3D (though I didn't actually watch either).
Cramming Starship Troopers credibly into two hours is impossible but I think it could be serialized into a week long miniseries or a tightly scripted Heroes-type story spread over a season. The same goes for the Forever War. I'd be much more excited about projects like that rather than another butchered sf movie.
First, they'll have to get rid of the fighting suits. Too expensive, and to much CGI or practical effects needed. Besides, how can we see the brilliant acting if the actors are all canned?
Second, the Taurans just aren't scary enough. They should look like multiple species of giant insects.
Third, using dead stellar objects for the FTL transportation of canned primates is so 1980. The Stargate collapsar should be a big ring thingie the troops can just walk through. This also gets rid of the tired old spaceship gags, saves money on effects, and avoids breaks in the action.
Keep the salute, though. That tests big with the 18-24 male demographic.
Technical limitations - and the economic limitations that spring from them - have limited 3D's usage to gimmicks before. They've done red-green 3D... but that can't do color. They've done vertical and horizontal polarization... but that requires you to keep your head almost perfectly vertical, or else the 3D effect vanishes.
These days they're using circularly polarized light with opposite signs. Clockwise in one eye, counterclockwise in the other. That way the 3D effect can be maintained even if the viewer's head is quite a bit further off vertical, making the whole experience a lot more comfortable. In the future, framerates can be made high enough, and LCD shutters can be made cheap enough, that alternating frames to allow 3D may well be economical.
Economics actually argues for 3D now, instead of against - movie theaters need a draw that's hard to duplicate at home. I already wait to see most movies on DVD, or Blu-ray at most, 'cause I've got a decent-sized flat-panel and good speakers.
The past can be a good guide to the future... but it's not an infallible guide.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
I should have made clear that cheap "wiggle" gif's are not what a motion picture would be like. In a motion picture, the camera would move in kind of a *slow* arc, aiming at the subject (main actors). It would *not* be jerky. The gif's merely illustrate the potential of parallax to provide depth.
Some may claim even slow arc-panning causes motion sickness (or disorientation), but so do red/blue goggles in some people. If you think about it, the truer the experience, the more likely one is to get motion-sickness anyhow. The closer you mirror a *real* plan crash, the more you will have the unpleasant sensations of a plane crash. I bet a lot of survivors do not have pleasant feelings in their stomach afterwards. In short, mirroring reality too closely risks mirroring the unpleasant parts of it also. (3D barf? Not!)
Table-ized A.I.
I highly suspect the fact that the Iraq war has been so profitable for a few companies IS the reason you went to war in Iraq. The whole WMD excuse is just an attempt to justify the fact that Bush & Co created the conditions where billions of dollars could be siphoned off to Haliburton, Blackwater and other corporations that have used the war as a way to scam those billions. If a few thousand soldiers die in the name of corporate bottom-lines, well thats just the American way. Now we get hyped up over Iran and North Korea because there has to be more war in the future to ensure those corporate profits continue. Once people get too much of a good thing, they want more. War is American Corporate Crack Cocaine if you will.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
No god please no, don't do it Ridley!!! The Forever War is my favorite sci-fi novel, and demands a live cast. There is some serious acting to be done here, a modern, adult sci-fi film, not a 3D film which is never going to be as good.
How can you take the misery and apathy of Mandella, and the serious, prolonged waste of life and turn it into effectively a 3D cartoon?
Get the damn budget and immortalise the story, or leave it until someone else can do it.
It's kind of a crappy book really. Poorly written, not particularly novel, and larded with cliche. I'm sure that the screenplay will be an improvement on the book.
Also, it's going to be in 3D!
Can't you just make it a good movie? It was such a great book. Do we really have to bother with this 3D crap.
The last 3D movie I saw was at Disney World with Micheal Jackson, when I was a kid about 20 years ago. I really don't need to see another.
Besides I already tried downloading Journey to the Center of the Earth http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0373051/ and I have to tell you that didn't turn out so great.
Me: wtf? Oh 3D... Delete.
3D scares the shit out of me. Every time filmmaking has had a similar introduction of new technology, the art of filmmaking has taken a huge step back.
When sound was introduced, films suddenly looked the way they did in the 1910s, except for european films that didn't record sound on location, and Chaplin, who continued making silent films.
When color was introduced to combat the introduction of TV-sets (much like 3D is only a gimmick to keep us from downloading movies), cinematography was fell back to where it was in the early sound era.
Early cgi confined the camera to be still.
I've seen some of the recent 3d films, and I'm not impressed. It's not about headaches or feeling nauseous, it's about how limiting it is to the filmmaker, there are so many tools you simply can't do in 3d (handheld, selective focus, superimposition, and so on). It's like telling a painter he can't use certain colors, or telling a composer he's no allowed to shift time signatures.
As someone who's hoping to direct his first feature film in the next ten years or so, I really hope no producer will tell me i have to make it in 3d because "that's the only way to make it sell".
What about the millions of people that cannot view 3d? I do not have "Stereo vision" and lack the ability to use the cool looking glasses. I have watched 3d movies in the past and they struck me as somewhat fuzzy om the edges.
Modern 3d doesn't use red/blue glasses. I've always stayed away from 3d because of how lame red/blue glasses are.
The latest 3d uses circular polarization, so no issues with color, like red/blue, and no issues with orientation (i.e. effect breaks if you're not sitting perfectly still and facing the screen "just so") like parallel/horizontal polarization. Honestly, it's really cool, I had no issues with convergence, and stuff really did look like it was 3D. The glasses were sturdy plastic, pretty high quality for theater 3d glasses. I didn't feel like a complete tard wearing them, hehe.
In Monsters vs Aliens the vast majority of the 3d effect was used to make it look like you were looking out into a rectangular hole in the wall onto the 3d scene, though they did have a couple "pop out" effects. One in particular was a paddle-ball toy, that was kinda funny, and unexpected.
I popped my glasses on and off a few times, and the difference was incredible. Obviously with the glasses off things were a little blurred and odd, but they were just so incredibly flat, it was stunning. It was easilly the best 3d I've ever seen, and I can't wait for more.
For sure I'm worried about how good live-action will be, but the animation was just stunning, so I'm sure live will be decent at least.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
My issue with 3D films is that, no matter the technology used, they all require that the watcher have two working eyes. One of mine is blind, so I'm outta luck. I'm also aware that I'm a very uncommon exception, and that my problem isn't any reason why this stuff shouldn't be developed and presented to/for those who can enjoy it. I just have trouble getting excited about it, and actively avoid going to see 3D flicks because of the net effect of it all for me (the film's frames are unwatchable for me).
Karma: Excellent, but still won't get you laid.
> ...will make the next five years a fantastic time to be a science fiction movie enthusiast
Or, they could all suck and we'll be consoling ourselves with yet another director's cut of Blade Runner. I was at the front of the line for de Palma's Mission to Mars and Soderbergh's Solaris, and I still want my 213 minutes back. In both cases, the subject matter, cast and crew, sets, models, all the advance information looked stellar, but both films were dull and incoherent.
I'll probably go see Forever War because I'm a fan of the book and a fan of Scott. But I'll believe this ushers in a new age of science fiction when I see it on the screen. There's a huge amount of really good science fiction out there, and a lot of it is filmable. (A lot admittedly isn't.) Pick a novel, *that hasn't been done before*, (isn't anyone tired of remakes yet?) make a decent film, and then do it again. I'll be a believer then.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I have one working eye. When I've tried to watch any 3D movies, so far, it's been a fiasco for me. Many of them do not have all elements in the full 3D frame projected to both eyes, so I end up missing part of what everyone else sees. Or it's red and green, where I only see things in one color or the other. I also tend to get headaches from trying to watch in 3D.
Personally, I think they should focus on getting the technology working so that a person with monocular vision watch as comfortably as a person with binocular vision. But, since we're such a small market, I doubt anyone will worry about the missed revenue from those of us with only one eye.
And it's a shame really, in the case of Ridley Scott. He's one of my favorite directors, and I'll hate missing out on his new SciFi offerings.
Will H.
I don't see it happening. Exploring alternative forms of marriage scares the crap out of a large chunk of the US population, including a whole lot of California. If even the left coast can't handle the idea, I don't see how the Midwest could take it. Not to mention the shots he took at racism. Offend the south, the midwest, and half of the west coast? Sounds like a no-go to me.
Don't be so sure. "Big Love" manages to stay on the air. Besides, we got Morgan Freeman as president of the U.S. back when many people thought a President Of Color wouldn't happen within their lifetime. Sometimes life imitates art.
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
I thought they were doing temporal filtering. aka the glasses have shutters, left clear right eye dark, then switch --fast. The reflection of light will stuff up the polarization of light in general. So unless they have screens that don't screw it up (An i know of nothing that *won't* interfere with the polarization when reflecting) then you are out of luck with polarized light... circular or otherwise.
The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
No, shutter glasses are on the way out. That's why 3D's gone mainstream again, you can do a cheap pair of plastic or paper specs with a different polarising film in each side and sell them for two bucks extra per movie ticket, compared to the expensive and fragile shutter glasses. The circular polarisation is maintained upon reflection.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
They've called Silver Screens, and they're in common use in cinemas everywhere. And yes, they preserve both linear and circular polarisation. Shutter glasses have framerate and synchronisation problems (ESPECIALLY keeping a large room full of glasses synced at the correct rate for their position relative to the screen), and rarely get the same wrong-eye isolation that circular polarisation can. Plus they're bulky, expensive and need batteries.
And, more than likely, an awful time to be a science fiction book enthusiast. Has there been an SF book-to-movie conversion that's been even halfway true to the source material? Enemy Mine, Nightfall, I, Robot, Starship Troopers... All good stories with truly cringe-worthy movie adaptations. Stop the madness!
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
Actually, modern circularly polarising 3D is based on alternating frames, swapping clockwise and anti-clockwise polarisation with an (LCD?) filter in sync. It's something like 140fps.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Forever_War_(comics)
I first encountered the comic version of The Forever War with amazing artwork from Marvano.
Later on I've read the book.
The comic is a must have. I hope the film will be half as good.
more info http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Forever_War_(comics) I haven't read the book but the european comic adaptation done by the Belgian artist Marvano in close collaboration with Haldeman is superb.
I believe I've tried such at Disneyland. I still didn't like it much. Perhaps they improved it, but it had artifacts. Perhaps it's because I'm nearsighted and wear glasses, meaning I had to double-up the lens count. Plus, 2 pairs is heavy on the nose. (If somebody called me "four-eyes", they'd be correct. Dead, but correct.) I'd rather they perfect the parallax technique. To me it is as 70% as good as far as 3D-feel with only 20% of the problems.
But to each their own. We have choice. Enjoy.
Table-ized A.I.
go Moo?
That is expected. People skills *are* valued in the market-place. Perhaps it's not the only skill valued, but it is indeed one of them.
I thought "GI Jane" was science fiction...
Yeah, but this is Ridley Scott. He's hit some serious home runs, and Blade Runner, whether or not it was your cup of tea, remains quite spectacular. I have a hard time watching the thing for all its misery and violence, but I can repeat word for word some of the dialogue while the music swells in the ears of my memory. ("I've. . , SEEN things. . .") --It takes a pretty impressive film maker to accomplish something like that.
And frankly, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep," while interesting, didn't change reality much, whereas Blade Runner made a significant mark on the look and feel not just of sci-fi, but on the whole cultural imagining of the future. My only concern is that Scott isn't young anymore, and so maybe the fire in his creative gut isn't burning as brightly or as hot.
As for those other films you mentioned. . .
I agree. And I would add to the list, "Jurassic Park". The hoopla and dino-madness was amusing to watch when Spielberg did his thing, but the book felt far more genuine and insightful to me.
Anyway. . , fingers crossed.
Though 3D? I'll try to get into it when the curtains go up, but there's such a Rocky Horror stigma with 3D that it'll definitely take some mental stretching to deal.
-FL
In the past year I've been to two amusement parks and have gone on two "3D Rides." I noticed that while everyone else was experiencing the 3D Just fine, I could still see both of the composite frames (without closing one eye). I had my eyes checked last about 15 years ago. My doctor then said I was a little farsighted. Certainly not farsighted enough to need glasses, but farsighted enough to not enjoy 3D entertainment. Now this is a really, really stupid question: If I'm a little farsighted, would it help the 3D experience to sit further away from the screen as opposed to closer? On both the above occasions, I was near the front row.
OT I know but, one I would dearly love to see is a movie version of Glen Cook's "Passage At Arms". Sort of U-boat warfare in the North Atlantic, with convoys and everything, set in a deep-space war against a species no one has ever seen. Sort of "Das Boot" set in a "Space: Above and Beyond" universe, There's even drunken rowdiness and sex during shore leave on a planet under constant bombardment.
But if you want "The Forever War", then Peterson could do it better than Ridley Scott.
Ask any economist and they'll tell you that wars are not only not inevitable, but there is no rational explanation for them at all, if by "rational" you mean "economically rational." There is a serious problem in economics called "the war puzzle" or "the war problem" that tries to figure out why the hell people ever go to war, because it is never economically rational for either side to do so, regardless of outcome.
Why would you ask an economist? They generally don't factor in the self-interest of a small elite or the way perfectly reasonable small conflicts aggregate into war under political nudges.
Ask someone who was inside the development and waging of Total War: Smedley Butler, a celebrated Marine and General. He wrote "War is a Racket" back in the '30's.
It's pretty obvious that war is highly profitable to a very few, and that the very many are highly susceptible to jingoism, nationalism, and political maneuvering. If fear concentrates power, and crisis provides economic opportunities, then war will appeal to strategists who think they'll win and can convince others of it too. Civilization brings out the worst in the mega-troupe, it's a mixed blessing for hominids fresh off the savannah.
Damn those pesky terrorists
I rarely go to the cinema these days, in part because I have a problem with the persistence of vision. 24 frames per second isn't fast enough for me, and any significant motion on the screen breaks down into a strobe. I'm immediately reminded it's a projection on a screen, and there goes the magic.
I often wonder if I'm alone in the theatre with this problem, or if it's just one more way film will have to change.
Damn those pesky terrorists
Well, minor panic over :) I don't mind it being 3D as long as it's not got obvious shots and looks fine on a flatscreen, no different to any other movie. Go Ridley.
Big screen $1200 7.1 sound 800 comfy chair 300 the ability to pause, hit the head and grab a beer on the way back... priceless
Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
Hold Still, I don't have good depth perception!
It is *NOT* an "action-filled story about the effect of time dilation on the troops returning from the war", it's about something even worse than Vietnam, an endless war, started for no reason anyone understands, and going on for no reason anyone understands, and that includes those running it.
Oh, that's right, like Iraq, except centuries longer.
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