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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."

17 of 296 comments (clear)

  1. How gimmicky is this 3D stuff? by jollyreaper · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?

    --
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    1. Re:How gimmicky is this 3D stuff? by Dr.+Manhattan · · Score: 5, Insightful
      They're still learning how to use 3D. Look at the first silent movies - they were basically set up like theater stages. People then started to experiment, develop a 'visual vocabulary', and learn how to use the new capabilities. 3D's like that now, still a bit gimmicky but getting better. It's certainly not as obtrusive as it's been, and can help immersion.

      (One thing that does not translate from 2D to 3D - at least for me - is a cross-fade. That just breaks my brain. In 2D, everything's in one focal plane. In a 3D crossfade, I can't figure out where to focus as things are appearing and disappearing and it's all a confused blur until the fade's over.)

      The other issue is that 3D can't make a bad movie good. My youngest kids enjoyed "Fly Me To The Moon", but my wife and I... well, at least I had my PDA with me.

      --
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    2. Re:How gimmicky is this 3D stuff? by Ephemeriis · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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?

      The 3D technology itself has been much improved. It works a lot better. The effects themselves don't induce as many headaches as the old stuff. And they're better able to create real depth...instead of just having things either on the screen or floating several feet in front of it.

      However, it is still up to the director/effects guys/writers/whoever to do a good job with it. Just like any special effects in any movie... It can be done well, or not.

      It can still be disorienting. It can still be pointless and gratuitous. We'll just have to wait and see how well it is handled...

      --
      "Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
    3. Re:How gimmicky is this 3D stuff? by clarkn0va · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Um, have you ever been to a kids movie in a theater? With all the distraction going on in there you would be lucky to ever even notice the guy with the PDA.

      --
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  2. Re:Should be a fine film, if.... by Peganthyrus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Did you read a different book than I did? One of the important plot threads is Mandella's fragmented-by-interstellar-travel romance.

    If all you remember was the battles on remote planets and the clone armies and whatnot, you did not get the point of the book at all - it's Haldeman's Vietnam-era rebuttal to the largely pro-war stance of Heinlein's Starship Troopers. The human dimension is important.

    --
    egypt urnash minimal art.
  3. Geek's psyche by Pecisk · · Score: 4, Insightful

    .....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.

    --
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  4. Re:Should be a fine film, if.... by netsavior · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The story was ABOUT Marygay and Mandella's romance. The ONLY part of pre-war society that survived the war was their love. Wow, I think he did read a different story.

  5. Re:Forever War is fantastic by stoolpigeon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Unit cohesion is an answer on the individual level - on a larger scale his answer is simply that they fight to survive. This is pretty clearly illustrated in Juan's H&MP class when he is in the academy becoming an officer. Heinlein pretty much posits that all wars are a matter of population growth and limited resources.
     
    I think that he does a great job of illustrating why war is inevitable. Then it makes sense that he venerates those who give completely of themselves to ensure the survival of others.
     
    Haldeman just operates from another premise, that war is not inevitable and that we should all just get along.

    --
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  6. Re:Excellent, more SF films. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Also, 1984:Republicans as Brave New World:Democrats.

  7. Re:Should be a fine film, if.... by SpuriousLogic · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I agree. SciFi is not really about spaceships and laser guns and death stars and all that. SciFi takes a human theme (as in Forever War, the bond between separated lovers) and illustrates it in some way by using a future setting. The Forever War uses the time dilation of the jumps as a way to illustrate how a soldier feels when they have to leave home to do fight and the strains that doing so puts on his family, society and lover(s). If you remove that human part of the story, it will just be crap. You will end up with 300 in space suits, just war porn.

  8. Re:Thanks an effn lot by TrekkieGod · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Ok who modded me as funny?

    I'm serious when I say I am blind in one eye, and as a result any gimmicky attempt to project 3d at me fails miserably.

    Honestly, you were modded as funny, because your complaint is funny. Especially since you phrased it in an lewis black-like, angry comic, fashion. You know, "thanks an effn lot."

    Don't get me wrong. I'm not laughing at the fact you're blind in one eye. My father is also blind in one eye, and I get your frustration that you can't participate in the 3d movie experience. That said, complaining that they're making 3d movies because you can't see the 3d effect is a little bit like a completely blind man complaining that they're making movies and tv shows because he can only hear the sound, but not see the picture, or a green-red colorblind person complaining about the choice of colors used in a painting because it all looks the same. The rest of us can see the pictures, the rest of us can see a bigger color spectrum, the rest of us can see the 3d effects.

    Your one-eye blindness is called a handicap for a reason. Just because you're lucky that it doesn't affect most of the things you do on a day-to-day basis doesn't mean you should be bitter when it does affect you.

    --

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  9. Re:Excellent, more SF films. by LWATCDR · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Funny but I thought it was a rant about living in an amoral society where meaningless sex and drugs where a replacement for love and moral behavior.
    The only real rules where to not make other people feel bad. It seemed like political correctness run amok too me.
    The hero was an "old fashioned" man.

    --
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  10. Action packed.... by vague+disclaimer · · Score: 4, Insightful
    an action packed novel about the impact of the time dilation effect on soldiers returning from an interstellar war against the mysterious Tauran species.

    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.

  11. Re:New 3D effects concerns by DragonWriter · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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?

    Quite a lot, which will (a) give people a reason to go to the theatre to see movies, and (b) provide an incentive for the development and adoption, within a decade or so, of whatever the successor to today's home viewing technology turns out to be, supporting home 3D viewing. "Replicating the theater experience at home" is, as always, about hitting a moving target.

  12. Re:Forever War is fantastic by roystgnr · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Limited warfare was the norm until the late 1700's

    Limited warfare is mostly the norm today: you surrender, the aggressor stops fighting you to the death. If the aggressor doesn't stop that, then we stop calling it "war" and start calling it "genocide".

    Of course, that's for an extremely literal definition of "limited"... but exactly what other definition does make the claim I've quoted above make sense? Try a search for "sack of", check out the first few dozen of the countless results, and make sure your definition of "limited" includes raping and pillaging from non-combatants, mass executions of prisoners of war, and other such war crimes that used to be status quo. I'll admit that Heinlein's post-WWII writing might have been distorted by some of that particularly-heinous context, but even genocide isn't a new thing in history. Ever read the Old Testament?

    But suppose that total war and genocide have become particularly common in the last few centuries, perhaps because of the better killing technologies available... how exactly would that reflect poorly on Heinlein's arguments that preparation for war is a necessity for survival? If the temptation of and damage done by war are going up with the advancement of technology and the passage of time, then surely that makes it reasonable to postulate a technologically-advanced future where those factors haven't decreased back to "the norm" yet. This is science fiction, after all - noticing that the norms in human history have included limited war, horse-drawn carts, stone tools, etc. has little relevance to a genre of literature that's also noticed that the norm in modern history is for norms to be perpetually changing.

  13. Re:Forever War is fantastic by kafka47 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That's just it. The 'rah-rah-ness' of Starship Troopers was a deliberate and ironic statement on fascism.

  14. Re:You'd think they'd have gotten it right by now. by Dr.+Manhattan · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Stereoscopic movies are a fad that crops up every 20 years or so. Rediscovered, lost. Rediscovered, lost. Lather, rinse, repeat.

    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.

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    PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!