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Emmerich Plans Foundation As a 3D Epic
spuke4000 writes "Roland Emmerich, the writer/director/producer behind Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow, and 2012 is planning to adapt Isaac Asimov's Foundation series. The plans include using technology developed for Avatar including 3D and motion capture technology. When asked about using this technology Emmerich responded: 'It has to be done all CG because I would not know how to shoot this thing in real.'"
The same Roland Emmerich that wrote the script for Independence Day? The movie where Will Smith flies a spaceship out of an alien base and yells "Oh! Elvis has left the building!" ? Where Will Smith pauses after beating up an alien and says "Welcome to Earth!" ? Where Randy Quaid says, "Payback's a bitch, ain't it?" ? Where Randy Quaid is about to fly his ship up into an Alien fortress to blow it up and says "All right, you alien assholes! In the words of my generation: Up Yours!" followed by "Ha-ha-ha! Hello, boys! I'm back! " ? Where Jeff Goldblum says, "Must go faster!" ?
That's the writing we have to look forward to? And the guy who wrote that is directing?
*curls up into fetal position*
Well, after seeing I, Robot I must say that at least they waited until Asimov was dead before hacking his works up into utter drivel in order to milk those cash cows. Gee, maybe if we're lucky we'll get to see the psychohistorian Hari Seldon played by Tom Cruise scream, "And that's my thousand year plan, bitch!" while snapping his fingers back and forth?
So what are we looking at here? A movie full of catch phrases shot in a new technology that just broke records for box office revenues? Sounds like these executive producers are betting on a winning horse that I'd rather take a bullet to the head than see.
My work here is dung.
If it's that hard to comprehend how to wrangle this story onto a screen, perhaps it's best left as a book?
Ocean is land, covered with water.
When I was 13 I came down with a pretty bad case of strep throat. I was stuck at home and feeling pretty miserable. My mother did something a bit unusual, she stopped into a local used book store that I frequented quite a bit and picked up a Foundation Trilogy boxed set from the '60s. (This was the early '80s) I still bought a lot of books based on the cover back then and I don't know that I would have picked these up at the time. But she brought them home (along with a copy of Watership Down I think) and I dove into them. One of the best gifts my mother ever gave me. I fell in love with them, still have them and re-read them every so often.
I never could get into the newer books quite as much as those first three. They hold a very special place in my library. Hopefully down the road my kids will enjoy them as much as I did.
As for film adaptaptions, like most avid readers I think I will see it but wont expect much. I never expect film or tv to be as 'good' as a book because I like books more. I don't usually get too upset unless someone murders a book I love, which fortunately doesn't happen too often. But it does happen. Of course the, "It has to be done all CG because I would not know how to shoot this thing in real." quote doesn't inspire confidence. Anyone who says that about Foundation hasn't read it.
Who cares about 3D. Just try to be as faithful to the books as possible, and try to tell a really good story!
Hacking into an alien military computer system with an Apple laptop! How could you leave THAT out?
Funny, when I read the Foundation series, I never pictured it as a big budget action movie. I never thought it would need 3Dand whiz bang special effects. And, you know, it isn't one story, it's a whole bunch of separate stories. I'm thinking this movie will bear about as much resemblance to the books as I, Robot did to its books. That is to say, I predict they will share a similar title, and not much else.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
"It has to be done all CG because I would not know how to shoot this thing in real."
Really? I'm having trouble thinking of anything in Foundation that couldn't have been filmed using the technology available back when the stories were originally written. It's a story about ideas, not an exercise in world-building or aesthetic splendor.
10,000 BC(E) and the 1997 Godzilla.
When I often consider whom I would choose to make a movie about thinking leaders who manage to diffuse conflicts through subtle social and economic pressures, Roland Emerich never fails to make my short list. Of course I would have thought Michael Bay or Uwe Boll to have been more ideal choices.
Uwe Boll would be proud.
I know how to film it. You take some ACTORS and you have them ACT and you point a camera at them, and then you have a movie. Asimov was a writer, not a zero-attention-span adrenaline junkie. Just about every scene in the first three Foundation books is people talking, and that's all it is, and more to the point, that's precisely why it's amazingly good. You could have the spaceships made out of cardboard cutouts being held by cute Asian girls and it would only marginally impact the flow of Asimov's story. GAH.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
The Foundation trilogy is about the least SFnal SF from the standpoint of imagery. There's precious little spaceships, or future tech. It's all in the minds of the characters, and in the dialogue. This movie could have been made in 1975 and not suffered visually at all.
Disinfect the GNU General Public Virus!
Please don't ruin my beloved Foundation Series! Why would everything need to be CG? A great adaptation of these stories should focus on the dialog and characters. There should be little to no flashy action!
Over-the-top Response Guy! Giving "Over-the-Top Responses" since 1970.
There's just nothing else to say.
Obviously, Roland Emmerich has ever seen any of his films: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Harryhausen
. . . in fact, I still find the films with his effects better than stuff that looks "too" good . . .
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Thats the only thing that i think that will have some meaning to show in 3D, dense math formulas morphing into events, if i remember well most of what happens in the movies is more chat in closed rooms than anything resembling action. Unless they take the Matrix approach for math.
"Bad writing? Hardly. Asimov is not to everyone's taste. His writing is for thoughtful people interested in character motivations and dialogue, not fans of space opera shoot-'em-up action"
Well that explains the failings of the original Star Wars amongst geeks.
This is a case where I really want to "vote against" a movie project before it hits the theaters. I'd love a well-crafted realization of the Foundation books on screen, but not a movie by a Hollywood hack producing something without any vision broader than trading CG whizbang for cash. The opportunity cost of having to wait until this mess is forgotten and the rights end up in competent hands is just too damn high: it's probably a matter of waiting until the practically-endless copyright expires. Fsckers.
There's no reason that a Foundation movie (to stay in-genre) shouldn't be at least as thought provoking as, say, Blade Runner.
you gotta be sh***ng me. 3D will not add anything... unless he starts doing some pretty spectacular 3D visualizations regarding the Positronic brain and psycho history... which like 0.01% of the population will understand and will cause the same 0.01% say that its not correct enough.
If there really is a secret force out there influencing events to preserve civilization I'm counting on them to prevent this.
Things like this don't normally piss me off, but this seriously has. Foundation is quite famous for not being translatable for film, and I doubt even a competent director and head screenwriter will pull it off well, but to get a hack cunt like this? No.
The foundation books, while great Sci-fi, don't have a lot of action.
I'm beting that Emmerich will "sex up" asimov's grand story with some ridiculous chase scenes and lots of action.
It's going to be like a train wreck...something that one can't bear to watch, and yet one can't tear one's eyes away from.
For example, qoting from http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=59905#:
"On the other end, the "Foundation" is a similar problem in that you have all these short stories and then they were combined into a book and so in a way there is not one character and I spoke with the Rob and he said we have to consolidate the characters..."
So here you have this epic story that deliberately spans the generations to show how Seldon's grand plan is being played out (ignoring all the 'other' fuondations books that sort of watered things down) and Emmerich is going to "consoldiate the characters." WTF? Lazarus Long will be taking the starring role perhaps ;-)
Thisgs to look forward to, perhaps:
Maybe we'll see Salvor Hardin kicking Prince Regent Wienis' teeth out in a thrilling fight scene (can't see Emmerich taking the maxim "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent" on board!).
Maybe we'll see Bel Riose blowing everything up as he closes in on Trantor. Lots of opportunity for a car chase (sorry...space battle...) scene here...
We can watch the Mule torture Captain Han Pritcher (in close up) into submission. Imagine the fun of seeing blood trickle down from Pritcher's nose and then realise (with a shock) that a burst blood vessel in his nose actually signifies how his will has been broken.
Maybe we'll see a bit of girl-on-girl action between Arkady Darrel and Lady Callia? In 3D!
No. No and thrice NO, I say!
Let's start up a "NO Foundation Film" petition!
Just wait until the moviegoing public decides that Trantor was just a rip-off of Star Wars' Coruscant. Or more likely, that the whole Empire is a rip-off of Star Wars.
Just something else Lucas will have to answer for.
-- Alastair
These are absolutely some of my very favorite books. But as I recall, Asimov's own foreword to the original trilogy makes the idea of a movie series seem pretty stupid. He started Foundation as a series of short stories. Years later, when a publisher was trying to persuade him to make a longer Foundation work, Asimov had to go back and re-read the material. He reports that, as he sat there reading, he kept waiting for something to happen in the story. He was right (of course): Foundation is mostly people have discussions. What kind of movie can you make out of that?
BORING
just like adding some added special effects to war of the worlds crap
no more imagination left
and 3ding it all wont help
sorry this fad can die already go ahead watch teh sales start to drop off
ya know how the music industry got wacked by doing stupid shit no one wants.
The Foundation Trilogy was one of the first major SF books I read, back in the late 70's. I had the trilogy with the Chris Foss covers. Those covers evoked in me a deep feeling of time and distance and that was what put me onto SF as a genre. The very first Star Wars, with the minimalist desert scenes filmed in Tunisia, also had some of that. While I enjoyed ID4 and Stargate as mindless feel good SF action films, almost everything Emmerich does is exactly the same thing, huge disasters with a strange lack of coherence between the characters shallow, happy smiling faces and the tragedy of what is happening around them.
I am devastated that Roland Emmerich will be murdering one of my childhood icons with his facile plots. It makes me truly sad.
I would like to see Neil Blomkamp produce and direct the trilogy. he's one of the few directors who hasn't been corrupted by the Hollywood feel-good virus and will let his hero be a loser. I would really like to be amazed again.
"Foundation is mostly people have discussions. What kind of movie can you make out of that?"
Try watching The Man From Earth.
It's a group of people sitting in a cabin talking.
It's still an interesting movie though.
...I am looking forward to hating it. I hear you cry: "but you know nothing about it" And yet, still I avoid eating poo, without ever having tried it. Yes, I could be wrong, but I've seen 3-D ships going boom and i don't need two hours of digital space junk being thrown at me to prove the coolness of the 'new 3-D'.
Emmerich is one of the worst directors in contemporary cinema. Please, the PTB need to keep him as far away from Foundation as humanly possible.
I was wondering how long it would take someone to come along and desecrate Foundation. Foundation was my introduction to real Sci-Fi literature. It's always held a special place in my heart. The obvious problem with Foundation as a movie is, it'd be epically boring if it's even remotely true to the book. It's just not something you can properly do as a movie.
But, if I'm able to completely separate the movie, in my mind, from the book, then I might actually enjoy it. As corny and ridiculous as Independence Day was, I kind of enjoyed it.
brilliant but handsome Hari Seldon (played by Russel Crowe) is accused of treason and is on the run from the Galactic Empire after prophesying the fall of the Empire. We will see Trantor in all its CG glory as a copy of Coruscant which was a copy of Trantor in the first place. We will also see the decadence and corruption prevalent in the Empire through a series of melodramatic montages of oppression and bacchanal scenes. There will be thrilling CG chases and fights through out the labyrinthine corridors on Trantor. Hari Seldon will raise a rag-tag band of plucky followers but eventually, he is captured after a tense Mexican stand-off and is put on trial. There will then be nail-biting court sequences where Hari Seldon forcefully defends his prediction but all seems lost when the Establishment had already made their mind. He is sentenced to death but on his execution day, his followers sprung him from jail and they departed in exile to a far away uninhabited planet called Terminus. There will be Moses-like scenes where the colony ship they are in are chased by miles-long Imperial battlecruisers but superior technology secretly developed by Hari Seldon will save the day. They managed to destroy the pursuing battlecruisers in a BSG-esque space battle and limped on to Terminus. On landing, there will be a poignant close-up shot of Hari Seldon's face looking at the stars, followed by him vowing to set up a Foundation to save humanity. Then a dramatic seamless CG zoom out to see the planet, then the solar system, then the star clusters and then finally the whole galaxy. The end.
3d
how special
end of movie
You can get some great movies with dialog alone. I had to watch one old movie for a class in high school, and I forget its title, but it was basically a jury talking about whether a man is innocent or not. It was black and white, with no effects that people of my generation have come to expect in movies. It had no action of any sort, just talking and the tension that comes from their arguments. It was, however, an awesome film. Better than most movies nowadays.
SSC
I would love to see what Ridley Scott would do with the Foundation Universe...
in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
Or the original 1972 Solaris. :)
I don't expect for a second that Emmerich will make a movie like that though. I'm just hoping I can ignore this movie entirely. I imagine it would be like watching someone turn my dead grandfather into a marionette.
Hey, I enjoyed 2012 for what it was. But that Emmerich is going to be adapting a real sci fi? It makes me sad.
Were the members of the jury men? Were they angry? Were there twelve of them?
-- $SIGNATURE
Thanks! That's what it was: 12 Angry Men.
SSC
For some reason, with sci-fi in particular, you get people who seem to think that there is the One True Way(tm) that a story must be told. As such if you adapt it to a movie or something like that you have to maintain it precisely, 100% the way it was. If you change anything, you've "ruined" it. Also running along side that you get a sort of counter culture movement that says "If something is popular it can't be good." They can only like things that are out of the mainstream.
That's what was going on here. Proyas realized, as Asimov actually had, that the stories as told in the novel wouldn't translate to the screen. There just wasn't any way to try and modify it. So rather than do that and end up with something useless, he decided to take the spirit of the novel and make a movie about it. The original stories would serve as background material, a scene and subject, not as something to be turn in to a script.
Personally, I liked the result. It was an enjoyable movie that was accessible to non-hardcore sci-fi people. I also liked the take on the three laws, how the company had turned them in to a corporate mantra/marketing slogan which is precisely the sort of thing you see companies do.
It is the same shit as the people who hated on the Hitchhikers movie for being different than the book, while not realizing that the book was different from teh radio series which was the original.
Suffice to say, I await a mechinima of David Lindsay's gnostic novel.
The movie I, Robot may have been okay if it were simply a standalone film
Sorry... can't agree on this.
It was on TV just last night and it is BAD.
This isn't the first time I've seen it mind you.
First time was truly a torture - particularly cause I've just reread the Robots couple of months prior.
Last night though, I've tried to analyze it to see if it could be made into a watchable movie with some creative editing.
I came to conclusion that it would have to be cut down to about 1/3 of the current length.
- Drop most action sequences. Like Will Smith running after a robot - to point out what? That he is a clueless moron?
- Drop nearly EVERYTHING Will Smith utters during the movie (nearly all his lines are completely pointless one-liners).
- Cut out Shia LaBeouf completely (Why the fuck is he in this movie at all? Who is his agent? Satan?), despite the urge to have him killed in a very graphic way early on in the movie.
There is a scene where he runs through traffic.
Just have a bus run him over.
Make his blood and guts explode across the screen... in slow motion... pretty...
Umm... sorry about that. Got carried away for a moment.
- Re-dub some of the dialog so it makes sense.
- Remove that idiotic red light all bad robots have in their chests just so we would know that they are bad now.
- Also, drop those scenes where they are made to act like spiders or look suspicious and shifty-eyed.
- Remove the pointless product placements.
- Change the name of the movie. It has nearly nothing to do with the book or the stories in it - it shouldn't be called "I, Robot".
Not exactly Maddox's 3 minute cut, more like 30-minute one.
It wouldn't really be a good movie, or a TV episode of some SF show, like Twilight Zone or Outer Limits.
But it would be watchable.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Looking forward to more of Emmerich's excellent one-liners:
Hari Seldon: I'm Hari Seldon, bitch, and I put the "psycho" in psychohistory!
Oops, just threw up in my mouth. I can't continue, the rest of you will have to take it from here...
- T
Was Uwe Boll not available?
Who the hell is next to jump on the 3D bandwagon?
"... and in breaking news, Vivid Video plans to release a line of 3D porn movies..."
Sarah Jessica Parker.
I know my memory's not what it used to be, and it's been a while since I read the trilogy, but I can't see why in the hell you couldn't shoot this without CG. Wondered if I'd forgotten the part about blue 10 foot tall aliens or something.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
Sorry. I don't buy it. Trying to do the "Foundation Trilogy" as a movie is like trying to do "The Miracle Worker" as a radio program.
--
Toro
Years later, when a publisher was trying to persuade him to make a longer Foundation work
This notion set off a massive warning bell in my head. Nothing could be worse than something once finished which gets re-written into something 8 times longer, or something written specifically for length in the first place. Exhibit one: Moby Dick. Exhibit two: much of Charles Dickens. If this is true you've probably convinced me to never read Foundation, or at least to track down the original short stories rather than trudge through a novelization of a short yet clearly complete, cerebral, and influential story.
The transformation of the BOOK Starship Troopers was to the MOVIE is what happens to a cow after its journey through fast food chain and the subsequent digestive system. Indeed, once you throw anatomical waste at people, very few will wipe it off and perform forensics to discover the real animal it originated from.
It took me 7 years and endless recommendations to shake the Starship Troopers movie and finally read the book.
Will the movies forever taint the Foundation series and prevent generations of young readers from knowing the brilliance of the Seldon plan? I can make educated guesses, and I sincerely hope they turn out wrong.
A sign in a library comes to mind: "Don't judge a book by its movie."
It could be Ewe Boll!
The quote is backwards, it was actually "I can't shoot this thing in real because it all has to be done in CG.'"
The first three books would be an excellent play, which is the heart of his problem.
The foundation series was very interesting, but be honest -- the last books in the series were less awesome than the first group. But most importantly, I just want to see the Mule's story.
Have you seen a movie called The Man from Earth?
Except for "The Mule". It has a mysterious enemy (the Mule), a smart female protagonist (Bayta), a maverick who sees the threat early (Pritcher) and a plot twist at the end. Add to that the backdrop of the Foundation (i.e. the last hope for galactic civilization) losing a war due to psychic manipulation and it's almost a formulaic movie. They just need to build up the backstory of the Foundation well enough so that the Mule becomes as big a threat as he is in the novels. And get a good actor to play the Mule so that the ending is believable.
I find it hard to believe how rapidly I plummeted from ecstatic to horrified. Did someone change his calendar to April 1st? I cannot comprehend a more backwards and misguided approach to foundation. Did he actually read any of it?
Sure, there's plenty of room for epic scale particularly in portraying Trantor. Corellia from episode III comes to mind but scaled way up. CGI sure, but mocap? "All" CGI?
Also I don't see how the vaguest shell of the original concept could survive attempts for climactic battles. The whole idea was that all of the battles were anticlimactic. That was the whole point: nothing was left to chance. It's like watching dominos falling. The beauty is in the revelation of the plans to the reader. In that respect it reminds me more of Ocean's Eleven or V for Vendetta than Avatar.
The entire story takes place over a few years. The Mule is played by a devious British actor. The protagonist, probably a middle aged guy with a dysfunctional family or a young guy after a girl, builds Terminus, defeats The Empire, defeats The Mule. The Second Foundation is a shadowy organisation who at the start appears like an enemy but helps the protagonist over the course of the movie. There will be at least three massive space battles. Hari will be played by Morgan Freeman. The scale will be reduced, as Galaxies are too big for the average person to comprehend. There will be aliens and robots, perhaps alien robots.
Take a small part of Foundation, say Seldons psychohistory and what that means against social progress, or some side plots that diverge from the trilogy, but dear god do not try and make the Foundation story. It would never transfer to the screen in a way that would either do it justice, or get it right. It is not possible to express the scope of ideas that the trilogy encompasses in a manner that will retain the creative freedom. Ultimately, everything would have to be refined to other meanings, inconsistent with the open interpretation that the book provokes.
Yes, it was said Dune was unmakeable, as well as the L.O.T.R trilogy. The Foundation isn't reserved to 'Middle Earth', or 'Arrakis', and isn't built upon the time-scale of a single generation of players like the other 2 were.
i'd do this Sky Captain style. Real actors, CG environment, 50's looking gadgets. i'd do it as a TV series so you could give it the time it needs.
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
Kevin: . . . it was a great movie. It wasn't a good movie, but how often do you see a great movie? . . .
...
Dave: Oh, I saw a great movie last night. It was on the late show. It was-- um, uh, what was it called? It's a classic. It's uh . . . oh, I hate this. I hate it when this happens.
Kevin: Well, what was it about?
Dave: It's about this newspaper tycoon and he's dead, and everybody is telling stories about him, and--
Kevin: It's Citizen Kane.
Dave: Nnnno, that's not it. No, no - but something like that. It's uh . .
Kevin: Okay, who was in it?
Dave: Orson Welles is in it. It's called . .
Kevin: Then this is Citizen Kane. It's Citizen Kane.
Dave: Nnnno, that isn't it, but you're not far from it. It's uh . .
Kevin: Aha!! Look! Citizen Kane. It was Citizen Kane! It was Citizen Kane! IT WAS CITIZEN KANE!!
I always thought Star Wars was more of a dune ripoff. Paul was born on a jungle planet, came to power on a desert planet, Luke was the reverse. Paul's grandfather was the primary antagonist. Luke I'm your father! I think that would make the analog of Fremen... the Ewoks, which doesn't exactly work, but the ewoks were pretty darn vicious for furry three foot tall insurgents. Am I full of it on this one or is it a dune ripoff?
refactor the law, its bloated, confusing and unmaintainable.
About the only way I can imagine getting all of those flashy CGI battle scenes into Asimov's storyline is to show Seldon's fears. Start with him working out the details that run through a Crisis period, and have the datavis melt into his nightmare scenario of what would happen if he didn't head it off in time. That way, you get all the destruction Emmerich wants, and then you pan back out through the datavis and onto Seldon's face. He then crafts the countermove. Then we switch up to that future, and we see the events come together to the crisis moment, but then his recording turns on and warns everyone off. Rinse and rep[eat. End with a cliffhanger, the Mule trashing his programmed fix. ...and if you liked that, check out "Burnout Fever", now available on Kindle.
Reservoir Dogs is mostly a dialogue based film, there really isn't much that much action, and yet it has broad appeal.
He doesn't know how to shoot it for real? Just have one of the assistants apply for a filming permit on Trantor.
Foundation is mostly people have discussions. What kind of movie can you make out of that?
Every Kevin Smith movie ever made?
It's actually best suited to a miniseries, if anything.
What could you possibly be implying with your seemingly random inquiries?
I assume that's what they're trying to film. It could work, but it doesn't really make sense. They're only purpose is to make money.
Also Foundation's Edge and Foundation and the Earth might work. But I sincerely doubt that the people who get the books would need a movie to spoil the way they imagined them, and I doubt that they really need to spoil these books just to make more money.
By the way, I liked the way they made "I, robot". It was probably one of the good ways to combine all the stories into a movie that made sense as a movie.
But the Foundation series...? Why not film "Yoda: the beginnings" or just plain old follow up to "Avatar: Body snatchers from the planet Earth". They'd still make money, without all the hard thinking.
new sig
Nothing could be worse than something once finished which gets re-written into something 8 times longer, or something written specifically for length in the first place. Exhibit one: Moby Dick. Exhibit two: much of Charles Dickens. If this is true you've probably convinced me to never read Foundation, or at least to track down the original short stories rather than trudge through a novelization of a short yet clearly complete, cerebral, and influential story.
IIRC, the 'longer Foundation work' was the sequel, the original novel *is* the original short stories compiled in one handy book.
Haven't gotten around to read the sequels yet, so I can't comment on their quality, but I've read the prequels and they suck *utterly*. But the original novel is brilliant, so go get it.
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
There are no aliens in "Foundation". None at all. Just humans. Emerich got a case of the me-too's, that's all.
Who hires an action director to make a CG version of a book that is nothing but people talking?
I love Asimov, and I am all for his works being made even more well-known through the use of more modern/advanced forms of media, but I hope this things fails, miserably, and ends the career of all those involved so that they never ruin another thing again.
Don't be such a bore, everybody knows a good Asimov story is all about big explosions and CGI actors because nobody wants to be bored with story and acting ability.
And hey, at least it ain't Lucas doing it...
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I would take a camera, set it up, put some actors in front of it, shout "roll camera" and then "action".
I think you will find that with your method, you will get a lot of actors standing around AFTER they have given the best performance of their lives.
Planning a movie, a lot harder the you think.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
There are no aliens in "Foundations". Yet.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Enough with the goddamned 3D!
I composed an overture for Trantor a few years ago: http://stevehanov.ca/trantor.mp3
Because History and Psychology come across as so much better when shot in 3D
Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
Surely I can't be the only one who got REALLY worried when I read this part of the interview: "It's not only the effect of 3-D, ['Avatar' has] just shown that if you do a movie in 3-D, you can ask for more money and that's the trick."
It really seems to me that this is proof that Emmerich has missed the point here. 3D is a wonderful tool for telling stories, but the story has to be there first. I've been a fan of movies all my life, and many of the most impressive movies I've seen were done on a very low budget - what made them impressive was that they told really good stories, or they told their story really well.
To take an example of the first: Moon. If you haven't seen it, see it. It's an amazing movie, a mind-blowing story, and it was done with a budget of all of $5 million. Another example: Cube. That's a very effective and extremely imaginative SF horror movie, with a budget of a grand total of around $365,000.
But, what about a larger story? One with lots of pyrotechnics, battles, etc. Well, besides the fact that each Lord of the Rings movie came in at $90 million only - making them now cheaper than most other event movies - I present for your consideration Underworld. It doesn't have a mind-blowing story - it's a pretty basic one, although it is well-told - but it does have a centuries-old war between vampires and werewolves, and it was incredibly stylish with very good effects, and an emphasis on story. Its budget? Around $22 million.
Emmerich's comment about how 3D will be very good at shaking loose more money worries me a great deal. I'm afraid that we're going to see lots of big event movies that are all computer FX, and lacking in craft or storytelling. Sure, you'll see the money on the screen, but part of creativity in moviemaking is coming up with new ways to tell stories, and limited budgets are often a good thing - they force the filmmaker to concentrate on the important parts of the movie, rather than getting distracted by the FX sequences. Now we're looking at 3D for the sake of 3D - or even worse, for the sake of getting money to do 3D - rather than 3D because that's the best way to tell the story.
(Aside from which, am I the only one who thinks that a few too many people are talking about FX allowing them to do things they couldn't do before, particularly when their examples ARE things that have been done before, and done well? Sure, there are stories that are probably unfilmable, such as Dante's Divine Comedy, but that's mainly because it's more travelogue than story - all the visual effects could have been done for that by Ray Harryhausen forty years ago. Seriously, if King Kong could do it in 1933, it wasn't impossible before computers.)
Robert B. Marks
Author, Demonsbane in Diablo Archive
Roland Emmerich? If they want to fuck a great written work of art that bad, why don't they just get Uwe Boll to do it, and lambaste it with style? They are both on the same artistic level, after all.
Isn't the whole idea of the Robot/Baley-series that the three laws _can_ be interpreted drastically different?
Yes: The conclusion drawn by R. Daneel in "Foundation and Earth" was that there was a "Zeroth Law" where the protection of mankind trumped the other three laws. Which was why he caused Earth to increase in radioactivity so that people abandoned the Caves of Steel, and why he chose to use the last Solarian as a vessel for his own mind.
Foundation is mostly people have discussions. What kind of movie can you make out of that?
French movie.
ID: the nose did not occur naturally, how would we wear glasses otherwise? (apologies to Voltaire)
You will often find that movies with much dialogue and little action are adaptations of plays.
If you like that kind of thing then here's one you might like: Sleuth.
-- Braden's law of data: All data spends some of its lifetime in an excel spreadsheet.
I'm Fonda that movie.
Roland Emmerich: 'It has to be done all CG because I would not know how to shoot this thing in real.' (emphasis mine)
Whew, good thing CG has been around since the beginning of moving pictures!.. No, that can't be right. Oh yes! I got it now. There were not sci-fi movies until Star Wars Episode 1 came out!
http://dilbert.com/2010-12-13
Dr. Emmerich designed Metal Gear "Rex", and its only weakness is the raydome. Unless any of you fags are packing stinger missiles, chaff grenades and rations, you'd best be bowing to your new overlord. No I did not read TFA.
OMG! I remember that one! Why hasn't this been remade with explosions, nekkid boobs and a McGuffin!