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Old 02-March-2007, 08:25 AM
Graybeard6 Graybeard6 is online now
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Default Science Fiction Books That Should Be Movies

Please note that I wrote "Science Fiction", not "SciFi" or Fantasy (although I'd like to see a really good adaptation of Lovecraft).
I'll throw out a few to start.
1. Anne McCaffery's "Dragonriders". Some co-workers played with this back in the '80s (one of us was a dead ringer for Lessa) and decided it could only be done with animation. Now it would be possible with CGI and live actors.
2. S.M. Stirling's "Nantucket Trilogy". could be as easily shot as "Master and Commander" was.
I have more, but what do the rest of you think?
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Old 02-March-2007, 10:43 AM
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I have no clue what genre House of Leaves would be, but I'd like to see it make it to the big screen. Intact.

The way it was written though, the chances of it surviving any form of adaptation would be slim.
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Old 02-March-2007, 12:34 PM
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Kin Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy could make a nice series of films, I think. Effects technology should now really enable us to put scenes like the escape down the rapidly flooding (which for Mars at that time means great bursts of instantly freezing water erupting from the ground) canyon in the first book, or the crash of the space elevator, or the sight of the ocean waves in 1/3 G on the screen well.
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Old 02-March-2007, 02:49 PM
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I've wrote it before, and I'll write it again: Haldeman's The Forever War.

It'll never happen, though.

I also think Marusek's "The Wedding Album" could be an outstanding short-film--ditto for (Sterling's ?) "Scherzo With Tyrannosaur".
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Old 02-March-2007, 03:00 PM
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David Gerrold's War Against the Chtorr..... just because we haven't had a decent scifi movie with a monster in it lately. And CGI can now do credit to the purple fur.
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Old 02-March-2007, 03:26 PM
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I would love to see John Varley's Titan triology, just because I love the books and I think it would be visually stunning. But looking at Hollywood's history of converting great SF books into movies, I think they would just completely muck them up.
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Old 02-March-2007, 03:29 PM
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Worse yet, they would make it decent. All that free love and loveless sex is just too much for this politically correct age.

I've always thought that Philip K. Dick's Divine Invasion would make a great movie -- if it were produced by a film industry from another universe, of course.
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Old 02-March-2007, 04:07 PM
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Hmm, how about Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelles The Mote in Gods Eye?
Action, plot twists, stunning visuals, jolly good aliens, strong characters, shocking revelations, moral dilemmas & that essential for movies, a love interest.
& how about Pouls Andersons War of the Wingmen/The Man Who Counts, a well thought out(scientifically plausible) planet there! Who would make a good Nicholas Van Rijn? I'd nominate John Rhys-Davies.
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Old 02-March-2007, 04:15 PM
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Hate to fall back on a franchise novel, but I'd love to see I, Jedi done as a miniseries.
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Old 02-March-2007, 04:17 PM
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Harlan Ellison wrote a brilliant script based on Asimov's I, Robot that I would love to see as a film.

Arthur C. Clarke's A Fall of Moondust seems almost intended to be turned into a movie, but even though it's a decent read it's not a classic.
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Old 02-March-2007, 04:17 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jason Thompson View Post
Kin Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy could make a nice series of films, I think. Effects technology should now really enable us to put scenes like the escape down the rapidly flooding (which for Mars at that time means great bursts of instantly freezing water erupting from the ground) canyon in the first book, or the crash of the space elevator, or the sight of the ocean waves in 1/3 G on the screen well.
Yeah, and you could take out all the political machinations, which would actually make the story interesting.
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Old 02-March-2007, 04:24 PM
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I'd like to second David Gerrold's War Against the Chtorr.
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Old 02-March-2007, 05:12 PM
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Quote:
I've wrote it before, and I'll write it again: Haldeman's The Forever War.

It'll never happen, though.
I think think Hollywood might be willing to do an adaptation of The Forever War.

Hope you liked Starship Troopers.
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Old 02-March-2007, 05:15 PM
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I would like to see Hollywood do Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land.

However, perhaps I should point out that I enjoy watching train wrecks.
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Old 02-March-2007, 05:26 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ToSeek View Post
Yeah, and you could take out all the political machinations, which would actually make the story interesting.
Lol. That would actually make the story very very dull indeed, since without them there is no plot except 'people go to Mars and build a house'. However, there is certainly room to tone them down a bit, and the great long passages of descriptive prose would be covered in a single panning shot.

The more I think about it the more I am sure it could survive the transition from book to film quite well. Having said that, I did think Blue Mars was a bit anticlimactic after such a long trawl. Green Mars was great though.
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Old 02-March-2007, 05:33 PM
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Ben Bova's Mars would be interesting. Particularly since the Vice President character would take on a slightly more interesting twist, what with current events.
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Old 02-March-2007, 05:55 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ronald Brak View Post
I would like to see Hollywood do Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land.

However, perhaps I should point out that I enjoy watching train wrecks.
This should make you happy.
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Old 02-March-2007, 06:44 PM
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Isaac Asimov's "Foundation Trilogy" would be an excellent epic, if it could be done right. I was not too happy with the movie "I Robot" based on his short stories. I could see a Foundation movie as part drama/suspense and part sci-fi. There's not a lot of shooting or chasing, mostly a mystery type of movie, where the viewer is given pieces of the mystery, until the end where things are resolved(mostly) and you sit there and just admire the work of a true genius like Asimov.

I am skeptical that "Foundation" would be made the way Asimov would have liked. Hollywood would probably trash it pretty good.
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Old 02-March-2007, 06:55 PM
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Psychohistory with a single man who violates its ability to predict human behavior has been done already. The Matrix Trilogy.
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Old 02-March-2007, 07:13 PM
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I'd think Niven's Ringworld could be easily made into a great space adventure.

Also, I could imagine that some of Peter F. Hamilton's space operas could be made into epic TV series.
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Old 02-March-2007, 07:16 PM
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Psychohistory with a single man who violates its ability to predict human behavior has been done already. The Matrix Trilogy.
I do agree that some elements of The Matrix do agree with some of Asimov's work. I did enjoy the first Matrix movie and I did see some of the similarities to Asimov's Psychohistory, after that, the 2nd and 3rd movies lost me to a great extent.

"The Foundation" would require a director that wanted to make a work that would make Asimov proud. I have thought about this in the past, and think that a person such as Peter Jackon would probably do well. He did very well with "Lord of the Rings" - staying very close to the original books.
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Old 02-March-2007, 07:17 PM
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In my opinion, the original Foundation trilogy is too much of an idea-driven story to translate well into the screen.
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Old 02-March-2007, 08:21 PM
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I'm with Swift, Varley's Gaean trilogy, but filmed exactly, all of it, no concession to misplaced prudery, no conflation of characters or incidents for convenience - just as Varley wrote it (would that he had chosen to, and survived to, write sequels).
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Old 02-March-2007, 08:25 PM
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Quote:
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I do agree that some elements of The Matrix do agree with some of Asimov's work. I did enjoy the first Matrix movie and I did see some of the similarities to Asimov's Psychohistory, after that, the 2nd and 3rd movies lost me to a great extent.

"The Foundation" would require a director that wanted to make a work that would make Asimov proud. I have thought about this in the past, and think that a person such as Peter Jackon would probably do well. He did very well with "Lord of the Rings" - staying very close to the original books.
Consider your audience.

1) Foundation geeks who will tear into and nitpick every stinking variation from the Holy Text that makes it to the final cut.

2) People who's minds will fold like a pair of deuces facing a straight flush at the scope of the movie, who after reading RottenTomatos responses from moviegoers of the first type, will skip out and pick up the Matrix from Blockbuster on their way home.
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Old 02-March-2007, 08:40 PM
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Quote:
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Consider your audience.

1) Foundation geeks who will tear into and nitpick every stinking variation from the Holy Text that makes it to the final cut.
This part gave me a good laugh. I've never thought of it as a "Holy Text", but I can see that many Asimov fans would nitpick it, if it deviated too far from the original text. Still, I would love to see someone take up the challenge.
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Old 02-March-2007, 08:41 PM
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I would like to see a Starship Troopers movie made.
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Old 02-March-2007, 09:32 PM
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What an excellent selection of suggestions!

The two that interest me most are Foundation and the Varley Gaia - partly because I read Titan before it was released in book form.

Foundation - it would have to be an adaptation that really, really captures the essence whilst ditching a lot of the literal details. A far-future planet where they depend on coal? Yeah, it could be done, but it would have to be either a passing reference or a retro scene flying through smoke-belching suburbs of Trantor. (Reminiscent of, but not like, the opening scene of Blade Runner.) Actually I might reread it with this approach in mind.

And that scene in, what, Second Foundation where a girl has a typewriter with reliable speech recognition but no data storage... Yeah, again it could be done, either retro or with, sya, a blue screen of death...

Meanwhile, a literal interpretation of Titan could be great.
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Old 02-March-2007, 09:58 PM
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Me, I would settle for a good rendition of The Phantom of Kansas.

What I would REALLY like to see (and cannot possibly conceive how to do it right) would be The Stars My Destination.
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Old 02-March-2007, 10:20 PM
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Quote:
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What an excellent selection of suggestions!

The two that interest me most are Foundation and the Varley Gaia - partly because I read Titan before it was released in book form.
My bold - explain please. Was it serialized or a short story?
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Old 02-March-2007, 10:28 PM
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It was serialised, in four issues of Analog. I've got a feeling it was Jan to Apr of 1979 - I'll check that later if I've still got them.
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