[deda]

Can someone tell me why is it a problem getting Ms. Anne McCaffrey's Pern books make into a movie.

[Rob B]

Hollywood is dumb, they like to take a good idea and turn it into something trite, repeated and EASY to understand.

Pern is a good idea, well written stories and Hollywood probably wants to change it to fit their mold.

[Aleya]

Yeah, that's why they cancelled the latest effort.

I believe it's also a problem with rights. Once it's sold to someone they retain the rights for a while, so that even if they screw up and decide not to make it someone else can't have the chance. That is what happened originally, and now WB have dropped the ball again. *sigh* http://www.sffworld.com/ubb/frown.gif

Aleya - http://silver-oak.com

[Metosblat]

I don't really care who has the rights.
But for godsake please keep them away from the british!
Gormenghast was probably one of the worst movies i've ever seen.

[Zsinj16]

Right from the start it seems that Hollywood has never been able to make a good movie based on fantasy novels. I've heard that the only good fantasy-novel-based movie is The Legend based on the novel by David Gemmel, and I have not even seen that movie yet or read the book yet, so I can't honestly tell my opinion of it. Hopefully after the LOTR Trilogy of movies come out, it will create such an impact that it will influence movie creators to make the same epic-quality movies. I even heard that a short time ago, Terry Brooks signed a contract to make a movie based on the Shannara series. Now I haven't read the Shannara novels yet, but I plan to and I think they look like great fantasy novels IMO. I also know that the storyline takes place hundreds, maybe thousands of years after a futuristic war that caused an apocolyptic-type effect on the earth, and thus plunged it back to the dark ages, so I heard that when Hollywood tried making a movie on Shannara, they completely screwed it up and turned it into something like the Terminator movies, only with the Shannara characters involved, and a big nuclear war going on during the whole movie. At that point Mr. Brooks got angry at them for messing the story up and ordered the movie to be cancelled immediately.
Do you guys see what I mean now? It seems like the producers who turn fantasy novels into movies have little or no imagination, or they're too bogged down with budget cuts and expenses that they end up making a crappy movie.

[Cannon Fodder]

Just for the record there hasn't been a movie based on 'Legend' by David Gemmell. There was fantasy movie back in the eighties called Legend but it had nothing at all to do with the novel by Gemmell.

[Metosblat]

Yes..and it was a terrible, terrible movie.
The only reason it was a succes was because it had Tom cruise as the starring role.

[Aleya]

Wasn't that Cruise's like, first ever starring role or something?
I quite liked it, and for the record I loathe Tom Cruise with.. well, great loathing http://www.sffworld.com/ubb/smile.gif

Aleya - http://silver-oak.com

[Lady_Linda]

I like it too - but than again, I like Dragonheart (Except the ending) as well.... :0)

I don't like Shannara, I can't really put my finger on why (I like Zelazny, Tolkien, Dragonlance, Hobbs, Stanton etc) but I barely managed to read through the first five books - they were not interesting enough, simply.

[Zsinj16]

Oh well, different books generate different feeling and likes and dislikes for different people, I guess. I thought the movie Dragonheart was good, but I guess I expected more out of it. I expected it to be more on an epic and fantastic scale, such as the Dragonlance novels, which I have not read as of yet, but I'm definitely planning to.
I saw the Dragonheart sequel and I must say that I thought it stank badly. The dragons in it looked terribly dwarfed and wimpy somehow, definitely not as fierce as Draco looked. It somehow seemed a lot more childish too, I guess it was because of the wimpy-looking dragons. The plot was the only thing I really liked about the second movie.