What scifi books should be made into movies?

[phil_geo]

yeah but

Ender's Game is not a children's movie. There is no way it could be made into one, the plot is too dark. But that doesn't mean it won't succeed as a movie.

Look at Le Cite des Enfants Perdu - The City of Lost Children. This is an excellent sci-fi/fantasy French film where most of the stars are children. It is very dark, and one girl is even smacked around pretty brutally in one scene, but it is a great movie.

 

[Kamakhya]

Oh geez, I had such a different vision of Ender's Game than y'all when I heard it would be made into a movie. I see nerdy boy saves the world and protects Earth from bad, evil bugs. There is lots of video game action and the whole school is toned way down. It reminds me of an old movie whose name escapes me, The Last Starfighter? Boy plays video game, game is really a test, his high score earns him a spot in space fighting bad guys. He's a hero.

I mean, have any of you seen the newer cover aimed at 10-12 yr. olds? It's cartoonish. Ender may have killed, but only in self-defence and every picked on kid out there can relate to that. As for the genocide, well, that too wasn't his fault and besides, they were just ugly bugs.

 

[confused]

********* here be spoilers ************

But a cartoonish version is worse than no version at all ! Also, I could be wrong but was Ender picked on by the first kid he killed ? As far as I remember he decided that he was going to be picked on, and acted to prevent it. Sound familiar ? Maybe he was a neo-con in disguise ?
re. actors, most of the characters aren't that difficult to play. You need a very good actor for Ender, and another one for his brother, but the rest aren't particularly complex. Even Bean is your basic wise-ass small kid. On another note, would it be possible to deal with (ie film) the null-gee of the battle-room ? Or would you have to place the academy on Earth ?

 

[emohawk]

From SciFi Wire:

X2 writers Dan Harris and Michael Dougherty will adapt Orson Scott Card's beloved SF novels Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow for the screen, to be directed by Wolfgang Petersen, Variety reported. Warner Brothers will produce. The Hugo Award-winning book series begins on Earth after an alien attack, when gifted children are recruited for war, with a prodigy leading the assault against the aliens, the trade paper reported.

Card resisted offers to sell the books until last year, when he signed the Warner deal not only for a potential film franchise, but also for potential computer and video games with the Warners Consumer Products division, the trade paper reported.

Petersen is producing with Robert Chartoff, Diana Rathbun and Ted Ravinett.

At least they're getting a good director.

 

[Mugwump]

Originally posted by Kamakhya
Oh geez, I had such a different vision of Ender's Game than y'all when I heard it would be made into a movie. I see nerdy boy saves the world and protects Earth from bad, evil bugs. There is lots of video game action and the whole school is toned way down. It reminds me of an old movie whose name escapes me, The Last Starfighter? Boy plays video game, game is really a test, his high score earns him a spot in space fighting bad guys. He's a hero.

I harbour a similar fear Kamakhya.

 

[Ken Korczak]

I think there have been a few brilliant successes but a whole lot more failures in bringing SF books to the screen. Some of the best:

"Total Recall" -- I think a brilliant adaptation of Dick's "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale."

"Slaughterhouse 5" -- movie almost as good as the book -- Vonnegut himself thought so, too.

"Fahrenheit 451" -- movie pretty good, almost as good as book.

But which book would I kill to see brought to the screen? ---- "The Blue World," by Jack Vance. Believe me, this would make one, truly fantastic movie!!!

Please, God, let someone make this into a movie!

 

[Priestvyrce]

Originally posted by Kamakhya
I

I would like to see The Left Hand of Darkness as a movie, among a gazillion other choices.

Not only would I LOVE to see this novel interrputed and made into a movie, but it could be done on very low budget(FX-wise) and you get some great actors in the roles.

Another series that needs to be realized visually is Tad Williams' Otherland. Maybe they could do it the way they did the Dune mini-series on SciFi.

 

[Thingolfin]

Am I the only one who wants to see a new version of Frank Herbert's Dune?

 

[Erfael]

Am I the only one who wants to see a new version of Frank Herbert's Dune?

Aren't two quite enough?

 

[ravenus]

The book was mediocre at best, the movie (Blade Runner) one of the greatest ever produced.

I must disagree with this.
Blade Runner was fun when I saw it but I also realize that it jetissoned off a lot of the very vital and brilliant emotional aspects of PKD's book - like Mercerism, and the desire for owning 'real' pets - becoming more of a futuristic dimestore detective yarn. It was, once you got over Ford's incredibly wooden performance (was that why Scott wanted to show his character as a possible replicant?) nice to look at and certainly inspired the production design of many SF pics but it was also quite sterile in its emotional appeal.

 

[trentdick2882]

I must disagree with this.
Blade Runner was fun when I saw it but I also realize that it jetissoned off a lot of the very vital and brilliant emotional aspects of PKD's book - like Mercerism, and the desire for owning 'real' pets - becoming more of a futuristic dimestore detective yarn. It was, once you got over Ford's incredibly wooden performance (was that why Scott wanted to show his character as a possible replicant?) nice to look at and certainly inspired the production design of many SF pics but it was also quite sterile in its emotional appeal.

I disagree with both of you. The book was awesome, and the movie was different from the book but has a lot of value in it. There's a book called "Retrofitting Blade Runner" that is all about symbolism, etc. in Blade Runner and also Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. It's basically a bunch of essays looking into the movie and the book it was based on. Check it out

 

[Shehzad]

Oh geez, I had such a different vision of Ender's Game than y'all when I heard it would be made into a movie. I see nerdy boy saves the world and protects Earth from bad, evil bugs. There is lots of video game action and the whole school is toned way down. It reminds me of an old movie whose name escapes me, The Last Starfighter? Boy plays video game, game is really a test, his high score earns him a spot in space fighting bad guys. He's a hero.

The Last Starfighter: a truly bad movie, if there ever was one. Please spare Ender's Game. Don't make it into a movie. Please.

 

[Priestvyrce]

The Last Starfighter: a truly bad movie, if there ever was one. Please spare Ender's Game. Don't make it into a movie. Please.

I thought that when it came out, The Last Starfighter was a hoot! Sure, it was a B movie with pretensions of being good, but it had Mary Stewart of B Movie fame in it! ANd Robert Preston being Robert Preston!

 

[Leiali]

Hear Hear Priestvyrce! I watched The Last Starfighter as a child and I still occasionally catch on the tv in the holidays, loved it. Cheese factor is high, but it has a special place in my heart (rather like Buck Rogers really, so may be I'm not the best person to listen to.

 

[johnny]

well, for my pick it would have to be AMTRAK WARS, (IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT, WELL SO WHAT ITS ALREADY GOING TO BE MADE)
and the The Omega Man is also made a long time ago, but is so good it should be made again.

 

[milamber_reborn]

Two books that MUST be adapted because I say so.

Ringworld - Larry Niven
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch - Philip K. Dick

 

[Priestvyrce]

I think that Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's Footfall would make a fantastic mini-series on TV.

 

[UberDarkLord]

I'd say both SnowCrash and Ringworld would make great movies. Ringworld isn't too complex to translate to screen and would make for very nice visuals (imagine Louis Wu and his motley crew approaching the Ring in full-blown CGI with pompous music, that would be one stunning sight).
SnowCrash is actually written as an action movie (a satirical, post-modern one, okay, but still) and the only difficult part would be to include the Babel-thing. I think a nice (perhaps animated) prologue with voice-over about Sumeria would do the trick (kinda like FotR prologue).

 

[milamber_reborn]

I would only trust Stanley Kubrick with a Niven book-to-movie translation.

Modern-day directors just do hatchet-jobs that pander to marketability.

 

[UberDarkLord]

Yeah well I doubt Kubrick would have made Ringworld if it had been proposed to him. I think someone like David Fincher would do a great job and maybe Steven Soderbergh for SnowCrash.