No ALL button?
'Tis a shame there is no "ALL".
Vote now for the best sci-fi film never made
Note: This poll is now closed. Thanks to all of you who voted. You can see the final result below... Poll Results Well, the time has come to vote for the best sci-fi movie never made from the list of 50 heavyweight contenders nominated by you, our beloved readers. Before getting down to it, we'd like to point out that we' …
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Wednesday 27th April 2011 11:58 GMT The Jay
What about...
So there are a couple of Heinlein entries, however, Stranger in a Strange Land (despite being my choice) would make an epic movie that would be rubbish compared to the book...
Now if "I Shall Fear No Evil" was up there, THAT would be an awesome movie... the weird twists and dark undertones would make it not only a strong philosophical Sci-Fi but would also be quite a chiller...
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Thursday 28th April 2011 10:07 GMT lawman
I'm glad
that my choice "Legacy of Heorot" by Niven, Barnes & Pournelle" is unlikely to be made into a film. Having witnessed the travesty that is Starship Troopers I can't imagine what Hollywood would do to screw up such a good story.
I mean- the whole point about Starship Troopers is that Heinlein was questioning the way our democracy works, about how the right to vote is a right to be earned. The whole war against the bugs is just the backdrop. And Voerhoeven made a film about the backdrop. Doh!
Every time I reread the book I'm amazed that Heinlein wrote the book to be read by teenagers. He'd been putting out books featuring teenage heroes for about ten years but his publisher turned it down. He took it to another publisher who released it to the mainstream sci-fi market and the rest is history. Without the success of Starship Troopers there would have been no "Stranger in a Strange Land" (which kind of influenced Bowie's film "The Man Who Fell To Earth") and my life would have been poorer for it.
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Thursday 28th April 2011 13:39 GMT sT0rNG b4R3 duRiD
I don't know Verhoeven's style all that well
But, Sarah, if you've not done so already, read Heinlein's Starship Troopers and then compare the themes presented by both. I think you will see there is a big difference.
Some of the most memorable passages in the book are the discussions between the protagonist and his moral philosophy instructor. As noted by a poster above for example, the argument of the franchise to vote being something that has to be earned. Other interesting discussions are on the reasons of why wars should be fought, why infantry will always be needed...
Verhoeven made the film into a satire of right wingedness, which is hardly true to the book. It was truly sickening.
Although this is less of an issue (it's not central to the book to me), to add insult to injury, he made the MobiIe Infantry seem lame - the Japanese anime potrayed the MI in their gorilla suits truer to the novel, but I guess they're used to this powered suit/mecha type thing I guess....
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Wednesday 27th April 2011 12:54 GMT Mage
Where is?
<<Where is War of the Worlds???
or Blade Runner???>>
Because this is a list of Films that have never been made.
"War of the Worlds" made about x5 if you count DVD of Jeff Wayne's (which is better to watch than most of the "straight" flims), not counting the at least two sequels!
.
Blade Runner is the FILM title. The book is "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?"
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Wednesday 27th April 2011 20:13 GMT Captain DaFt
You never heard of the sequel, "Edison's Conquest of Mars"?
Written by Garrett Putman Serviss, it was the first Science fiction story to feature disintegrator guns, space suits, and the first book to claim the Martians built the pyramids.
It was written as a sequel to "War of The Worlds", and it is one of the cheesiest, Deus Ex Machina filled books you'll ever read! Here's the Gutenburg link if anyone's interested:
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19141
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Thursday 28th April 2011 08:47 GMT sT0rNG b4R3 duRiD
War of the worlds II
Actually, there was a (at least one! possibly more) pulp sci fi novel sequel, I just can't remember what it was called. Apparently Thomas Edison or some scientist of the period discovered some way to make space ships and as the story went we went up to Mars to whup ass... I'm shitting you not, I just can't remember the title. Yes, it was forgettable.
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Wednesday 27th April 2011 13:33 GMT Esteis
Try the BBC's radio play of Neuromancer
It is magnificent. Everything you could wish for in an adaptation, and more. Especially the voice casting and acting – Armitage, the Dixie Flatline, Molly, Peter Riviera, Maelcum – is inspired, I can still hear the characters and their lines in my head.
One Daniel was kind enough to put it up (after writing to the BBC repeatedly, and receiving no reply).
http://bluesuncorp.co.uk/article/neuromancer-bbc-radio-play
However, we probably ought to use the torrent, lest we wreck his bandwidth allotment for the month.
http://www.torrentreactor.net/torrents/1701782/Neuromancer-by-William-Gibson-BBC-Radio-Drama
On a related note: It's a crying shame that the World Service's entire radio drama department got axed in the recent cuts. :-(
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Thursday 28th April 2011 08:55 GMT Msan
Agree a lot of William Gibsons work has dated badly...
That whole cyberpunk thing covered for a lot of bad writing, and Gibson is one cack handed kick, his only strength being the actual story idea. A lot of his books and short stories have been optioned - but after the fiasco that was 'Johnny Mnemonic', who knows?
On the plus side Abel Ferrara really kicked ass with his adaption of 'New Rose Hotel' - starring Chris Walken, Willen De Foe and Asia Argento, but that was one of his 'techy' stories and had a relationship at it's heart.
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Wednesday 27th April 2011 20:07 GMT Daniel B.
Not so dated
It is probably still far away from what we have, the Matrix was basically the Internet with a VR interface. They even had their "home location", as Case always appeared near the Eastern Seaboard Fission Authority, no matter where he was jacking in from. The only thing dated is the fact that it occurs a couple of decades after WW3 between the US and the *Soviet Union*. Orson Scott was able to sidestep on this simply making the "Warsaw Pact" the "NEW Warsaw Pact" in Ender's Game.
I would still like a Neuromancer movie, though some people might think it's a Matrix ripoff instead of the other way 'round.
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Wednesday 27th April 2011 20:13 GMT Anonymous Coward
Radio kills the video star
BBC Radio 4 dramatised the Foundation Trilogy in the mid-70s - it was superb and it turned me on to Asimov. The special effects were wonderful - imagination is far better than any CGI could be. It's out there on the interwebs if you want to hear it - in eight glorious 1hr episodes. Perfect for commuters.
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Wednesday 27th April 2011 13:53 GMT Sir Runcible Spoon
Sir
Agreed about the Gap books, but do you really think Hollywood could render the darker stuff from those books and do them justice? Downright dark some bits were, a really good example of story driven sci-fi (i.e. more about the people than the toys).
In the end I had to vote for the Rat, coz he is a childhood favourite and fairly trivial for Hollywood to translate. D-U-P.
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Thursday 28th April 2011 10:15 GMT BorkedAgain
Good God no.
I read through six of those bloody Thomas Covenant novels, waiting for them to get to the good part. "Surely there must be a good part coming, any time soon!" I thought to myself.
I was wrong.
There is no good part.
And don't tell me it gets good if you read the next trilogy or the next because I'm not giving that guy any more of my life. I'd rather read Mills and frickin Boon.
Okay, that was a bit harsh, but still...
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Wednesday 27th April 2011 12:58 GMT Keith 21
Some excellent...
...suggestions there, it was hard to pick just one as so many would make excellent films (handled properly).
But whoever wins, please let it NOT be that overhyped bloody Neuromancer! I finally gave in and read it last year, after being frequently told it was the best SciFi story ever and aother such hype, only to find it was a mediocre story at best *shudder*
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Wednesday 27th April 2011 15:52 GMT AdamWill
Try his more recent books...
...starting with All Tomorrow's Parties and working forwards. Somewhere around ATP he suddenly became a much, much better writer; his earlier books were more 'interesting-for-the-ideas' stuff, which obviously becomes less compelling as technology move on. Spook Country and Zero History are both wonderfully written books and two of my favourites of any genre from the last few years.
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Thursday 28th April 2011 13:35 GMT Keith 21
Ta for the tip...
...I shall give those a try some time then.
I've nothing against the author, no problem with trying some of his newer work especially as you have said how much you feel he has improved.
It's just that bloody book that I don't like given all the worship and hype which surrounds it!
Mind you, he'll have to wait, I'm currently thoroughly enjoying my journey through Peter F Hamilton's excellent Evolutionary Void :-)
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Wednesday 27th April 2011 12:58 GMT George Kapotto
Wow.
(If the Canadian election had this many great candidates I wouldn't care who won.)
I wrestled with all the necessary criteria: Suspense, action, cool aliens, cool technology, a distinct and comprehensible ending that could translate to the silver screen (in < 3hours).
I had a personal favorite but the author's prose was so beautifully rich and the ideas so complex that I would likely have to burn the book after seeing what Hollywood did with it. (For those who remember, sort of like Postman. Damn you to hell, Kevin Costner!)
In the end, I discovered that my opinion was shared by many people so here's hoping that Hollywood is listening.
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Wednesday 27th April 2011 13:00 GMT David Hicks
ALL OF THEM
Also can we please make it a decent version of the book? There are so many terrible adaptations.
For instance - everyone involved in "I, Robot" and the Tom Cruise version of "War of the Worlds" needs to be taken out back and put down like a lame racehorse. Either that or just barred from making more movies, you know...
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Wednesday 27th April 2011 20:08 GMT Daniel B.
You've seen the original War of the Worlds, right?
It was kind of an insult to the book. By the end of the movie, you could swear that the Martians were prayed to death!
Interestingly, the Spielberg remake was actually truer to the story, but ruined by changing the main character from "separated from wife during the first attacks" to "father of two stupid and incredibly annoying brats". Dakota Fanning's character is a jackass that adds nothing to the plot. And then they had to stick the stupid family plot at the expense of cutting out better stuff: the main character's brother's adventures are mostly shaved off and partially added to the main character's plot; they also fused the likeable drunken artillery soldier with the least likeable character: the despiseable vicar.
But all in all, it was kinda truer to the book.
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Thursday 28th April 2011 10:15 GMT BorkedAgain
Apart from...
...the whole "they buried their tech under our civilisation millennia ago then teleported into it when they felt like doing it for real" thing, you mean? Plus making it modern-day and U-S-of-A.
Still, I get your point. It had its moments. That booming call the fighting machine made as it activated was pretty blummin effective...
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Thursday 28th April 2011 17:45 GMT Daniel B.
Oh dear ...
I had forgotten about the whole "stuff buried zillions of years ago" bit. Yeah, that didn't make sense. The whole "it's in the US instead of Britain" was also done in the original movie, and the (in)famous radio broadcast by Orson Welles.
To be fair, there *was* an attempt at doing a War of the Worlds movie in its original 1890's setting and geographical locations. Unfortunately, this was made by The Asylum of "Transmorphers", "Snakes on a Train" and "Terminators" fame. According to those who watched it, the movie adapted all the boring parts of the book and extended them.
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Wednesday 27th April 2011 13:02 GMT Conrad Longmore
Well..
Well.. that's a seriously good reading list if nothing else. I've read about half of those, perhaps I need to read the other half.
But..
..seriously..
..the polling stands at 24% for Mote, so I know there are a lot of Niven and Pournelle fans out there.. but have you READ Footfall? I don't think you could get much more awesome a movie than that..
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Wednesday 27th April 2011 13:53 GMT I ain't Spartacus
Couldn't get much more awesome than Footfall?
Baby elephants invade Kansas by parachute. I agree, that's a pretty cinematic scene. And Michael going up would be pretty spectacular as well. This got my vote, because I think you could make a good 2 hour film without buggering up the story. I see a lot of unfilmable books in that list.
Probably my favourite would be Downbelow Station, but it's complicated. I have a feeling that filming almost anything by Cherryh would make me have to go out and buy a chainsaw plus tickets to Hollywood. Can you take a chainsaw as hand luggage on a plane?
Starship Troopers probably isn't all that bad a film, but it's not Starship Troopers, so I hate it. Mel Gibson's Edge of Darkness remake had me reaching for my Chainsaws'R'Us catalogue, but I managed to hold back. There's a few things there which could go horrendously wrong.
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Thursday 28th April 2011 07:30 GMT Robert E A Harvey
Star ship troopers
"not that bad a film"????
fx:puke-vomit-spasm
It was even more vile than Avatar. Unsubtle, bombastic, trash. Not sure what the american eqivalent of jingoism is, but thats what it was 99.9% of the time. UShigh school coming-of-age-stock story line in Rio? ugh. Vietnam war style dropship troops in space? urgh. Ugly=bad? bleearch.
Nastyy, lowest common denominator yah-hoo trailer trash fodder without any artistic merit.
</rant>
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Wednesday 27th April 2011 15:53 GMT AdamWill
Eh?
'One of the single novels'? He's only written two and a half. Lightstorm is a kid's book. Fallen Dragon is more or less a condensed edition of Night's Dawn. I'd count Misspent Youth as sort-of standalone, though it's been partially retconned into the Commonwealth continuity...but it's also by far the worst book he ever wrote and one of the worst I have the dubious honor of owning.
I think most PFH fans would pick one or other of the giganto-series as their favorite.
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Wednesday 27th April 2011 15:52 GMT AdamWill
Well
The Culture books are pretty independent of each other, they're rarely just the-next-600-pages-of-the-plot stuff like the ones that are rolled up into series as options. So it makes sense to have them separately; some are much more filmable than others, and filming one wouldn't naturally lead to filming the others as sequels if it were successful, because of how little they have to do with each other.
Fr'instance, I voted for Use of Weapons, but I wouldn't ever vote for Excession, though at first glance it seems more filmable (i.e. lots of shiny spaceships zooming about).
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Wednesday 27th April 2011 20:13 GMT OrsonX
Use Of Weapons or Consider Phlebas
UoW* is the better book, bit I voted CP as I think it'd make a better film, particularly as it sets the Culture as the baddies!
Personally I'd love to see Inversions made into a movie, with the absolute stipulation that the means of the lead female characters escape trick isn't revealed... let the viewer decide if she's a witch or whatever.
*Use of Weapons is one of the best Culture books, I've read it a few times..... but am never quite sure what happens at the end? Your explainations are welcome!
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Thursday 28th April 2011 02:57 GMT AdamWill
No!
I refuse to explain the end of UoW as it would be a huge spoiler for anyone who hasn't read it :) I never thought it was too tricky to understand, though? Remember to keep the chapter structure in mind so you have the chronological order of everything right.
The structure and the ending of UoW would both work great in a movie and are the main reasons I think it'd be the best of the books as a movie (closely followed by Inversions, which I don't think was on the list), but CP could certainly work if well adapted, it has lots of bits which could be filmed really well for sure.
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Tuesday 3rd May 2011 00:24 GMT AdamWill
Roughly
I haven't read it for a while, but it's roughly this - both odd and even numbered chapters start off around the middle of the story; odd numbered chapters move forwards towards the denouement, evenly numbered chapters move backwards towards the beginning...but the whole thing's very cleverly structured so that the revelations at the end of the book (and hence _both_ the very end _and_ the very beginning of the story) work perfectly together. It's really very cunning. (And it wasn't actually Banks' idea, he credits someone else for it in the intro, I forget who - maybe Ken MacLeod?)
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Thursday 28th April 2011 09:55 GMT Nigel 11
Filming Canticle
"A Canticle for Liebowicz" could make a great movie, but would almost certainly be made into a truly dreadful travesty of the book. It's chances would be somewhat better if it were made into a 2-hour drama or 3-episode series by an independent TV company or by the BBC (please? ). Unlike most, it could manage with a very small special effects budget. Spend the money on good actors instead.
Why probable travesty? Because most directors would not put their prejudices aside and let the characters speak for themselves. In a book the author can let you know where he stands without warping his characters. In a film, that can't be done.
BTW, it could also make an excellent stage play, unlike just about any of the others. Even better chance of getting it right in that format?
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Wednesday 27th April 2011 15:17 GMT Trevor 3
Stainless Steel Rat
Would make an awesome set of films.
Its got the right mix of humour, stunts and Angelina desperately trying to be good.
Stainless Steel Rat gets Drafted would be a good one. Or the one where he ends up on Kekkonshiki with the grey men. Or any of the time travelling ones. Saves the world was quite good and has an apocalyptic view of Earth, or Dirt.
So many to choose!
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Tuesday 3rd May 2011 18:01 GMT IsJustabloke
I refuse to enoble a simple forum post!
No... No....no..... No.... a million times NO.
The Gripping Hand should have been strangled at birth. It really should never have been written. I bought it and took it on holiday with me, I thought it so bad that it darn near ruined my hols!
The Mote tho... oh, yes please, make a proper film of that please.
TBF tho' I'd say yes to pretty much all of those, the notable exceptions being E.E. "Doc" Smith's Lensmen / Skylark stuff.
except maybe unless they were done as kids movies and then I think they might work.
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Thursday 28th April 2011 07:03 GMT sT0rNG b4R3 duRiD
That's the great thing about this series of articles....
I remember Jerry Pournelle from Byte, I knew he was writing sci fi but never got round to reading his stuff, kind of because he was just "Jerry" from "Chaos Manor" and I was kind of more used to reading his column more than anything.
I must remedy this...
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Wednesday 27th April 2011 13:04 GMT Anonymous Coward
What happend to the AV system?? :-p
I own about 90% of the books on the final list; Enders Games SHOULD make a great film, but the previews I have seen of the upcoming film do not look good; they seem to have gone for CGI over the actual storyline.
Downbelow Station gets my vote because it is a great story AND has plenty of room for great CGI space battle scenes.
If we get this made, perhaps they will get really brave and do "The Pride of Chanur" next; I am sure all the lolcat fans would love it.
I think a couple are great books but unsuitable for conversion; I do not see how "A Fire Upon the Deep" (Or a Deepness in the Sky), could be translated into a film that would capture more than a tiny fraction of the storyline.
I think EE Doc Smith's stuff, would make great Manga; and "The Stainless Steel Rat" would make a great TV series !!!
(Mines a gfi thanks!!)
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Thursday 28th April 2011 10:15 GMT Nigel 11
A Fire upon the deep
True, far too much to make into one movie. Would work as a series (but how to afford the special effects in something made for TV?) Anime?
Sad, because it has something I haven't found elsewhere in literature (except possibly, Lord of the Rings). A sense of what it's like to be caught up in vast events ot only utterly beyond one's control but beyone one's comprehension, armed with little more than hope that one might be able to do something rather than nothing.
(Also the really cool idea that interstellar FTL bandwidth might be measured in mere bits per second, making the galactic net look a lot like the internet of the early 90s! )
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Wednesday 27th April 2011 13:05 GMT JonP
problem is...
...most of these would make REALLY bad films. The bits that make these books special (and i'll admit to only having read maybe 60% of them ) just wouldn't translate to the 'big screen'.... saying that i think Altered Carbon would (and the sequels) so it got my vote despite the fact it's not one of the better books on the list...
Paris - gotta be an obvious casting for Hari Seldon!
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Wednesday 27th April 2011 13:08 GMT AbortRetryFail
Some wouldn't work
All great books, but some just wouldn't work.
For example, Snow Crash predicts a Metaverse and we now have them. Plus, like a lot of Neal's work it would be fairly inpenetrable for the average Joe.
Cryptonomicon even more so.
The Legacy of Heorot is "Aliens done properly" and people would just see it as a remake of Aliens.
Ringworld would be interpreted as Halo, even though it predates it.
Deathworld would be seen as another Starstip Troopers - all guns and shooting aliens and... actually, that sounds pretty good. :o)
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Wednesday 27th April 2011 15:32 GMT David Evans
@AbortRetryFail
I kind agree about a lot of these not working (I made that very point about Snow Crash and Ringworld in the original vote), but I don't agree about Cryptonomicon; it would need a great script, but I think it would be actually pretty accessable as a combined thriller/action movie. On the gripping hand, I've voted for Moties anyway.
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Wednesday 27th April 2011 13:33 GMT lawndart
And now, Lester, we need:
The best SF short stories to be made into an episode in a series of half-hour TV programmes (Varley's "Overdrawn at the Memory Bank" has already been done).
The best High Fantasy novels never filmed.
I must admit, my mouse hovered over Mote for an interminably long time before suddenly clicking on Titan.
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Thursday 28th April 2011 07:03 GMT sT0rNG b4R3 duRiD
High Fantasy...
Just remember they've already done World of Warcraft.
Can't remember who first documented the similarities - it's out on the net somewhere... but... remember this film?
1. Noob huntard aggros mobs in forest.
2. Gets saved by high level huntard. Some power levelling maybe..
3. Levels up and eventually does his mount quest.
4. Eventually even gets his epic flying mount.
5. Epic end-game raid vs boss.
6. Most importantly, protagonist has issues getting back to reality.
Also, consider... all the CGI has been seen one way or another in WoW... ie floating islands in the sky in Nagrand etc...
The film was called Avatar....
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Wednesday 27th April 2011 13:53 GMT David Given
For anyone who voted for Eon...
...a few years ago CGSociety did a competition to produce full film trailers for a non-existent movie adaptation of Eon. And they hauled in Greg Bear to do the judging. You can watch them here:
http://features.cgsociety.org/story_custom.php?story_id=3987&page=2
They look pretty decent but, of course, are not how I would have done it.
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Wednesday 27th April 2011 13:56 GMT Anonymous Coward
old fashioned
Hmm, there are some really old fashioned titles in this list - anything by Jerry Pournelle tends to read like something from the vietnam war era while of course the Lensman series makes the first ever TV series of Star Trek look contemporary in comparison. Some Heinlein and early Asimov also feel dated, but other work by the same guys wears its age much better.
( I'm talking about writing style, depiction of characters/society, etc, not any technology/science )
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Wednesday 27th April 2011 14:06 GMT Sim
PK Dick -'Man in the high castle' already in production
Blade Runner director Ridley Scott is returning to the work of the late Philip K. Dick to executive produce a BBC TV adaptation of one of the American sci-fi writer's novels.
Howard Brenton, the playwright and Spooks writer, is adapting Dick's Hugo award-winning dystopian novel The Man in the High Castle into a four-part BBC1 mini-series.
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Wednesday 27th April 2011 14:06 GMT sisk
So many good choices
It's a tough choice...gonna have to think about this one.
Though I do have to say I think some of my favorites on the list are much better off being left on paper. Some of them, while damn good books, wouldn't transition well to the big screen. There are others that it would break my heart to see cut down to a point that you could actually get them into a movie that people would sit through.
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Thursday 28th April 2011 13:03 GMT Tom 38
I quite liked Sky's Going Postal
I thought Richard Coyle (Jeff from Coupling :) had Moist down to a tee.
Although whoever thought Rincewind was a 70 year old David Jason deserves to be hung, drawn and quartered, particularly for the first two books, where he is described as young.
Truly, truly awful, every single adaptation he has been in.
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Wednesday 27th April 2011 15:05 GMT Stevie
Bah!
Zelazny's "Jack of Shadows" would be more filmable than half those listed, and more watchable than all the Neal Stephenson ones, which arguably would be better reserved for mini-series a-la "Game of Thrones".
I love that some nitwit thinks four multihundred page books will film in about 2 hours. Yes, by all means let us have a "Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle" in the definitive Director's Cut. I'm sure they won't leave much of it out.
And all those books that hinge on politics. Those should film with as much success as "Dune" did (both times). Can't wait.
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Thursday 28th April 2011 08:43 GMT Gavin McMenemy
I' Robot
To all of you that are complaining about I Robot.
It wasn't originally intended to be have Asimov's name attached. It was originally going to be called Hardwired but the producers secured the license to use the name late in the production cycle. You CANNOT, repeat for the hard of thinking - CANNOT, make a single film out I Robot because it has no narrative. It's a collection of short stories for god's sake. Please pay attention at the back.
Just think that I Robot is film of the same name about rebellious robots and leave it at that.
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Wednesday 27th April 2011 15:31 GMT Trevor 3
Why so negative against the Skylark series?
Oh yeah, maybe its the blatant sexism!
And the fact that every exciting bit is written in a completely off hand and boring way.
Oh I've invented a perfect sphere of force. Oh no! We're being attacked by the Fenachone, we can't sit here forever. Umm choppy up time with the shield.
It never actually had a good ending either as DuQuesne got away and everyone lived happily ever after.
I did like the idea of levels of force though. And the computer the size of a planet...that was awesome.
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Wednesday 27th April 2011 15:32 GMT Rentaguru
it looks a bit foolish
with so many being from just two authors - Niven and Banks.
Niven writes nothing but kids stuff and the Banks nominations are basically Culture 1 to (the two latest rubbish ones that spoil the whole series ..... bit like stars wars really!).
Could we have a poll for the Sci-fi film that completely ruined the book ..... although to be honest that would just be one huge tie of every sci-fi book made into a film.
That rises the question of why anyone would want to ruin a good book by making it into a film (rival author spring to mind but that's all*).
*oh and people whose lips move when they read.
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Wednesday 27th April 2011 15:43 GMT NoneSuch
Take your fave novel...
-=sarcasm on=-
...add a deceased authors heirs who cannot agree on anything save they want the majority of the gross...
...add a Hollywood committee who tries to make it universally appealing by adding romance, children in danger and new 'exciting and modern' characters...
...add one Director who has his own take on what needs to be done to the story and characters to "make this work" (You know it will not be Spielberg, Jackson or Cameron at the helm)
...add a producer who "keeps the budget in check" by using a lowest bidder special effects company in Uzbekistan
...add a few "big name stars" who interpret their characters with the "Ben Affleck" acting method and
...above all, keep your expectations low.
If all of those hurdles are successfully navigated, then you might have a decent chance of a making a timeless film like:
Chronicles of Riddick
Time Cop
Starship Troopers
Event Horizon
The Librarian
My one wish is that they leave the Jar-Jar angle unexplored.
-=sarcasm off=-
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Thursday 28th April 2011 08:56 GMT Svantevid
@NoneSuch
"If all of those hurdles are successfully navigated, then you might have a decent chance of a making a timeless film like:
Starship Troopers"
---
Oi, while Starship Troopers isn't faithful to the book it is still a great film on several levels... works as a satire, works as an action film. This is one of two film adaptations ("Shining" being the second one) where I prefer director's version. Even without mecha-suits.
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Wednesday 27th April 2011 16:06 GMT chr0m4t1c
Where's "I, Robot"?
Yes, I know there's a film with that title on it, but neither the story or the characters have very much in common with what's inside the book.
Asimov said himself on several occasions that he wrote his robot stories deliberately to get away from all the ones he had read by other authors that were basically just the Frankenstein story. So naturally, the idiots in Hollywood decided to bring his work to the big screen by making another Frankenstein movie. Ba*ds.
</RANT>
I'm off for a little lie down now.
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Wednesday 27th April 2011 20:02 GMT Shane Orahilly
Mawhrin-Skel will not be amused.
My name is Shane, and I am a Banksoholic, M. or no M.
I foresee knife missiles being delivered to many voters for their misguided ignorance of The Player of Games for the top spot.
Yes, I'd rather the whole of the Culture repertoire was seen in film form.I was ecstatic when the BBC adapted The Crow Road for television, and prayed they would visit Banks' scifi offerings, or The Wasp Factory, damn their eyes for seemingly bottling it when it comes to real extremes of human/AI behaviour they dare not show on screen for fear of breaking people's tiny fragile minds.
However, in a "Don't make me chooooooooose" scenario, I'd be most pleased to see how the games played in TPoG were represented visually, moreso if the concepts could actually be implemented as functional, wholly-playable games in some way or form. Also, you just know that Jernau's role as primary focus of the story would be foiled by the antics of Mawhrin-Skel, no doubt with ( written in for mass appeal) hilarious consequences.
Just don't fucking Jar-Jar the little murderous bastard, or I swear I'll do time.
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Thursday 28th April 2011 02:57 GMT AdamWill
Not great for a movie
I don't think PoG would film very well; if you look at it, until the end, not a lot _happens_ exactly. It'd be very static and tricky to make interesting. It and Excession (where, again, a lot of the 'action' is just people...or, rather, Ships...talking) strike me as the hardest to film for that reason. PoG might work great on the radio, though.
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Wednesday 27th April 2011 20:09 GMT Daniel B.
Huh?
Either many of the ones answering the poll are reading obscure books, or I should turn in my sci-fi credentials, because the top two leading books (Use of Weapons, The Mote in God's Eye) are books that I have *never* *ever* *heard* *about*. I was half-expecting Neuromancer or Ender's Game to be in the top, neither of 'em have more than 4%. Granted, Ender's Game is already being made into a movie.
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Thursday 28th April 2011 02:57 GMT AdamWill
Hum
Neither of them is probably as famous as either EG or Neuromancer, but I'd expect most sf readers to have at least heard of one of them (no offence intended!) Iain M. Banks is one of the top British authors, and I always remember Niven/Pournelle as being a pretty solid library sf staple in my youth, including Mote, which is indeed a really good book. UoW is absolutely stunning, you should definitely read both.
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Wednesday 27th April 2011 20:09 GMT Neil Barnes
With over forty of those books on my shelves
I was looking for an 'all' button, too - but ended up voting for what is probably the best overall read: the science fiction bit is so subtle you hardly notice it... The Baroque Trilogy.
Mind you, it'll make a rubbish film - they'll never be able to cope with the smells...
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Wednesday 27th April 2011 22:29 GMT nyelvmark
Lord of light? Please, no.
Did you see what hollywood did with Zelazny's "Damnation Alley"? The chararacter Zelazny described as "the world's last Hell's Angel" is transformed into a cute bright-eyed all-American teenager who rides a 125cc trail bike.
"Damnation Alley" is hardly Zelazny's greatest work, so I just found the movie hilarious. I would cringe at the same treatment being given to "Lord of Light", which is probably the best novel he wrote in his sadly truncated life.
On a more general note, I'd like to point out that it only takes a few pages of writing to make a movie. The best example I know of is the 70s movie "Rollerball" which seemed to me to be a complete verbatim version of M. John Harrison's original story "Rollerball Murder" which, if I recall correctly, stretched to 7 pages.
If 7 pages = 90 minutes screen time, how long would an accurate version of Asimov's "Foundation" (about 750 pages?) run for? Asimov was not Tolkein, and didn't spend long pages describing scenery.
Another good example is the movie version of Frank Herbert's classic "Dune", which follows the story of the book with some accuracy for the first hour - by which time they'd reached about chapter 2 (and, according to rumours at the time, had spent all the budget). A ludicrously telegraphic version of the rest of the story then appears in brief flashes, followed by a contrived ending.
Let's leave movies for fast-action adventure-type stuff. If you can't read, well - perhaps you can send your kids to school and then get them to read great books to you. You'll need an attention-span of more than 90 minutes, though, lol.
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Wednesday 27th April 2011 22:32 GMT corestore
There's an error in these lists...
...or eles someone REALLY doesn't like Julian May. I'm damn sure I remember 3 or 4 nominations at least for her Exiles/Milieu cycle (one of them mine), but she hasn't even made the list that *didn't* make the poll.
This needs fixing. I'm afraid you're going to have to start over with the poll.
Mike
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Wednesday 27th April 2011 22:34 GMT marrok
For all Niven's faults...
...he did write one of the most filmable books on the list - but it wasn't Mote.
Protector - if you haven't read it, you really, really should. Customised space suits, mohawk toting asteroid miners, utterly convincing, utterly scary, driven aliens, Bussard f******g ram jets and a reason to get old. 43 votes? Then only 43 people have read it.
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Thursday 28th April 2011 00:15 GMT Anonymous Coward
what's that 'you type it in and animated characters mispronounce it' site?
I don't recall, but most of the stuff i've seen done was along the lines of 'firefighters are underpaid, we only work 3 days/week and have a pool, sauna, gym in the back.. type of dialogue.
It's like playmobil with electrons.
also...
Are there any inexpensive (or freeable) applications/web sites that I can cut/paste the works of HP Lovecraft and get an audio file back?
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Thursday 28th April 2011 08:43 GMT Svantevid
@ theodore
"Are there any inexpensive (or freeable) applications/web sites that I can cut/paste the works of HP Lovecraft and get an audio file back?"
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Only if you don't mind that a correct pronunciation of some of the words will summon The Great Old Ones, which will flay you alive, make you suffer for aeons and extinguish the life on Earth as we know it.
Just saying.
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Thursday 28th April 2011 00:12 GMT Anonymous Coward
Footfall...
...as has been commented before is so cinematic already it is unlikely to be ruined. I would just love to see the launch of the nuclear bomb powered Orion ship brought to screen ('God was knocking - he wanted in BAD!'). But my personal favourite is Mote so not too displeased.
Much as I like 'Weapons' it is so much a re-write of 'Ender's Game' that it doesn't deserve to be =the= Culture novel. 'Consider Phlebas', while the worse book, would translate to the screen much better.
Ender's Game would work well because of the tension with the main character being a child bringing genocide.
I need to read some more books... not heard of some of these
Steve
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Thursday 28th April 2011 08:57 GMT Anonymous Coward
Enders Game
There ARE making a film, and with OSC having a lot of input..... sadly, having seen the trailer it seems they have gone down the all action route, so everything good about the book will have been stripped out to make way for CGI effects and space explosions.
I will go and watch it when it comes out later this year; but I am 99% certain I will come away disappointed
Paris to play his big sister - Valentine?? It would at least add some humour, watching Paris trying to act as if she were intelligent :-D
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Thursday 28th April 2011 00:13 GMT Morningstar
Eeny meeny
I had to go for John Varley in the end, I still remember buying all three books at the WH Smith in Euston Station in 1985. I couldn't even begin to guess how many times I've read them now. With a decent director there's a good chance they would all be watchable.
That doesn't mean I wouldn't want to see at least 50% of the rest of the list being made as well.
It just seems sad that no one else seems to want to have seen the mechanical computers (babbages?) of the Cassini Division make it onto the big screen.
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Thursday 28th April 2011 00:15 GMT Anonymous Coward
Stephen Baxter?
No votes for any Stephen Baxter stories? Or his collaborations with Arthur Clarke? Mighty disappointing for a British 'publication'.
Well at least there were votes for 3 Alistair Reynolds stories. Despite those being fairly complex for film adaptations. Baxter and Reynolds are two of the finest contemporary sci-fi writers and they're both Brits.
Many of those works chosen in the final list are musty old tomes. Good reading to be sure but the book lice and pseudo scorpions are probably spending more time amongst their pages than the owners.
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Thursday 28th April 2011 02:57 GMT AdamWill
disagree
I usually don't like to rank as it's all so subjective, but I've read and enjoyed quite a lot of Baxter but definitely consider him inferior to Banks, Hamilton or Reynolds; his characterization and pacing and a few other elements of his writing just have distinctly more flaws than those of the other authors. He's still a lot of fun, but he was one of the easiest to knock off my ballot...
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Thursday 28th April 2011 02:55 GMT Graham Bartlett
@NoneSuch
Nothing wrong with Event Horizon. Ending was a little weak, but the rest of the film was rather good. F*cked with my head for some time...
And Chronicles of Riddick, whilst of course being woefully underscripted and underacted, is *the* definitive example of how to make sci-fi FX that are great.
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Thursday 28th April 2011 07:30 GMT Anonymous Coward
Not Happy
I voted, but I didn't really like clicking a button that asked for the book to be made into a film. All of my favourites are there and I'm rather glad that no-one has yet ruined them by trying to capture the magic of the stories in film. And besides, I bet you can find elements of most of them in one film or another, as script-writers have lifted good ideas / themes (eg Independence Day = Footfall without the elephants).
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Thursday 28th April 2011 08:55 GMT Sixtysix
Tough call - Legacy creeps it...
So many good books (and a few I obviously need to read) but many would fail to work due to concepts involved (..."A Fire upon the deep" for instance) but I suspect all of these would work at some level:
The Player of Games – Iain M Banks
The Mote In God's Eye – Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
The Legacy of Heorot - Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle and Steven Barnes
Footfall – Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
Altered Carbon – Richard K Morgan
Legacy has the atmosphere, twist and beasts to work... but I'd LOVE to see parachuting Proto-elephants!
Yay!
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Thursday 28th April 2011 08:57 GMT Anonymous Coward
And the albatross around the neck for any winner,....
will be the previous half-ar5ed american sci-fi movies that have plundered various plot points and now make the original look derived simply by having been made second.
"Neuromancer", if made, will inevitably be compared to "The Matrix", rather than the other way around which it should be.
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Thursday 28th April 2011 09:20 GMT AbnormalChunks
Mostly Completely UNFILMABLE
Most of list this can never, ever be filmed what you've got here is a great reading list. Use you brain to make the special effects people! I'm not voting for this very reason... but if I did it would be for the Atrocity Archives at least there's a fighting chance of filming that, if it was made in the UK!
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Thursday 28th April 2011 14:51 GMT Nigel 11
Anime?
I'm sure most of them could be filmed, even filmed well, if one counts Anime as film.
Also judging by Smeagol in the film of LoTR, special effects these days is quite capable of realising any sort of alien life-form. It's our extreme familiarity with human beings that makes computer-generated people look slightly wrong. Give it another decade or two ....
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Thursday 28th April 2011 09:20 GMT Ken 16
I love 'Use of Weapons'
but I don't know if it's visually striking enough to be made into a film, though the dark themes might work very well as anime. I love the ideas in Snow Crash but it's quite dated. The Baroque Cycle should be a BBC1 mini-series. In the end I voted for 'The Moon is a Harsh Mistress'; It should appeal to Septic financiers, won't break the budget on CGI but can still slip in a few subversive ideas and might get people interested in the moon again.
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Thursday 28th April 2011 09:55 GMT h4rm0ny
If anyone gets as far as this comment...
Are you quite sure all of these are sci-fi? Chronicles of Amber doesn't fall into the definition in my not so humble opinion. And Dragon Riders of Pern is so far to the "soft" end of sci-fi that it's practically a cushion.
Neal Stephenson is a writer of the cinema generation and his prose practically begs to be put on film.
Neuromancer is boring old cyberpunk and has been ripped off so many times in cinema that the original would look like a pale imitation of its descendents. Please let cyberpunk die. The computers arrived, we didn't feel alienated by them, we started painting them funny colours and wearing them on our hip.
I voted Enders Game on the condition that no-one is allowed to change the story at all.
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Thursday 28th April 2011 11:01 GMT Ragarath
Dragonriders of Pern
I hope you have read all of the books?
If you have then you will know it is very firmly based in Sci-Fi due tot he advanced way they got there and the advanced genetics that created the Dragons etc.
Although reading a lot of the books is mostly what I would put down as Fantasy.
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Thursday 28th April 2011 12:17 GMT Jacob Lipman
Some day I'll buy my own brass cannon
The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. One of my very favorite books, ever. It set the stage for the modern ROTM fear of sentient electronics. The simplified English/Russian grammar in use throughout the book is difficult to adjust to at first, but the rhythm is addictive once you get into it.
TANSTAAFL.
I'm a bit disappointed to see how few votes it's garnered.
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Thursday 28th April 2011 17:44 GMT Henry Wertz 1
Not bad choices
I haven't actually read the (dominant) top two choices, but based on wikipedia summaries they sound like they would be good as movies.
I chose A Canticle for Liebowitz, it would be kind of a downer but I think it'd make a good movie. I actually would *love* to see Neuromancer or Snowcrash as movies, but I think it is FAR too likely anyone making them into a movie now would royally f*** them up to possibly vote for them.
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Friday 29th April 2011 18:14 GMT jon 72
The title is required, and must contain letters and/or digits.
There many fine works out there that would transfer well to the small or big screen.
Jim Henson could almost certainly pull off David Brins epic 'Startide Rising' the same way he did with the Farscape series.
Chris Claremonts 'First Flight' simply has it all, 'cute' aliens, pirates, space battles, self sacrifice, and a woman in the lead role teamed up up with an aging hard as nails space marshall.
Even the with the lowest of budgets gems such as 'Healer' [FP Wilson] and
'Emergence' [David Palmer] even the SyFy channel could create a cult classic.
Somebody earlier mentioned Legacy of Hearot, great 'revenge of nature' story but fear it could be royally screwed up and become a B movie.. Hillbillys Vs Gators on speed kinda thing.
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