Lloyd Alexander's "Prydain Chonicles"(Disney's "Black Cauldren" was Dreadful)
The "Incarnations of Immortality" series by Piers Anthony. Heck, you might even be able to make a parallel Bollywood version of "Weidling a Red Sword"
Posts: 157 | Registered: Apr 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Peter Jackson or the guy who made the most recent "harry potter" film would totally rock "the Prydain Chronicles". That would kick butt.
Posts: 48 | Registered: Jun 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
Ooh, definitely Robin McKinley, Diane Duane, the Prydain Chronicles. Darn it, I made a list a while ago of all my favorite authors on my bookshelf (as opposed to favorite authors I haven't bought). A lot of them would make good movies.
Posts: 283 | Registered: Jul 2006
| IP: Logged |
If I had the funding and the right team, I would totally be interested in adapting Kafka's "Ein Landarzt" (A Country Doctor) for TV/film.
However, I think that I've lost interest* in my idea to adapt 5 F. Scott Fitzgerald stories (although that would totally be a series that PBS should do).
* I'm neither a filmmaker nor screenwriter so it's a bit arch for me to say that. However, a long time ago I wrote several screenplays with a friend and we filmed two of them and got them shown on Public Access. We also discovered that I'm not an actor. Posts: 3423 | Registered: Aug 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
Those are examples of extremely good books that would make, at best, extremely confusing movies. Although no doubt extremely good ones, for those of us who appreciated the books. I doubt that the average moviegoer--or for that matter the average movie critic--will have a lot of patience for scenes that bear no connection to previous scenes, on the faith that all the threads will eventually come together and the Electric Monk will have a part to play eventually. But if we're allowing "remakes, done right" of movies already done, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is at the top of my list, right up there with I, Robot. (Come on, filmakers. Just because the author's dead doesn't mean you can make anything you want with the same title!) Oh, definitely Ella Enchanted, too. And this time, use the setting of the book, the characterizations of all the characters from the book, the storyline from the book, the cleverness of the main character from the book, the same political situation in the book, et cetera. In other words, the same title, some of the characters bearing vague resemblances to the book's characters, and the curse being pretty close to the same thing, does not a faithful adaptation make.
Posts: 283 | Registered: Jul 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Gwen: Those are examples of extremely good books that would make, at best, extremely confusing movies. Although no doubt extremely good ones, for those of us who appreciated the books. I doubt that the average moviegoer--or for that matter the average movie critic--will have a lot of patience for scenes that bear no connection to previous scenes, on the faith that all the threads will eventually come together and the Electric Monk will have a part to play eventually. But if we're allowing "remakes, done right" of movies already done, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is at the top of my list, right up there with I, Robot. (Come on, filmakers. Just because the author's dead doesn't mean you can make anything you want with the same title!)
From what I heard most of that movie was already layed out by the author before he died, there wasn't a lot of "editing" that went on.
Posts: 1236 | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged |
The made-for-tv-movie version of A Wrinkle in Time Disney produced a few years ago was so utterly wretched.
Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
The problem with these "book made into a movie" threads is that, if you looks at the books that were made into movies... so many of them were adapted beyond the point of recognition.
Really, to the point where you'd go, "OK, a couple of the characters names were similar, but WTF?"
Posts: 196 | Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Yeah. Ever compare Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH to The Secret of NIMH? Totally different stories, totally different characters.
Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Someone mentioned “The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant.” Yes, definitely.
I would add to the list:
Homebody Enchantment Magic Street by Card
The Practice Effect by David Brin
Or if you don’t mind hard scifi then how about movies based on :
The Legacy of Herot by Niven, Pournelle, and Barns Bug Park by James P. Hogan The Two Faces of Tomorrow by James P. Hogan Friday by Heinlein (as long as Verhoeven and Neumeier are not allowed within a million miles of the production of it. Although, either Dina Meyer or Denise Richards could have the staring role.)
Posts: 631 | Registered: Oct 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
Speaking of a film that will be hard to adapt: The option to produce a film version of Lord Foul's Bane, the first of Stephen R. Donaldson's The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant was sold a couple of years ago.
Selling an option basically means the author was paid to not let anyone else develop a movie based on it, not that the film will actually get made.
Still, I imagine it would be a nightmare. Not only is it arguably the weakest book in the series, but it contains the main character raping an innocent teenager.
I know that was part of the point: Covenant is a selfish prick who thinks he's hallucinating. Initially just doesn't care. And the event proved pivotal to every subsequent book, and in a way Covenant spent the second series trying to atone for it...but still. Not an easy thing to adapt for a film.
Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Samuel Bush: Friday by Heinlein (as long as Verhoeven and Neumeier are not allowed within a million miles of the production of it. Although, either Dina Meyer or Denise Richards could have the staring role.)
Dina Meyer, definitely. She'd be perfect for the role.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Tatiana: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and Long Dark Teatime of the Soul.
Funny that you mention this... I was just thinking this morning about how much I'd like to see Terry Gilliam produce and direct those two and came to this thread to post it, but you beat me to it.
Posts: 3846 | Registered: Apr 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
I was just reading Holistic Detective Agency last week (for the umpteenth time) and thinking how marvelous and how completely unpopular a movie it would make. Consider the resolution of the climax, which is -- at least in the novel -- a conversation with a poet that takes place off-screen and which is not even recounted. And WHY that conversation saves the world from destruction isn't even stated, so that even if you know the necessary trivia about Coleridge's writing process you still have to make a second mental leap to figure out what actually happened. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
You actually tried to figure out what actually happened?
I have the philosophy when it comes to a book by Douglas Adams: enjoy the story, the characters, the ideas, and don't think too hard about the meaning. I mean, anybody whose answer to "the Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything" was 42 isn't writing for the sake of being understood.
Posts: 283 | Registered: Jul 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote:And WHY that conversation saves the world from destruction isn't even stated, so that even if you know the necessary trivia about Coleridge's writing process you still have to make a second mental leap to figure out what actually happened.
Actually, if you could fill me in I'd really appreciate it.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
By removing the second half of Kubla Khan, they remove the specific triggers in that poem which caused Michael to fully submit to the ghost's control. He consequently successfully resists preventing the explosion at the last moment, being -- despite all his other faults -- still unwilling to destroy all life on Earth. This is also why Dirk comments that there are now "two of him," referring to the ghost; because the ghost was inside Michael and Michael was also at the ship when it blew up, Future-Ghost presumably was trapped back in the past along with Ghost-1 (created when the original alien died).
There are a number of other possible explanations that fit a few of the remaining facts, but this is the only one I've come up with that manages to account for and resolve all the paradoxes and other statements in the book. As to why they chose this particular way to stop Michael, as opposed to just teleporting the room a little closer to the ship and shooting him, or going back a little bit in time and thumping him on the head before he could kill the editor of Fathom, or anything like that, I can only assume that it was because Adams felt that this was more clever by half. And I suspect it also appealed to Adams' sense of humor to spike our organic soup with Michael Wednesday-Week. *slightly pained laugh*
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
Now I have to read it again to see if I can answer Tom's "why"? because something inside of me is telling me I knew the answer to that, once...
Posts: 3846 | Registered: Apr 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
I realize I need to give more reasons for my choices. Mark Salzman's "The Laughing Sutra" would make a totally kick-ass martial arts movie, because it has great fight scenes, it's hilarious with a humor that is warm and inclusive, it has a wonderful fantasy element in the person of the 3000 year old Colonel Sun, who is modeled on the Monkey King from Chinese folklore. He is such a great character! He's often wry and grumpy but always loyal and smart, with deep insights into human nature and super-human martial arts skillz.
I love the juxtaposition between San Francisco 70s culture and that of the Chinese mainland at that time, as well as that of ancient China. Salzman is a master at poking gentle fun at everyone. He reminds me of Jane Austen in the tone of his humor. Imagine if she had written action adventure stories.
Probably my favorite scene is when Colonel Sun shows up at a longshoreman's bar near the San Francisco docks, with the intent to beat their best fighter in a boxing match. A ship's captain had given our heros free illegal passage to the U.S. if they would settle a grudge match by showing the bar owner that Chinese fighting is superior to that in the States. But when they arrive, instead of having regular Saturday night boxing matches, the bar has converted to dwarf tossing instead. Colonel Sun, from his perspective rooted firmly in ancient imperial China, sees this exercise as something very sinister, so he liberates the dwarf from his "evil captors" and proceeds to throw their champion all the way across the room and outside into the street. A huge brawl erupts. Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Hmmm, I need to read the Dirk Gently books again. I don't remember most of what you guys are talking about, since I only read them once long ago. I just remember it all being very clever and tying all loose ends perfectly at the end, in unexpected but "just right" ways. I remember thinking that Adams' brilliance was exactly for this sort of thing. I like Dirk Gently even more than Hitchhikers.
Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
So I was just reading through a chat transcript with Stephen Fry, and someone asked him about a Dirk Gently movie. I thought you all might be interested in what he had to say about that.
quote:Stephen Fry: Well Robbie Stamp, an old mucker of DNA's who ran Digital Village with him and exec prodded HHGG wants to make it as a movie and has tentatively asked if I would be interested in either playing Dirk or writing-directing or all three, or both or any permutation thereof.... Am currently rereading DG with this in mind....
posted
Two books that woud make fantastic movies would be 1) FITZGERALDS WAR (a mildly futuristic book in which the world reverts back to steam powered machnery, ships, zepelins, that kind of thing.) 2) VILLLAIN BY NECCESITY (arguably one of the funiest fantasy books I have ever read, it is escentially, what are the bad guys thinking after the end of LOTR, it reads like a very complicated D&D game, and is truly a fantastic read)
Posts: 242 | Registered: Feb 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I would disagree about the Villains By Necessity/Lord of the Rings thing. Evil wasn't completely eradicated by the end of LotR. One great evil was, but the world lost a lot of good things too. And even the good guys who got "happy" endings had a melancholy element or three stirred in.
In VBN -all- evil is eradicated save for a tiny band of misfit "villains"...and the world is in danger of becoming a Disney cartoon on crack.
And the villains are more sweet and vulnerable than evil. And the good guys all seem to be shallow hypocrites.
D&D is the better comparison you give to VBN. The author wrote the book as a parody of the way "good" and "evil" are portrayed in a typical D&D game.
posted
I'd like to see Heilein's "Glory Road" made into a movie and Harry Harrison's "Stainless Steel Rat" a TV series.
Posts: 631 | Registered: Oct 1999
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Gwen: Those are examples of extremely good books that would make, at best, extremely confusing movies. Although no doubt extremely good ones, for those of us who appreciated the books. I doubt that the average moviegoer--or for that matter the average movie critic--will have a lot of patience for scenes that bear no connection to previous scenes, on the faith that all the threads will eventually come together and the Electric Monk will have a part to play eventually. But if we're allowing "remakes, done right" of movies already done, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is at the top of my list, right up there with I, Robot. (Come on, filmakers. Just because the author's dead doesn't mean you can make anything you want with the same title!)
From what I heard most of that movie was already layed out by the author before he died, there wasn't a lot of "editing" that went on.
Which novie do you mean by "that movie"?
Because if you are talking about I, Robot, you are very much mistaken.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
Ignoring your title and suggesting an SF book.
The Truth Machine, by James L. Halpern.
Haven't read it in years, by now, it's quite dated since the book attempts to reasonably predict the future starting in 1995 (like that Al Gore would be president in 2000). It's quite character driven and a good read- am I the only one who knows it?
Would a movie be doable- dunno.
Posts: 1757 | Registered: Oct 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
I think she meant "Hitchhiker's Guide", which would be less wrong, but still wrong, there were some significant things in that movie that I can't see Adams putting in at all.
Posts: 3846 | Registered: Apr 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Earendil18: From what I heard most of that movie was already layed out by the author before he died, there wasn't a lot of "editing" that went on.
Which novie do you mean by "that movie"?
Because if you are talking about I, Robot, you are very much mistaken.
I think he probably means Hitchhiker's Guide, which was largely written by Douglas Adams before his death <edit>and only slightly written by Douglas Adams after his death (haha)</edit>. However, the problems (or, at least, my problems) with the movie were less with the script and more with the execution.
Posts: 2926 | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I agree on Zelazny's Amber. Or, say, Nine Princes and Guns of Avalon. Trying to do the whole thing- whew, would that get unwieldy.
I'd love to see Stephenson's Snow Crash or Cryptonomicon, if I thought they'd be done any justice. So much is in the exposition within the writing, I don't know if it could be done. Stephenson's books are often like talking to a very interesting, very intelligent friend with a ridiculous propensity to ramble.
Neuromancer was slated to be made into a movie way back around 1990 or so, and has apparently been in legal limbo ever since. Sorry, Gecko. I have to say, some of Gibson's later works might be easier to transition. (As long as they don't cast Keanu Reeves.)
The ending of S. King's Gunslinger disappointed me. Felt like a Konami videogame. (I'll explain that to anyone who doesn't mind spoilers.) It has a lot of rich material, though, and would probably make a good miniseries.
quote:Yeah, the last part of His Dark Materials really disappointed me, primarily because Pullman failed to put the same kind of development into his primary antagonists that he did into his heroes and early antagonists. I mean, seriously, what motivated the Metatron & Company to want everyone to live by arbitrary rules and be miserable? Absolutely nothing. Or nothing that was ever made clear to the reader.
I agree with others that Golden Compass creates a rich world that almost- almost!- makes it worth reading the rest of the trilogy.
But oh...
Pullman forgetting that his "prophecy" has already been fulfilled, and thus fulfilling it over and over again?
A culture that denies the existence of other worlds having a guided missile that can kill people on other worlds?!
A principal antagonist who changes sides for no apparent reason?
There's a lot of frustrations in Dark Materials, even if the atheist slant doesn't big you.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I would like to see a comical and light-heartedly animated series of visual fables, based in semi-narration, detailing the Sallies of Trurl and Klaupacius in Stanislaw Lem's novel Cyberiad.Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
