Sci-fi books and comics that should be made into films. - by SubJeff
froghawk on 22/5/2013 at 18:12
I would love to see Cronenberg do big-budget sci-fi. Too bad his last two films were atrocious.
SubJeff on 22/5/2013 at 19:20
I haven't seen A Dangerous Method but what are you on about? Cosmopolis was great!
The final scene drags, a lot. But prior to that our was grokking fantastic! There isn't a bad scene in it and the dessert assassin... what can I say? Top quality medical examination scene too.
If that end scene weren't so dreadful it would have been my film of the year. It's about a guy... going to get a goddamn haircut! This as a premise was enough to sell me on it.
froghawk on 22/5/2013 at 20:43
The final scene drags? To me, that was the only interesting part and the rest dragged. It didn't even feel like a film. Did we see different cuts or something?
I was certainly sold on the premise, and the trailer looked great. Seemed like it would be a massive return to form. There were a few amusing scenes, but it was a very hard film to sit through. Pretentious people sitting and talking in a single very fake looking limo set through most of the film.
ADM had a very different problem - sanitized Cronenberg. He could have done SO much more with the material, but it turned into a rather mundane love story instead.
demagogue on 22/5/2013 at 21:12
IMO, scifi needs to get back to the spirituality edge some of it had in the early days. I don't know if there's any gizmo or gimmick that could really surprise us anymore, so movies increasingly can't bank on that anymore. But the eternal spiritual questions of humans and their place in the cosmos, and the mysteries that lurk in the spaces in between will always be fresh I think. I mean it doesn't have to be exactly in the model of 2001 or Dune; we're in a different time than the '60s or '80s, but exploring in those kinds of directions.
demagogue on 2/6/2013 at 04:16
This isn't scifi, it's fantasy, but today by chance I read that a movie was in the works for A Spell for Chameleon and I got a serious nostalgia trip harder than any recent book-to-movie I can think of... That book & series meant more to me when I was young than Lord of the Rings and the Narnia series, and the first book was the best. Now I read it got shelved around 2010 until the "economic climate" gets better... I hope it sees the light of day.
Fafhrd on 2/6/2013 at 18:47
Xanth has been optioned since at least the early nineties. They're never going to actually make a movie out of any of the novels.
Pyrian on 3/6/2013 at 23:03
A Spell for Chameleon is unfilmable. It requires an unattractive woman in a lead role. :p
SubJeff on 3/6/2013 at 23:39
How bizarre. I looked A Spell... up and read about it on wikipedia.
I swear I read another book that had a really similar premise - being an outcast by dint of not having magical ability. The lead is the result of a physical non-magical sexual union and is actually the heir to the throne I think, and survives his early life by being taught slight of hand by his adoptive mother, who is actually crazy.
Ring any bells? I can't remember the name of it at all.
Fafhrd on 6/6/2013 at 05:22
@SubJeff: The Darksword Trilogy. Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman. Turns into a kind of crazy sci-fi fantasy mashup in the third book.
