Culture to be filmed?

[Allegra]

Iain M Banks' Culture To Be Filmed?

I've read A Gift from the Culture and liked it (my favourite in the collection is still The State of the Art). But to elaborate such a short story to a film? I don't know... If it's true, may be a small experiment on a mission impossible - Culture on screen?

 

[Rodders]

I'm not sure how this would translate to the big screen to be honest. I would prefer this to be a smaller screen adaptation as i think that a series would translate the Culture better to the casual viewer. Plus, i think one of his main culture novels would be better as well.

Just my 2 cents

 

[J-WO]

My instinct is they've picked 'Gift..' because its easier to pitch to executives than, say, Excession. Plus it'll be more coherent on the screen, a nice, simple skeleton they can hang a lot of stuff from other Culture novels on.

I reckon they'll shift the world in the story into being Earth and splice a lot of State Of The Art into it. That way-

1: The prospect of Earth will bring in a larger, more mainstream audience.

2:You can have Sma Dzizet in it, chasing down and trying to help the guy with the gun (who now partly becomes that guy shes trying to talk to in 'State...') and a nice viewpoint from the Culture side of things as, presumably, a GSV will be floating somewhere over the planet.

I think that might work well for a film. The Novels would be better as series- and you only have to look at the success of BSG and Doctor Who to see there'd be a taste for it.

 

[bobbo19]

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Guys check that out. Already a small screen adaptation of the Culture. Never once did i imagine a drone to have a female voice, as in this clip!

 

[gully_foyle]

That was cool. Very in keeping with the Culture universe.

 

[Rodders]

I'm not sure how i feel about a SF story like this set on or around Earth. I keep thinking about Battlestar Galactica 1980 and it just sends shivers down my spine.

 

[J-WO]

Agh! The Culture with a child Professor and a robotic dog!

 

[Andrew Short]

In order for Banks' sci fi to be filmed it would require a massive budget and the lack of such an astronomical budget would cause only dissapointment in my opinion. I hope unless its going to be taken on by a big studio it is'nt taken on atall

 

[J-WO]

There's always animation.

 

[Boreas]

That was interesting. Though both the human and the drone were a little too whiny for my taste.

Unless there's a seriously big budget for a feature film or a TV show (TV would be better, in my opinion), animation is definitely the way to go, as J-WO suggested. There's probably a lot more scope with what you can do with animation to be able to present the Culture as authentically as possible.