We'd Like to See...

[stencyl]

I thought it might be neat to start a thread with our Sci-fi and Fantasy film "wish list." Is there any book that you'd like to see made into a film?

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

I'd like to see Jack Vance's The Demon Princes series made into either a series of movies or one of those HBO mega-series.

A good Fafhrd & Grey Mouser would be great too! Maybe the Swords of Lankhmar storyline?


How about a Perdido Street Station movie with Tim Burton directing? And I'm really excited that the Chain of Dogs from Steven Erikson's Deadhouse Gates will be made into a movie!

 

[Leto]

I thought it might be neat to start a thread with our Sci-fi and Fantasy film "wish list." Is there any book that you'd like to see made into a film?

None, I'd like to see a great sci-fi show NOT based on a book or a comic, but an original creation first.

 

[ravenus]

How about a Perdido Street Station movie with Tim Burton directing?

Given Burton's recent run of stinky poo nice-looking but dull movies...and actually Burton's not the right guy per se since PSS does not not the whimsical modern day goth fairy tale / B horror style he dabbles in.
Actually a PSS movie is a bad idea, the book has too many significant plot events to successfully fill onto screen and I suspect it would easily suffer from culling of events since none of them, except maybe the underground newspaper thing, are particularly optional.

What I'd like to see....movies that aren't adapatations of yada books, especially those in the fantasy genre, because they're either cribbed at by fanboys or get wholly unwieldy in trying to please them.

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

I see what you mean by Burton possibly erring on the twee-goth side, but his Gotham in the first Batman movie is what I had in mind.

In a way, Gattaca was an original sf story made as a movie, if I'm not mistaken. So was AI, which actually had some pretty good parts despite a rather saccharine ending, and was scripted by Ian Watson, a pretty talented SF writer, to a plot by Brian Aldiss. Maybe getting more SF writers interested in developing stories specifically for the screen would be good. Then again, the pressures of Hollywood can make anything go awry. The rather dissapointing LXG movie was, after all, scripted by James Robinson who has done some very good work in superhero comics (The Golden Age, JSA and of course Starman) and it was especially surprising that someone who came from that background would so dilute a great comic book story for the big screen.

 

[polymorphikos]

Perdido might not work, but The Scar is not so complex a book that it couldn't be fit into 2 hours. And I maintain that Kate Ashfield or Cate Blanchett would be great in the lead (Little Fish helped confirm this).

Terry Gilliam would be a good alternative if Burton is too whimsical for you.

Now we need 80 million dollars.

 

[ravenus]

Heavy use of green screen backgrounds and a willing suspension of disbelief on the audience's part can help to reduce the costs a bit...but that some is probably around the base requirement.

But I'd really love for a China Mieville to come up with screenplays...he has a terrific strength in developing unusual and interesting characters, which is essentially what we need more of in genre films. I don't particularly see it happening, though

 

[ravenus]

And that's the entire freaking problem y'know...
Writers and graphic artists get away with imagination and hard work
Film-makers need imagination, hard work AND 80 million dollars to make awe-inspiring stuff in genre territory.
It makes all the tragic difference...

 

[ast]

I would love to see the Fencer Trilogy by K J Parker made into films. They go right back to basics with seige engines and archers, the whole medieval technological era. For those who haven't read them, it worth picking them up.

 

[polymorphikos]

Actually, Ravenus, if recent history has taught me one thing it's that nifty films can be made of sane budgets. By sane I mean less than USD 20,000,000, which is still a chemically-imbalanced amount.

Then again, animation is getting cheaper and more powerful by the minute. Look at some of the stunning flash and cell-shade movies that people crank-out on their home PCs for fun.

Hot House would make an incredible animated effort, using the combination 2D-3D approach that you see a lot of these days.

 

[Jason_Taverner]

I would like to see swan song as film I think it would rival mad max2 for post apocalyptic entertainment

 

[Rane Longfox]

Max Barry's "Jennifer Government". would work perfectly as a film, and actioney enough for producers to actually take a serious look at