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By Jove sir you are correct. "Things to come".Raymond Massey. Starts with an air raid then war that has survivors digging through the the ruble. Remember the king with his WW1 helmet and animal skins. And the Wings over the world group.Never saw that 80's movie,but I can imagine how bad it blew. Your other picks are all familiar to me as well. You have great taste in SCI FI.
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Mountain Man
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Dr. Morbius of the Belerophon party. What a great role. Day the Earth stood Still what can I say perfection. Space Beagle is said to have inspired Gene Roddenberry. The rest you have given really good choices so this thread is really showing promise.
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quote:Originally posted by Mountain Man: Eric Frank Russell. The name sounds familiar. But I may be thinking of an Illustrator with a similar name. I'll look him up sounds like the kind of stories I'd like. Short stories I hope.
Short stories indeed, fear not. Very nice stuff, I think you shld like them. Oddly, although his writng is very much in line with the US SF of the time, Russell was in fact a Brit.
Registered: Sep 2003
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Mountain Man
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posted
Ever read 'The Earth Abides' by George R. Stewart? Well worth reading, in fact one of my first Sci Fi books. Our schools Libraries were suprizingly well stocked with Sci Fi.
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How about "Village of the Damned". No controversy in its time I personally think that any of the Gordon Dickson "Dorsai" novels would be good film material. Also Ken Chalker's "Well-World" novels would make for some cool special effects. For modern writers, Gregory Benford, Greg Bear, and David Brin actually put some SCI in sci-fi. Verne could very well be the true father of sci-fi, if you exclude mythology and Da Vinci! And if you want the beginning of scifi-lm.....well, there's always Fritz Lang's "Metropolis"
And for those who think I am crazy, I'll have you know that the voices in my head confirm that I am completely sane.
-------------------- I am the Anti-Abaddon. I build models at a scale of 2500/1
Registered: Aug 2003
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Mountain Man
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I saw Metropolis on the same channel that showed the Wells film. It was in bad shape but as long as it was it was probably close to the original full lenght version.
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At the risk of showing bias for 'late-golden age & early modern' writers, here are my nominees: - Starship Troopers - Heinlein. NOT the abortion of a movie. The original book. It's never been done - and is one of the best sfi-fi novels around. - Ringworld - Niven. If I saw that on the big screen, I'd be willing to die a happy man. And the aliens! - Stranger in a Strange Land - Heinlein. 'Nuff said. Easily one of the top 3 sci-fi novels of all time - and with visuals and message to match. Gateway - Pohl. Mystery! Terror! Adventure! Psychoanalysis! Steel Beach - Varley. Incredible visuals and message.
-------------------- 'One man's theology is another man's belly laugh.' - Lazarus Long
Registered: Feb 2001
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Just to echo the comments on Jules Verne made at the start of the thread - if at all possible, avoid the cheap, default translations - the ones you find at book stores for a couple of dollars. Often the translators would censor his work and other times they would cut huge portions of his books and have blatant mistakes.
The Naval Institute Press translation of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is fantastic. I just finished the Wesleyan Univeristy Press translation of The Mighty Orinoco which was a lot of fun - almost like a more refined Indiana Jones.
A good guideline is if the book makes a big deal about its translation then that's a good sign.
Registered: Feb 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Treknophyle: - Ringworld - Niven. If I saw that on the big screen, I'd be willing to die a happy man. And the aliens!
They came pretty close back in 2001. Phil Tippett, the stop motion guy from EMPIRE and ROBO and countless others, who transitioned into digital work in the last decade, was going to make his directorial debut with RINGWORLD. I talked with Jim Bloom at Tippett studio about it, hoping to do a 'making of' on it. But around that time, James Cameron once again expressed interest in RINGWORLD, and of course, since Post-TITANIC Cameron only seems to 'express interest' in feature films now rather than make them (or at best execproducing, a la SOLARIS), that stopped development and I haven't heard of anything being done with RINGWORLD since.
Niven's RINGWORLD would be awesome, but like Clarkes' CHILDHOOD'S END, it would be hard to pack it into a less than 3 hr movie, and (like Clarke's RAMA, which is also still hovering but not underway as a feature -- Morgan Freeman has had David Fincher attached to the project going back to 1998 or so) so I imagine what we'll wind up with for RINGWORLD in a few years is yet another 6 hr miniseries with terrible production values and laughable fx on SciFiChannel.
It'll be a shame, but I doubt that doing it as a big feature would be economically viable, considering that 'serious' sf seems more likely to fly like a rock box-office-wise.
-------------------- Achievement is its own reward; pride obscures it.
Registered: Jul 2003
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I think I'd rather have Cameron helping to make high concept (if terribly flawed) films like Solaris than anything he's put out on his own in a long time.
Registered: Mar 1999
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You know, of course, that the Matrix is a big screen mini series...... Wouldn't Ringworld be able to be done the same way??? Along with countless other books that a 2 to 2.5 hour, or even 3 hour, movie wouldn't do to make....
-------------------- "You are a terrible human, Ritten." Magnus "Urgh, you are a sick sick person..." Austin Powers A leek too, pretty much a negi.....
Registered: Sep 2000
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quote:Originally posted by Ritten: You know, of course, that the Matrix is a big screen mini series...... Wouldn't Ringworld be able to be done the same way??? Along with countless other books that a 2 to 2.5 hour, or even 3 hour, movie wouldn't do to make....
I think it would be an incredibly hard sell to afford doing RINGWORLD as a series of films. Same as RAMA, there is no overwhelming box office draw aspect to it ... and also, like RAMA, there is no super-compelling character to land a really big star that might offset the risk.
RAMA has Morgan Freeman, but really needs Brad Pitt to be considered bankable (which may be why they rewrote the part of Jimmy, the hang glider character, to be much bigger, to attract some younger box office talent), but the Ringworld itself is the main focus of Niven's story.
And I have to say, if MATRIX really WAS always considered part of a bigger story, why did it change so drastically photographically from the first film to the second.
Even with the same crew, dp, and directors, RELOADED suffered from a visual style that seemed very cheap and trendy, esp in comparison to the first film. You'd think if they were really trying to make it all seem to be part of a single piece, they'd retain the look and the strengths of the first film (stick with photo-real basis for bullettime instead of these lame textures on cg models, for example.)
-------------------- Achievement is its own reward; pride obscures it.
Registered: Jul 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Sol System: I think I'd rather have Cameron helping to make high concept (if terribly flawed) films like Solaris than anything he's put out on his own in a long time.
No argument there ... I actually liked the recent SOLARIS, and wished it had been longer. I don't think I've liked any of Cameron's own films since T2 (still can't even get through TITANIC, have seen maybe 40 minutes tops.)
There was the hint of a longer debate about the nature of the planet in SOLARIS that I'd like to have seen, and the commentary mentions a much longer docking scene, which I wish had been included as an extra ... I think SOLARIS has the absolute BEST computer generated ship stuff ever (as in, the first time I can recall seeing a sustained sequence that didn't suffer from overreliance on CG, and actually convinced me), and I could watch that stuff apart from the movie and be entertained.
-------------------- Achievement is its own reward; pride obscures it.
Registered: Jul 2003
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I personally think that any of the Gordon Dickson "Dorsai" novels would be good film material. Also Ken Chalker's
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