Sci-fi books someone should make into a movie

Considering all the amazing effects Hollywood can now come up with, I think it's time to film Footfall by Niven/Pournelle ... it would make a perfect summer blockbuster a la Independence Day.

Ringworld Ringworld Ringworld Ringworld Ringworld Ringworld Ringworld Ringworld Ringworld Ringworld Ringworld Ringworld...

I'm going to keep saying this until Hollywood gets a clue and does it.

Ringworld Ringworld Ringworld Ringworld Ringworld Ringworld Ringworld Ringworld Ringworld Ringworld Ringworld Ringworld...

American God's? Given Gaiman's on a roll at present.

I second Carny, Ringworm, Ringworm, Ringworm, Ringworm, Ringworm, Ringworm, Ringworm, Ringworm, Ringworm, Ringworm, Ringworm, Ringworm.

Anyone think that the Vorkosigan books (Lois McMaster Bujold) would make a great anime/cartoon series? I can't see live action just because making the plot less complex to fit in 2 hours just doesn't work for me.

That being said, I would almost certainly hate anything they did with those books. It could not possibly do them justice.

How about the Chanur series for live action?

Quite some time back, I was talking with LMcMB at a convention and she indicated that one of the Miles Vorkosigan books had been optioned. Wise to the ways of the world, she wasn't holding her breath. I suggested that given the rapidly-advancing state of CGI, if such a film was ever made, a major action movie actor could easily end up playing Miles (I suggested Arnie, but only because he was the bankable property of the time). Nothing that has happened since has changed my mind on this...

In the mind's eye movie that runs when I read reasonably action-oriented literature, Aral Vorkosigan was played by Clint Eastwood...

>2 Carnophile:

Aren't they already doing a Halo movie?

:)

I'd still like to see a good movie of I, Robot. Especially I, Robot: The Illustrated Screenplay... not holding my breath for that one though.

The Stars My Destination and Demolished Man. Both of those have plenty of potential as movies, are short and will not need much condensation for a script, and I think cinema would do justice to Bester's style of writing.

Of course, it's a better than even bet they would muck it up, but I can still hope...

Stars would be great if they could capture the intensity of Gully Foyle.

The Space Merchants, just because I'd like to see "Chicken Little" on the big screen.

#11

Space Merchants would be great.

Another Pohl book that I would like to see on the big screen would be Gateway. Get rid of the boring psychaiatry sessions, just have the Gateway story; that should end as a two-hour story.

Kindred by Octavia E. Butler

Level 7 by Mordecai Roshwald

Ender's Game, Snow Crash, and The Hunger Games. I love the Miles Vorkosigan books, but they would be hard to film. I don't know whether anime would work or not.

#5 I think holywood would struggle over having anon-human hero and probably end up re-writing it from humanities POV totally ruining it.

However some of Cherryh's works should be good. I think Foreigner might be adaptable, although it won't need a full CGI treatment. Maybe Downbelow Station would work, not too complex (once they've hacked away all the politics), some stunning visuals, good aliens, bit of romance. What more could they want.

I'm surprised Neuromancer hasn't been made into a film yet - having said that I'd almost definitely hate it 'cos I love the book so much...no doubt Hollywood would give it's anti-hero and anti-heroine a working over to make them all-round decent people deep down, which would make me vomit. I can't really see all the drug use and references making it past the censors either, so on the whole maybe it's a good thing that it's not been touched...

Armor by John Steakley thought it was a great book.

#16

Ask and you shall receive:

http://www.filmjunk.com/2008/08/01/neuromancer-movie-poster/

And speaking of good SF novels being turned into movies, I have high hopes for "The Forever War"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2008/oct/13/ridley-scott-forever-war

BTW, could someone tell me how to change the text shown for internet links?

<a href="www.urihere.com">Text to show<a>

Enders Game and The Sparrow!

My vote for Ringworld, too. Imagine the scene (SPOILER WARNING)

...where they topple into the crater of Fist-of-God Mountain.

I've long thought Poul Anderson's Satan's World could be a fun SF adventure movie.

I would vote for Enders Game before Ringworld, I think the story as a movie would be better.

Childhoods End and Rendevous with Rama are two I would not want to see as movies.

Little Fuzzy would be a good movie ala ET. And Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen or Space Viking for us adults but in a Star Wars kind of way

I'm still waiting (probably forever) for Rendezvous With Rama.

Enders Game was supposed to come out a few years ago I thought?? I swear I even saw a trailer for it...

Any of Larry Niven's books would make good movies Footfall, Ringworld, Integral Trees, etc... Especially some of the Man Kzin wars stuff that was inspired by him. (Although ... they really screwed up the Wing Commander movie.... while not by Niven... somewhat Niven-esque with the Kilrathi)

The more intellectual stuff would fail sadly :( Anymore it seems people want RAWR BOOM SMASH Sci Fi movies

Ringworld is certainly a possibility. A lot of the story would have to be dumped, but there's plenty that could be adapted to a three-act script. There's also a romantic subplot. And some impressive visuals.

One sf novel I've always thought would make an excellent film is AE van Vogt's Undercover Aliens. 1940s California noir meets pulp sf. Small town attorney saves a beautiful woman from "Mexican cultists"... only it turns out she, and they, are rival factions of a group of immortals who live in the big house on the hill, and they received their immortality from an alien robot ship under the house which crashed there millennia ago...

I have always thought that MOST novels, science fiction or not, make mediocre movies. The best movies should be made from a novella or a novelette. Shorter, more compact, less characters, more focused. But unfortunately few people read shorter fiction these days.

Depends whether you consider a good adaptation one criterion of a good movie. Which is not necessarily true. "Blade Runner" bears only a passing resemblance to Do Androids Dream of electric Sheep? but it is an excellent film.

>26 kd9: Depends on the person doing the adaptation. If they're good the film is good no matter what the length of the novel. Pinter did the Proust screenplay which amazingly captures a book it took me 10 years to read in its entirety.

Ringworld, The Chronicles of Amber, and Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen. Perhaps also The Weapon Shops of Isher?

Cyteen - that'd be interesting to see if it was handled well.

Edited to add - nah, what was I thinking - ethics, morality of cloning, sexuality, dealing with accelerated adulthood. Can't see that working in a 2hour mainstream movie.

double post

I understand the want to make Ringworld a movie, the idea of the giant ring in the orbit of earth, great visuals. But the story, as I remember it ended up kind of nowhere, but that may just be a faulty memory from 30 years ago...

#32

Ringworld didn't have that memorable a story, which would really suit today's "good special effects, poor plot" viewers.

Now that I think about it Ringworld could be a great MMOG!

>32 DWWilkin:, 33.

I differ with you two on Ringworld lacking a plot.

It was an "exploring the great big gigantic enormous big thing" plot, as Niven himself put it, IIRC. Plus there were elements of mystery, because they wanted to figure out
(1) Who built the Ringworld, and
(2) Why its civilization crashed.

That seems like rockin' good plot to me.

Also, there's a broadly "topical" aspect to the ending. (SPOILER WARNING). If I recall correctly, the Ringworld civilization crashed because a plastic-eating bacterium evolved, and basically ate everything. In Ringworld, this was a natural development, but it's the kind of thing we'll be able to do soon with biotech or nanotech or both.

As much as i don't want Orson Scott Card to make more money off of me - love it or hate it, Ender's Game could be an awfully good movie. His origins as a designer of early computer games served him well.

But what i'd really like, and will never happen, would be to have some left field director take one of Chiang's stories and make a film from it. Jim Jarmusch, maybe, doing "Understand." Or maybe Alex Cox who did "Repo Man."

I think Ringworld would be pretty boring..How about the forever war? But short stories usually do better (or can be more completely covered, at least) than novels as movies.

Understand is a good story, but so much of it is internal. I can't see it working on film.

Edit: Besides, didn't they already make a Flowers for Algernon movie? (/wiseass)

I'd like to see Vurt as a short, animated film.

#37 It was called "Charly" and starred Cliff Robertson.

#35 They wrote that Ringworld doesn't have much of a plot, not that it had no plot. And it doesn't have much of a plot. They never find out who its builders where, and they can only guess at why it crashed. The plot is just "a trek to the left, and now a little trek to the right... and let's jump through the volcano".

Ian, I agree about Ringworld... It just seems that they wander, look at the differences in the races in Known Space, Puppeteers, Kzin, and eventually don't accomplish anything. Then years later Larry Niven started sequels.

I met Larry a few times and have asked him my only Ringworld question, how many earths can fit into the Ring. He of course knew the answer right off the top of his head ;-)

Ringworld sounds like another starring vehicle for Kevin Costner. Chapter two of his alternate worlds saga, after Waterworld.

#40 6 million.

#41. Please don't say Costner. It would be a 3 1/2 hour ego-fest best used to cure insomnia.
I'd prefer Plan 9 to Waterworld...

Was watching Field of Dreams the other day. Remembering when Costner was good...

>39 iansales:
Boy, are youuuuuuuuu wroooooong! According to the Congressional Budget Office final figures, Ringworld had 8.6% more plot than the average novel published that year.
An they do find out SPOLIER WARNING that it was built by the Pak Protectors. (Or was that in The Ringworld Engineers?)

>41 geneg:
Gene, what a mean thing to say. I agree with #43.

I know how much you guys love Costner.

I did enjoy For the Love of the Game, tho. At least the baseball parts.

Funny thing about about Costner. There's this movie, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, in which he plays Robin Hood. Then there's this other movie, The Untouchables, in which he plays... Robin Hood. Then there were other movies, which I haven't seen but heard about. There was JFK, in which he played... Robin Hood. Then there's Waterworld, the Postman, Wyatt Earp, in which he plays Robi... anyway, you get the point.

Waterworld was back on cable recently. If it had been edited to 1 and a half hours, it could have been a decent, not great, but decent movie...

I should probably mention my theory of book->film movie-making at some point. Now's as good a time as any.

It goes like this. The fourth, the fifth, the mi- no, wait. That's not it. I'll try again.

1) People naturally want to see movies made of their favourite books.

2) This is strange, as when such movies are made, they complain they're not as good as the books.

3) There is a way around this.

4) Make movies of shit books!

5) There is a method to my madness. I don't mean shit books without merit. I mean books where you think 'Well, this was a decent idea, but they didn't do very well with it.'

6) This gives the movie version space to develop the idea in its own way. The ideal result being.

7) People watch the movie and are astonished that someone so fine could be crafted out of what appeared to be such poor source material, and say the film was most assuredly better than the book! For a change.

...nor fall, the major lift, the baffled king composing Halleluja.

#49

"Make movies out of shit books!"

Give that man a medal!

#45 The find out nothing about the ringworld in Ringworld, so it must be in The Ringworld Engineers.

#49 they already make films out of shit books. Some of the films are actually quite good - like The Commitments or Marnie. OTOH, they managed to make a shit film out of a shit book, The Da Vinci Code... so I think your plan is flawed.

>49 HoldenCarver:, "they already make films out of shit books. Some of the films are actually quite good - like The Commitments or Marnie."

Oh, I never said they weren't doing it already. The examples serve to support my argument.

"OTOH, they managed to make a shit film out of a shit book."

It's not flawless, that's true. But then, nothing is.

In any case, my main point holds. It's easier to make a good film out of a shit book than it is to make a good film out of a great (or even merely good) book.

I suppose what I'm saying is I'd like to see more examples of terrible SF books that could, actually, make a good film.

Though, having said that, the wags from the proper literature thread will probably say "But all the books mentioned so far *are* shit!" :)

More shit books turned into more good movies should only be better then more good books turned into shit movies

What is worse is good movies remade into crap movies perhaps?

How about when a series is continued by someone other than the original author? E.g., the Dune series.

at a remainder bookstore this week i did notice 4 diff. "post Dune, Dune" hardbacks on sale for cheap. Still passed. Did get Richard Russo and Peter Dickinson books.

Artificial Kid by Bruce Sterling

The problem with shit books being made into films is that it makes shit writers richer, and encourages them and their publishers to produce more. Meanwhile, good writers find themselves bankrupt and without a publisher.

One thing that seems to happen more often then not is that when a good writer tries to maintain artistic control of their product as it is translated to the screen, it is damaged.

The key seems to be in ensuring that the visual artistic team, is as good in their element as the writer is in his.

#59

But the shittest SF writing tends to make it's authors rich anyway. I don't think Brian Herbert or Kevin J Anderson are struggling for money, for example.

Completely off-topic, I saw a Superman franchise novelisation by KJA. Is there anything that man wouldn't put his name to?

The Power by Frank M. Robinson. Apparently this was a movie in 1968 but I never saw it and I think a more modern script would make for a good remake.

Suggesting a remake when you've never even seen the original is as daft as remaking a crap film based on a line of kids' toys-- no, wait. As daft as remaking a remake-- no, wait. As daft as remaking a critically-acclaimed film and casting someone notable for his lack of talent in the lead-- no, wait...

I give up.

Or a dumb as making a Tarkovsky film because it wasn't in English. There again if the film isn't available on DVD and had George Hamilton as a lead and despite being directed by Byron Haskin maybe it ain't that dumb.

#63- Did you see that show in the eighties, Casablanca? They should make that into a movie.

Casablanca to be remade by Bollywood:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/casablanca-to-be-remade-by-bollywoo...

I'm waiting for a remake of a remake. Then I will know that Hollywood is truly bankrupt in an artistic sense.

They already did that with "King Kong".

I was specifying a remake of a remake, not a second remake of the original, but close enough.

65> What a great idea! And Tom Cruise can play Rick!

eeeeeuuuuwww

#67 They're remaking "The Thing". Not "Who Goes There?" but "The Thing". Besides Hollywood has been artistically bankrupt for decades.

Could be why Bollywood and Slumdog Millionaire is getting so much buzz this year

Slumdog Millionnaire is not a Bollywood film, it's a British film. And Hollywood has already a couple of minor flings with Bollywood - "The Guru", for example. They don't last, of course - Bollywood films are too different.

Wasn't I am Legend a remake of Omega man a remake of The Last Man on Earth based on the book? I say this because the script writer of I am Legend based his script on Omega Man and never read the book.

I thought "I am Legend" was closer to the novel than "The Omega Man"?

Yeah, apparently the guy saw the Omega Man and decided he wanted to do it with vamires without realising the book was originally a more vampire flavoured book.

Well, Switching Channels was a remake of His Girl Friday which was a remake of The Front Page. John Varley also novelized this (if that's the right term) in Steel Beach.

sinner, was that the order of the Front page?

I thought the Front Page was Matthau/Lemmon and came after the Grant/Russell His Girl Friday... Then was Swtiching Channels Reynolds/Turner? I know we are doing this on the internet and I could look it up, but I am seeing if my memory is good and a little lazy.

"The Front Page" was originally a play by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur. The first movie was a 1931 Lewis Milestone movie starring Adolphe Menjou and Pat O'Brien.

There's a reason why I love my Turner Classic Movies! Unlike Ian, I have little truck with movies made after 1960.

You clearly need to see some movies with MONSTER TRUCKS!

Good one, Ian. Actually, I watch the RFDTV channel, too (Rural Federal Delivery - early post service to rural localities, used in this sense as a metaphor for delivering the rural news, a good place to find out where all those polka bands from your youth went, and just a fun time in general. If your address is on a rural route then you are a bona fide country person). RFDTV has MONSTER TRUCK pulls every Saturday night. I prefer the pulls to the crawls and such. Imagine a highly tuned, twelve cylinder, thousand horse-power diesel engine driving each wheel, WOW!

I know we have a monster car movie, is that Christine, and is that Science Fiction, or Horror Fiction?

So is there a Monster Truck Movie? Does The Big Bus qualify?

John Varley also novelized this (if that's the right term) in Steel Beach.

Now wait a minute...!

Isn't the movie the one where she throws a shoe at him in the office? If that's the one I'm thinking of, it's hard to see many connections with Steel Beach, other than the names and the fact that the protagonist is a reporter.

And doesn't the main character appear in some short stories too?

DW: The Front Page I was referring to was the 1931 one, His Girl Friday as the remake to that. Then there was another remake of the first with Matthau and Lemon, then Switching Channels as a remake of His Girl Friday ( all of course vaguely connected to the Ben Hecht play).

In Steel Beach the hero is a reporter called Hildy Johnson who has a sex change to become the heroine Hildy Johnson. Hildy Johnson was the female reporter in His Girl Friday and Switching Channels and the male reporter in both versions of The Front Page.

All quite straightforward really.

#82- There was Killdozer, from 1974: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071717/

>82 DWWilkin: Trucks. I think Stephen King called it the worst movie ever.

well i remember the poster and even a trailer for a horror movie called something like "cars" maybe in the late 70s? All i remember is the "beep beep" of the all to VW beetlelike horn of the killer automobile (and this was from the trailer - never saw the movie).

Plus it drove an execrable AC/DC song onto the top ten, "Who Made Who?", iirc. (Whereas we literati know it should be Who Made Whom?)

#89 was it Killdozer or my unknown "car" horror movie that AC/DC promoted? (or vice versa)

Steven Spielburg did a MONSTER TRUCK movie for TV named "The Duel" starring Dennis Weaver in 1971. I think, but don't know, it was written by Stephen King. As I recall, it was pretty good and broke ground in several areas of the horror genre.

91> Duel, one of my favorite movies, was written by Richard Matheson, one of my fave authors.
:)

The Duel as i remember was v. scary just on our B&W 13" tv way back when!

Okay, I ignored this thread for a while, but once all the demon possessed vehicle movies started getting confused, I had to step in:

#86 - I'd love to see Killdozer. I wish they would release it on DVD. From a Theodore Sturgeon story. Go figure!

#87 - Trucks was a piece o' crap cable movie based on the Stephen King short story of the same name. I just tried to add it to my Netflix queue. Sadly it looks like they don't have it anymore:(

#88 - You're thinking of The Car. Little desert community. A car (driven by Satan perhaps?) runs over people and has a weird honk. That one's #6 in my queue, right below Space Truckers (hey, my wife's outta town).

#89 - That's Maximum Overdrive that has AC/DC's 'Who Made Who'. Stephen King wrote and directed it himself (from his short story 'Trucks'), to see why directors kept ruining his stuff. He later called it a 'moron movie'. I don't know what it says about me, but I enjoy it.

#91 - Duel is terrific. Still holds up very well, despite the non-existent budget. Richard Matheson's stories often turn into okay movies (excepting that Will Smith I Am Legend fiasco).

It would seem that J Seger is our authority on the subject, Do they qualify as Science Fiction, since a car actually having awareness, or its own voluntary action seems kind of science fiction in a robot sort of way. Or is it Horror Fiction?

The Car, Christine, Maximum Overdrive = horror. The whole 'demon possesion' angle sort of seals the deal, no?

Knight Rider = Science fiction. (The inclusion of David Hasselhoff makes it a sci-fi/horror hybrid to me.)

David Hasselhoff also played the lead in "Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD", which had a flying helicarrier and was sort of sf.

jseger9000 is right, the movie Stephen King hated was his own version of Maximum Overdrive. Truck was a TV movie based on the same short story. Apparently when Stephen King showed MO to George Romero he actually vomited.

From what I remember of Maximum Overdrive it was more about the machines taking over after being influenced by a passing comet than demonic possession.

#98 - From what I remember of Maximum Overdrive it was more about the machines taking over after being influenced by a passing comet than demonic possession.

That's true, but Maximum Overdrive is still more horror than SF to me. That bit about the comet is only mentioned in the last minute of the movie after all. I couldn't imagine recommending it to someone who loved 2001, A Clockwork Orange or even Johnny Mnemonic. But someone who loves John Carpenter or Dario Argento? Sure, give it a tumble.

About George Romero vomiting, that's because the original was much more violent than what made it on the screen. The movie was going to have an X rating before it was edited for content.

I don't think Stephen King hated Maximum Overdrive (just because somethng's a moron movie doesn't mean it's bad), but he hated directing and became more leniant of folks that adapted his stuff.

#94

It's quite sad on how knowledgeable you are on evil motor vehicle movies.

I never said I had good taste. You'd be surprised at the crap I enjoy. (Plus I have a mind for trivia.)

How about Jane Austen meets The Predator?

http://ifmagazine.com/new.asp?article=7594

I wish I was kidding!

I can only hope a movie titled 'Pride and Predator' is half as much fun as it sounds. (I honestly thought it was an April Fool's thing until I did more searching).

For those that can't wait for Jane Austen meets pulp, you can pick up Seth Grahame-Smith's Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance - Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem! on April first. (Seriously!)

Looks like fun. But then again, I am the evil motor vehicle movies guy.

I think the thing that almost sells me on the Pride and Prejudice Zombies book is the fact that it supposedly contains all of the original text. It's like a release of the unexpurgated version, heavily censored in its time because of the controversy... Well, maybe not.

People of the time just weren't ready to handle Jane Austen's more bloodthirsty side. I could see it being a fun novelt book (novelty graphic novel? You know what I mean).

> 94: Aren't we all forgetting the Australian car horror movie, 'The Cars that ate Paris"?

I wrote a little piece on this subject on my blog.

#107

Excellent blog as always, Ian.

I have just come up with another movie that I would like to see: The Stainless Steel Rat.

>107 iansales:
Huh? I'm going to disagree regarding Ringworld not requiring a lot os special effects.

#108. Ta. And yes, that'd make a good film. Actually, it's about time 2000AD released a trade paperback collection of the comic version of The Stainless Steel Rat.

#109 Ringworld wouldn't need a great deal more in the way of special effects that, say, Roman Polanski's "Oliver Twist" did. Certainly not "Revenge of the Sith" levels - or any of the Star Wars prequels.

It's been a while since I read Ringworld, but from what I remember of it, Ian is right. It could be done without breaking the bank on special effects.

Spaceshit effects are relatively cheap, just a couple of model shots or CGI shots. Interiors need a set that would cost as much as any.

Scenes on the surface of the Ringworld showing the curvature are easy - it's just what mattes are for. Nice and cheap.

The most expensive effects would be the ending escape from Ringworld, but that's not going to break the bank even if it's the only big effect and costs as much as all the others combined, surely.

On the big screen, and for viewers most of whom never even heard of the book, you're gonna want to show that sucka. $$$

Wouldn't the biggest effects for Ringworld be the approach to the Ring, visually, all CGI and the Puppeteers?

The approach to the ringworld is nothing - people do stuff like that at home and stick it on Youtube. In fact, with the exception of the Puppeteer, most of the CGI will be relatively static or slow moving. There won't be lots of small fast-moving CGI objects - and that's what takes money.

> Nice blog Ian. I thought that Crash was quite true to the novel though. Naked Lunch is as you say unfilmable
but I think the script got the essence of several of Burrough's works and it still remains Cronenberg's masterpiece.

There seems to be some missing-the-point going on here. Yes, if you wanted to show off every detail, make everything look fabulous, and go as tech-happy as you could, then it would cost a shitload of money to make Ringworld.

The point Ian is making, and that I am supporting, is that you don't *have* to do this to make Ringworld. In can be done for cheap and without sacrificing anything either in the way of 'artistic integrity' or in the way of making it a good film that's fun to watch.

To take a specific point:

"On the big screen, and for viewers most of whom never even heard of the book, you're gonna want to show that sucka. $$$"

Quite how much it would cost depends on *how* you show 'that sucka'. Seeing it from a distance would be cheap (relatively speaking), just knock up a model or CGI of the world and bits and bobs in orbit.

Similarly, from the surface of the Ringworld, matte backgrounds are a very cheap way of adding visual pop and splendor, in this case no doubt being plenty of views of the curve of the Ringworld rising up in the background.

Where it costs megabucks is when you start adding more detail and complexity. Say you wanted to do a fancy flyby shot where you start out far in orbit, zoom in close to the Ringworld, circle around, dive into it, skim the surface... etc. etc., a really fancy show-off sort of thing. That would cost lots. And there's a simple solution; don't do it!

There's really nothing in Ringworld that absolutely has to be done that would break the bank.

But do you want a direct to video cheapie, or something that will bring in paying customers and making real money. Do Star Wars without high priced effects, and see how many people remember it 6 months later.

Hey guys? Two of the crew are aliens!

You can have a guy in a costume if you want, but these days that generates belly laughs from the audience.

Plus, to show it the right way you need a lot of shots.

As Ian said in the blog post, "The sheer scale of the ringworld will keep people watching." But you need a certain amount of visuals to convey the scale. You need the part where they're approaching from "underneath" it, so that oceans bulge out and mountains bulge in from their P.O.V. You need a good sequence with the shadow squares. You need the scene in which the meteor defense system takes out the ship, etc.

You need the scene in which Louis Wu realizes that thirty full-scale Mercator projections of Earth can fit across the Ringworld. That's "across," as in the short dimension. (Even if this scene is from The Ringworld Engineers, you should still have it in the Ringworld movie to convey the scale.)

Edit: They actually have a full scale map of Earth and Mars on the Ringworld. Seeing this, Louis Wu realizes you could do thirty; the Protectors didn't actually make thirty. But showing the one Earth map, at 1:1, being lost on the Ringworld... Oh, man, that would be sweet!

I think you could do Ringworld on the cheap, but which director would be interested in that? And would such a movie really be liked by the general SF-going audience of today?

You have one of the coolest Big Dumb Objects devised, and not to take full advantage of this would ultimately dissapoint.

#117 - Do Star Wars without high priced effects, and see how many people remember it 6 months later.

Roger Corman did. It was called Battle Beyond the Stars

121
Exactly. I never saw it...

#121, #122

I have never even heard of it, let alone seen it.

It was a remake of The Seven Samurai. Robert Vaughan plays the same part.

Do Star Wars without high priced effects, and see how many people remember it 6 months later

I'd sooner not remember The Phantom Menace, thank you very much.

Battle Beyond the Stars is a good film, although cheesy. A lot of the special effects shots were reused.

However... you know the opening of Revenge of the Sith where Obi Wan and anakin Skywalker are in a battle in orbit about Coruscant... that's the sort of sfx that costs huge amounts these days. A flyby the ringworld, or greenscreen backgrounds of the ringworld's landscape - they're not very expensive. And there's only a single object that needs to be created, not hundreds of worlds or spaceships or aliens... That's why I said Ringworld would be cheaper to make than other sf films.

Re Ringworld - previous discussions on this, and other, board about what SF people like suggests that most fans prefer a strong story/script, decent acting/directing; a mass of SFX is not that important.

#125
You still have two of the crew as aliens, both of which play major roles in the book. What would it cost to create these aliens to a realistic standard?

#126
Could the money from fans of Ringworld make a film version of the novel break even, let alone make a reasonable return on it's money? No matter what our wishes as SF fans might be, the commercial aspect of a film has to be examined, too, and not having a large budget for special effects is not going to appear commercially attractive.

However we look at a film version of Ringworld, such a film will need to appeal to the more casual SF movie-goer, and I don't need to say too anything about them that can't be said by listing some of the more commercially-successful SF films produced recently.

I think you're underestimating what I mean by a small budget. I'm not saying you'd stick a hoop of painted paper around a lightbulb and film that. I don't think Ringworld needs an sfx budgets the size a book such as Consider Phlebas would require, but obviously it'd need more than a non-sf film.

The Kzin (do i remember correctly, a kzin and the puppetteer?) could be like gollum in LOTR by Peter Jackson. A digitized wet suit on a human. That is later CGI'd

I think the visually scale Mercator map can probably be story board hacked up now with free software on the internet, later done a lot better of course in studio. Not expensive. I think the Puppetteer costs go way up because no human can mimic the way they would move and the best we could achieve is Centaurs from Harry Potter.

But with Ringworld I am still stuck at story. My remembrance is that it just fizzles out in the end.

io9 chimes in on the topic here.

Corey Doctorow Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town .....I would love to see someone try to make this iinto a movie LOL...it's just so bizarre I don't see how they could. I wish them luck if they try, and I'd definitely give it a once over. If nobody has ever read this...the main character, with his ever changing name that always begins with an A at least, well his mother is a washing machine...his father is a mountain....one brother is an island...and he has three brothers, and well...they're like those dolls that you stack inside one another. I love this story.

Novel to make into movie: A Fall of Moondust by Arthur C. Clarke.
Novelette to make into movie: Ode to Joy by Dean McLaughlin in the July 1991 issue of Analog. This would have a very low sfx budget.

'A fall of Moondust' - oh yes.

Another I was thinking of was Inverted World by Christopher Priest.

'And speaking of good SF novels being turned into movies, I have high hopes for "The Forever War"'

After the pigs' testicles they made out of "Starship Troopers", to say you're being wildly optimistic would, I suggest, be putting it mildly indeed.

Anyway, for my ha'pence worth, I wouldn't seeing Harrison's Sippery Jim diGriz on the silver screen; I don't how they'd do it or with whom but even if its lowish-budget, it should still be fun aka the Red Dwarf TV series.

I remember that character being annoyingly amoral. Stealing other people's stuff and bragging about it, & whatnot. (But I read one or two of them, and it was decades ago.)

#134

There's so many things wrong with that comparison, but I'll simply say that "Starship Troopers" was directed by Paul Verhoven, and "Forever War" is slated to be directed by Ridley Scott.

Oh, and I quite liked Starship Troopers.

#135

I loved how Jim said that stealing was nearly a public service - it provides activity for a normally inactive police force, leads to an increase in sales in newspapers and the like, provides entertainment for the local populace, and the bank's money would be covered by insurance, which would result in the insurance company losing a small amount of value in their shares.

136
I was beginning to worry I was the only one to enjoy that movie. I still wish that when watching tv, the announcer would say "Would you like to know more?"
:)

Yes. I don't think Starship Troopers was meant to be faithful to the right wing politics of RAH novel. Verhoeven after all, made 'Soldier of Orange' about the Dutch resistance to the fascists.

"Starship Troopers" was an excellent satire, and possibly the only sane response to the book. "Starship Troopers 2" is rubbish, but "Starship Troopers 3" returns to the satire but fails because the cast are awful.

Starship Troopers is an awesome film. Nothing like the book, but that's no bad thing at all. Verhoven flipped it from a pro-war movie to an anti-war satire, which was actually very clever.

Still, perhaps the best bit about the movie is Doogie Howser touching the bug and saying "It's afraid. It's afraid." Because, c'mon, it's Doogie Howser! :)

I wonder if, for sake of balance, The Forever War will be made as a pro-war movie?

Soldier of Orange is one of my favorites. To go from that to Starship Troopers, or watching the two back to back, there is a let down. Perhaps it is the story of ST is just not as compelling as SoO on the screen.

I feel that ST by Verhoeven is not as strong as the book was, but as a stand alone action movie it is perfect for that part of the genre. Thus my disappointemnt stems from it not being as strong as SoO or as strong as the book.

At the risk of veering off-topic, you should all check out (if you haven't already done so) Verhoeven's return to self-examination of the Dutch wartime experience in "Black Book". Far more ambiguous than Soldier of Orange and full of narrative twists that keep you guessing right up to the end.

#138-142: Re Starship Troopers

Due to the discussion on here, I felt the need to watch the movie again (which always happens when I discuss something I enjoyed and haven't experienced for a while). I originally saw this movie when I was about fifteen or sixteen, so I thought it would be interesting to see how it held up.

The movie was far better than I remembered. I recall the movie being quite graphically violent, and having excellent special effects, and a consistent storyline, all of which is enough for me to enjoy the movie back then, and is still enough to make for an enjoyable movie now.

But now, I can also appreciate and understand the satire of a fascist military state, which does make the movie far better than the recent crop of SF movies that get a release. Like a man without legs saying without irony: "serving in the infantry made me the man I am today." Or a man on trial being walked up to the Judge, the Judge deeming the man guilty without man having a chance to defend himself, and then the special screening of his execution advertised straight after this scene on television. There are many other examples,

So, it's a better movie than what I originally recalled, which is a nice change to my normal experience with rereading old favourite novels or movies.

I've always thought, and I know this is totally random, that I'd like to see a movie version of Asimov's story "Robot Visions." Actually, it's more like I'd like to MAKE a version of it. For one thing, I just think it's a neat story. And, for another thing, you could do it on a really tiny budget, I think. Though you could also go for big budget if you wanted to. No action scenes though - it's kinda more something you'd expect to see as an Outer Limits episode or something, I guess. See, made for TV movie - perfect! Hmm, I seem to be straying from the concept slightly...

BTW, I liked Ian's blog post, in part because I think he nailed something pretty significant when he says "If there's one common factor to successful adaptations, it's that they take great liberties with their source texts." For all of the good science fiction movies that have been made, they tended to stray a lot from the original story.

I tend to think especially of PKD's stuff. Blade Runner is an excellent movie, and while it has a lot in common with Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? it's ultimately a different story (nor can I imagine anyone other than Stanley Kubrick managing to make a faithful adaptation of it - the bizarre ending would fit right in for him). Same with "Minority Report" and the movie. The story is good, the movie is excellent, but it's plot is almost opposite that of the story, and while both have interesting ethical questions, they're very different ethical questions. (Though I do think a more faithful version of Minority Report could have made a good sci-fi suspense thriller with more emphasis on the suspense.) I can't claim Total Recall is a great movie, but it did okay, and it has very little to do with "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale" (and again, it's hard to imagine a faithful version working as a movie, though it could probably be done by somebody with a sense of humor). A lot of times it seems that a good premise makes a good jumping off point, but it's not always a bad idea to let the screenwriter run with it. Of course, that's also sometimes how you end up with many of the travesties we have seen come out of Hollywood, but, oh well - you win some, you lose some...

And some you just have to shove into the back seat and pound the piss out of.

Battlefield Earth. I'm thinking John Travolta should be involved.

>145 benmartin79:: I was surprised to see how much there was in 'Total recall' that was quite PhilDickian - such as the JohnnyCabs and some of the questioning of external perceived reality. On the other hand, the 30-second terraforming of Mars is just plain daft.

Somewhere in this group is a list of post-apocalyptic stories. At lot of them could be interesting movies, if the shock and gore were kept to a minimum.

Wow, this topic is a bit old, but hey, why not revive it...

I have it on good authority that Ender's Game will be a movie, as soon as Card finishes the screenplay for it. Perhaps he's finished it by now... but yes, it will happen. At least, filming will happen. Fairly soon. Hopefully.

Here's a vote for The Door Into Summer. Not only is it a good twisty story of revenge, it's relatively short so Hollywood could probably do it justice in a feature-length film. And, it's about a guy from 1970 who wakes up in 2001. A lot could be made of that, I think. Heck, I could even picture Wil Smith as the guy - that'd no doubt make someone in Hollywood happy.

Heinlein doesn't play in Hollywood, fortunately. Although it continues to astonish me that Philip K Dick does...

"Total Recall" and "Bladerunner" (eventually) were big hits, the author isn't around to complain about anything. What's to wonder about?

I thought The Puppet Masters (the 1994 version with Donald Sutherland) was a pretty decent movie. And it's hard to imagine Melissa Mathison hadn't read The Star Beast before she penned E.T.; the extraterrestrial.

Dick is the least likely sf author to enjoy success with film adaptations. His drug-induced paranoid ramblings, while entertaining in book form, seem almost antithetical to the way Hollywood tells stories and the messages it wants its product to embody. Yet so far they've made films of 'We Can Remember It For You Wholsesale', Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, 'Second Variety' (plus a sequel), 'Impostor', 'The Minority Report', 'Paycheck', A Scanner Darkly, 'The Golden Man', and there's a further three in preproduction...

This is probably old news to Dan Simmons fans, but a movie(s) based on the Hyperion Cantos is/(are) gaining momentum. The most recent version involves smashing Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion together into one movie.

http://www.dansimmons.com/news/news_items.htm#film

I must say, Hyperion is one of the last SF books I ever thought would be made into a movie (although I liked the books well enough.)

Since 'Bright Star' is now out, perhaps Jane Campion could direct it.

The Ringworld ringworld ringworm ringworld people probably already know, but there is a Ringworld plugin for Celestia that lets you do your own fly-bys.

Sweet! Thanks justjim!

No problems. Rishathra not required.

Remake the Postman just this time don't leave out the Science Fiction. With todays special effects genetically mutated soldiers that can change like the Incredible Hulk shouldn't be too expensive.

Every book by Murray Leinster would be great. I will greatly appreciate also a remake of the Forbidden Planet.

It has just occurred to me reading Still River that it would make an OK movie, but that Mission of Gravity would make a great CGI-driven sfx spectacular movie.

Or Slow River which I remember to be full of action. Lore (the female protagonist) isn't Laura Croft, but that's a good thing. The "green" angle would be understood by the mainstream, the lesbianism perhaps not as much. Open their minds...

The Warrior's Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold.

I am really shocked that no one else has said this yet?? The entire Vorkosigan Saga would be an excellent series of movies if a good writer/director could figure out how to work the inner dialogue prevalant in the books..

165> and the other hitch is casting Miles (unless it was animated in some way). Not easy to find actors who would look physically right for him.

> 165

YES.

Maybe it should be our next awesome long-running sci-fi tv series, actually. It lends itself so well to character-based introspection...

162> Two have been. The Wailing Asteroid became The Terrornauts, which despite the title, actually had the feel of an old golden age problem solving SF story, and The Monster from Earth's End which became the silly Navy vs The Night Monsters

#168: Thanks! Good to know! I will search for the DVD, if any.

How about something a little more contemporary, that links into current concerns on things like the environment, low-level wars, and realistic prospects for genetic engineering and space exploration? I am nearly finished reading Paul J. McAuley's A quiet war. Using CGI, a film could capture the gorgeous habitats on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn of the 'Outers', who are into genetic body mods, and who want to live free but are threatened by dictatorial regimes on Earth.

For something a bit more low budget how about Ken MacLeod's The night sessions or Charles Stross's Halting state which could give the local film industry here in Scotland something other than 'Trainspotting' to boast about? :-)

Hmm, in no particular order:

Neuromancer - been waiting on this one for twenty years!
Consider Phlebas - perfect for a space opera epic
Against A Dark Background - good space opera romp, although violence might upset the censors
Altered Carbon - one of my favourite books ever, would make an incredible, if violent, film
Footfall - I've been wondering about this one for about twenty years too. It'd be perfect for a summer SF blockbuster

I agree with a lot of the previous posts, especially about Footfall. But I miss another Niven (et al.) classic: The Legacy of Herot. This could be made into a great scifi action thiller.

The opening scene of Ian Watson's God's World, depicts a couple having sex in a state of weightlessness. That I would pay to see. The rest of the book would be optional.

166> Years ago, I suggested to LMcMB that given the rate of advance in digital technology, the strapline for the first film of the Barrayar books would be "Arnold Schwarzenegger IS Miles Vorkosigan!"

I confidently expect that once all the principals are safely tucked up in their comfy graves, someone will take the original series of Star Trek and digitally rework all the sets, scenery and props to fit in with the style of recent Trek, as well as inserting canonical update references to the dialogue and varying some of the plots.

166, 167 & 174

Well, Lois mentioned on the interview at Dragon*Con this September that she is a big fan of anime... So she'd likely approve of an animated version of the Vorkosigan saga.

I also hope Ender's Game will be a movie soon! However, I tend to think that the Bean series (beginning with Ender's Shadow) would be a more exciting and action-filled movie in comparison. I'm also looking forward to the anti-gravity special effects in the Battle Room scenes...

Card said that elements from the Ender's Shadow will be included as well, so not to worry.

I think Dream Park would make a spectacular movie but it would need to be condensed a lot. Several of the short stories from the Del Rey Stellar 1 series would translate nicely to the big screen.

"In The Country of Last Things", by Paul Auster.

In fact, pretty much anything by Paul Auster.

Also, "We" by Yevgeni Zamyatin.

I read We last year and after hearing how wonderful it was, was severely disappointed. Had I read it forty years before having read Brave New World and Animal Farm rather than forty years after, I might have a different opinion, but to me it's simply the Ur-novel of the dystopia sub-genre and a reasonably successful accomplishment given the lack of antecedents to worlk with, something both Huxley and Orwell had available to them.

Is it a classic? yes, in the sense that all Ur-novels are classics. Is it worthy of a movie? Only if you haven't seen the movies made of the two I mentioned, or many of the other dystopic movies, such as Fahrenheit 451 or Logan's Run that have come along in the near century since its publication.

I'm on an anti-dystopic kick lately. I tend to blame our dystopic world on an overconcentration on dystopic thinking (hence dystopic literature) filled with people we are taught to admire, only because the bad guys are monothically evil, while their values are, for the most part despicable. Too much concentration on the absolute individual and none or very little on the positives of community. Ayn Rand in a future in which Randianism is triumphant. Do we all want to be Gully Foyle? Or any of the players in Neuromancer? I would prefer to live in a world where goodness trumps evil, not more evil. It's like a race to the bottom. And it currently appears we are winning.

Speaking of the future impacting the present. We were, weren't we?

If finding the Higgs-boson particle results in a world-wide calamity, how would anyone be around to stop it?

So what would happen if the Higgs didn't exist? That the Universe wasn't consistent? That we are really in a vast simulation but it was built by the equivalent of Microsoft and had all these bugs in it and some hacker is working late to see that we don't find them?

That makes at least as much sense as any other theology I've ever heard.

The hacker's name is Neo.

If you read the second paragraph in this article, maybe FTL isn't so fantastic.
http://cdsweb.cern.ch/journal/article?issue=41/2009&name=CERNBulletin&ca...

Cherenkov radiation is electromagnetic radiation emitted when a charged particle (such as an electron) passes through an insulator at a constant speed greater than the speed of light in that medium.
from Wikipedia, my emphasis.

I personally can walk faster than the speed of light (through a brick wall)!

eta: forgot the wikipedia link!

Ah! Good point. Thanks, JustJim.

Less ambitious than some of the above: technicolor time machine or star smashers of the galaxy rangers - could become a cult movie. Or maybe have space suit will travel or More than human

Ilium and Olympus by Dan Simmons, though I believe the former is being made into a film. Or was. Or may have been lost in pre-production.

Illium would be an interesting movie, as long as the two non-Troy related storylines were cut - I don't think that robots discussing literature would go down well in a movie theatre, nor would the cliched "conspiracy in the far-future" story work, either.

It helps to know a little of the story *behind* 'We', to appreciate it, and perhaps also helps that I haven't read Brave New World.
I studied We as part of my dissertation, and I really enjoyed it. My project was all about dystopian literature ('We', 'In the Country of Last Things', and 'A Scanner Darkly').
I like dystopian literature. Not because I like dark stories of woe and the failures of humanity, but because not all dystopias have a "bad" ending. Maybe I just happen to have read good dystopian books. Who knows.
Anyway, getting a little off-topic. I just felt, while reading We, that it would make a great movie, if *only* because of the ending, which I was not expecting, and which I enjoyed.

rojse, there is enough content in ilium to constitute several standalone films, no problem there. I think it would be easier to modify the moravec arc and dispense with the Ada/Daeman story entirely. As for literary robots, I think the discursive 'chats' about Proust went a bit too far ...

#193

Been a while since I read the book, but I do recall quite liking the SF/Troy storyline. The other two were rubbish, though - one was pretentious "look at me, I know Shakespeare" rubbish, the other SF conspiracy cliche rubbish.

I really think Philip Jose Farmers World of Tiers novels would make a superlative movie. Amazing BDOs, iconic heros, set in incredible scenes, as diverse as palaces and temples and prehistoric Plains and even Barsoom.

But I think most great Sci fi novels fail to make the adaption to the screen unless they are substantially dumbed down.
Movies like Contact and Bladerunner are the minority sadly. Most sci fi tends to be of the eye candy class.

Earth Abides by George R Stewart
War Of the Worlds with a proper victorian setting
Soldier Ask Not - Gordon Dickson
Dhalgren - Samuel R Delaney
Life During wartime - Lucius Shepard
The Penultimate Truth - Philip K Dick
The Man In The High Castle - Philip K Dick
A Canticle For Leibowitz - Walter M Miller
Timescape - Gregory Benford
Stand On Zanzibar - John Brunner
Behold The Man - Michael Moorcock
Man Plus - Frederik Pohl
Always Coming Home - Ursula K LeGuin

Annodyne

Contact could have been so much better. Carl Sagan spoiled an otherwise good novel with possibly the worst ending i`ve ever read. I loved Blade Runner but it bears very little resemblence to the original novel, they should have used the original title at the very least.

I'll add my name for Ringworld.
It works on so many levels.
If it makes money, then there's a whole follow up for films or tv with Known Space, or with the rest of that series.
The novel itself is written in nice linear fashion, making the Screenplayer's job easier.
It has enough character development to satisfy any intelligent viewer.
There's enough mystery-driven MacGuffin. And it doesn't need to overly rely on special effects. In fact if it is not character and plot driven, it would fail.

wouldn't Ringworld be just glorious?As would Excession or The Algebraist bt Banks.Sadly though, the big studios seem incapable of diverting talent as well as money...tthey cant take risks and risk is a crucial factor in Sci-Fi...dont hold your breath for Ringworld

I'd go see Thrice Upon a Time by James P. Hogan. Good locals (including a Scottish castle), some decent particle physics extrapolations, and a bit of romance.

Also, maybe Poul Anderson's short story "Call me Joe" would make a good movie. Oh wait, it's possible it's already the uncredited inspiration for the current "Avatar" movie.

Ringworld(Niven), Rendezvous with Rama(supposedly in production!), Childhood's End (Clarke), Hothouse(Aldiss), Blood Music (Bear), the Forever War(Haldeman)

jack mcdevitt story from either Priscilla "Hutch" Hutchins stories or one of the Alex Benedict stories. I loved Eternity road it probably isn't exciting enough for a movie.

May I suggest Night Train to Rigel by Timothy Zahn When I read this book and the 2 others in the series I certainly can envisage a screenplay

Ive always wanted to see a movie rendition of A Wrinkle In Time. a great story and the effects would speak for themselves.

According to IMDB, one is in production. There was a made-for-TV version a few years back but I don't recommend it.

Gene Wolfe The Book of the New Sun.

Mel Gibson is Catholic and intelligent so he'd get it and crazy enough to adapt all four parts.

Thanks ChrisRiesback for that info...yep I saw the TV version and you are right it sucks!

How about Bujold? I think "The Warrior's Apprentice" would make an awsome movie, provided the makers did not screw with the story.

When do they ever not screw with the story?

There is a very good movie to be made in the short story '' The Fourth Profession" by Larry Niven

"After a visiting alien unexpectedly shows up in a Los Angeles bar, bartender Ed Frazer awakes the next morning with the strangest hangover of his life. Ed barely remembers taking the gift offered by the alien; mysterious pills that flood his brain with the knowledge and skills of an alien profession: spaceship captain, teleporter, translator... now Ed can't remember how many pills he took, or if the confusing overload of information in his head reveals the terrible secret of the aliens' mission..."

HELLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO??????????????
how bout gone series?

> 210

The Catholic Church would never approve of "The Fourth Profession" They managed to kill the sequels to The Golden Compass.

I think the fact that the film was a crappy adaptation might also have had something to do with it.

Robopocalypse would make a good film, I think.

Well let's see. Neuromancer would make a good movie if you toned down all the stimulant abuse.

John Ringo's Troy Rising would make an exciting and readily marketable movie. You'd have to use all three books to make one 2 hour blockbuster. I can see little plastic Troy toys becoming collectibles. Anyone know if there's an initial penny offering on a Troy Rising franchise yet?

How about Joel Shepherd's Cassandra Kresnov novels? Cameron Diaz or Milla Jovovich could play the heroine.

How about Paul J. McAuley's The Quiet War novels? Probable more of an intellectual "art film" than a block buster.

Morgan Freeman owns the rights to a Rendezvous with Rama movie but unfortunately its been going through development hell and is no longer being made. I could see this movie being pretty good (hopefully not too good or they will make movies based on the sequels lol). Maybe Someday.....

#214 I suspect you'll be seeing that before long. The book was sold on the fact that it was being made into a movie. In fact, the book was written so it would be easy to make into a movie. Which probably explains why I didn't like it much.

The Catholic church killed the movie? I don't think they have near enough influence to do that.

Check out this article before making wild claims.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2009/dec/15/golden-compass-sam-elliot-ca...

If the church really did have anything to do with killing that desecration of a fine book, I may have to tithe this year...

I was also surprised by how lame the Golden Compass movie was, given the material they had to work with.

Amen to that. The Golden Compass movie had a good cast, too.

Yes, I thought Kidman playing the vile Mrs. Coulter and Daniel Craig playing Asriel were good choices. In theory, it should have worked...

I was under the impression that The Golden Compass was toned down in pre-production to try to make it theologically acceptable, and that the religious outcry - which considered any atheistic entertainment anathema - merely finished the job off. It seemed to be playing to full theatres when I saw it, though that was probably the Philip Pullman fan club having an evening out.

What about the ChungKuo series by David Wingrove? The characters are interesting, the plots complex, and the setting is really made for special effects.

I suspect Tobias Buckell's Xenowealth books would do well,as films. big guns, Kick ass fights, Inventive and exotic worlds. and enough ideas to stop embarrassment setting in. All they need is a good CGI budget. and a Caribbean cast.