SF movies you'd like to see made

[D'kian]

Every now and then a good SF film does make it out of Hollywood, but largely SF movies have become either of three things: 1) visual effects extravaganzas, 2) action movies writ large, 3) moody pieces warning against man's hubris. Now, any of these three categories can be a good film. There's the original Star Wars trilogy for visuals, Minority Report for action (the movie fell far short of its potential, but as an action movie it was very good), and Gattaca for a reasonable warning of sorts.

But there's a lot more to science fiction than that.

One thing missing from most SF films today is optimism. A lot fo the best SF literature is optimistic, rooted in a benevolent universe premise that is mostly implicit. To put it simply, a lot fo SF is about how cool and fun life could be in the future.

Take for instance the series of "Dream Park" novels by Larry Niven and Steven Barnes. Dream Park is a future type of amusement park that features a gaming area for fantasy role-playing games. The games are the main attraction in the novels. They are fantastic, too, featuring a mix of physical and holographic sets, actors and props (even weapons). The formula for all three novels is the same: a crime related to Dream Park and the current game takes palce, therefore the Dream park security staff, often the chief of security, have to get inside the game to investigate. It makes for a good mystery read, with a spectacular backdrop.

Or consider some of Heinlen's work. Heinlen was an inveterate optimist and individualist. One of my favorite novels is called "The Door To Summer." It's about an inventor who gets screwed in a business deal and flees, he calls it that, to the future via suspended animation. He find the future to his liking, and I do as well. Then instead of shunning business he builds up his own business and becomes very wealthy and successful.

For a moody piece warning about the hubris of altruism I'd pick Asimov's "The End Of Eternity." Eternity is a place existing outside time (don't ask). The Eternals who live there can travel through time easily. These they do in order to "protect" humanity from itself. For instance, if drug addiction is too high in the 2750th Century, they change some event in, say, the 2747th Century to bring addiciton rates down. This also has adverse consequences the Eternals either cannot or will not see. The novel doesn't condemn altruism (Asimov was a left-leaning liberal), confinign itself to condemning the notion that we must be kept safe at all times. A few minor tweaks would make it a great movie.

All these books do paint a future, or a variety fo futres, of great achievements, great beauty and great happiness. Thses are thigns missing from most modern SF movies (and novels, too). The Star Wars prequels were pretty bad literarily speaking, but at least Lucas did manage some stunning, beautiful visuals of futuristic life (I won't argue whether SW is set in the future or the past).

[Zip]

Action - Hammers Slammers (take your pick) or Redliners, also by Drake

Visual Effects/Epic - Empire of the East - Fred Saberhagen or Bio of a Space Tyrant by Piers Anthony

[Thales]

Anthem -- I'm surprised nobody has done this, because from the standpoint of a story it's easy, short and yet powerful. A 2+ hour movie would serve it well. Some may say it's not sci-fi, but I think it fits the bill. Frankly, it would make a GREAT movie, and would be ten times easier to do than Atlas Shrugged.

I'd like to see a remake of StarShip Troopers, only this time do the actual story, include the moral code and the powersuits. Admittedly I didn't see the movie, but I heard about it.

[glibber]

Good topic!

Action -

"In Conquest Born", but that could be done like an epic drama too.

Visual Effects -

In Baxter's "Xeelee Sequence" the Phonino Bird Victory arc. Star destruction, artificial galaxy formation, billions and billions of enemies, throwing the moon at some of them....

Mood -

Robinson's "Green Mars" was depressing as Hell so....

Vogt's "Slan" had a good suspense edge to it.

Gibson's "Count Zero" had some nice mood in it but the subtlety of the text might not be translatable to film.

[D'kian]

I'd like to see a remake of StarShip Troopers, only this time do the actual story, include the moral code and the powersuits. Admittedly I didn't see the movie, but I heard about it.

I really do not understand why they skipped the power suits, considering they'd alone make for astonishing visuals.

[athena glaukopis]

I didn't even know what you meant by "SF" until I read your whole post. I saw "San Francisco" not sci-fi.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who did this.

[D'kian]

I didn't even know what you meant by "SF" until I read your whole post. I saw "San Francisco" not sci-fi.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who did this.

It's a common handicap, nothing to be ashamed of.

[Lemuel]

While steeped in quantum physics, I really like Stephen Baxter's books because he does rely on hard science.

I'd love for Manifold: Space to be made into a movie. The story follows Reid Malenfant, who, after being washed out of NASA (irrationally), becomes an aerospace industrialist. When a strange anomaly is discovered on a nearby stable asteroid (Cruithne), he builds his own spacecraft out in the desert and launches to investigate. The government, once they figure out his plan, takes great measure to stop him. Unfazed, Malenfant pursues his goal with passion and dedication.

I also like the works of Jack McDevitt - not the brainiest of sci-fi, but his are great stories with heroic characters.

One would have to work in more plot when doing so, but adaptations of some Arthur Clarke novels would be nice, too, as would more robot stories from Asimov.

Even though it's fantasy and not sci-fi, Terry Goodkind's books would be awesome in the hands of the right director; Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Identity, United 93) would be my first choice.

Edited March 17, 2008 by Lemuel

[Brule]

"The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress" is the first book that came to mind. I'd also love to see a good Dune remake though I was impressed by the Sci-Fi channel's version made not long ago. (the original movie had too many problems)

[glibber]

"The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress" is the first book that came to mind. I'd also love to see a good Dune remake though I was impressed by the Sci-Fi channel's version made not long ago. (the original movie had too many problems)

Yah, the Dune miniseries was fantastic.

[D'kian]

I must have done something wrong. When I said what SF films have become I meant it as a bad thing.

Still, there can be such thingas as good FX extravaganzas, good action movies, and good moody pieces. So:

A movie I'd love to see made is Larry Niven's "The Integral Trees." Niven is my third favorite SF author, but he has a bit of a flaw. he comes up with very detailed, very original, very imaginative backgrounds. His specialty are really weird places where even movement is different. Witness his first big novel "Ringworld," about an artificial construct that provides the living space equivalent of millions of Earths. The flaw lies in making a background so detailed that it takes over the story. "Ringworld"'s story barely holds together amid a long, slow travelogue. Were tha background not so striking and new, the novel would hvae floped.

But sometimes niven comes up with a great background and inserts in it a great story. Such is the case with "The Integral Trees" and its sequel "The Smoke Ring."

Briefly put, the smoke ring, where the novels are set, is an atmosphere without a planet. A gas torus millions of kilometers in diameter orbitign a neutron star. In the middle there's a narrow band where air and water gather and provide enough pressure for life to develop. Inside there are the remnants of a planet (Goldblatt's world), ponds of free-floating water, plants, animals and millions of gigantic trees several kilometers in lenght, with bare trunks but for two ends full of foliage. Plants, people, animals and water are weightless everywhere except in the tufts and along the bark of the trees (something about tidal action that Niven does not explain).

The story begins with the people who make the end of a tree their home. Their tree passed to close to the dead planet (which BTW is too massive to live on) and got knocked out far off the smoke ring's median. Now it moves along a drier, rarer portion of the ocean of air. the tribe is close to starvation, the tree is dying.

As you'd expect the tribe is rather primitive, with bits of advanced amterial left over from however people reched the Smoke Ring. The tree dies, spectacularly, and a few survivors are cast away towards the thicker areas of the ring. eventually they meet other human groups, so we realize life in the Smoke Ring isn't entirely primitive, or entirely pleasant.

The visuals would be incredible, particularly with all the floating around accomplished in a weightless environment. Imagine globs of water several hundred meters accross, fish that fly when their ponds break up, plants that sprout flying seeds, birds of all kinds, lumps of symbiotic plant jungles, and a lot more.

If it were to be done at all it would have to be entirely CGI. It's hard to do weightlessness convincingly in live action, and even then only for short takes. traditional flat animation can be very beautiful, but it is limited in the richness of color, depth, texture and lighting modern CGI can achieve (compare the interior shots of vast, luxurious places in "Ratatouille" with those in "Beauty and the Beast;" Beauty is one of the best animated films around, BTW).

So there

[Matus1976]

Even though it's fantasy and not sci-fi, Terry Goodkind's books would be awesome in the hands of the right director; Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Identity, United 93) would be my first choice.

I heard a lengthy Terry Goodkind interview on a scif - fi and fantasy podcast, and he said Sam Raimi is a huge fan of the Sword of Truth Series and is pushing very hard to make a FULL LENGTH TELEVISION SERIES, where essentially each book equates to about 1 season of the show. Goodkind seemed extremely enthusiastic about it and mentioned a few times how Raimi (who did all the spiderman films) is in the position now to make pretty much anything he wants. Raimi is a friend of Goodkinds apparently and is adament that a single movie, or even a trilogy, could never to the series justice. Goodking also went into a good talk on philosophy in general, and specifically how much science fiction today is technological dystopian or nihilistic.

Here is the show

Adventures in Scifi Publishing

http://adventuresinscifipublishing.blogspo...y-goodkind.html

Terry Goodkind joins us to discuss his new novel, Confessor, the status of Wizards First Rule coming to your television, and his views about how scifi is committing suicide.

[Gabo]

I would love a film adaptation of Arthur Clarke's "Rendezvous with Rama" (I read at wikipedia that Morgan Freeman is interested in doing it). Heinlein's "Double Star" would make a good film as well.

[D'kian]

I would love a film adaptation of Arthur Clarke's "Rendezvous with Rama" (I read at wikipedia that Morgan Freeman is interested in doing it). Heinlein's "Double Star" would make a good film as well.

I've read all the Rama books. I'm deeply ambivalent about them (I liked the PC game a lot, though). Clarke's original is good, but between the hurry-up, unprepared nature of the expedition, and the maddening lack of access inside Rama, it feels like along, long, long build-up with a microscopic pay-off. It isn't, of course. The inside of Rama is a marvel to behold, but once you get past it there's nothing more.

And the sequels stroke me as a way too elaborate means for too humdrum an end.

I'd do either of two things:

1) Do the original Clarke novel, but allowing the Newton's crew a bit more access. A glimpse a little bigger than what they get. Enough to theorize what this ship is and to be convicned that Ramans do everuthing in threes.

Next do an original sequel where a second Raman ship (and we'll call it by a different Hindu deity's name, not Rama II) buzzes by the Sun. This one has a different purpose, different biots, and is a very dangerous palce to be in.

Finally the second sequel has the third and final Raman craft, with real, living Ramans aboard.

2) Do the original and the sequels as written, but I would retool the original to at least hint at the existence of Octospiders, Avians and Myrmicats. Perhaps even having biots try to stop the humans from leaving.

[D'kian]

Ah, the joys of the hurried post....

My idea is that the first Raman craft was agricultural, the second would be industrial and the third habitational. Therefore the first is dull, comparatively speaking, the scond is dangerous and the hird carries the Ramans.

Why they're traveling would have to be some kind of surprise. If they're colonsits, or they're escaping the destruction of their world, or any other such mundane (for SF) purpose, then the payoff is too small.

But I confess I've no idea what that purpose is.

[Gabo]

I've only read the original book--- I was not too interested in the sequels since I read they were unanimously hated. I guess I would do the original as it is, leaving the audience with the suspense--- it worked with 2001: A Space Odyssey.

[D'kian]

I've only read the original book--- I was not too interested in the sequels since I read they were unanimously hated.

Well, then I bombarded you with tons of spoilers. My apologies.

I did not like the sequels, but I dind't hate them. Largely they're the work of Gentry Lee, not Sir Arthur, and it shows. Clarke had a much more benevolent sense of life. I dare say even Clarke had a more rational sense of life. He wouldn't have imagined the utter stupidity Lee imbues his villains and heroes with.

I guess I would do the original as it is, leaving the audience with the suspense--- it worked with 2001: A Space Odyssey.

I wasn't satisfied with 2001 either.

Suspense is fine, however you handle it, as long as it is resolved at the end. Hitchcock defined suspense as "You know a bomb will go off in one minute, but the chracters on screen do not."

Anyway, I think Clarke simply had no idea what Rama was for, therefore he didn't show it. That's not entirely bad, as it opens the door for any reader to fill in the blanks, as it were, and come up with his own idea of what Rama was. But we're also left with "the inscrutable alien mind," which is, by classical SF standards, sloppy writing.

Niven tackled something like it in his very first short story. The title escapes me, but it was his first ever use fo the Kzinti. the story is divided between scenes set on a human ship and those set in the Kzin ship. We understand, and know, both humans and Kzinti, but they never undertsand each other.

That's one possibility: do some of Rama from the point of view of a hidden Raman, or even a biot, but have no real communication between Ramans/biots and humans. Oh, and get rid of the apes, they'd be distractions.

[Gabo]

Anyway, I think Clarke simply had no idea what Rama was for, therefore he didn't show it.

Yeah, probably the same with the monolith. But in a way, I think any detailed description of the alien race that built the monolith wouldn't have been as spectacular as the notion itself, so maybe it's better to be left with the suspense... same with Rama.

[D'kian]

Yeah, probably the same with the monolith. But in a way, I think any detailed description of the alien race that built the monolith wouldn't have been as spectacular as the notion itself, so maybe it's better to be left with the suspense... same with Rama.

You've got a point. I was never so disappointed with a writer as when Niven revealed who'd built the Ringworld.

Still, there's the matter of the "towns" and the structures inside them. Why aren't there any entrances? What's inside them? That's something Clarke ought to have shown in some detail, and that's what I think even he dind't know about.

[Steve D'Ippolito]

Yeah, probably the same with the monolith.

The book, at least makes that relatively plain--the monolith was described as an all-purpose tool, also, it clearly was used in these specific instances to help other intelligences advance, both in Africa at the Dawn of Man, and at Jupiter. The one on the moon was there to signal its creators when it was unburied--indicating that the particular race on the third rock from our sun had become spacefaring. and the aliens' goal of nurturing intelligent life was also stated.

[Jim A.]

I would love to see a remake of Forbidden Planet. I love sci-fi stories about dead alien civilizations--and why they're dead. But FP would have to be written by the right person--someone who would remove all the Freudian/Platonic nonsense and malevolence from the story. Rather than having the Krell having become extinct as a result of their own technological creation, maybe their civilization could have destroyed itself because it's intellectual leaders chose mysticism; and with all that technology at their hands, what else could the Krell then do but self-destruct?

Another film I would like to see remade is This Island, Earth, released in 1955. I liked the movie as it was, but this time I would like to see it written by someone who is an admirer of Atlas Shrugged; in both stories, forcing the mind is shown to be impractical.

Another movie is The Incredible Shrinking Man, based on Richard Matheson's novel The Shrinking Man, which hit the screens in 1957. The things they could do for that story with today's special effects...!

I loved the 1966 film of Fahrenheit 451, but I would still like to see another film version of Ray Bradbury's novel. This time, I would hope the writers include the Mechanical Hound. Imagine the terror of even starting to read a line of print; once you do, the Hound back at the fire station knows and is roused from its sleep...!

And, yes, I would love to see a film adaptation of Anthem.

[D'kian]

And, yes, I would love to see a film adaptation of Anthem.

"Anthem" would be ridiculously cheap to make. If you stay close to the novelette, you'd need no visual effects of any kind, nor elaborate sets, nor even elaborate costumes. The most difficult part, technically speking, would be to get the actors to speak in third person plural as though they don't know any other way.

Philosophically, I dare any of today's film-makers not to add that the world got that way because of a nuclear war or an environmental catastrophe.Thus turning a morality play about individualism into its complete opposite.

[Gabo]

The book, at least makes that relatively plain--the monolith was described as an all-purpose tool, also, it clearly was used in these specific instances to help other intelligences advance, both in Africa at the Dawn of Man, and at Jupiter. The one on the moon was there to signal its creators when it was unburied--indicating that the particular race on the third rock from our sun had become spacefaring. and the aliens' goal of nurturing intelligent life was also stated.

Yes, but we never actually learn anything about the aliens, their characteristics and motivations for the experiments. Which, in my opinion, is for the better.

[OhHeyItsSwan]

When I said what SF films have become I meant it as a bad thing.

I would have agreed with this statement, but then I saw the movie "SUNSHINE"

It has a solid story with an unexpected/horror movie twist, unfuckenbelievable visuals for the budget it had, and a fairly believable crew.

"SUNSHINE" was recently released on DVD and has already marched its way up to my #1. So long Momento.

Edited April 2, 2008 by OhHeyItsSwan

[ttptp]

Anthem -- I'm surprised nobody has done this, because from the standpoint of a story it's easy, short and yet powerful. A 2+ hour movie would serve it well. Some may say it's not sci-fi, but I think it fits the bill. Frankly, it would make a GREAT movie, and would be ten times easier to do than Atlas Shrugged.

I'd like to see a remake of StarShip Troopers, only this time do the actual story, include the moral code and the powersuits. Admittedly I didn't see the movie, but I heard about it.

I actually read or heard somewhere that Ayn Rand though of making an Anthem movie. The interesting thing is, If I remember correctly, she only wanted to make it if it was entirely animated. After I heard that, I agree, an animated epic Anthem would be awesome to see.