I love hard, wll done science fiction. I'm going to see Solaris (better hurry, it's a big flop) in hopes that Hollywood finally made real science fiction. Most mainstream sci-fi movies are just adventure or action movies set in space or something. Real science fiction takes the science as seriously as the fiction. Another cool looking movie is Equilibrium, with Christian Bale and Taye Diggs, set in a future where violence is suppressed through sedative drugs (an idea I had years ago, mind you, but never wrote).I would say the best sci-fi movie is Gattaca. Minority Report came close, but in the end it's really just a chase film.
There are some cool stories I've read that would make great movies. One is Hopscotch, by Kevin J. Anderson, in which humans and the internet have become so intertwined that people can swap bodies.
Anyone else love hard sci-fi, or have favorite stories that might make good movies?
I also love sci-fi, but as you said real hardcore sci-fi is hard to find. Farscape and Screamers (1995) are the best things that came to my mind now. I also liked Minority Report, because Philip K. Dick is one of my favourite writers, and I liked how the script played with the original idea.
About favourite stories, I keep thinking of a not to distant futureworld where democracy is constantly ellected in real time through an evolved version of the net, and how a newbie who works for a political party gets trapped in a dirty war between several parties, which includes murder, sex tapes and blackmail. Only have some pieces of it, but if I had more writing talent it would on paper by now. Whenever I can't sleep I add more layers to the whole thing.
Just for the record.
Gattaca & Minority Report are two of MY FAVORITE films!
They both are the work of master filmmakers.
I look foward to viewing films more like these two in the future.
Farscape and Screamers (1995) are the best things that came to my mind now.
I love Farscape, but I would have to say that it really doesn't take the science too seriously. It's much closer to 'fantasy in space' than 'science fiction'
When I think 'sci-fi' I think of something like "Farscape", but when I think 'science fiction' I think of something that takes known science and uses it or extrapolates from it to something new. "The Stars Like Dust" from Asimov is a great example, where based on the best evidence at hand when he wrote the book (an doing some extrapolating guesswork that actually was pretty accurate), everything in the story makes sense
>Anyone else love hard sci-fi, or have favorite stories that might make good
>movies?
Yes, I love hard SF movies. I think the best TV show in this respect is Babylon 5. Too bad TNT had screw with Crusade and destroy it. :(
As for stories to be made into movie, I can think of quite a few, but I doubt many of them would have enough material to make a full movie out of, or to hold an audience's interest. One that might is The Visitors by Clifford Simak. The title creatures are huge black blocks that just float in the sky. Nobody can figure out what they are, or what they want. Aas I recall though, the ending didn't really explain anything.
Then there was Specimens by Fred Saberhagen where an alien takes over a guy's body to force him to collect specimens.
My high school Russian teacher (yes, I took Russian) tried to show us the original SOLARIS. It really wasn't suitable to watch in 30 minute stretches in a classroom setting, so none of us could really pay attention. Too bad, because it looked really interesting. I've always meant to revisit it, and I'd have to see the original before the remake.
I also love hard sci-fi. I don't watch FARSCAPE or any of it's clones because of the aforementioned "fantasy in space" aspect. Not that I don't think fantasy can be well done, it's just not really my thing.
Of course, most sci-fi has elements of the fantastical in it. The recent PITCH BLACK may not have had great science, but it was highly entertaining. MINORITY REPORT was pretty good, but I'm a huge Philip K. Dick fan, so I was hoping for so much more.
Wasn't there a RENDEVOUS WITH RAMA movie planned?
Humm....woulden 2010, the sequal to 2001: A space O. , be a good candidate for this catagory? Both handle the real science aspects of the space flight well, though HAL could be argued about, i suppose.
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Yes. Morgan Freeman is producing and starring, and David Fincher might direct. There hadn't been much development recently (it's been in the works since 1998) but I read on IGN a few days ago that it's still going along. Speaking of Arthur C. Clarke both Armageddon and Deep Impact took their concepts from The Hammer Of God, but it was handled much better in the book.
Good idea to mention Arthur C. Clarke inspired movies. I heard that many of his writings are based on scientifically working principles, so that would enter J.R. specifications. Are there any plans to film more sequels to 2001 ASO? I read 3001 some years ago, and I thought it was the best book of the entire series.
Stories to movies? I would love to see Stephen Donaldson's "Gap" series visually, but I'm not sure it could be done well
Check this link out:
http://movies.yahoo.com/shop?d=hp&cf=prev&id=1808405622
In short, it will be a while before it happens (assuming it will). The expected release date is 2006. I enjoyed the book, though I thought Rama II was better. I haven't read the last sequels (Garden of Rama and Rama Revealed).
I love reading science fiction, and I would like to see a hard science fiction film, but I still think sci fi films pale in comparrison to the novels. Gattaca was probably one of the best as far as science, and the science was very minimal (which is probably why it was good, they didn't go into details and fall on their collective faces in the process). This reminds me: the writer of Gattaca also wrote The Truman Show, which had elements of Sci Fi (enclosing a human being in an artificial life and monitoring his movements for entertainment). I also think that Forbidden Planet was good Science Fiction. Most of Sci Fi today focuses on special effects more than anything (e.g. ID4 had an unrealistic story, but nice eye candy).
In regards to Solaris, I have to say that I liked this movie very much, though it was quite different from the novel by Stanislaw Lem. The SF was present only to create the proper setting. Listening to the remarks of others as they came out of the theater, they seemed upset that nothing was revealed about Solaris itself. The planet Solaris (in the book and in the movie) was nothing more than a catalyst for the events surrounding the characters. The movie focused on the reactions of Kris Kelvin and the facsimile of his wife, Rheya. Kris felt responsible for his wife's death, and he imagined that this imitation of his wife would give him the opportunity to make things right. In the process of this, he sees aspects of himself that he didn't know (or probably didn't want to know). (Possible spoiler here) There was a great line later in the movie in which Kris (in a voice over) says he was mortified to consider the possibility that he had remembered his wife wrong, that she was actually something different than what he remembered, and thus the facsimile of Rheya could have been quite different from the real Rheya. (Another spoiler) At the end of the film, there was a picture of his wife on a kitchen cabinet. I couldn't help but notice that though it was obvious that this was his wife, she looked very different from the Rheya seen throughout the film. That raises the question, if he remembered her wrong physically, maybe he remembered other things wrong as well.
There was also a Stanley Kubric feel to the film which I enjoyed (the long cuts, dialogue reminicent of real life speech as opposed to movie dialogue). Though I am not George Clooney's biggest fan, I thought he pulled off the roll of Kelvin quite well (and I don't recall any of that head bobbing he tends to do). I found the film very moving as Chris forced himself to come to terms with the return of his wife, then to realize she is nothing but a copy, and then to realize she is an imperfect copy based on his imperfect memory of the woman he loved. There were a few twists at the end of the film that caught me off guard, and they were pleasant surprises. No lasers, no explosions, no Star Wars like aliens (the only alien was Solaris, and it was very enigmatic), so if you were looking for those things then you would be disappointed. Personally, I was very moved by the film.
I'd love to see more of my favourite hard SF books put to film, but I'd be a little wary of it being done by any filmmakers out there today. My expectations have already suffered enough of a beating from the likes of Sphere, Starship Troopers and (God help us) Battlefield Earth.
Just the same, if they were done right, with decent special effects, good actors and faithful adherance to the source material, there are a few books I'd like to see on the screen.
Books by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, such as The Mote in God's Eye would be pretty cool on the big screen. Footfall or Oath of Fealty wouldn't be bad either. Lucifer's Hammer has been ripped off, but never done right. Niven's Ringworld would be a really great movie too. I'd also like to see Harry Turtledove's Worldwar series as a movie, although a miniseries would be required to do justice to the story.
I'm one of those popcorn munching guys that goes for the simple stuff...Science Fantasy all the way. My only criteria is that it not be boring, but I prefer aliens, zap guns, and fireballs in space.
I liked Cube, whether that is hard or not I don't know. Don't care either.
I'm interested in Crichton's Prey and what it will turn into. Seems to be The Andromeda Strain redux with Greg Baer's Blood Music thrown in for flavor.
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Ah, Starship Troopers. The Robert Heinlein book is a good story about warfare in the future. The movie was turned into a satire of Nazi propaganda films. Good idea, but don't mess with an established story, please.
Cube is a great movie. Not sure whether it's science fiction or not. There are so many ways to interpret it.
Speaking of science fiction, I wish that this was all just a fever dream, but:
Will Smith to star in "I, Robot" (http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=entertainmentNews&storyID=1847157)
>Will Smith to star in "I, Robot"
Why are they using the name if they're not using the stories? Better to film The Caves of Steel or The Naked Sun.
I am curious to see this film. I may go tomorrow and check it out. It was anticipated for such a long while, that I think people actually forgot about it, thus the low impact in box office $. People are fragile creatures who go see movies that were pitched, written, filmed, and theatrically released within the same five month period. They have a hard time remembering things from two weeks ago let alone a film that has been talked about for years...
>People are fragile creatures who go see movies that were pitched, written,
>filmed, and theatrically released within the same five month period. They have a
>hard time remembering things from two weeks ago let alone a film that has been
>talked about for years...
Actually, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone outside the SF community who had even heard of Solaris before they started playing the ads.