6 ms·

I am happy and sad. Arrival and Sicario are precisely the kind of complex, thoughtful directing that SF needs after years of Marvel movies. On the other hand,

by crdb 9y ago

I am happy and sad. Arrival and Sicario are precisely the kind of complex, thoughtful directing that SF needs after years of Marvel movies. On the other hand, why reboot Dune yet again? Nobody has given Asimov's Foundation a try!

maxerickson 9y ago
What do super hero movies have to do with science fiction? They are old stories, warrior epics, with modern fantasy furnishings.
- splawn 9y ago
  Both require similar moviemaking techniques as well as the huge budgets that go along with them. Both types of movies also tend to be slotted in as "summer time" blockbusters... Im not the guy you are asking the question to, he might have been thinking along different lines, but that is at least one way they could be lumped into the same category.
  - maxerickson 9y ago
    I kinda think that works in my favor. There are good low budget science fiction movies. Super hero movies, less so. Especially in the post Jurassic Park era, where the bar for effects has gotten quite high.
oblio 9y ago
How do you make a movie out of Asimov's books? There's hardly any action, Asimov said so himself.
- sithadmin 9y ago
  Foundation makes more sense as a miniseries/series similar to the Battlestar Galactica reboot.
- jerf 9y ago
  The original "Foundation Trilogy" is actually a series of short stories bound together. In a perfect world, I'd suggest taking each story, expanding it into a full movie, and adding such action as is necessary. If my memory serves me (as it often doesn't), the Foundation Trilogy still has some action as quite a lot of it takes place during war, and as a consequence of that, could easily be expanded to have a bit more "action". (I wouldn't want to focus on that necessarily, as the Foundation series has always been cerebral, but we would like to avoid Star Wars: The Phantom Tax Dispute Menace, too.) In reality I have little confidence in either Hollywood to pull that off, nor the stories to carry movies. Personally I think both Bicentennial Man and I, Robot were both quite accurate, loving adaptations of his work (almost everyone seems to miss that I, Robot was a pitch-perfect Zeroth Law story and fits in quite well to at least the tone, if not the literal timeline), and what they showed is, yeah, don't try to adapt Asimov to the screen. There is an immense wealth of other great science fiction from that era that would do better in adaptation.
  - the_af 9y ago
    "I, Robot" wasn't an Asimov adaptation, which is why it seems so off. It was actually developed from a script titled Hardwired, with very tenuous links to anything by Asimov, and later re-written with references to the Three Laws. Thematically it's unlike anything Asimov wrote. It directly contradicts most characterizations in Asimov stories, including -- but not limited to -- a direct contradiction of the character of Susan Calvin and everything she stood for in the stories. Old, ugly, cerebral but misanthropic woman turned into a young pretty girl/damsel in distress who's also the hero's romantic interest. Ugh. It's also an awful, awful movie. (also see: the obnoxious product placement, with Will Smith selling you sneakers at a random point in the movie).
    - jerf 9y ago
      "Thematically it's unlike anything Asimov wrote." Again, as everyone seems to miss, it is a pitch-perfect Zeroth Law story, and to my mind fits in squarely into his Robot stories about the perils and limitations of the entire idea of the Three Laws. It is definitely an alternate timeline from the other ones, but that's not hard to believe. I find myself wondering if everybody read the same Asimov as I did. Or have only I read the later Asimov stories? If it was so accurate by accident, then they did a good job being so accidentally accurate. Yes, Susan Calvin is wrong, but by adaptation standards that's nothing, and Asimov's characterizations were always paper-thin anyhow. I guess I find it less horrifying that Susan Calvin is wrong than some fans because "old, ugly, cerebral, and misanthropic" is pretty much her entire character. It's not like she's some fully-fleshed out character masterpiece with a multi-story arc, reasons for her characteristics, relationships with other characters in the universe, stories of her own, foibles and weaknesses to match her quirks and strengths... she just... likes robots, hates people. Asimov doesn't do characters. I really feel like for both movies I mentioned, that's it. That's what an Asimov adaptation is going to look like. Those are the best you can possibly hope for. To the extent you still don't like them, a perfectly viable opinion as I do not deny my tastes can be a bit quirky even by HN standards (I like both the Tron movies and Star Trek: The Motion Picture too), then I would therefore not suggest agitating for Hollywood to dip into Asimov's works any more, because it's not going to get any better than that.

by crdb 9y ago

maxerickson 9y ago

What do super hero movies have to do with science fiction? They are old stories, warrior epics, with modern fantasy furnishings.

splawn 9y ago
Both require similar moviemaking techniques as well as the huge budgets that go along with them. Both types of movies also tend to be slotted in as "summer time" blockbusters... Im not the guy you are asking the question to, he might have been thinking along different lines, but that is at least one way they could be lumped into the same category.
- maxerickson 9y ago
  I kinda think that works in my favor. There are good low budget science fiction movies. Super hero movies, less so. Especially in the post Jurassic Park era, where the bar for effects has gotten quite high.

oblio 9y ago

How do you make a movie out of Asimov's books? There's hardly any action, Asimov said so himself.

sithadmin 9y ago
Foundation makes more sense as a miniseries/series similar to the Battlestar Galactica reboot.
jerf 9y ago
The original "Foundation Trilogy" is actually a series of short stories bound together. In a perfect world, I'd suggest taking each story, expanding it into a full movie, and adding such action as is necessary. If my memory serves me (as it often doesn't), the Foundation Trilogy still has some action as quite a lot of it takes place during war, and as a consequence of that, could easily be expanded to have a bit more "action". (I wouldn't want to focus on that necessarily, as the Foundation series has always been cerebral, but we would like to avoid Star Wars: The Phantom Tax Dispute Menace, too.) In reality I have little confidence in either Hollywood to pull that off, nor the stories to carry movies. Personally I think both Bicentennial Man and I, Robot were both quite accurate, loving adaptations of his work (almost everyone seems to miss that I, Robot was a pitch-perfect Zeroth Law story and fits in quite well to at least the tone, if not the literal timeline), and what they showed is, yeah, don't try to adapt Asimov to the screen. There is an immense wealth of other great science fiction from that era that would do better in adaptation.
- the_af 9y ago
  "I, Robot" wasn't an Asimov adaptation, which is why it seems so off. It was actually developed from a script titled Hardwired, with very tenuous links to anything by Asimov, and later re-written with references to the Three Laws. Thematically it's unlike anything Asimov wrote. It directly contradicts most characterizations in Asimov stories, including -- but not limited to -- a direct contradiction of the character of Susan Calvin and everything she stood for in the stories. Old, ugly, cerebral but misanthropic woman turned into a young pretty girl/damsel in distress who's also the hero's romantic interest. Ugh. It's also an awful, awful movie. (also see: the obnoxious product placement, with Will Smith selling you sneakers at a random point in the movie).
  - jerf 9y ago
    "Thematically it's unlike anything Asimov wrote." Again, as everyone seems to miss, it is a pitch-perfect Zeroth Law story, and to my mind fits in squarely into his Robot stories about the perils and limitations of the entire idea of the Three Laws. It is definitely an alternate timeline from the other ones, but that's not hard to believe. I find myself wondering if everybody read the same Asimov as I did. Or have only I read the later Asimov stories? If it was so accurate by accident, then they did a good job being so accidentally accurate. Yes, Susan Calvin is wrong, but by adaptation standards that's nothing, and Asimov's characterizations were always paper-thin anyhow. I guess I find it less horrifying that Susan Calvin is wrong than some fans because "old, ugly, cerebral, and misanthropic" is pretty much her entire character. It's not like she's some fully-fleshed out character masterpiece with a multi-story arc, reasons for her characteristics, relationships with other characters in the universe, stories of her own, foibles and weaknesses to match her quirks and strengths... she just... likes robots, hates people. Asimov doesn't do characters. I really feel like for both movies I mentioned, that's it. That's what an Asimov adaptation is going to look like. Those are the best you can possibly hope for. To the extent you still don't like them, a perfectly viable opinion as I do not deny my tastes can be a bit quirky even by HN standards (I like both the Tron movies and Star Trek: The Motion Picture too), then I would therefore not suggest agitating for Hollywood to dip into Asimov's works any more, because it's not going to get any better than that.