4 ms·

I really hope this and 3 Body don’t go the way of Wool or Foundation. None of them are stories with broad appeal yet the huge investments don’t bode well for pe

I really hope this and 3 Body don’t go the way of Wool or Foundation. None of them are stories with broad appeal yet the huge investments don’t bode well for persevering their spirit as we’ve seen with the latter. The skimping on wool/silo really hurt.

ascagnel_ 3y ago
Foundation was near-unadaptable as-is, given that it spans eras and wants the user to emotionally attach to the structure, rather than the individuals. For TV shows, audiences generally attach to characters (and the actors and actresses that play them), and the kind of story that allows a single cast to span eras would need to engage with some degree of time travel, cycles of life and/or abuse, or immortality, none of which fit in with Foundation. That said, Neuromancer is a book that's more "cool" than good; Gibson is very good at painting pictures with words, but story itself is something of a convoluted mess. Hopefully an adaptation can give the writers a chance to smooth out the elements that don't work.
- theshrike79 3y ago
  Exactly this. The "characters" of foundation was pretty much just men sitting around drinking alcohol, smoking and congratulating each others on how amazingly their plans worked. There's nothing for people to follow or root for, the characters are just vehicles for the story, they don't grow or have a much of a personality.
  - brookst 3y ago
    Yep, re-read the series a few years ago and was disappointed. Some amazing big ideas, without much to care about.
  - dagw 3y ago
    I feel that 'Civilisation' was supposed to be the main character in the book, and you should be rooting for 'Civilisation' to survive and grow. The humans that come and go are bit players that are only relevant to the extent they help or hinder this main character.
  - zellyn 3y ago
    I love how you put that! As a voracious reader of Asimov/Clarke/etc. as a kid, I can confirm that your description fits a depressingly large fraction of that era of SciFi. That kind of SciFi is at its best when the ideas (which are often the only thing that really matters) are so strong, they carry it all — Nightfall, Rendezvous with Rama — and at its worst when it's a bunch of “just men sitting around drinking alcohol, smoking and congratulating each other” (God, I love that description!). Even when the rest of one of his books is good, Heinlein can't resist inserting at least one pompous character just like that, and I can never believe it's not him! The more recent deluge of female/non-binary/asexual/etc. characters and authors in SciFi is such a breath of fresh air.
- demondemidi 3y ago
  I don’t think any novel is un- adaptable. That’s like the statement “such and such musician defies categories” which is meaningless to anyone who studies the topic. Retroactively I could say the same thing about any popular blockbuster sci-fi like Star Wars for example. The fact that TFT takes place over centuries doesn’t disqualify it from being adaptable. It just take directorial talent.
snapcaster 3y ago
I'm already so disappointed with 3body just from seeing the trailer. Shame
- throwaway17_17 3y ago
  I agree, the trailer did not endear me to this retelling. I thought that the Tencent version of the first novel was a good watch, but they added material too. I will probably give the Netflix version a chance, but I’m not holding out hope that they resist the urge to Americanize the story by adding action and romance for more ‘mass market’ appeal.
- demondemidi 3y ago
  I watched the trailer as a cynic who has be burned for DECADES by shitty translations of beloved books into movies/made-for-TV. My favorite adaptations vary so significantly that it almost doesn't make sense to compare. (E.g.: Carrie, The Shining, 2001 diverge quite a bit from the books.) That being said, I was excited to see Da Shi looked almost exactly as how I pictured him, maybe a little less grizzled and angular. And I'm embarrassed to admit the cover "everything in its right place" gave me chickenskin. I think the sophon countown looked interesting (scribbling like a fast etch-a-sketch, which is probably what it would look like if it had to travel the planet all day!), and the unfolded sophon looked pretty badass. I was also thrilled about the trial of Ye Zhetai, and the army of logic gates. Hm... i'm getting excited again despite my better judgement. The suicides OTOH looked gratuitous.
  - snapcaster 3y ago
    But he's like british now or something?
    - demondemidi 3y ago
      Yeaaah, I know... I was really hoping for subtitles. But again, this is mainstream netflix, hence my cynicism.
baq 3y ago
Having never read Wool the Silo was great TV. In fact, I've never even heard of Wool and never would have, most likely, now it's on my to-read list.
- theshrike79 3y ago
  I highly recommend it. There's some stuff in there that's going to be hard to adapt, because it works in a book but not on TV, but I'm really looking forward to it.
  - danielbln 3y ago
    The second book drags a bit with the Solo storyline, but I felt book 3 ties it all together perfectly.
theshrike79 3y ago
What was wrong with the Wool adaptation in your opinion? I (re)read the books while watching the show and yes they did some modifications, but I could see why most of them were made (the lack of intra-silo email for example) and there were a few choices that will echo into the later seasons more than I could expect. (Like people ending up in different places than in the book) But I trust that the writers read all of the books before writing the first season =)
- demondemidi 3y ago
  Silo jumped from reveal to reveal without giving enough development time for them to matter. You (the viewer) immediately know who is good and who is bad through TV tropes. My partner understood what was going on and the characters alignments almost immediately. (They hadn’t read the books.) when I see an adaptation I don’t want to just be shown the highlights so that I can go “yep I know that scene” I want to experience the story told though a different medium using that medium’s unique characteristics. Not just a picture book with captions. (And the size of the silos was way off from the books. Modern CGI could have pulled that off but the reduced size of it for the sake of the shot… it felt cramped and silly.)
panzerboy 3y ago
Apparently there is Chinese TV show version of the 3 Body Problem; a friend of mine who liked the book a lot watched it and said it's really good. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-Body https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-Body
- throwaway17_17 3y ago
  As I said in a sibling comment, I really did like the Tencent version of 'The Three Body Problem'. They did add a couple original characters, and condensed certain sub-plots, but overall it is a good watch and a pretty faithful adaptation.
AlanYx 3y ago
The AI aspects of Neuromancer probably have more relevance and cultural appeal now than they've had at any time since it was first published. There's a lot of topical material in the book to work with. The challenge will be updating it so that it feels fresh and non-derivative to an audience that has already seen "The Matrix". I wonder if they'll take the approach of renaming core elements introduced by Neuromancer like the "matrix" and "Zion", or whether they'll take the tack of keeping it all as written and leaning in ("see the material that inspired other sci-fi legends").
peatmoss 3y ago
The adaptation of The Three Body Problem that was made for Chinese audiences is the adaptation I was looking for. It's 30 parts. The acting is stilted. The camera work is strange. The special effects are cheesy. The pacing is slow. I loved it. It was faithful to the source material, to a delightful fault.
- soylentcola 3y ago
  I watched it because I can tolerate quite a bit of jank if there's nothing else compelling to watch, and if the source is good. That said, I don't know if I'd consider it enjoyable. Effects being cheesy is fine. But the pacing was very odd. Not sure if it was originally released on another schedule, but watching it straight through, the pacing seemed really odd. It started out fairly decent, but around the midpoint it seemed to keep rehashing things a lot more while completely forgetting about some threads. I still applaud the effort, because it's not necessarily an easy adaptation, and as you say, they stick to the source pretty strictly. I'd rather a mixed but solid attempt than a complete rewrite to be more typical cable/streaming fare (which is what I expect from the upcoming Netflix version). Also, I know this is common in reverse, but it was hilarious to see the C-grade acting from the not-Americans in the "war room" scenes. It was like someone reading from a script with zero comprehension or emotion. I was curious if they just didn't bother past finding a guy who spoke English, or if they wanted him to sound a certain way but didn't care about the acting since it wasn't aimed at an English-speaking audience.

ascagnel_ 3y ago

Foundation was near-unadaptable as-is, given that it spans eras and wants the user to emotionally attach to the structure, rather than the individuals. For TV shows, audiences generally attach to characters (and the actors and actresses that play them), and the kind of story that allows a single cast to span eras would need to engage with some degree of time travel, cycles of life and/or abuse, or immortality, none of which fit in with Foundation. That said, Neuromancer is a book that's more "cool" than good; Gibson is very good at painting pictures with words, but story itself is something of a convoluted mess. Hopefully an adaptation can give the writers a chance to smooth out the elements that don't work.

theshrike79 3y ago
Exactly this. The "characters" of foundation was pretty much just men sitting around drinking alcohol, smoking and congratulating each others on how amazingly their plans worked. There's nothing for people to follow or root for, the characters are just vehicles for the story, they don't grow or have a much of a personality.
- brookst 3y ago
  Yep, re-read the series a few years ago and was disappointed. Some amazing big ideas, without much to care about.
- dagw 3y ago
  I feel that 'Civilisation' was supposed to be the main character in the book, and you should be rooting for 'Civilisation' to survive and grow. The humans that come and go are bit players that are only relevant to the extent they help or hinder this main character.
- zellyn 3y ago
  I love how you put that! As a voracious reader of Asimov/Clarke/etc. as a kid, I can confirm that your description fits a depressingly large fraction of that era of SciFi. That kind of SciFi is at its best when the ideas (which are often the only thing that really matters) are so strong, they carry it all — Nightfall, Rendezvous with Rama — and at its worst when it's a bunch of “just men sitting around drinking alcohol, smoking and congratulating each other” (God, I love that description!). Even when the rest of one of his books is good, Heinlein can't resist inserting at least one pompous character just like that, and I can never believe it's not him! The more recent deluge of female/non-binary/asexual/etc. characters and authors in SciFi is such a breath of fresh air.
demondemidi 3y ago
I don’t think any novel is un- adaptable. That’s like the statement “such and such musician defies categories” which is meaningless to anyone who studies the topic. Retroactively I could say the same thing about any popular blockbuster sci-fi like Star Wars for example. The fact that TFT takes place over centuries doesn’t disqualify it from being adaptable. It just take directorial talent.

snapcaster 3y ago

I'm already so disappointed with 3body just from seeing the trailer. Shame

throwaway17_17 3y ago
I agree, the trailer did not endear me to this retelling. I thought that the Tencent version of the first novel was a good watch, but they added material too. I will probably give the Netflix version a chance, but I’m not holding out hope that they resist the urge to Americanize the story by adding action and romance for more ‘mass market’ appeal.
demondemidi 3y ago
I watched the trailer as a cynic who has be burned for DECADES by shitty translations of beloved books into movies/made-for-TV. My favorite adaptations vary so significantly that it almost doesn't make sense to compare. (E.g.: Carrie, The Shining, 2001 diverge quite a bit from the books.) That being said, I was excited to see Da Shi looked almost exactly as how I pictured him, maybe a little less grizzled and angular. And I'm embarrassed to admit the cover "everything in its right place" gave me chickenskin. I think the sophon countown looked interesting (scribbling like a fast etch-a-sketch, which is probably what it would look like if it had to travel the planet all day!), and the unfolded sophon looked pretty badass. I was also thrilled about the trial of Ye Zhetai, and the army of logic gates. Hm... i'm getting excited again despite my better judgement. The suicides OTOH looked gratuitous.
- snapcaster 3y ago
  But he's like british now or something?
  - demondemidi 3y ago
    Yeaaah, I know... I was really hoping for subtitles. But again, this is mainstream netflix, hence my cynicism.

baq 3y ago

Having never read Wool the Silo was great TV. In fact, I've never even heard of Wool and never would have, most likely, now it's on my to-read list.

theshrike79 3y ago
I highly recommend it. There's some stuff in there that's going to be hard to adapt, because it works in a book but not on TV, but I'm really looking forward to it.
- danielbln 3y ago
  The second book drags a bit with the Solo storyline, but I felt book 3 ties it all together perfectly.

theshrike79 3y ago

What was wrong with the Wool adaptation in your opinion? I (re)read the books while watching the show and yes they did some modifications, but I could see why most of them were made (the lack of intra-silo email for example) and there were a few choices that will echo into the later seasons more than I could expect. (Like people ending up in different places than in the book) But I trust that the writers read all of the books before writing the first season =)

demondemidi 3y ago
Silo jumped from reveal to reveal without giving enough development time for them to matter. You (the viewer) immediately know who is good and who is bad through TV tropes. My partner understood what was going on and the characters alignments almost immediately. (They hadn’t read the books.) when I see an adaptation I don’t want to just be shown the highlights so that I can go “yep I know that scene” I want to experience the story told though a different medium using that medium’s unique characteristics. Not just a picture book with captions. (And the size of the silos was way off from the books. Modern CGI could have pulled that off but the reduced size of it for the sake of the shot… it felt cramped and silly.)

panzerboy 3y ago

Apparently there is Chinese TV show version of the 3 Body Problem; a friend of mine who liked the book a lot watched it and said it's really good. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-Body https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-Body

throwaway17_17 3y ago
As I said in a sibling comment, I really did like the Tencent version of 'The Three Body Problem'. They did add a couple original characters, and condensed certain sub-plots, but overall it is a good watch and a pretty faithful adaptation.

AlanYx 3y ago

The AI aspects of Neuromancer probably have more relevance and cultural appeal now than they've had at any time since it was first published. There's a lot of topical material in the book to work with. The challenge will be updating it so that it feels fresh and non-derivative to an audience that has already seen "The Matrix". I wonder if they'll take the approach of renaming core elements introduced by Neuromancer like the "matrix" and "Zion", or whether they'll take the tack of keeping it all as written and leaning in ("see the material that inspired other sci-fi legends").

peatmoss 3y ago

The adaptation of The Three Body Problem that was made for Chinese audiences is the adaptation I was looking for. It's 30 parts. The acting is stilted. The camera work is strange. The special effects are cheesy. The pacing is slow. I loved it. It was faithful to the source material, to a delightful fault.

soylentcola 3y ago
I watched it because I can tolerate quite a bit of jank if there's nothing else compelling to watch, and if the source is good. That said, I don't know if I'd consider it enjoyable. Effects being cheesy is fine. But the pacing was very odd. Not sure if it was originally released on another schedule, but watching it straight through, the pacing seemed really odd. It started out fairly decent, but around the midpoint it seemed to keep rehashing things a lot more while completely forgetting about some threads. I still applaud the effort, because it's not necessarily an easy adaptation, and as you say, they stick to the source pretty strictly. I'd rather a mixed but solid attempt than a complete rewrite to be more typical cable/streaming fare (which is what I expect from the upcoming Netflix version). Also, I know this is common in reverse, but it was hilarious to see the C-grade acting from the not-Americans in the "war room" scenes. It was like someone reading from a script with zero comprehension or emotion. I was curious if they just didn't bother past finding a guy who spoke English, or if they wanted him to sound a certain way but didn't care about the acting since it wasn't aimed at an English-speaking audience.