4 ms·

I always thought that, out of the Clarke novels, “Songs of Distant Earth” would make a good movie adaptation. Rama may turn out unrecognizable after the Hollyw

by pavlov 7mo ago

I always thought that, out of the Clarke novels, “Songs of Distant Earth” would make a good movie adaptation. Rama may turn out unrecognizable after the Hollywood script jockeys have been through with it, as happened to Foundation. (I actually like the Apple TV version, but it’s definitely its own thing.) For sci-fi takes on truly alien first contacts, Lem’s “Solaris” still holds its own, and the Tarkovsky movie is its own standalone classic (again something very different from the book).

poisonarena 7mo ago
back in 1994, when I was 9 years old, one of my favorite albums that got me into electronic music as a young boy was the concept album "Songs of Distant Earth" by Mike Oldfield.. Also the remixes by Jam&Spoon.. I think he released some kind of weird software about it too.. I think its time to finally read the book. https://youtu.be/gRivMEEZZE8?si=S1ZCDAg9Sl37jwoX https://youtu.be/gRivMEEZZE8?si=S1ZCDAg9Sl37jwoX full album
zem 7mo ago
"a fall of moondust" would translate extremely well to screen, and "the martian" has shown that it's the kind of movie that would do well enough in terms of reception.
- teamonkey 7mo ago
  The first Clarke I read as a kid and still one of my favourites. It hasn’t aged well, not least because it was written before we landed on the moon and now know its surface isn’t like that.
ChrisMarshallNY 7mo ago
> I actually like the Apple TV version, but it’s definitely its own thing. I do, too, but I had to accept that the books basically gave us names; and that's about it. The books would have been a complete snooze-fest, if they had been accurately rendered.
- Apocryphon 7mo ago
  Foundation as a series is already somewhat uneven and less than “pure.” Asimov pulled a Lucas and cluttered it with sequels and prequels that muddled it with connections to his robot novels. Then there’s the additional books by other writers. And if you want to get real picky, Second Foundation gets real pseudoscientific with the pseudo-psionics compared to the first two books.
dexwiz 7mo ago
I'd all the Southern Reach trilogy (quadrilogy? now) to this list. It's more on the cosmic/eldritch side, but similar sense of unknowable. SPOILER WARNING My interruption is that Area X/The Crawler is a probe built to study and build a bridge back to its creator. Area X is expanding because it's the inside of a wormhole. But whatever is on the other side is long dead, and the probe is acting on instinct.
dbspin 7mo ago
Counterpoint, I very much enjoyed the sequels (all but the last). They added three dimensional characters, especially women and explored a variety of aspects of first contact. They're a believable examination of how humans recreate the same social ills over and over, given the opportunity for utopia.
- ufmace 7mo ago
  I thought they were reasonably interesting as well, though not quite the same vibe as the original. Maybe it's that whole sense of wonder thing. When you have no idea why this thing was built and sent here, it's easy to imagine it was something exotic, amazing, high and mighty, wholesome, etc. When it's revealed that the reason was quite ordinary and kind of distasteful to modern human sensibilities, it's kind of a let-down.
nradov 7mo ago
The latest episode of Rick Rubin's Tetragrammaton podcast has an interview with Eric Roth who adapted the screenplay for Rendezvous with Rama. https://www.tetragrammaton.com/content/eric-roth https://www.tetragrammaton.com/content/eric-roth
the_biot 7mo ago
As much as I love "Songs of Distant Earth", I suspect a Hollywood version of it would amount to "giant lobsters vs space marines", whereas in the book they're a minor sideshow.
- cal_dent 7mo ago
  I tend to agree. I've always thought it would work well as a TV show in the more heady days of streaming (let's say 2012 - 2020) when networks and studios where it still felt like they had some room to take more risk. It's more towards the end of the last TV "golden age" but an adaptation like something like Apple's take on "Tales from the Loop". Not brash or loud or too formulaic but somehow still got made
  - eszed 7mo ago
    I loved "Tales From the Loop", and wished they'd made more. It has a kind of atmospheric sensibility that sticks (with me, at least) long after the details of the plot are forgotten. That's appropriate, I guess, for something based on a portfolio of paintings. It's a hidden gem that I enjoy recommending.
    - cal_dent 7mo ago
      Yes! Amazing show, one of my favourite shows of the last decade or two. I think what really does it for me is that they really bring the audience into the world itself. I think that's partly because there's no need to always be pushing the plot forward, which I think is a bugbear of mine of newer shows now. There's something to letting things just breathe and tales from the loop really excels at that. The Phillip Glass soundtrack particularly elevates it too.
- pndy 7mo ago
  So basically Avatar just without all the Smurfs huh? It would be surely minced thru to fit all the standard of the industry - and that's the fear I'm having while craving for screen adaptations of books today.
deleted 7mo ago
[deleted]
shiroiuma 7mo ago
>as happened to Foundation. (I actually like the Apple TV version, but it’s definitely its own thing.) This is not necessarily a bad thing. Others have noted that a faithful adaptation would have been a snooze-fest and inconsistent at best. There's lots of cases where a movie/TV version departed greatly from the source material, and was better for it. >Rama may turn out unrecognizable after the Hollywood script jockeys have been through with it It's being helmed by Denis Villeneuve, the guy who did Blade Runner 2049, Arrival, and the new Dune movies. If anyone can do a good job with it, he can. >For sci-fi takes on truly alien first contacts, Don't forget Villeneuve's "Arrival".
- MBCook 7mo ago
  > There's lots of cases where a movie/TV version departed greatly from the source material, and was better for it. Yeah. The idea of the genetic dynasty with brothers Dawn/Day/Dusk, as well as how Demerzel fits in has been pretty great, and none of that was in the novels.
throw0101c 7mo ago
> Rama may turn out unrecognizable after the Hollywood script jockeys have been through with it, as happened to Foundation. Denis Villeneuve (Dune, Blade Runner 2049, Arrival, Prisoners, etc) is set to direct and is writing the script as well: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendezvous_with_Rama#Film https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendezvous_with_Rama#Film Though it may be a little while since he first has to release adaptation of Dune Messiah, and a Bond film is probably next: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis_Villeneuve#Upcoming_projects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis_Villeneuve#Upcoming_proj...
theragra 7mo ago
Lem is underappreciated. I've recently reread a book with his interviews Tako rzecze... Lem (in Russian, English version does not exist). This caused me to remember some of his works. While he is a bit snobby and complaints too much, you can't deny he really envisioned huge amount of things to come. His imagination is next to none, and probably some things he described we will see only in the distant future, or maybe during the singularity, if it happens.

by pavlov 7mo ago

poisonarena 7mo ago

back in 1994, when I was 9 years old, one of my favorite albums that got me into electronic music as a young boy was the concept album "Songs of Distant Earth" by Mike Oldfield.. Also the remixes by Jam&Spoon.. I think he released some kind of weird software about it too.. I think its time to finally read the book. https://youtu.be/gRivMEEZZE8?si=S1ZCDAg9Sl37jwoX https://youtu.be/gRivMEEZZE8?si=S1ZCDAg9Sl37jwoX full album

zem 7mo ago

"a fall of moondust" would translate extremely well to screen, and "the martian" has shown that it's the kind of movie that would do well enough in terms of reception.

teamonkey 7mo ago
The first Clarke I read as a kid and still one of my favourites. It hasn’t aged well, not least because it was written before we landed on the moon and now know its surface isn’t like that.

ChrisMarshallNY 7mo ago

> I actually like the Apple TV version, but it’s definitely its own thing. I do, too, but I had to accept that the books basically gave us names; and that's about it. The books would have been a complete snooze-fest, if they had been accurately rendered.

Apocryphon 7mo ago
Foundation as a series is already somewhat uneven and less than “pure.” Asimov pulled a Lucas and cluttered it with sequels and prequels that muddled it with connections to his robot novels. Then there’s the additional books by other writers. And if you want to get real picky, Second Foundation gets real pseudoscientific with the pseudo-psionics compared to the first two books.

dexwiz 7mo ago

I'd all the Southern Reach trilogy (quadrilogy? now) to this list. It's more on the cosmic/eldritch side, but similar sense of unknowable. SPOILER WARNING My interruption is that Area X/The Crawler is a probe built to study and build a bridge back to its creator. Area X is expanding because it's the inside of a wormhole. But whatever is on the other side is long dead, and the probe is acting on instinct.

dbspin 7mo ago

Counterpoint, I very much enjoyed the sequels (all but the last). They added three dimensional characters, especially women and explored a variety of aspects of first contact. They're a believable examination of how humans recreate the same social ills over and over, given the opportunity for utopia.

ufmace 7mo ago
I thought they were reasonably interesting as well, though not quite the same vibe as the original. Maybe it's that whole sense of wonder thing. When you have no idea why this thing was built and sent here, it's easy to imagine it was something exotic, amazing, high and mighty, wholesome, etc. When it's revealed that the reason was quite ordinary and kind of distasteful to modern human sensibilities, it's kind of a let-down.

nradov 7mo ago

The latest episode of Rick Rubin's Tetragrammaton podcast has an interview with Eric Roth who adapted the screenplay for Rendezvous with Rama. https://www.tetragrammaton.com/content/eric-roth https://www.tetragrammaton.com/content/eric-roth

the_biot 7mo ago

As much as I love "Songs of Distant Earth", I suspect a Hollywood version of it would amount to "giant lobsters vs space marines", whereas in the book they're a minor sideshow.

cal_dent 7mo ago
I tend to agree. I've always thought it would work well as a TV show in the more heady days of streaming (let's say 2012 - 2020) when networks and studios where it still felt like they had some room to take more risk. It's more towards the end of the last TV "golden age" but an adaptation like something like Apple's take on "Tales from the Loop". Not brash or loud or too formulaic but somehow still got made
- eszed 7mo ago
  I loved "Tales From the Loop", and wished they'd made more. It has a kind of atmospheric sensibility that sticks (with me, at least) long after the details of the plot are forgotten. That's appropriate, I guess, for something based on a portfolio of paintings. It's a hidden gem that I enjoy recommending.
  - cal_dent 7mo ago
    Yes! Amazing show, one of my favourite shows of the last decade or two. I think what really does it for me is that they really bring the audience into the world itself. I think that's partly because there's no need to always be pushing the plot forward, which I think is a bugbear of mine of newer shows now. There's something to letting things just breathe and tales from the loop really excels at that. The Phillip Glass soundtrack particularly elevates it too.
pndy 7mo ago
So basically Avatar just without all the Smurfs huh? It would be surely minced thru to fit all the standard of the industry - and that's the fear I'm having while craving for screen adaptations of books today.

deleted 7mo ago

[deleted]

shiroiuma 7mo ago

>as happened to Foundation. (I actually like the Apple TV version, but it’s definitely its own thing.) This is not necessarily a bad thing. Others have noted that a faithful adaptation would have been a snooze-fest and inconsistent at best. There's lots of cases where a movie/TV version departed greatly from the source material, and was better for it. >Rama may turn out unrecognizable after the Hollywood script jockeys have been through with it It's being helmed by Denis Villeneuve, the guy who did Blade Runner 2049, Arrival, and the new Dune movies. If anyone can do a good job with it, he can. >For sci-fi takes on truly alien first contacts, Don't forget Villeneuve's "Arrival".

MBCook 7mo ago
> There's lots of cases where a movie/TV version departed greatly from the source material, and was better for it. Yeah. The idea of the genetic dynasty with brothers Dawn/Day/Dusk, as well as how Demerzel fits in has been pretty great, and none of that was in the novels.

throw0101c 7mo ago

> Rama may turn out unrecognizable after the Hollywood script jockeys have been through with it, as happened to Foundation. Denis Villeneuve (Dune, Blade Runner 2049, Arrival, Prisoners, etc) is set to direct and is writing the script as well: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendezvous_with_Rama#Film https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendezvous_with_Rama#Film Though it may be a little while since he first has to release adaptation of Dune Messiah, and a Bond film is probably next: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis_Villeneuve#Upcoming_projects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis_Villeneuve#Upcoming_proj...

theragra 7mo ago

Lem is underappreciated. I've recently reread a book with his interviews Tako rzecze... Lem (in Russian, English version does not exist). This caused me to remember some of his works. While he is a bit snobby and complaints too much, you can't deny he really envisioned huge amount of things to come. His imagination is next to none, and probably some things he described we will see only in the distant future, or maybe during the singularity, if it happens.