Years ago, Salvador Dali met Harpo Marx. They were each other’s idols. Afterwards, Dali wrote a treatment for a movie he called “Giraffes on Horseback Salad” and sent it to Harpo. It was, apparently, intensely surrealistic and bizarre. The long-lost movie treatment has been found and is now available to read (sorry, I don’t know how to get it, but check out the Fresh Air podcast and they probably say).
Anyway, I would invest money in such a film, provided they were to produce it faithfully to what Dali wrote.
I think the fact that it depicts their gods as squabbling buffoons and their religions as scams might cause a certain level of offense. And yes, I know they’re not *literally *supposed to be the Hundu deities and the Buddha - I doubt the extremists will care that much for the distinction.
For those not familiar with the book: at some point in the future, human refugees travel to a distant, dangerous planet, led by people with various forms of psychic powers. Centuries later, humanity is living in a pre-industrial civilization, ruled by their old leaders, who have taken the mantles of Hindu deities (Brahma, Shiva, Kali et al) and control the planet through their use of advanced technology, particularly a form of life-extension that consists of growing new bodies and transferring peoples’ consciousness into them - a process they call “reincarnation”. The protagonist is a superpowered former leader who refuses to take part in this new pantheon, instead rebelling by portraying himself as Siddhartha, the Buddha. Chaos ensues.
It’s actually a really good book - fast-moving, funny and surprisingly lyrical at times, like all of Zelazny’s best work. It’s just that the justifiable criticism a movie would receive in the West for its cultural appropriation will be nothing compared to the anger it will cause elsewhere in the world for what people will see a mockery of Hinduism and Buddhism. We may have a warm and fuzzy view of these religions, but actually, they have just as many devout believers and religious fanatics as Islam or Christianity, with just as little of a sense of humor.
I’d love to see Inverted World made into a movie. There would be some really riveting action when one of the main characters has a close encounter with death, some great CGI with the city moving on railroad tracks (The Wandering Earth copied that idea), physical transformation of characters, and the beginning of the flick should start with the novel’s classic line:
There were two, actually. More Wild Wild West, and The Wild Wild West Revisited.
Those were from the day when they did reunion movies, “where are they now” movies, with he original cast, or at least as many as were still alive. Like “Still The Beaver”, which is a pretty good movie. I miss those kind of movies. I always wanted one for Magnum PI.
Trouble is, at least on of them is a bit cheesy. It has the son of Dr Loveless (played by Paul Williams, of course! and why not?) getting revenge by making an atomic bomb. It also has Shields and Yarnell as robots.
Also, Wild Cards, done as… something. Miniseries? Bunch of movies? Regular TV series?[/QUOTE]
Wild Cards became such a sickening downward spiral of the authors seeing who could torture their characters the most that it eventually became, for me, unreadable. It is an example of an idea for a shared universe that became a shared perversion instead.
I would like to see a good move about American submariners in WW2. They did a fantastic job, especially considering the POS torpedoes they had to use at the war’s start, sinking 202 Japanese military ships and 6 million tons of Japanese shipping. Sadly, few Americans seem to be aware of their record nowadays.
I would also like to see a good movie or mini-series about Reconstruction Texas.
Just Asking Questions: I remember the first of those movies. I thought it was pretty good. It was certainly much better than the recent WWW movie. Harry Morgan had a role in it as well.
Alessan, it’s been awhile since I read LOL, but I think the ending would offend Christian fundamentalists as well. So what? Both it and Creatures of Light and Darkness would make wonderful movies if done right.
I’d like to see my Doctor Who fanfiction novel The Tudor Queen made into a movie. In it, the Doctor visits the Court of King Henry VIII. Henry decides that the Doctor’s teenage companion Lisa from Chicago will be his next queen instead of Jane Seymour. Hijinks ensue.
Too bad Keith Mitchell is dead, and Tom Baker’s so damn old. And I’m too frickin’ old to play Lisa as I envisioned it when I wrote it in my twenties. Still, maybe Jodie Whittaker could combine the two roles… Nah, wouldn’t work. Next incarnation maybe, unless they decide to make the new Doctor a horse or something.
I would love to see Childhood’s End done properly, though I would keep Charles Dance as the same Karellen. Unfortunately the mini-series seemed to deviate from the novel just on principle.
I also think that the Battle of Leyte Gulf would make an incredible movie, if done properly.
I’d like to see This Island Earth done with more faithfulness top Raymond F. Jones’ novel. Aside from the opening “Figure out how to build the Interociter” segment, they basically threw out the novel and wrote a new script that seemed to be based on science fiction magazine covers.
But they even managed to screw up the Interociter section – the Metalunans give Cal the schematic and all the parts. All he has to do is assemble it like an interstellar Heathkit. In the novel (and the original short story) all he gets is the catalog, and no blueprints. The Test consists of his doping out how the thing goes together from the descriptions of the parts. He even has to rebuild one of the parts. Also in the original story are descriptions of some of the other Tests sent to engineers at Rydberg, in Mechanical Engineering and other disciplines, and how those other engineers failed at the Tests.
But after that the two seriously part company. It really doesn’t make any sense for aliens as far ahead of us to rely on Earth scientists to do R&D for them – they were basically hiring the scientists as semi-skilled labor to build Interociters and other devices, freeing their OWN scientists to do R&D. The film never explains the title – “This Island Earth”. The title draws the analogy between the inhabitants of Earth being drawn into a larger interstellar conflict, as the inhabitants of Polynesia were drawn into World War II, with many of the locals helping out by building airstrips and the like. That’s what the Metalunans were asking the Earth scientists to do. But I guess the filmmakers thought that was too demeaning a role for Earth.
then, of course, there was the idiocy of the “Thermal Barrier” (I think they discovered that playing a blowtorch over a metal spaceship model made a cool effect) and the “conditioning tubes” (which not only don’t make sense, but are inconsistent. After you’ve been through the treatment, you ought by rights to go into a completely different environment), and, worst of all, the “Metalunan Mutants”. I’m sure they were only there because they looked “science fiction”. I wouldn’t mind if you had them, but off in the background somewhere, and plausibly explained.
I occasionally make movie posters of films I’d like to see made, some of which are purely my own ideas, some are of existing IP. HereareafewonmyDeviantArt including a few Star Wars Story ideas. Feel free to make up your own plot for them, though I always have one in mind for them as I put them together, and sometimes even try to write them.
When I was on a panel about the John Carter movie several years ago, I wore a T-shirt with a picture of the imagined poster for John Carter and the Gods of Mars, which I think I got from DeviantArt.
That’s another movie I’d like to see made. I LIKED the John Carter movie.
I’d like to see the Sherlock Holmes/James Bond-style adventures Isaac Newton got into when he became Master of the Mint and cracked down on all the counterfeiters in England.
It would make a good series of short stories or a novel as well. Perhaps even a graphic novel.
Could interesting movies be made from Robert Heinlein’s novels? Or are they too weird or dated to work? (I was thinking I’d like to see Glory Road filmed.)
