# Can Neal Stephenson's novels be filmed? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 17, 2006, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-neal-stephensons-novels-be-filmed/345006 "2006-02-17T21:31:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2006, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-neal-stephensons-novels-be-filmed/345006/1 "2006-02-17T21:31:33Z")
I’ve read almost all of Neal Stephenson’s ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neal\_Stephenson](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neal_Stephenson)) novels, and I was wondering how well any of them would fair in a screen adaptation. There’s plenty of high-speed action, yes – but the stories are also really, really, **heavy.** Heavy with ideas, with history and science and philosophy, with abstruse intellectual discourse. Which you really can’t extract without changing the story entirely. How could that aspect be translated to the big screen without boring or perplexing the audience? ---
**Author:** ![Electronic\_Chaos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Electronic\_Chaos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Electronic_Chaos)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2006, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-neal-stephensons-novels-be-filmed/345006/2 "2006-02-17T21:43:28Z")
His later works, probably not. Zodiac could probably translate fairly well, as it’s not too dense, and alot of the neccesary exposition could be given through dialogue. The only question is: would anybody really want to go see an eco-thriller? Snow Crash would be alot trickier, but a good enough director could pull it off. I just hope they wouldn’t give the lead to Tiger Woods :D. Diamond Age gets trickier still; on top of the neccesary background, the story also spans over what? 10 or more years? It could maybe be done as a miniseries. CG would probably work best so you don’t have to keep using a new actor for Nell every few minutes. I haven’t read all the way through Cryptonomicon (it’s actually on my bedstand ready for me to start tonight probably), or his huge trilogy (I have Quicksilver, but the size of it is intimidating, along with the fact that there’s two more the same size), but filming anything with source material that large is going to be nearly impossible. ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2006, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-neal-stephensons-novels-be-filmed/345006/3 "2006-02-17T21:50:00Z")
I think that **Zodiac** could be made into a screenplay. But a lot of stuff would be left out. It would work better as a miniseries, I agree. **Snowcrash** would be difficult. ---
**Author:** ![Malodorous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e47774/32.png) [@Malodorous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malodorous)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2006, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-neal-stephensons-novels-be-filmed/345006/4 "2006-02-17T21:50:01Z")
I think they’d be filmable. _Snow Crash_ would be easiest, it wouldn’t take much dialogue to get the key ideas through, and its got a lot of snazzy special effects, sword fights etc. Very hollywood. _Cryptonomicon_ would partly historical cyber-political thriller. A lot of the plot would have to pared down to get it under three hours, and I doubt the audience will sit through too many discourses on cryptography or economics, but these things could be summarized without damaging the story too much I think. _The Baroque Cycle_ is too damn long for anything but a TV series. But the basic idea of a drama set between the great scientific and political leaders of the 17th century might be extracted and made into something more filmable. Actually, now that I think about it, I’m rather suprised no one has tried adapting _Snow Crash_ or _Cryptonomicon_. They’d certainly be easier then a lot of other film adaptations that hollywood has tried to make, and a lot of the elements really seem like they’d go well with tried and true film genres. ---
**Author:** ![Grossbottom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ba8739/32.png) [@Grossbottom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grossbottom)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2006, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-neal-stephensons-novels-be-filmed/345006/5 "2006-02-17T21:59:29Z")
I recall reading that \*Snow Crash \* was originally conceived as a graphic novel, and it seems light enough for a fairly easy transition to film, especially in the wake of movies like _The Matrix_, so you don’t have to go over the entire virtual reality concept with the audience. In fact I’d be surprised if the rights hadn’t been sold already. \*The Diamond Age \* would take an unspeakably talented director and would probably remain incomprehensible to 80% of the viewing audience…a recipe for studio bankruptcy, more than likely. It could be brilliant but would probably be a total disaster. _Cryptonomicon_ would be difficult because of the constant time shifting between WW2 and present day, though I think it’s probably cool enough to make the transition with some rewriting. The Baroque Cycle…I don’t think so. Too deep, too complex, too weird and entirely too much information. I think it was a masterful achievement, but part of the fun is having a sufficient education to realize who half the characters are. Maybe I’m being condescending, but I can’t see an average film audience picking up on the idea that the kid in the beginning is a young Ben Franklin, or knowing the ultimate fate of Lloyd’s coffee house, and so forth. A tour de force of the Age of Reason is sort of a flat note when not many people know what the Age of Reason was, let alone why they should care. I’d love to see it, but suspect I never will. And even with CGI the cost would be ruinous. I really am surprised that \*Snow Crash \* hasn’t been done yet, though. ---
**Author:** ![fiddlesticks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddlesticks/32/18129_2.png) [@fiddlesticks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fiddlesticks)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2006, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-neal-stephensons-novels-be-filmed/345006/6 "2006-02-17T22:01:25Z")
Short answer, probably not. Some time ago there was a “What novels do you want to see filmed, but never will” thread and I put forth, the Baroque Cycle. It would take a Peter Jackson & Lord of the Rings level of commitment to properly tell the whole story. Stephenson has sold slightly less than Tolkien so I don’t think any studio will ever _Cryptonomicon_ **might** be doable in a single-shot Hollywood setting, there are a number of cinematically interesting plot points beyond the ruminations over Captain Crunch cereal and card deck cryptography algorithms, but the trouble is balancing the modern day/WWII plot branches. Gutting either one at the expense of the other wouldn’t do justice to the book. An interesting thought…combine the nanotechnology ideas in Diamond Age with the tribalism in Snow Crash and you’ve got a good starting point for a “Neal Stephenson” movie. Toss out the Sumerian mumbo-jumbo and the neo-Victorian stuff which would only confuse the audience. ---
**Author:** ![Malodorous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e47774/32.png) [@Malodorous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malodorous)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2006, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-neal-stephensons-novels-be-filmed/345006/7 "2006-02-17T22:03:31Z")
Y’all really think _Snow Crash_ would be that hard? It has easily identifiable villians and protagoinists (heh), lots of action, neat special effects, VR, a damsal in distress, a father/daughter like relationship to get the audiences emotions. I’d even argue that part of the reason the book works is that Stephenson uses his audiences familiarity with movie cliches. Some of the babylonian lingual-nuero hacking stuff would have to be greatly simplified, but ideas in all film adaptations of sci-fi are droped/simplified like this. And Stephenson’s vision of the future US as an anarchic collection of business interests would, if anything, be easier to show on screen then in print. If the director was smart enough to avoid the temptation to make it all gritty and Bladerunner like (was neat the first time, but its been overdone) and instead make it all hyperkinetic and glitzy I think that he could really convey at least one of the central ideas of the book. I’ll have to go read Diamond Age and Zodiac now, been meaning to since I finished The Baroque style. ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2006, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-neal-stephensons-novels-be-filmed/345006/8 "2006-02-17T22:13:05Z")
> [@Malodorous](#): > > Y’all really think _Snow Crash_ would be that hard? It has easily identifiable villians and protagoinists (heh), lots of action, neat special effects, VR, a damsal in distress, a father/daughter like relationship to get the audiences emotions. I’d even argue that part of the reason the book works is that Stephenson uses his audiences familiarity with movie cliches. Well, let’s start with the 14 yo in a sexual relationship with a 30-something man. Who also happens to be psychotic. Which can’t really be changed without screwing up a lot of interaction with Y.T. and Hiro. Or the fact that two main characters are children of men who were adults when the Hiroshima bomb was dropped. There are a few other issues that I think would come up. Come on, you and I both want to see the walking cocks in the metaphor-world. Admit it. And Reason just isn’t cool looking enough. As it was written. And won’t survive the Hollywood treatment. ---
**Author:** ![Ensign\_Edison](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7ab992/32.png) [@Ensign\_Edison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ensign_Edison)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2006, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-neal-stephensons-novels-be-filmed/345006/9 "2006-02-17T22:16:33Z")
I would love to see Terry Gilliam direct _The Diamond Age_ ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2006, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-neal-stephensons-novels-be-filmed/345006/10 "2006-02-17T22:29:49Z")
The only one of his that I’ve read is _Cryptonomicon_. Am I the only one who hears “you’d have to cut out so much to get it down to two hours” and thinks “miniseries”? Do the crypto-card and organ-pipe-computer bits as montages, like in _CSI_. No problem. The whole lizard thing might be kinda tricky. ---
**Author:** ![Malodorous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e47774/32.png) [@Malodorous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malodorous)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2006, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-neal-stephensons-novels-be-filmed/345006/11 "2006-02-17T22:46:07Z")
[QUOTE=OtakuLoki] Well, let’s start with the 14 yo in a sexual relationship with a 30-something man. Who also happens to be psychotic. Which can’t really be changed without screwing up a lot of interaction with Y.T. and Hiro. Or the fact that two main characters are children of men who were adults when the Hiroshima bomb was dropped. I think both of these things can be altered without killing the story. YT and Raven’s relationship can be left ambiguous, and the parents background isn’t that crucial . ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2006, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-neal-stephensons-novels-be-filmed/345006/12 "2006-02-17T23:24:15Z")
Anything can be filmed badly. And usually is. We’ll see movies made of these novels whether we like it or not. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Only\_Mostly\_Dead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/f19dbf/32.png) [@Only\_Mostly\_Dead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Only_Mostly_Dead)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2006, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-neal-stephensons-novels-be-filmed/345006/13 "2006-02-18T01:19:37Z")
Oh I would love **The Baroque Cycle** monthlong A&E miniseries. Certain can’t be done as one movie. Or three. Or six (each of the three books has itself two “books” within). **Grossbottom** - Of course I caught that the boy was a young Ben Franklin, and already had a decent enough passing knowledge of the various royals to enjoy them as human beings while seeing what consequences their small actions and conversations would have decades after the story ended…but please explain the destiny of the coffee house, it’s a reference I did not catch. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2006, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-neal-stephensons-novels-be-filmed/345006/14 "2006-02-18T02:00:21Z")
> [@Only Mostly Dead](#): > > **Grossbottom** - Of course I caught that the boy was a young Ben Franklin, and already had a decent enough passing knowledge of the various royals to enjoy them as human beings while seeing what consequences their small actions and conversations would have decades after the story ended…but please explain the destiny of the coffee house, it’s a reference I did not catch. I haven’t read the Baroque Cycle yet (it’s now on my library list, thanks to this thread), but if it’s what I think it is, the real-world Lloyd’s coffee house is the very modest beginning of the world-famous insurance brokers, Lloyd’s of London. Apparently Edward Lloyd provided a free shipping information service, and independent underwriters began to frequent the coffee house, since the information was there. The underwriters eventually formed a committee, which petitioned the government to allow them to incorporate as Lloyd’s of London, after the coffee house. ---
**Author:** ![Kilvert\_s\_Pagan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c37758/32.png) [@Kilvert\_s\_Pagan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kilvert_s_Pagan)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2006, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-neal-stephensons-novels-be-filmed/345006/15 "2006-02-18T02:20:22Z")
And as sophomoric (literally) as it was, I don’t think Stephenson would ever let **The Big U** be made into anything but an embarrassing memory… ---
**Author:** ![Only\_Mostly\_Dead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/f19dbf/32.png) [@Only\_Mostly\_Dead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Only_Mostly_Dead)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2006, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-neal-stephensons-novels-be-filmed/345006/16 "2006-02-18T02:29:01Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > I haven’t read the Baroque Cycle yet (it’s now on my library list, thanks to this thread), but if it’s what I think it is, the real-world Lloyd’s coffee house is the very modest beginning of the world-famous insurance brokers, Lloyd’s of London. Apparently Edward Lloyd provided a free shipping information service, and independent underwriters began to frequent the coffee house, since the information was there. The underwriters eventually formed a committee, which petitioned the government to allow them to incorporate as Lloyd’s of London, after the coffee house. I had an inkling (little voice in the back of my head saying “Lloyds of London, stupid!”) but it wasn’t quite something that jumped at me when reading the books - perhaps because I had never noticed the name Lloyd among all the densely packed information in the 3000 or so pages. ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2006, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-neal-stephensons-novels-be-filmed/345006/17 "2006-02-18T05:24:56Z")
I think if they did The Baroque Cycle as an A&E Miniseries I would actually pay for that boxed set. And you know it’d be expensive. When I was reading it I kept thinking how cool it would be on film. But with all the pirate scenes…expensive! Cryptonomicon can be a movie. But now there’s II and III…so it’d be a series! ---
**Author:** ![sturmhauke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e47c2d/32.png) [@sturmhauke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sturmhauke)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2006, 7:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-neal-stephensons-novels-be-filmed/345006/18 "2006-02-18T07:36:59Z")
I think the only moderately difficult part of translating _Snow Crash_ into a movie is the Sumerian mythology stuff. It would certainly have to be pared down and simplified, but it could be done. A lot of the narrative is devoted to visual description, which would give great fuel to the CG artists. ---
**Author:** ![uglybeech](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/82dd89/32.png) [@uglybeech](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/uglybeech)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2006, 8:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-neal-stephensons-novels-be-filmed/345006/19 "2006-02-18T08:08:23Z")
I can’t visualize why anyone would have difficulty visualizing his books on the big screen. 🙂 Snow Crash in particular is crying out to be put on film, with ready-made chase-scenes to boot. ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2006, 8:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-neal-stephensons-novels-be-filmed/345006/20 "2006-02-18T08:10:07Z")
> [@uglybeech](#): > > I can’t visualize why anyone would have difficulty visualizing his books on the big screen. 🙂 Because we remember **I, Robot**? \ [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-neal-stephensons-novels-be-filmed/345006.md?page=2)