# Ever read a book or short story and thought "they HAVE to make this into a movie!"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 19, 2010, 10:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-read-a-book-or-short-story-and-thought-they-have-to-make-this-into-a-movie/564706 "2010-12-19T10:27:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Infovore](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/infovore/32/420_2.png) [@Infovore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Infovore)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2010, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-read-a-book-or-short-story-and-thought-they-have-to-make-this-into-a-movie/564706/61 "2010-12-26T07:35:13Z")
> [@Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](#): > > They already made a movie of **Little Fuzzy** - it was called ‘Return of the Jedi’! 😃 Ugh! Don’t even put those horrible, horrible Ewoks in the same category as Fuzzies. Fuzzies are cute and endearing! Ewoks are…puntable. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2010, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-read-a-book-or-short-story-and-thought-they-have-to-make-this-into-a-movie/564706/62 "2010-12-26T16:51:22Z")
> [@Infovore](#): > > Ugh! Don’t even put those horrible, horrible Ewoks in the same category as Fuzzies. Fuzzies are cute and endearing! Ewoks are…puntable. 😛 Don’t worry about it: [STAR WARS: Endor Holocaust](http://www.theforce.net/swtc/holocaust.html) ---
**Author:** ![Illuminatiprimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/illuminatiprimus/32/11520_2.png) [@Illuminatiprimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Illuminatiprimus)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2010, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-read-a-book-or-short-story-and-thought-they-have-to-make-this-into-a-movie/564706/63 "2010-12-27T10:58:24Z")
> [@jackdavinci](#): > > Oh, and Anathem is something I’d really like to see as a movie (or miniseries). As much as I _heart_ that book with all my being, I can’t see how a scene with one character to another the principle of defining the location of an object in three dimensional space is going to be a crowd draw. ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2010, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-read-a-book-or-short-story-and-thought-they-have-to-make-this-into-a-movie/564706/64 "2010-12-28T01:45:36Z")
> [@Illuminatiprimus](#): > > As much as I _heart_ that book with all my being, I can’t see how a scene with one character to another the principle of defining the location of an object in three dimensional space is going to be a crowd draw. LOL I don’t feel like that sort of stuff takes up too much of the novel. The overly educational lectures were saved for the appendices. OTOH, there were a lot of aspect of the novel that I feel would be vastly improved by bringing it into a visual medium: 1. The jargon. OMG the jargon. Everything has a different name, even if it’s relatively a counterpart to something on Earth. Seeing someone use their speely for two seconds would make it’s nature instantly obvious. It also took me quite some time to completely figure out the deal with their magic cloak, belt, and ball. Seeing it would have made it more immediately obvious what was going on. 2. The ambiance. This is a planet that is far more advanced than ours, but at the same time has some unique taboos with regards to technology and science. There’s the obvious dichotomy 3. The social groups. The monks, the rich folks and poor folks, the monks from other places, the sporty shirted people. All with distinctive looks and behaviors. 4. Vistas! The monastery itself, with the timed gates and subdivisions and mathematical music. The arctic journey and the escape to the Arctic town. The crazy ass launch of bodies towards the object, and the object itself. 5. Action! The various cool fighting styles using robes and garden tools. The rescue at the arctic town. The space maneuvers. The only thinks that might be difficult are some of the overly long lectures and the traveling between potential alternate timelines. Although the latter wasn’t entirely clear to me in the novel itself. A film would probably be too short. Maybe a miniseries. ---
**Author:** ![Illuminatiprimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/illuminatiprimus/32/11520_2.png) [@Illuminatiprimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Illuminatiprimus)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2010, 9:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-read-a-book-or-short-story-and-thought-they-have-to-make-this-into-a-movie/564706/65 "2010-12-28T09:49:20Z")
> [@jackdavinci](#): > > The only thinks that might be difficult are some of the overly long lectures and the traveling between potential alternate timelines. Although the latter wasn’t entirely clear to me in the novel itself. The Thousanders’ power wasn’t that it allowed people to travel through timelines, rather it allowed them to create and sustain timelines. You’re right in that how people carry memories from one timeline to another isn’t terribly well explained, but I think that’s supposed to be part of it. In some of the timelines the main character is dead, in some of them his friends are. They all happened, it’s just the frame of reference one holds that changes. > [@](#): > > A film would probably be too short. Maybe a miniseries. Yes, that would probably work. ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2010, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-read-a-book-or-short-story-and-thought-they-have-to-make-this-into-a-movie/564706/66 "2010-12-28T13:37:57Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > All the time-my wife and I like to sit around fantasy-casting them. In addition to some already named, I’ll add **The Lies of Locke Lamora** , a fantasy-Venice long con gone horribly wrong. I agree. I love the book. ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2010, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-read-a-book-or-short-story-and-thought-they-have-to-make-this-into-a-movie/564706/67 "2010-12-28T15:03:56Z")
> [@Illuminatiprimus](#): > > The Thousanders’ power wasn’t that it allowed people to travel through timelines, rather it allowed them to create and sustain timelines. You’re right in that how people carry memories from one timeline to another isn’t terribly well explained, but I think that’s supposed to be part of it. In some of the timelines the main character is dead, in some of them his friends are. They all happened, it’s just the frame of reference one holds that changes. I think I mostly got it. The main things for me were I guess, which things “actually” happened in the final timeline, and also whether the old guy ended up being dead or not. And also the mechanism/experience. ---
**Author:** ![Agent\_Foxtrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc29f/32.png) [@Agent\_Foxtrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agent_Foxtrot)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2010, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-read-a-book-or-short-story-and-thought-they-have-to-make-this-into-a-movie/564706/68 "2010-12-28T15:22:32Z")
My vote goes to _The Visitor_ by Roald Dahl. It has everything in there: Money, lots of sex, gallivanting around dangerous foreign countries, car chases, the works. Dahl later wrote a novel that was a prequel to this wonderful story (which I read), but unfortunately, it carried the same literary value as a story in _Hustler_. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2010, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-read-a-book-or-short-story-and-thought-they-have-to-make-this-into-a-movie/564706/69 "2010-12-28T16:15:03Z")
> [@Agent\_Foxtrot](#): > > My vote goes to _The Visitor_ by Roald Dahl. It has everything in there: Money, lots of sex, gallivanting around dangerous foreign countries, car chases, the works. Dahl later wrote a novel that was a prequel to this wonderful story (which I read), but unfortunately, it carried the same literary value as a story in _Hustler_. Is “The Visitor” the one where Uncle Oswald lusts for the wife of his host and is visited overnight by a woman whom he can’t see in the dark, and learns afterwards it was perhaps - perhaps! - not the woman, but her leprosy-infected daughter? And I thought _My Uncle Oswald_ was good filthy fun: [My Uncle Oswald - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Uncle_Oswald) ---
**Author:** ![Agent\_Foxtrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc29f/32.png) [@Agent\_Foxtrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agent_Foxtrot)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2010, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-read-a-book-or-short-story-and-thought-they-have-to-make-this-into-a-movie/564706/70 "2010-12-28T16:38:46Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Is “The Visitor” the one where > > Uncle Oswald lusts for the wife of his host and is visited overnight by a woman whom he can’t see in the dark, and learns afterwards it was perhaps - perhaps! - not the woman, but her leprosy-infected daughter? > > And I thought _My Uncle Oswald_ was good filthy fun: [My Uncle Oswald - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Uncle_Oswald) Yes, that’s the exact story. The prequel I mentioned was _My Uncle Oswald_, which I felt amounted to nothing more than porn. ---
**Author:** ![StusBlues](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@StusBlues](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StusBlues)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2010, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-read-a-book-or-short-story-and-thought-they-have-to-make-this-into-a-movie/564706/71 "2010-12-28T16:41:39Z")
“Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin would make a great little movie in the hands of the right filmmaker. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-read-a-book-or-short-story-and-thought-they-have-to-make-this-into-a-movie/564706.md?page=3)