# Great ideas horribly wasted in film and literature **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 19, 2008, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-ideas-horribly-wasted-in-film-and-literature/464334 "2008-09-19T17:15:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2008, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-ideas-horribly-wasted-in-film-and-literature/464334/21 "2008-09-19T22:28:13Z")
> [@Scissorjack](#): > > **Event Horizon**. Fantastic premise: long-lost spaceship reappears derelict and abandoned. Hard-bitten salvage team slowly discover that it has actually been on a dimensional jaunt to Hell itself, and is possessed by demons… > > Sadly, what we got was a mad slasher flick set on a spaceship. Ah yes, “[Stupid Evil.](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LawfulStupidChaoticStupid)” Isn’t Evil much more threatening when it wants to do something more substantive than just eating the heads of the protagonists? Actually, that is a general criticism of much of the horror genre (big screen). When you are faced with an obviously evil if not terrifying character, but it quickly becomes obvious that they are after something more significant than merely sucking you soul away (while still being very cryptic about what it is, exactly), that’s much more horrifying, right? But all too often horror movies pull their punches in this way. Mundane Evil = Boring Evil. I hate these kinds of threads, because my brain doesn’t work very well trying to dredge up lists of specific items from specific categories. Other than my general complaint above no specific single film (or series) comes to mind. I guess I could rag on **The Wizard of Oz** for copping out at the end with no Ruby Slippers on Kansas Dorothy (“It was all a dream”), but that’s for the Copout thread, not here, which is more about scripts with promise which were pretty much DOA after editing. ---
**Author:** ![A\_shameful\_cracka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ebca7d/32.png) [@A\_shameful\_cracka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A_shameful_cracka)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2008, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-ideas-horribly-wasted-in-film-and-literature/464334/22 "2008-09-19T22:29:56Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > One idea I thought horribly wasted was Richard Matheson’s old **Twilight Zone** episode “Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?” from the second season: > > [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0734693/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0734693/) > A bunch of people trapped in a snowed-in diner receive a visit from a couple of policemen who say that a spaceship crashed nearby, and one of the people in the diner is really an alien. It’s a wonderful situation with its own built-in appeal that makes the audience pay attention to your every line of dialogue. You could use it to explore relationships and how people behave under stress and why the alien would come to Earth, and why it would disguise itself as a human. You could go in all sorts of directions. > > But they didn’t. They had the bus crash and > > [spoiler] the surviving guy reveal to the diner owner that he’s the alien, which he proves by taking his coffee with a third hand. The diner owner reveals that HE is also an alien, though, as he reveals by pushing back his cap to show a third eye. > > [/spoiler] > _This_ is a good use for such a potent setup? > > Several years ago I took the premise and turned it into a radio play. With a MUCH better series of events and payoff. And i say that even though I know Matheson is infinitely better than me, and could probably toss off a better script in his sleep. > I’m assuming that Matheson and Serling and company were under a lot of pressure to produce scripts fast, and matheson’s first try was too long or something. But I was severely disappointed. I remember reading somewhere that in the original story, the twist was that the alien was disguised as a dog. ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2008, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-ideas-horribly-wasted-in-film-and-literature/464334/23 "2008-09-19T22:47:37Z")
> [@John\_DiFool](#): > > Actually, that is a general criticism of much of the horror genre (big screen). When you are faced with an obviously evil if not terrifying character, but it quickly becomes obvious that they are after something more significant than merely sucking you soul away (while still being very cryptic about what it is, exactly), that’s much more horrifying, right? But all too often horror movies pull their punches in this way. Mundane Evil = Boring Evil. Michael Mann’s vastly under-rated **The Keep** offered a much more interesting take on a similar idea: a platoon of Nazi soldiers who hold prisoner an elderly Jewish professor and his daughter occupy a Romanian castle, until it becomes evident that this titular Keep was built to hold something _in_ rather than keep invaders out, as _something_ wakes and starts killing soldiers. However, instead of going down the “monster disembowels Nazis” route, the film becomes much more interesting as the demon begins _tempting_ people: he offers the Jewish professor the chance to end the Holocaust in exchange for his soul… what would you do? What would you _do_? ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2008, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-ideas-horribly-wasted-in-film-and-literature/464334/24 "2008-09-19T22:58:32Z")
[QUOTE=Derleth] Oh, how I agree. The Borg in particular were horribly mishandled because the writers apparently forgot what they were from one episode to the next. Originally, they were a true hivemind with no individuality and no concept of the individual. Then they got progressively nerfed until the final insult: The Borg Queen. At that point, I lost interest in most things Trek. [/QUOTE] Personally, I thought TNG generally handled the Borg pretty well. It was the other series’ (Well, just Voyager.) that increasingly mucked 'em up. I couldn’t tell if the writers didn’t really _understand_ what the “collective consciousness” concept was, if they thought the _audience_ didn’t or wouldn’t, or if they simply out and out decided to change the premise of the species. Heck, I remember one line in the final season of TNG where they actually made a point of referring to the Borg in the singular (“The Borg is everywhere!”) in a throwaway line. I think the Voyager team saw them more like one of those comedy stories where two guys are hillariously stuck together by accident. ---
**Author:** ![MOIDALIZE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@MOIDALIZE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MOIDALIZE)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2008, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-ideas-horribly-wasted-in-film-and-literature/464334/25 "2008-09-19T23:17:11Z")
I’ll second AvP. Would anyone honestly have cared if they had made it without any human dialogue whatsoever? If you’re not going to have Space Marines, just have aliens and predators duke it out for 90 minutes. They took a great fictional future universe and completely discarded it in favor of a time setting that I guess audiences were supposed to be better able to relate to. I find The Ninth Gate to be a frustrating movie. One of the rare movies that could have used more special effects. ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2008, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-ideas-horribly-wasted-in-film-and-literature/464334/26 "2008-09-20T04:02:20Z")
> [@Scissorjack](#): > > Michael Mann’s vastly under-rated **The Keep** offered a much more interesting take on a similar idea: a platoon of Nazi soldiers who hold prisoner an elderly Jewish professor and his daughter occupy a Romanian castle, until it becomes evident that this titular Keep was built to hold something _in_ rather than keep invaders out, as _something_ wakes and starts killing soldiers. However, instead of going down the “monster disembowels Nazis” route, the film becomes much more interesting as the demon begins _tempting_ people: he offers the Jewish professor the chance to end the Holocaust in exchange for his soul… what would you do? What would you _do_? Alas that film has been tied up in knots (shorthand for various conflicts of interest) for so long that the chances of a DVD release currently seem very remote. ---
**Author:** ![AllWalker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/db5fbb/32.png) [@AllWalker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AllWalker)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2008, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-ideas-horribly-wasted-in-film-and-literature/464334/27 "2008-09-20T10:56:38Z")
I half agree with the OP. When I first read the blurb to “Scarecrow” it sent shivers down my spine. The idea of an international bounty hunt targeting the world’s best soldiers really appealed to me. But it wasn’t up to the standard of his other books in some ways. For one, the reason behind the hunt isn’t great. Also, the bad guys go for overkill - targeting 1 US city and 1 EU city would have done the job. But it was better than a lot of other books of that style. I liked Killian as a villain - truly psychotic, with quite a romantic view on the dark side of humanity, IMO (if that makes sense). His plan to nuke Mecca, with an Israeli missile tipped with a US warhead, that too sent shivers down my spine. And we see Scarecrow reach a whole new level of dangerous - don’t piss that guy off. And Knight is pretty cool. I hope he gets his own stories, or at least reappears in others. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2008, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-ideas-horribly-wasted-in-film-and-literature/464334/28 "2008-09-20T12:33:58Z")
> [@Busy\_Scissors](#): > > Phillip K Dick is SF royalty, but I’ve always found his novels very hard work. Big on great ideas, short on great writing. His novels often take a brilliant premise, but flesh it out with extremely ‘workmanlike’ prose. His short stories are much better in this regard IMHO. He’d of been great working as a twosome. > > Only Dick novel I really liked was Valis, which paradoxically is not a typical SF ideas-fest, but an extremely personal novel influenced by his struggle with mental illness… On a PBS interview, many years ago, I head that PKD only had real editors for two of his books. One was _The Man In The High Castle_, his excellent “alternate history.” I’ve forgotten the other. But he was working in the SF ghetto, back when publishers rarely bothered with the expense. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2008, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-ideas-horribly-wasted-in-film-and-literature/464334/29 "2008-09-20T12:47:04Z")
> [@autz](#): > > ‘Dies the Fire’ and that whole series. > > I love the premise. How would society adapt if suddenly there were no more electricity or vehicles. Just over 100 years ago these things didn’t exist, but now our world is so totally dependant on them, that there would be a huge breakdown with mass starvation without them. > > But the books are so badly written, that I find myself skipping paragraphs and just skimming pages and chapters. > > Please, someone re-write these WELL. Yup, I’m currently slogging through _The Scourge of God_. Luckily, I slog quickly! But Stirling shines elsewhere. The _Island in the Sea of Time_ trilogy moves more quickly, so the well-constructed alt.history distracts from the depth-free characters. His \*Lords of \*Creation books and _The Peshawar Lancers_ really left me wanting more. So I won’t give up on him yet. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2008, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-ideas-horribly-wasted-in-film-and-literature/464334/30 "2008-09-20T12:57:49Z")
Stephen King’s Rose Madder would have worked much better as a straight story without all the science fiction horror crap. When Norman showed up to kill Rose, she could have just kicked the crap out of him, whereupon he leaves and gets hit by the Daughters & Sisters van coming back from the outing. He ends up a real parapalygic. Rose & Bill go on to live happily ever after. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2008, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-ideas-horribly-wasted-in-film-and-literature/464334/31 "2008-09-20T14:13:50Z")
> [@Emily\_Litella](#): > > “Vanilla Sky” - a guy is almost killed and horribly disfigured and crippled in a car accident, so he lives an alternate life in drug induced controlled dreaming. He buys it from a corporation that sells alternative lives and they take care of your body for you. You have no idea that you’re dreaming this new life. When glitches start start happening he figures out that his life isn’t real. The idea was good, and I liked the movie, but a lot of people hated it. The movie starred Tom Cruise, Penelope Cruz and Cameron Diaz. It was a remake of a foreign movie, I wonder if the original was better? ('scuze my bad writing please.) Didn’t Red Dwarf do a parody of this? Lister and Rimmer think they’ve returned to Earth and found the perfect niches for themselves, only to discover that it’s an addictive VR game called Better Than Life? > [@Busy Scissors](#): > > As a big 2000AD fan back in the day, Judge Dredd was a huge disappointment. Not sure if there’s enough depth there to really make a quality film, but by Christ it could have been orders of magnitude better than the turd Stallone / Danny Cannon served up. Tell me if you agree or disagree with this: the main premise behind 2000AD and Judge Dredd is that the human race screwed up so badly that God himself finally said “screw you”. The protagonists of the stories live in a literally God-forsaken Hell-universe which is **absurdly** inimical to humanity. Survival is only possible due to the Judges being as inhumanly merciless as the world they live in. To translate this into a movie would require someone who’s a genius at making the blackest of black comedies. ---
**Author:** ![Number](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/number/32/242_2.png) [@Number](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Number)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2008, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-ideas-horribly-wasted-in-film-and-literature/464334/32 "2008-09-20T15:35:24Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > Didn’t Red Dwarf do a parody of this? Lister and Rimmer think they’ve returned to Earth and found the perfect niches for themselves, only to discover that it’s an addictive VR game called Better Than Life? Red Dwarf did it first. The episode and [book](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Than_Life) both came out well before [Abre Los Ojos](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt012565), the basis for _Vanilla Sky_. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2008, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-ideas-horribly-wasted-in-film-and-literature/464334/33 "2008-09-20T16:01:38Z")
I don’t think even Phil Dick’s staunchest defenders (I am one) would claim he was a great stylist. He makes up for stylistic flaws with wierd plots, a singular vision, and a great sad and deep humanism. Also, in his better books, his style and characterizations have a quirky tone that serves his ideas well. The plots in Neal Stephenson are secondary to the digressions, which I find highly entertaining but YMMV. But you have to expect that his books will stop, rather than end. He’s like Pynchon, if Pynchon actually cared about communicating with his readers. ETA: [Open your eyes](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0125659/) is the movie _Vanilla Sky_ was based on. I liked it. I never saw VS so I can’t say which one is better IMO. Penelope Cruz is in both movies. ---
**Author:** ![mudkicker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d6d6ee/32.png) [@mudkicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mudkicker)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2008, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-ideas-horribly-wasted-in-film-and-literature/464334/34 "2008-09-20T16:13:09Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > Stephen King’s Rose Madder would have worked much better as a straight story without all the science fiction horror crap. When Norman showed up to kill Rose, she could have just kicked the crap out of him, whereupon he leaves and gets hit by the Daughters & Sisters van coming back from the outing. He ends up a real parapalygic. Rose & Bill go on to live happily ever after. Totally agree. I loved that book until all the crap started with the painting in her room. It could have been such a strong woman-centred, triumph over tragedy style book like _Dolores Claiborne_, and the supernatural element spoiled it quite a bit. ---
**Author:** ![Ponderoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponderoid/32/19221_2.png) [@Ponderoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponderoid)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2008, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-ideas-horribly-wasted-in-film-and-literature/464334/35 "2008-09-20T16:18:29Z")
> [@autz](#): > > I love the premise. How would society adapt if suddenly there were no more electricity or vehicles. > […] > Please, someone re-write these WELL. You might like _The Peace War_, by Vernor Vinge, collected in an omnibus volume with its sequels called _Across Realtime_. The situation isn’t quite “no electricity”, but rather “no high power density”, which severely limits its use. The novel skips past the initial breakdown of society and picks up decades later in the aftermath. \*\*\* Ponder ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2008, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-ideas-horribly-wasted-in-film-and-literature/464334/36 "2008-09-20T17:17:25Z")
“Idiocracy” had a brilliant premise, but the movie itself was mostly horrible. ---
**Author:** ![De\_La\_Rue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@De\_La\_Rue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/De_La_Rue)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2008, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-ideas-horribly-wasted-in-film-and-literature/464334/37 "2008-09-20T20:11:13Z")
Absolutely right about Idiocracy. I also think that while Underworld was exceedingly mindless, the idea of a vampire-werewolf conflict has potential if the vampires are characterized as “refined” and “civilized” (they often pose as aristocracy, right?) and werewolves are pure animal savagery, letting the beast in them come out. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2008, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-ideas-horribly-wasted-in-film-and-literature/464334/38 "2008-09-20T20:46:42Z")
I would have forgiven the powers that be behind _Trek_ a lot if they had taken my suggestion to make the Borg Queen turn out to be the Ilia probe. ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2008, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-ideas-horribly-wasted-in-film-and-literature/464334/39 "2008-09-20T21:17:25Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > **Gattaca** probably could have been a pretty good film if they ever bothered to think out their own concept. Actually, it was a very good film as is. ---
**Author:** ![Sr\_Siete](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6de8d8/32.png) [@Sr\_Siete](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sr_Siete)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2008, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-ideas-horribly-wasted-in-film-and-literature/464334/40 "2008-09-20T21:20:24Z")
> [@De\_La\_Rue](#): > > Absolutely right about Idiocracy. I also think that while Underworld was exceedingly mindless, the idea of a vampire-werewolf conflict has potential if the vampires are characterized as “refined” and “civilized” (they often pose as aristocracy, right?) and werewolves are pure animal savagery, letting the beast in them come out. I would have liked better Underworld if the romance happened between a Vampire and a Werewolf. Two warriors who are supposed to kill each other and all that. The pairing Vampire - Crazy Hybrid thingie is a lot less star struck. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-ideas-horribly-wasted-in-film-and-literature/464334.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-ideas-horribly-wasted-in-film-and-literature/464334.md?page=3)