If You Could Make Any Film You Wanted To!

Cafe Society
81

[QUOTE=Stranger On A Train]
You are my hero. At least, as long as you do it right. The viewpoint, and particularly the action scenes, need to be shown from the rabbits’ perspective, i.e. confusing, startling, frightening, et cetera, and in an animation motif that is kind of a cross between rotoscoping and oversaturation. The only problem is that Orson Welles is dead and thus can’t provide the voice for General Woundwort.
[/QUOTE]

It’s like you’re reading my mind. One of the things I like portrayed about the rabbits (besides their own names for things), was their smaller, non-human mindset. While they’re anthropomorphized to some degree, behaviorally, (I’d go for realistic looking rabbits however), they are completely confused by anything man-made. Even basic tool usage completely mystifies them; such as the scene where they have to cross the stream. I believe Blackberry, and his unusual intelligence for a rabbit, after a moment of fleeting inspiration, had to practically force everyone else on the plank of wood, to get across. And even during and after they ferried, they still couldn’t comprehend what Blackberry had come up with, but were still grateful.

And Stranger’s right, I reread the story as an adult, and it is my opinion that the story would actually work best at a PG level. As there’s no vulgarity to any degree, they deal with a lot of heavy stuff. There’s a lot of carnage in the beginning and some more throughout, and of course after a while, they realize they need women (these are rabbits after all). There’s also a creepy cult of rabbits and a totalitarian warren they infiltrate and eventually go to war with.

It just happens to be a story that hits on a lot of fundamental adult themes, but is contained in its own world. Plus, how cool will it be to bring the camera down into their dank warren tunnels with roots hanging over head. Also, the adventures of El-ahrairah narrated by by Dandelion.

Now, if only we can get Garfunkel to re-record “Bright Eyes” for the end credits.

82

[QUOTE=carlb]
In another thread something like this, another Doper put forth the idea of filming Max Brooks’s World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War as a miniseries, in a Ken Burns style. I am unable to find that thread, but I want to give proper credit, so whoever suggested it, I’ll put up the money and you get co-producing credit.

I hadn’t read the book when the topic first came up, but now that I have I think this is a brilliant, brilliant idea. While reading it I kept trying to imagine various celebrity voices reading the different parts (you know Morgan Freeman has to be in there somewhere). I would be completely stoked if this ever got made.
[/QUOTE]

Just got to second that this is a brilliant idea! I know it’s been optioned for a film but I’d rather see this than “another zombie movie” thriller as the format was what made it so terrifying. (It’s irritating that the book is often filed under humor when it’s one of the best recent horror novels out there; I can only assume it’s because Max is Mel’s son [though Anne Bancroft was rarely what’d you call ‘wacky’].)

83

Heinlein’s The Rolling Stones?

84

[QUOTE=5-4-Fighting]
Who would you cast as Alice and Kermit (younger and older), and the rest of the siblings.
[/QUOTE]

I can’t say, since I don’t follow current Hollywood actors, and anyway, since it would be a part worth killing for, I’d just cast whoever’s left standing.

It’s a long enough story that a TV miniseries would be required, but that format always turns into parentheses around shampoo commercials, so I’d offer it up as a 2-1/2 hour theatrical movie. It would have to sacrifice such things as the full meaning US’s blocked entry into the League of Nations (and how Alice’s work to this end stemmed from her desire to finally gain her father’s love even though he was dead). Too many American movies have to “bring the audience along” with 101-level background information and I can’t fantasize that fact away.

(But I’d still show Quentin killed as he really was - hit in the skull with machine gun slugs, not some movie-style handsome young guy suddenly falling asleep)

I’d still throw in a few quick gems - I could dramatise Alice’s husband’s unfaithfulness with the story of how a political rival patted his bald head and said “Why, it feels just like my wife’s bottom.” At which Longworth rubbed it too and said “Yes, you’re right, it does!”

Thanks for asking!

85

[QUOTE=Sampiro]
Just got to second that this is a brilliant idea! I know it’s been optioned for a film but I’d rather see this than “another zombie movie” thriller as the format was what made it so terrifying. (It’s irritating that the book is often filed under humor when it’s one of the best recent horror novels out there; I can only assume it’s because Max is Mel’s son [though Anne Bancroft was rarely what’d you call ‘wacky’].)
[/QUOTE]

Are you thinking of The Zombie Survival Guide? Because I’ve seen that filed under humor and it actually makes sense, it’s a parody of those “Worst Case Scenario” books after all.

I’ve never seen World War Z under humor.

86

[QUOTE=cmyk]
I believe Blackberry, and his unusual intelligence for a rabbit, after a moment of fleeting inspiration, had to practically force everyone else on the plank of wood, to get across. And even during and after they ferried, they still couldn’t comprehend what Blackberry had come up with, but were still grateful.
[/QUOTE]

Actually I think it was Hazel who made them cross the stream. One of the things I enjoyed most about the book were the group dynamics. Blackberry sees a solution, but can’t explain it to the other rabbits. Hazel doesn’t know what Blackberry is talking about, but he knows Blackberry is smarter than him. Bigwig is doesn’t trust complicated plans but he trusts Hazel’s leadership. Fiver- or was it Pipkin?- is catatonic. So, Hazel decides to trust Blackberry, and orders Bigwig to force Fiver onto the plank and then push it across. You don’t get that kind of complex character interaction very often.

If I could turn anything into a movie, and spend whatever I wanted and cast whoever I wanted, I’d take control of the orphaned Metroid movie project. In my mind the Metroid backstory would be a great setting for answering a lot of the BS in the Star Trek and Star Wars mythologies: Metroid seems to me to be about a near-utopian government that, faced with a marauding enemy that has no home base to lay siege to, must decide between mobilizing into a police state after years of peace or learning to precisely target its retaliatory efforts with individual super-soldiers. Samus, a character raised outside of the predominant society, is a character that everything can be explained to as the story progresses, helping to develop the world. It’s a great opportunity to simultaneously deconstruct the United Federation Of Planets and the fall of the Galactic Republic.

More realistically, given a good scriptwriter friend and a sympathetic hollywood executive, I’d push for Rudyard Kipling’s Quiquern. I’d ask all the movie houses showing it to turn down the thermostat in the theater ten degrees. When you read that story, you feel cold!

87

[QUOTE=Justin_Bailey]
Are you thinking of The Zombie Survival Guide? Because I’ve seen that filed under humor and it actually makes sense, it’s a parody of those “Worst Case Scenario” books after all.

I’ve never seen World War Z under humor.
[/QUOTE]

I’ve seen it coupled with Z.S.G. under humor at Books-a-Million. (Of course ZSG can actually be read as a non-humor companion to WWZ.)
Re: the OP, I’d love to see an epic miniseries about World War I, as much for my own education as other’s. It’s recent enough that there are still living veterans (only one in the U.S. [and I haven’t checked the papers today] but a few more in Europe and probably other continents])) yet it’s already mostly forgotten in popular culture and it’s one of the most glossed over section in high school and even college (unless of course the course is WW1).

I’d love to see a remake of I CLAVDIVS with the budget of HBO’s ROME. I’d hire Derek Jacoby as Augustus as an homage to the original, with John Hurt if he wasn’t available. (Trying to think of who I’d cast as Caligula- needs to be a great enough actor to be stark raving mad without chewing the scenery.)

88

[QUOTE=Mangetout]
Weapon by Robert Mason. I know it (along with its inferior sequel, Solo) has been made into a film (taking the title of the second book - Solo), but it was really terrible. Really terrible.
[/QUOTE]
The combination of the “Frankenstein” theme and the Nicaraguan war, as well as the religious and philosophical aspects, would play well against Solo’s “black department store mannequin but without any facial features.”

A great opportunity for some skillful acting. Anybody in mind for the part?

Hollywood comes through as the hacks they are once again.

[QUOTE=Mangetout]
I’d also take a shot at Ringworld . . . . I’m the only person that could do this though.
[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=cmyk]
. . . One of the things I like portrayed about the rabbits . . . .Also, the adventures of El-ahrairah narrated by by Dandelion.

Now, if only we can get Garfunkel to re-record “Bright Eyes” for the end credits.
[/QUOTE]
Both you, cmyk, and Mangetout are so getting funding once my daddy releases my trust funds. You and Garfunkel are quite the readers. Did you know that he has read (and keeps an index of) over 1,020 books since June, 1968?