# Movies you'd like to see (or even make) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 3, 2012, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youd-like-to-see-or-even-make/614649 "2012-03-03T16:54:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![The\_Tooth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c67d28/32.png) [@The\_Tooth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tooth)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2012, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youd-like-to-see-or-even-make/614649/61 "2012-03-06T03:44:29Z")
Stephen R. Donaldson’s _Mordant’s Need_. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2012, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youd-like-to-see-or-even-make/614649/62 "2012-03-06T04:24:06Z")
> [@Bill\_Door](#): > > Watching the recent _Thor_ movie, good effects, lackluster script, I couldn’t help think that they now had the technology to shoot Zelazny’s _Lord of Light_ or _Creatures of Light and Darkness_. Either would be great movies. > > > [@Clothahump](#): > > > > Or _Jack of Shadows_. Or _[Roadmarks](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadmarks)_. ---
**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:** [March 6, 2012, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youd-like-to-see-or-even-make/614649/63 "2012-03-06T04:28:15Z")
Also, I’d love to see Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch novels done right as a series of features. I think Robert Blake would’ve made a great Harry Bosch, but it goes without saying he’s not right for the part now. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2012, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youd-like-to-see-or-even-make/614649/64 "2012-03-06T04:58:03Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Or _[Roadmarks](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadmarks)_. Ooh, yes, now Roadmarks would make a fine film. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2012, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youd-like-to-see-or-even-make/614649/65 "2012-03-06T05:28:12Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Ooh, yes, now Roadmarks would make a fine film. 3rding. Excellent, fun, thought-provoking book and it would make a terrific film. ---
**Author:** ![galen\_ubal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/galen_ubal/32/4440_2.png) [@galen\_ubal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/galen_ubal)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2012, 8:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youd-like-to-see-or-even-make/614649/66 "2012-03-06T08:18:54Z")
Elric, Hawkmoon, Corum…someone could make a _looooong_ series, come to think of it, from the Eternal Champion books of Moorcock. I’d love to see Londra from the Hawkmoon books! ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2012, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youd-like-to-see-or-even-make/614649/67 "2012-03-06T12:39:36Z")
> [@](#): > > Do you have any idea of how many SF 'zines were out back in those days? Each churning out a dozen stories a month? His stroy was published in 1944. It wasn’t collected until 1970, likely due to it’s inclusion in the 1967 ToS epi. > > There’s no freaken way anyone could have been aware of such a obscure story from a more or less little known author\*? (Most famous for The Shortest Horror Story). You’re wrong. As I stated, the story was collect a half a dozen times before Star Trek ever aired. See the entry at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database. It was voted to the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 1964. 1970 is when the collection TSFHoF was first published, but “Arena” was a well-known sory, and Fredric Brown a well-known and respected science fiction (and mystery) author with several books and collections behind him, and a couple of films based on his works. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2012, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youd-like-to-see-or-even-make/614649/68 "2012-03-06T17:45:53Z")
One of my choices is about to come out: John Carter. But it doesn’t look like it’s going to live up to my expectations. Another one i’d like to see would be the First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant (Lord Foul’s Bane; The Illearth War; The Power that Preserves). I think that would make a cracking fantasy trilogy, and i like the fact that the “hero” is also, for much of the time, something of a self-centered asshole. Finally, like **alphaboi867** , i’d love to see Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy on the screen. ---
**Author:** ![Sleel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/73ab20/32.png) [@Sleel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sleel)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2012, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youd-like-to-see-or-even-make/614649/69 "2012-03-07T00:31:01Z")
A few of mine have already been listed. A Halo movie was supposed to be in the works, with Peter Jackson involved in producing it, but fell apart because of studio politics. Those of you who aren’t gamers are probably thinking, “Uh-huh, a movie based on a video game…that won’t suck _at all_,” but think about how damn good something like the [We Are ODST](http://www.gametrailers.com/video/full-length-exclusive-halo-3-odst/55529) trailer could be. I’ve shown that to people who didn’t know anything about Halo. The near-universal reaction was: “That was awesome. When does the movie come out?” There were some other live-action shorts for the Halo 3 promotion that were extremely well done and showed how a good adaptation of the world could make a very good movie. ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2012, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youd-like-to-see-or-even-make/614649/70 "2012-03-07T00:50:28Z")
I’d like to see a movie called “Dancing to the Music of My Heartstrings: The Dick Cheney Story”. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2012, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youd-like-to-see-or-even-make/614649/71 "2012-03-07T01:03:29Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > You do realize that those myths aren’t familiar at all to the vast majority of the planet’s moviegoers. > > Personally, I’d love to see a movie about Archimedes. I mean, we’re talking the guy who single-handedly held off the most powerful military in the world, for decades-- Hollywood _loves_ that stuff. And pick the right actor, and you’ll have about half the population wanting to see it just for the Eureka scene. Ben Kingsley. Got to be. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2012, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youd-like-to-see-or-even-make/614649/72 "2012-03-07T01:14:15Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > The Misty Mountains were even _better_ than I had imagined them (as Alps): they looked just as imposing as they were meant to be, considering they were created by Sauron’s master to impede the forces of good. REALLY? And then he gave them a bucolic name like “The Misty Mountains?” What was up with THAT? Sounds like a title for a pastoral folk song. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2012, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youd-like-to-see-or-even-make/614649/73 "2012-03-07T01:22:42Z")
When I was attending JC, I typed up a treatment of _The Cold Equations_ for a drama class, and rehearsed it with a couple of actors. It’s not really long enough for a movie; more of an _Outer Limits_ episode. Yes, I have since been made aware that it has been used as a _Twilight Zone_ episode. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2012, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youd-like-to-see-or-even-make/614649/74 "2012-03-07T02:03:07Z")
The Cold Equations has actually been done several times: > [@](#): > > AdaptationsThe story has been adapted for television at least three times: as part of the 1962 British anthology series Out of This World; as part of the 1985–1989 revival of The Twilight Zone (“The Cold Equations”) and again in 1996 as a made-for-TV movie on the Sci-Fi Channel. The story was also adapted into an episode of the radio program X Minus One in 1955, an episode of the radio program Exploring Tomorrow in 1958, and for “Faster Than Light” on CBC Radio’s Sunday Showcase in September 2002 by Joe Mahoney (hosted by science fiction author Robert J. Sawyer). In the X Minus One broadcast the girl was trying to visit her husband to make amends for an affair she had. > **[The Cold Equations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cold_Equations)** > > "The Cold Equations" is a science fiction short story by American writer Tom Godwin (1915–1980), first published in Astounding Magazine in August 1954. In 1970, the Science Fiction Writers of America selected it as one of the best science-fiction short stories published before 1965, and it was therefore included in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One, 1929–1964. It has been widely anthologized and dramatized. > In the year 2178, a small Emergency Dispatch Ship (EDS) is launched from the i... The British TV anthologies _Out of This World_ and _Out of the Unknown_ did several clasic SF stories. I’d love to see them. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2012, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youd-like-to-see-or-even-make/614649/75 "2012-03-07T12:58:24Z")
As I’ve mentioned before, I’d love to do an adaptation of Mark Twain’s _A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court_. Previous adaptations have either been star vehicles(Will Rogers, Bing Crosby), or such emasculated affairs so afraid of of offending someone that they suck all the juice out of the story, eliminating everything that made it interesting in the first place. The PBS (PBS!!!) adaptation actually switched things around so much that it made Merlin the Good Guy. Not one of these versions uses any of the iconic scenes from the novel (except for the Eclipse), and they’re almost totally lacking in Twain’s wit. You _can_ do it properly, I firmly believe, and without insulting the Catholic Church. Best of all, with modern effects and CGI, you can do the scenes of the DEstruction of Merlin’s Tower, the Exclipse, the Holt Fountain, and others and make they believable. Dammit! I want my Knights on Bicycles scenes! ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2012, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youd-like-to-see-or-even-make/614649/76 "2012-03-07T13:11:41Z")
How about “Buckaroo Banzai Against the World Crime League?” ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2012, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youd-like-to-see-or-even-make/614649/77 "2012-03-07T13:46:37Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > I would love to see films on the late Roman empire, of which there arE a paucity. I saw **Agora** recently which was good, but we need more. Something on Adrianpole or Julian the Apostate would be very welcome. The Roman Persian wars should also get good treatment. > > Elsewhere the war of the roses, the Hellenistic World (Greeks in Afganistan and Pakistan! ) the colonization of Australia, a new film on the Napoleonic wars all should be made. > > On fiction, it’s a travesty that the Honor Harrington novels have not been adapted. > > Finally, I have wanted for a long time new and good WWI movies. With the centenary coming up, we have and will continue to get new movies, good on the other hand… You should read the Belisarius series - first couple books are available free at Baen’s [webscriptions.net](http://webscriptions.net). The whole series would make a killer series on cable, too much stuff that would freak the biblepounders to make it on broadcast tv. I don’t think the whole harrington series would be worth filming, it got too Harrington is god after she got to knocking boots with her boss. > [@Typo\_Knig](#): > > Selling point: Retief is James Bond In Spaaaace. (sorta) > > I’d love to see the Vorkosiganverse on screen. Each book’s probably best done as a mini-series. Lois is adamant that nothing of hers is going to be filmed after the horror that was The Script From Hell version of The Warrior Apprentice. Barrayarans building fires to cook in spaceships my freaking ass. :rolleyes: But I agree, Vorkosiverse, or Wide Green World and 5 Gods would all make great movies, and Spirit Ring as juvenile movie would be good. > [@DrFidelius](#): > > How about “Buckaroo Banzai Against the World Crime League?” Still waiting for it… ---
**Author:** ![psiekier](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psiekier/32/116_2.png) [@psiekier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psiekier)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2012, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youd-like-to-see-or-even-make/614649/78 "2012-03-07T16:31:47Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#): > > How about “Buckaroo Banzai Against the World Crime League?” _When_ do we we want to see it? REAL SOON! I would vote for John Steakley’s _[Armor](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armor_(novel))_ and Joe Haldeman’s _[The Forever War](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forever_War)_ - or maybe _[Forever Peace](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forever_Peace)_, as long as LL Cool Jay is not allowed to play Julian Class. They’re all fascinating stories that include powered armor as a more-or-less essential piece of the plot (especially the Steakley novel), and I’ve yet to see a movie do it right. Perhaps it’s the problem that Verhoeven explained with adapting the “Bug War” movie to be _Starship Troopers:_ if you cover up all the actors’ faces, how will you know which characters to root for? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2012, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youd-like-to-see-or-even-make/614649/79 "2012-03-07T18:11:09Z")
> [@psiekier](#): > > They’re all fascinating stories that include powered armor as a more-or-less essential piece of the plot (especially the Steakley novel), and I’ve yet to see a movie do it right. Perhaps it’s the problem that Verhoeven explained with adapting the “Bug War” movie to be _Starship Troopers:_ if you cover up all the actors’ faces, how will you know which characters to root for? Well, there’s _Iron Man_, which shows CGI can do armor. Identifying the characters would be an issue but you could get around it by having non-uniform armor suits. You could even fan-wank it into plausibility be saying that the troops need to be able to visually identify each other in the field. I’ve even seen this idea used in SF (I think Larry Niven or John Varley) where characters gave their spacesuits personalized paint jobs so they’d know who’s who. ---
**Author:** ![Antinor01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecae2f/32.png) [@Antinor01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antinor01)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2012, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youd-like-to-see-or-even-make/614649/80 "2012-03-07T18:50:24Z")
> [@mhendo](#): > > Another one i’d like to see would be the First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant (Lord Foul’s Bane; The Illearth War; The Power that Preserves). I think that would make a cracking fantasy trilogy, and i like the fact that the “hero” is also, for much of the time, something of a self-centered asshole.. A top choice of mine as well. Though I doubt it will ever happen or if it does they will mangle the story beyond recognition. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youd-like-to-see-or-even-make/614649.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-youd-like-to-see-or-even-make/614649.md?page=5)