# Rendezvous with Rama-are they actually making this? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 15, 2003, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rendezvous-with-rama-are-they-actually-making-this/207576 "2003-10-15T14:46:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2003, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rendezvous-with-rama-are-they-actually-making-this/207576/21 "2003-10-16T01:48:12Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by fiddlesticks \* > \*\*[Jedi wave] > There were no sequels to **Rendezvous with Rama**. > [Jedi wave] \*\* Didn’t work. I still remember them :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2003, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rendezvous-with-rama-are-they-actually-making-this/207576/22 "2003-10-16T01:51:46Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by JustPlainBryan \* > \*\*It would be too much of a downer for Hollywood. > > Unless, of course, they screw with the entire storyline to create a happy ending, but that would be even sadder. \*\* I thought it was a happy ending. All of humanity, except one, going to the OverMind is not a happy ending? Except maybe for the Overlords. ---
**Author:** ![Journeyman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/779978/32.png) [@Journeyman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Journeyman)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2003, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rendezvous-with-rama-are-they-actually-making-this/207576/23 "2003-10-16T01:51:53Z")
I, on the other hand, happily forget them. Hoping it’ll be a well done, intelligent science fiction film, as befits a book full of mysteries and wondrous enigmas. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2003, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rendezvous-with-rama-are-they-actually-making-this/207576/24 "2003-10-16T02:00:57Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Cervaise \* > \*\*I had the understanding that Lee did most of the writing and Clarke’s contribution was basically to check off “okay” at the top with a mango-stained hand. 😉 > > Sorry. I hated the sequels. Got about two-thirds through the third one and said, why am I bothering? and stopped. > > \*\* Consider yourself lucky. They got worse as they went on. For a real treat read Cradle by Lee, after an idea by Clarke. It has some of the worst writing I’ve ever experienced in an sf book, and I’ve read Galaxy 666 by Pel Torro. ---
**Author:** ![Nanoda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Nanoda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nanoda)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2003, 7:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rendezvous-with-rama-are-they-actually-making-this/207576/25 "2003-10-16T07:36:40Z")
Shoot. I bought book 1 'cause I like Clarke. Then I had to get the rest (there’s like, 4 or 5, right?) just 'cause. I’ve made it up to #3 in the past year, but I’ve got to say… finding weird stuff that doesn’t get explained combined with protagonists with outrageous personality problems gets old. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![kiwiboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/35a633/32.png) [@kiwiboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kiwiboy)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2003, 8:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rendezvous-with-rama-are-they-actually-making-this/207576/26 "2003-10-16T08:18:42Z")
I hope Rendezvous with Rama gets made, I loved the book and never bothered with the sequals. BUt I’d like the see _The City and the Stars_ made into a good movie even more. ---
**Author:** ![Odinoneeye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/97f17d/32.png) [@Odinoneeye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odinoneeye)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2003, 9:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rendezvous-with-rama-are-they-actually-making-this/207576/27 "2003-10-16T09:45:47Z")
Actually, I don’t think it will make a good movie. Very few movies can work when nothing really happens. Although it could work for a purely cinematography standpoint if they really get the feel of the size of the thing. I like the sequals, but more for the characters than the story, whereas the first book the characters weren’t as prominant as the ship. > [@](#): > > For a real treat read Cradle by Lee, after an idea by Clarke. It has some of the worst writing I’ve ever experienced in an sf book When I read the first line, I was thinking “God no, that book was awful.” Then I read the rest of it. ---
**Author:** ![Erroneous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71c47a/32.png) [@Erroneous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Erroneous)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2003, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rendezvous-with-rama-are-they-actually-making-this/207576/28 "2003-10-16T11:24:48Z")
> [@](#): > > For a real treat read Cradle by Lee, after an idea by Clarke. So _that’s_ what the deal was with Cradle. I didn’t mind the three Clarke & Lee Rama sequels (in the same way that I don’t mind Chichton [for example], even though I know they’re not always what you’d call ‘good’ books), so I thought I’d give Cradle a try. Yeeechhsh. WTF was that? Anyway, a movie based on the original Rama book could be really good, or it could be Hollywoodised beyond all recognition (such as has apparently happened with the forthcoming I, Robot movie). Personally, I’m doubtful that it’ll ever even happen, given that it’s been in ‘pre-production’ for years. ---
**Author:** ![paulberserker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c4cdca/32.png) [@paulberserker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/paulberserker)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2003, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rendezvous-with-rama-are-they-actually-making-this/207576/29 "2003-10-16T11:38:43Z")
still, if Fincher gets his act together, ill definetly go see. im gonna go get these Rama books, see whats happening. only then can i judge if theyve made a pie out of it. like they did with Hannibal. not sci-fi i grant you, but could it have been any worse compared to the book? ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2003, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rendezvous-with-rama-are-they-actually-making-this/207576/30 "2003-10-16T13:39:13Z")
**Rendevous with Rama** is a ‘\*Wow - loolitthat big structure’ \*book; nothing else interesting really happens; it makes you think about the possibility of megascale engineering, but not much else. **Orbitsville** by Bob Shaw is another; a movie that falls into this category is _Star Trek - the Motion Picture_, and nothing much happens in that either. However some '_Wow - loolitthat big structure’ \* books do have stories attached- Niven’s \*\* Ringworld_\* has a nifty detective story built in, and Greg Bear’s **Eon** has lots of things to say- so perhaps the filmmakers should be looking elsewhere. * * * SF worldbuilding at [http://www.orionsarm.com/main.html](http://www.orionsarm.com/main.html) ---
**Author:** ![h.sapiens](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e0b2c6/32.png) [@h.sapiens](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/h.sapiens)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2003, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rendezvous-with-rama-are-they-actually-making-this/207576/31 "2003-10-16T14:09:38Z")
Hey, if they ever make _Childhood’s End_ into a movie, who wants to bet there will be people who say that the opening is stolen from _Independence Day_? ---
**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:** [October 16, 2003, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rendezvous-with-rama-are-they-actually-making-this/207576/32 "2003-10-16T14:35:55Z")
> [@](#): > > Actually, I don’t think it will make a good movie. Very few movies can work when nothing really happens. Although it could work for a purely cinematography standpoint if they really get the feel of the size of the thing. Hmmm…One could make the same argument about **2001: A Space Odyssey** (and some have). There’s potential there – and things _do_ happen; it’s not just “Look at that big THing!”. It’s true that you won’t find character development, or any kind of a resolution. But you could say the same of 2001. The interior of Rama could be rendered beautifully with CGI, if a beautiful movie is what you’re after. As for other big structures, I don’t know of any good books about Dyson Spheres. Bob Shaw wrote two – “Orbitsville” and “Orbitsville Departure”, but his point was that they’re so damned big, they swallow civilizations and nothing happens. There’s a Star Trek novel and there was one Star Trek episode nominally about Dyson Spheres, but they weren’t really – the sphere was basically a prop/McGuffin. Dyson spheres get mentioned in other books, like James Hogan’s “Giant’s Star”, but they’re effectively off-camera. (I haven’t read Bear’s “Eon”). It seems like nobody knows what to do with a Dyson Sphere once they get it into a story. “Rama” and Niven’s Ringworld, although both huge structures, don’t seem as featureless as those Dyson spheres, and their creators gave them interesting inhabitants and quirks. (I might also add Tony Rothman’s giant world from “The World in Round”, too.) ---
**Author:** ![paulberserker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c4cdca/32.png) [@paulberserker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/paulberserker)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2003, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rendezvous-with-rama-are-they-actually-making-this/207576/33 "2003-10-16T14:59:40Z")
whats a dyson sphere? (whoosh! its obviously some big massive shpere) ---
**Author:** ![vibrotronica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/a9a28c/32.png) [@vibrotronica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vibrotronica)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2003, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rendezvous-with-rama-are-they-actually-making-this/207576/34 "2003-10-16T15:22:40Z")
I’m going to keep pushing this idea until someone takes it up. **Rendezvous With Rama** and **Childhood’s End** are two perfect examples of classic science fiction texts that would work much better animated than live action. Anime steals from them all the time– **Blue Gender** , for example, is closer to the Heinlein version of **Starship Troopers** than that godawful movie. It would be much cheaper to write the scripts and hire some Japanese directors and animators to produce them, either in feature length or classic anime TV serial form. With less money invested, the writers and directors would be free to take more chances, content wise. And the smaller budgets would also mean they had a better chance of making their money back. They would have two built-in audiences–science fiction fans and American anime fans that would finally get something written in English and thus avoid the bad translations and mysterious Japanese cultural tropes that have so far relegated anime to the ghetto on this side of the Pacific. These audiences have some significant overlap but not 100%. And then you could sell the dub and subtitled versions to the already-primed Asian market. ---
**Author:** ![av8rmike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/edb3f5/32.png) [@av8rmike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/av8rmike)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2003, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rendezvous-with-rama-are-they-actually-making-this/207576/35 "2003-10-16T16:53:26Z")
[What is a Dyson Sphere?](http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=209) Basically, it’s a sphere (or by extension, any structure) large enough to enclose a star. I’m sure someone will come along with even better links. I’ll also chime in here and say that I thought that the Rama idea should have ended with the first book. The second was kind of interesting, but the rest got way too self-important as they tried to explain too much. I don’t remember enough of the first book to comment on whether it’d make a good film. If they do, it’ll be like the movie _Sphere_, that had a good cast but pretty much slipped under everyone’s radar. **Cervaise** , not that I’m doubting you, but do you have a cite for those “top of your head” figures? Seems pretty unbelievable. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2003, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rendezvous-with-rama-are-they-actually-making-this/207576/36 "2003-10-16T17:15:26Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by av8rmike \* > \*\*Cervaise, not that I’m doubting you, but do you have a cite for those “top of your head” figures? Seems pretty unbelievable. Nothing I can easily link to, unfortunately. It comes from over a decade of close observation of and occasional involvement with the industry. If anything, I’m lowballing the figures. Based on the vast amount of material that gets worked on but never produced, it’s quite possible for someone to make quite a tidy living in Hollywood without ever seeing a single project come anywhere near a movie camera. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2003, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rendezvous-with-rama-are-they-actually-making-this/207576/37 "2003-10-16T21:04:23Z")
Well, here’s how I envision the movie turning out, because, y’all are right, “wow, lookit that” movies are too slow and boring to pass muster in Hollywood: They’ll have to play up what action there is. That means we’ll have gripping sequences on the piloting of the Dragonfly along Rama’s zero-gravity hub and the subsequent crash. Surely they’ll play up the appearance (and capture) of the three-legged spider things a great deal. The thawing of the central lake will surely be the major action sequence, and I reckon that can be turned into a pretty good one. Imagine, all that ice rumbling and splitting and erupting. Could be excellent, eh? And then, of course, there’ll be the grand finale, Rama approaching Earth and the sun and the nuclear device… overall, I reckon there’ll be enough action to sustain it. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2003, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rendezvous-with-rama-are-they-actually-making-this/207576/38 "2003-10-16T22:20:52Z")
BTW, there was a Rendezvous with Rama game a long time ago. I had a copy for the C64, but never had time to get very far. The problem with any movies set in Dyson Spheres (or books for that matter) is that they are just settings, not plots. Ringworld worked because it included a pretty standard trek plot. (Not Star Trek - just journey). And good characters. RwR ended with a nice mystery - but alas, Lee’s solution was utterly feeble. I’d love to see the real solution sometime, but it’s not likely. ---
**Author:** ![JustPlainBryan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/57b2e6/32.png) [@JustPlainBryan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JustPlainBryan)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2003, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rendezvous-with-rama-are-they-actually-making-this/207576/39 "2003-10-16T23:53:15Z")
For **Voyager** , in response to his post about “Childhood’s End”: From what I remember, not all humanity crossed over. Only the final generation. The rest lingered on, slowly dying off one by one until there were only a handful left. And those very last ones competed in terrible bloodsports to hasten the end. Further, the evolved humans who did cross over destroyed the Earth while playing around with their new powers. Humanity as we know it was completely wiped out in lieu of these new super beings. No, I don’t think it was a very happy ending at all. ---
**Author:** ![Tyrrell\_McAllister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tyrrell_mcallister/32/16772_2.png) [@Tyrrell\_McAllister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tyrrell_McAllister)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2003, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rendezvous-with-rama-are-they-actually-making-this/207576/40 "2003-10-17T04:55:12Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CalMeacham \* > \*\*As for other big structures, I don’t know of any good books about Dyson Spheres. Bob Shaw wrote two – “Orbitsville” and “Orbitsville Departure”, but his point was that they’re so damned big, they swallow civilizations and nothing happens. There’s a Star Trek novel and there was one Star Trek episode nominally about Dyson Spheres, but they weren’t really – the sphere was basically a prop/McGuffin. Dyson spheres get mentioned in other books, like James Hogan’s “Giant’s Star”, but they’re effectively off-camera. (I haven’t read Bear’s “Eon”). \*\* There is also Stephen Baxter’s [_The Time Ships_](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0061056480/qid=1066366679/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/002-8081378-3192837), a sequal to H. G. Wells’s _The Time Machine_. A few of the chapters take place in a Dyson sphere built by the Morlocks. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rendezvous-with-rama-are-they-actually-making-this/207576.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rendezvous-with-rama-are-they-actually-making-this/207576.md?page=3)