Larry Niven announced this weekend that James Cameron has bought the rights to make a movie of Ringworld. Cameron must have really wanted it, since the person who owned the movie rights had been sitting on it for years.
No word on anything further than that, but we do now know why the Ringworld is unstable – it hit an iceberg.
Yaaaaaaaaaaayy!
::does happy dance::
That is – I think I’m happy. This book is right up in my top ten favorites of all time, and I hope Cameron does a good job. Wasn’t it Quincy Jones who was sitting on it all this time? And wouldn’t Patrick Stewart make a good Louis Wu?
So does Michael Dorn get to play Speaker? What about Nessus?
I’m afraid.
I’m very afraid.
Having eagerly awaited the first “Lord of the Rings” movie, and the first “Dune”, and “Starship Troopers”, this does not fill me with delight. The last two would’ve been fantastic movies if they’d been called something else…
I’ll await your reviews - I don’t trust the mainstream media on this.
The sci-fi channel did a remake of Dune and it was about 5 hours. It was very faithful to the book (with exceptions I wasn’t offended by), although the backdrops were a bit cheesey at times. As sumptuous as I found the David Lynch original, I found it to be way to rushed and took too many liberties.
Anyway, I would love to see what Cameron and one of his big budget productions does with Ringworld. I’d like to see someone a lot younger than Patrick Stewart in the Louis Wu role though. W want Clair Danes as Tina Brown though.
You mean Teela Brown. I’m pretty sure the editor of TALK magazine doesn’t appear in Ringworld.
Why, oh why must someone shout Patrick Stewart’s name for the lead in any science fiction movie that’s produced? He is totally wrong for Louis Wu, who’s 500 years old but looks early-middle-aged thanks to boosterspice. Plus, I believe he’s Asian.
I bet Nessus will be a CGI effect, voice by John Leguizamo.
John Leguizamo!? Nessus’s voice should be a throaty contralto. I think Kathleen Turner would be perfect for the part.
A whole movie about Molly Ringworld?!?
Great.
What, not that Ringworld? Oh, sorry.
Some minor spoilers for Ringworld and Known Space. Beware if you haven’t read the books and you care about minor spoilers!
I dunno…I love Niven’s Known Space, but there’s so much background to it by the time you get to Ringworld that I’m not sure how you’re gonna explain it all.
Off the top of my head:
A) Boosterspice/the Body Banks/the Birthright Lottery which are needed to understand the whole “Teela” Gene thing. (Remember: in the first book it wasn’t a fraud)
B) The Man-Kzin Wars/Outsiders/Hyperdrive (if it isn’t dealt with in some detail, Nessus’s big revelation about Speaker’s being a “tame” Kzin becomes meaningless)
C) Pak Protectors/Tree of Life (try to explain that in few sentences!)
D) The Slaver-Tnuctipun War/Stasis Boxes (remember the Sunflowers?) And Ringworld, in book one was thought to be a Slaver artifact, right (or was it a Pak artifact?)
There are more integral items (the Core explosion/General Products Hulls/the Puppeteer exodus) to the story, but you get my point.
Sure, you could throw these items out, but they’re what make Ringworld interesting. It’s not the fairly flat characters (Speaker’s the only one who’s fully developed. Best line, paraphrased “The meat is not fresh” said Speaker, dubiously watching Louis grill a steak with his laser “but I’m not certain that cremation is the answer.”), it’s not the plot, which is a “Wizard of Oz” type story (spend most of the book travelling somewhere to get home only to find your method of getting home was right where you started), it’s the ideas that make it a classic.
Niven, in his prime was the most explosively imaginiative SF writer ever, IMHO, tossing out more ideas in a single short-story than other writers might toss out in their entire careers. I’d love to see some of his stuff adapted: World of Ptavvs (with a different title) would be great. A Gift From Earth? Maybe. Some of the Beowolf Schaffer stories? Wonderful! But Ringworld? I dunno.
Fenris (who thinks if anyone could pull this off, James Cameron might)
Oh, I don’t know about that, Fenris. The three Ringworld books remain the only Larry Niven novels I’ve read, and I didn’t have any trouble with the backstory. In a movie, a larger story can be implied but won’t have to be specifically laid out. General Products hulls, the Man-Kzin wars etc. can largely be ignored, or touched on lightly without impeding the story.
Just think about all the made-up shit George Lucas referred to in Episode IV: the Clone Wars, Obi-Wan’s early career, the long history of the Jedi and the old republic. The references to the other Known Space stories needn’t be any more cumbersome than those.
Hmm. If only Titanic’s hull had been made of scrith, huh?
And incidentally, since this is a Ringworld thread, I’ll go on record here: I’m in a small minority of readers who thought The Ringworld Engineers was just as entertaining as Ringworld.
That said, it should also be noted that the third book, The Ringworld Throne, was really really really really really really really really really awful. Really.
I’d heard it was Melvin Van Peebles who owned the rights, many years ago.
I too think that Patrick Stewart is WAY too old to be playing Louis Wu. I’m thinking Roland Gift would be perfect for the part.
Whoever plays Teela has to be fairly young - I believe her character was a young-looking 18. I also seem to recall that she was fairly tall, but it’s been a while since I read it. Maybe Julia Stiles?
Speaker probably needs to be a CGI effect - we’re talking about an 8 foot tall biped with shaped like a cross between a tiger and a weasel. His voice actor needs to be someone who doesn’t mind his voice being made nearly unrecognizable by special sound effects. I agree that Kathleen Turner would be a wonderful choice for Nessus.
I’m thinking Louis Wu will end up being played by Jackie Chan or Jet Li. Maybe Chow-Yun Fat.
Nessus-- I dunno, I dunno. I’m thinking more masculine than Kathleen Turner.
Speaker will end up being played by The Rock. Or Tiny Lister.
Teela Brown? Britney Spears will kill for the role, but I’m hoping for Sarah Michelle Gellar.
Oddball choices for sure, but this is James Cameron we’re talking about here.
Nessus should most definitely not sound masculine. His voice is always described as a very sexy female human voice (except when he is talking to Speaker). And having an Asian play Louis would go against his description in the book - the only thing Asian about him is his name and the way he dresses, his physical appearance is the product of centuries of indiscriminate Flatlander breeding. That’s why I think Roland Gift would be excellent for the role - he’s about the right age and he doesn’t look like any one particular race.
Larry mentioned the name of the person who owned the rights, but I don’t recall it – it was some hack producer who basically ripped him off.* Cameron went to a lot of trouble to get those rights (the producer turned him down in the past and only changes his mind last Friday), so there’s a good chance he’s serious about this.
*When you sell your book to the movies, you first sell an option. Then the producer pays further to pick up that option. There may also be a payment when the film actually goes into production. However, Niven didn’t set a time limit on how long the producer could hold the option (a common mistake). Thus, the same guy has been holding the rights for nearly 30 years. It’s also possible that Niven will get only what’s specified in the original 30-year-old contract if the film goes into production – unless Cameron decides to give more out of the goodness of his heart.
I agree. Louis was annoyed at one point at how sexy Nessus’s voice sounded. I’m thinking Tina “Niiiccccce…and easy” Turner or Eartha “Catwoman…prrrrrrrr” Kitt.
Yowza!
Fenris, going to take a cold shower.
I’ll withdraw my earlier contention that Louis should be played by an Asian; really, notwithstanding his name, he lives in a future that’s such a melting-pot that the best look will be a multi-racial one. Like if Rae Dawn Chong has a brother.
But even if we went with an Asian, Chow-Yun Fat, Jackie Chan and Jet Li would all be wrong. There’s no martial-arts action in the story, and Louis’ English shouldn’t be heavily accented.
I’d rather Speaker wasn’t a CGI effect, as this can lead to JarJar-ism, and besides I want to have the feeling there’s a real personality under that fur. No ideas on who would do it, though.
Oh, and the John Leguizamo thing was a joke. It seems he’s made half his career out of voicing CGI effects.
Granted, Flatlanders in Ringworld are very mixed-breed, but that’s a look that’s impossible to replicate right now. It’s gonna be the first thing tossed out the window by Cameron.
I also think Nessus’ sexy contralto will be gone, because it won’t be accepted in a mainstream audience. Given the choice between Nessus’ fragile hold on sanity, and having a sexy voice, I take the fragile hold on sanity any day.
Am I saying that it’s more acceptable for a male to have a tenuous grasp on his emotions-- yes, I guess I am.
Yay! Whoa! Wow! Yippee! Discworld movie! Discworld mov…
Oh. Damn.
I’m thinking here-Cameron can probably raise a pretty big budget, but for the truly “GNP” kind of sum needed to do the book justice, I think he’ll need corporate sponsorship. Here’s my suggestion: He should get in touch with the makers of Hula-Hoops and offer to have the whole Ringworld fashioned in the form of that delicious crunchy potato snack. Hey, Cammy-baby, if you get this message, call me. We’ll do lunch.
Huh?
Are you seriously claiming that mixed-race people don’t exist now? Most Hollywood actors tend to be pretty clearly racially defined, true, but there are lots and lots of people in this world who look somewhere in between the major racial “types.”
I thought Roland Gift was a reasonable suggestion – he has that “a little bit of everything” look. I have no idea if he can act, though.
Jonathan Pryce would be another possibility, though he’s looks more obviously Caucasian (and he might be looking older than one would want Louis Wu to be).