[QUOTE=Evil Captor]
The Amber series by Roger Zelazny would make an incredible SF soap opera – because it IS a soap opera, with two incredibly extended monarchic families: the Courts of Chaos and the Court of Amber – vying for control of reality itself. It would absolutely ROCK, and the special effects budget cuold be really cheap.
But for the series to be any good, the writing would have to be topnotch and there’s the rub …
[/QUOTE]
I would actually pay to see that, but I am too afraid they would screw it up royally.
I’ve always though that Glen Cook’s Black Company novels could be made into an excellent (fantasy) TV series. There’s at least 8 seasons worth of stuff from just what he’s written, and I’m sure people could branch off from it pretty easily.
[QUOTE=A Monkey With a Gun]
But just for shits and giggles, imagine Freddy Mercury singing “A Wing and a Prayer”.
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…oh my…that would be like looking at the face of God…
It would be great to see good filmed or tv versions of the John Carter of Mars stories, and the Amber novels. But those would be adaptations of literary works that have never been filmed, not recycling.
I wonder what could be done with “Man from Uncle”.
If it were British tv, I’d suggest a Quatermass series.
Though, Bladwin’s right in that it can’t be recycled if it’s never been filmed, it’s my thread and we can go a bit away from the OP if we want to. I give you: John Carter of Mars set for release in 2009. Made by Pixar to boot!
[QUOTE=Evil Captor]
The Amber series by Roger Zelazny would make an incredible SF soap opera – because it IS a soap opera, with two incredibly extended monarchic families: the Courts of Chaos and the Court of Amber – vying for control of reality itself. It would absolutely ROCK, and the special effects budget cuold be really cheap.
But for the series to be any good, the writing would have to be topnotch and there’s the rub …
[/QUOTE]
Yeah and Roger isn’t around to defend his creation (even tho that didn’t help Ursula), and we’ll likely get that Betancourt guy penning scripts. <shudder> Still, if I had confidence in the people involved AND the FX budget did the Amber universe justice, I might back it.
Not a remake exactly, but the suggestions for It’s About Time got me thinking: everyone knows* that cavemen didn’t live with dinosaurs; or for that matter, cavemen didn’t carry clubs around with them all the time, dress in ragged furs or walk semi-upright.
But what if you had a series about time travelers who find themselves in what might be called the Fictional Past? Instead of journeying to the past that modern scholars are sure existed, they keep ending up in a quasi-past or para-past that reflects all the totally unrealistic cliches’ that have accumulated in the popular mindset. For example, they visit medieval England and find the knights literally rescuing princesses from fire-breathing dragons? They visit ancient Egypt and it’s like Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments? A 10th century middle east straight out of The Arabian Knights, etc. You could have lots of fun with the time travelers coping with the sheer unreality of their situation.
[QUOTE=Lumpy]
Not a remake exactly, but the suggestions for It’s About Time got me thinking: everyone knows* that cavemen didn’t live with dinosaurs; or for that matter, cavemen didn’t carry clubs around with them all the time, dress in ragged furs or walk semi-upright…
[/QUOTE]
S M Stirling’s The Sky People shows us an “alternate” Venus. Instead of the blasted Hell revealed by probes, we’ve got a steaming jungle planet, full of creatures from Earth’s past. Pterodactyls & saber tooth cats. Oafish ape-men & bootyfull female warriors. An “alternate” space race pushes the exploration by dashing Earth-humans. From the Acknowledgments:
Plot & characterization are pretty basic. But subtle works of great literature can be difficult to adapt to the screen. Many excellent special effects!
Upcoming sequel: In the Halls of the Crimson Kings. (Mars, of course.)