Wow, that wouldn’t be a completely unconnected swipe/personal attack from someone I haven’t interacted with in months?
Shit, who’d have thunk it.
You might want to reread what I wrote:
“Coming up with some ideas that were routinely ripped off by better science fiction works, from book to film to video game, doesn’t make the original book any the more readable.”
I accepted that he came up with some ideas that other books, films, games etc routinely ripped off/were inspired by. The difference was, those works were actually good.
I remember that book. I’ve read it twice, once when it came out and then again several years later. It is very good. And Matt Damon would be a great choice to play Dominic/Thomas (don’t know how they’d pull off the identical twin thing though.) But it is a damn long book. It covers a lot of ground, from the main characters’ childhood in the early 60s to their adult life in the '90s, and then on top of that there’s the Italian grandfather’s journal stuck right in the middle of the book, which not only tells of his life as an immigrant in the early 1900s but has flashbacks to his childhood in Italy as well, and then inside that journal there’s also the recollections of “The Monkey” (the Italian grandfather’s house servant) and flashbacks to her childhood, and…and…and…
It’s way too epic of a book to be captured in a movie.
I think the problem here is that it is difficult to argue with any force that a book widely considered a classic that contained ideas that inspired many other writers and artists to copy bits of it is objectively “fucking awful”.
Sure, not to your taste. Tastes vary. Taste is subjective.
Sure it is. He had some ideas regarding the mobile infantry (any modern ‘space marine’ idea is derived from it), but the story is dreadful. Unreadably so.
Except of course it’s not.
Jake, China Town, etc…
The story is one with so many fans that it beggars credulity to believe that it’s truly “unreadable”. That it is, by Amanset’s own claims, a wildly influential novel makes it absurd to claim it’s horrible. The issue is that Amanset personally dislikes the book, and does so largely because he’s constructed a highly flawed literary analysis of the book in which instead of a story about humanity versus a race of alien, intelligent, rapacious insects, it’s an allegory about fascism, colonialism, and the state of Israel.
So… pointing out that you’ve stated that you believe that Starship Troopers is an allegory for fascism/colonialism/Israel is somehow a personal attack against you? Your own words attack you now? Really?
And pointing out your mistaken literary analysis of a book, now, is unconnected to your continued discussion of that same book, now? If you insist.
What a great book. I think Hollywood would mess it up though. They tend to make WWI movies more artsy and romantic
Charles Dickens and Jane Austen are widely regarded as excellent authors. They bore me to tears. If I have a choice between reading a free Jane Austen novel and paying to read another novel, I’ll pay, and be glad.
Still, apparently many, many people love both writers. I’m not going to say that they’re awful writers. I’ll say that I don’t care for those two authors, even though they are very well regarded.
And I loved *Starship Troopers *(the book). Heinlein tends to be preachy, but he can also really tell a story. Many science fiction themes were done first by Heinlein, and in some cases he STILL hasn’t been beat.
That’s fine and understandable, of course. Different strokes and all that. I’d tend to agree with you, I find Dickens dry to the point of intellectual discomfort. But he was a good writer for his time, and I’d just choose to ignore his stuff instead of read it. Same deal for Austin.
And, of course, military scifi adventure isn’t for everybody and some folks just won’t like Heinlein, but the pacing, verbiage, thematic content and plot development are all first rate, even if you don’t really agree with Heinlein’s point in the novel. De gustubus and such, but calling the book crap because someone doesn’t like it is a silly argument.
I’ve heard rumors of Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse being made into a movie but I haven’t heard anything definite yet. The last I’ve heard is that there is going to be another Jack Ryan movie but not necessarily based on Clancy’s books. No word if it’s Harrison-Ryan or Affleck-Ryan but I’d be Affleck since he probably works for cheaper.
In any case, Without Remorse could be awesome in the right hands. You’ve got a story of love, tragedy and revenge with a likeable hero who is also a serious badass. He’s also a Navy SEAL and they’re very popular right now. He kills a lot of scumbags in the book and it would easily translate to film. Even the decompression chamber sequence could be incredible if done right. It could be done House-style with CGI showing the damage being done to every part of his body or it could be done old-school with a desperate, bleeding bastard stuck in a tiny cage. Any which way it goes I think it would be a great movie in the hands of the right director. So where is it?
As a fan of John Varley I don’t think he can ever be properly adapted to screen. Mammoth might work but Steel Beach or The Golden Globe is going to be harder.
I have to defend I, Robot. It’s not a literal adaptation of the Asimov book. It’s a sci-fi thriller with Asimov’s ideas as background. The title is just for show. The producers didn’t decide “hey, let’s adapt this Asimov novel except let’s make the female lead a hot chick in leather pants! And let’s have the robots be deadly ass-kickers! And let’s throw in a kid who can’t stop swearing!” It’s like Die Hard 2. The original concept was a standalone film until someone pointed out the obvious- it was Die Hard in an airport. At that point a conscious decision was made to turn it into a Die Hard movie.
I, Robot was like an Oscar contender if you put it next to Die Hard 2, but I get your analogy. I have always heard that the plot was basically written before someone found out they could get the rights from Asimov’s estate.
However he does mention that women are more effective as spaceship pilots and in fact the skipper of the Rodger Young is “Hot Pilot” Yvette Daladrier.
Bowie is too old to be the lead in the more recently announced (and then killed via inaction) Universal optioning of the Elric series.
So is there a rule now that all book to movie adaptation threads must always devolve into a debate about Starship Troopers? I seem to have missed that memo.
I would love to see Ender’s Game actually make it to the big screen. One of these days we might actually see it happen. I stopped holding my breath for it years ago, though.
Hey, I blame the folks who won’t let us retcon it out of existence. 
Ender’s Game would probably work a lot better as animation, rather than live action, since that gets around a lot of the difficulties with working with child actors. But that just brings in another difficulty, that of getting Americans (both studios and audiences) to take an animated movie that’s not a kids’ movie seriously.
I’ve been following the Elfquest movie quest ever since the Pinis first announced it back in the 80s. A few years ago there were some new developments, and I believe there is now a screenplay, but development seems to have fizzled. Some fans recently made a pretty amazing Elfquest trailer, which seems to have created some new interest. I’m not holding my breath, though.