Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Forums

I'm rather surprised about The Dark Tower myself.  King has been a Hollywood darling for years.  You'd think someone would option that series.  I think HBO could do an excellent job of it.  Of course, they'd sex it up a bit but the quality would be very high. 

I read the The Chronicles of Amber and I agree that would make a nice TV series as well.  I can see SyFy making that one and it distresses me no end.

Speaking of SyFy, their adaptation of The Riverworld Saga airs tonight so set your DVR.  It's a four hour mini-series.  I think it was made years ago but never aired?  Something like that.  I'll record it and give a few minutes at least.

As far as The Foundation Series goes you may get your wish - and live to regret it.  There has been a lot of chatter online about Roland Emerich making it into a movie.  Not really sure where it stands as of now because some other reports refute it.  It appears to be on and off with each new story.  This one I'm not sure of.  Love the series but I don't know if it would translate well.  Emerich mentioned how poorly received I, Robot was from fans of the book and he'd be reluctant to do the same with/to Foundation so that's a good sign I guess. To me there would need to be a massive re-write to get it to the screen and I don't like the sound of that at all.  I don't want it turned into another action flick.

Yes it was.  If they had just made the movie without trying to be I, Robot the book I might have liked it for an action SF flick.

I'm just tired of the constant remakes of old SF films like The Day the Earth Stood Still or Planet of the Apes that aren't improvements on the originals and usually end up being special effects extravaganzas with crap acting and dialog and silly plot changes to "make them more relevant to today's audience."

I want to see new films based on the great body of excellent SF/F books and stories that we all want to see on the big screen.  REAL science fiction, not just action flicks with killer robots, shaky-cam work or the other trappings of SF pasted onto a bad plot.

Of course, when I hear the "good news" that someone actually is going to tackle something great like Foundation I live in fear of how bad they're going to screw it all up.  What cuts are they going to make?  How much are they going to "dumb-it-down" for the audience?  My God, is Keanu going to be in it?

In the end all we can do is hope for the best.   Every once in awhile we'll get something great amidst the usual crap.

I think I fall in the middle on the movie adaptations.  I usually get excited about new SF/F movies even though I have low expectations.  I prefer my SF movies to be unheard of though rather than adaptations of classics.  Less let down if I don't have preconceived notions about how characters should look or how the story should unfold.  I won't watch a movie if I intend to read the book later but if it's a book that I'm only mildly interested in I'll let someone else imagine it for me.  I'm lazy like that.

I still hold out hope that these favorites might get made properly and I'll usually go see them unless someone waves me off of them.  I figure I should support the movie makers for an honest effort so more SF films will get made thereby increasing the odds that we might get another Lord of the Rings rather than another I, Robot.

My biggest gripe with adaptations is that they usually end up being poor representations of the written work and while those of us in the know can avoid and disown them, on behalf of our beloved genre, those unfamiliar with the original go to see it, realize it's crap and it just confirms to them their suspicions that sci-fi is all lasers and explosions with no substance.  I'd prefer that people see the genre at it's best and perhaps grow to demand better from the movies they support.

On your subject of The Dark Tower, the verdict is in today: Ron Howard.  It could have been worse.

I think my 1982 illustrated special edition of The Dark Tower just gained a few cents.

I've read a few of King's books but I'm content to watch the movies that inevitably come from them.  The Dark Tower series has some sizable gaps between volumes.  I've heard some others say they had to struggle through some of the middle books.

I was going to give Under the Dome a try but I saw it at the library and decided it was just too long to attempt.  I'm just not that interested to go 1,000 pages.