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Television Media

"The Chronicles of Amber" and "The Forever War" For TV 217

Posted by Hemos from the woohoo-more-good-television dept.
DarkRabbit writes "i just noticed at the Futon Critic that the Sci-Fi channel announced April 2nd that amongst other popular pieces of fiction, Zelazney's "The Chronicles of Amber" and Haldeman's "The Forever War" will be getting the mini-series treatment by them sometime in the next year. I'm sure their adaptions will be just as contentious here as was their version of "Dune." Oh, and "Tripping the Rift" arrives as an 'Edgy-South-Park-esque' half-hour cartoon series..."
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"The Chronicles of Amber" and "The Forever War" For TV More

"The Chronicles of Amber" and "The Forever War" For TV

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  • Continuity. (Score:3, Funny)

    by saintlupus ( 227599 ) on Thursday April 04, 2002 @09:30AM (#3283622)
    Zelazney's "The Chronicles of Amber"

    I sure hope they let Corwin keep his black and silver leisure suit. It goes so well with the sword.

    And I also hope that Eric's beard is "moist" throughout the entire series, because that and the fact that Corwin hates getting little hairs down his shirt are quite possibly the most bizarre details included in the whole series.

    --saint

    • Re:Continuity. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Valdrax ( 32670 ) on Thursday April 04, 2002 @10:15AM (#3283788)
      "The Chronicles of Amber" is my favorite book series, hands-down. I've honestly feared the day that Hollywood or some TV producer finally got their hands on this series, because I have no doubt that they will completely ruin it like they have so many other of my favorites. I just can't stand having everyone's opinion of a book based off of some hack-job movie, like "Starship Troopers."

      It's not like it would be hard to do the series right with modern moviemaking technology -- it is just completely unlikely. No good book gets made into a screenplay without something getting screwed. Parts will be cut out and minor scenes and characters will be made much more important, like Irulan in the new "Dune" mini-series. You can expect every sex scene Zelazny puts off to the side to get about 5 good minutes in each episode, while Corwin and Merlin's various solioquys will probably be cut.

      I mean, why bother expecting continuity to the letter with the little details when they'll be too busy raping the spirit of the books like they do with everything else.
      • Not necessarily. As a fellow Zelazny fan (Amber in particular, but all his novels are pretty damn good...Lord of Light in particular), I admit to being guardedly hopeful about this. If I heard they were going to make a movie out of it, I'd hope the financing fell through. A miniseries, though, they might manage. I'll gladly trade away the top-notch special effects only available to major-film budgets (I've been seeing Mandor at the Keep without special effects for years now) in order to have more time available with a miniseries format.

        It all depends on how long it's going to be: if they're going to try to squeeze it out in 4 hours, it's a lost cause: they'll no doubt cut and mutate all my favorite scenes. If they get this up to a 10-12 hour effort, they could do a reasonable job. To be honest, I can probably read the whole series in not much more than 10 hours, if I was a mind. I have to think they could present it on-screen in that time.

      • Re:Continuity. (Score:2, Funny)

        by oren ( 78897 )
        Actually, if they were doing Amber as a series - *long* series - it could work, *with continuity*. The trick is to treat it in the spirit it was written. A *soap opera*.

        Think about it... what other type of production faithfully captures the endless bizantine plots, discoveries, shifting coalitions, dramatic situations with sex and/or violance, mysterious relatives popping up from nowhere (and disappearing at the same speed) around the same core *family*? Go on and on and on and on with variations on the same theme?

        I can imagine the little blurbs in the guide... "Chapter 117: Corwin impersonates father and discovers that his grandfather is the mad scientist and his grandmother is a single-horned goat.". Admit it, that's *classic* soap opera.

        Alas, since it would be produced by the SF channel, it will turn into a "Lord of the Rings" wannabe. Sigh. I guess it will have to stay as another classic "could have been", like "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" done by the Monty Python group.
      • I have no doubt that they will completely ruin it like they have so many other of my favorites.

        Personally, I couldn't stand Zelazny's prose, so by the end of book 5, reading it had become a tedious chore. I never even cracked book 6. I might like the miniseries somewhat better... Lots of gratuitious action and dialogue, which will translate well to the screen. And the books are fairly short -- all ten combined are shorter than the Lord of the Rings trilogy -- so I don't see screen time as being too big an issue.

        Besides which, pulpy novels are easier to adapt. Amber is pure pulp sci-fantasy, so it will be much harder to screw up than something as weighty as Dune.

        With the exception of NPiA, I didn't even like the books. But I'm looking forward to the miniseries.

        • Amber is pure pulp sci-fantasy

          No, it's not. It's pure pulp fantasy. It goes far beyond the realm of science.

          I liked the first two (NPiA and tSotU) but after that it went downhill. I've read all ten books about three times, though, because I still like them better than most other fantasy novels.
        • Actually, Zelazny's introspective and bemusedly world-weary style of writing is part of the whole fun of reading the stories of Corwin and Merlin. That's a major factor which will be lost when the books are made into a TV series, because few TV series actually focus on a character's internal monolouge. It's those bits of musing that make Corwin's character so strong in the first 5 books. Without that, Corwin will just be a big guy with a sword and a great sense of paranoid cunning.

    • Re:Continuity. (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I wonder if he'll be chain smoking in the series ?

  • Ohh, even better... (Score:1, Informative)

    by laeraun2 ( 472996 )
    (from the article) NEW YORK (Variety) -- A remake of the TV series "Battlestar Galactica" as a four-hour miniseries, the transformation of the mini "Firestarter: Rekindled" by Stephen King into an hourlong series Maybe I'm not as hard core manga geek type as everyone else but those two excite me more than the article topic. Imagine if they had produced Battlestar with today's computer graphic capabilites and the hype that you can generate by using the net... Oh wait, what am I doing now?

    • Re:Ohh, even better... (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      They could reanimate Lorne Green!!!
    • Battlestar Galactica was perhaps one of the worst things ever to happen to science fiction, or to television. It completed the "cutification" of science fiction as a genre (can anyone say "daggit," Noah "Boxey" Hathaway, and mock swearing?), a process begun by Star Wars, and also elevated non-actors to dubious stardom (Richard Hatch, Dirk Benedict). It took a B-grade actor from a fondly remembered Western series and tried to invest him with somber grace (Lorne Greene), all the while borrowing its storyline from Mormon mythology.

      Complete, utter crap, unless filtered through the non-discerning lens of a 6 - 12 year old's mind.
  • Wow, great! Forever war was a really good book. I also liked the sort of seqel, Forever Peace.

    It is good to see Sci-Fi find and exploit their niche. Network TV will not be willing to risk making miniseries out of hard core sci-fi.

    Twostep
    • Actually, I think Forever Peace would have been a much more "TV friendly" novel. It's a bit less deep, and the soldierboy sequences would have been amazing!
    • wasn't Forever Peace, but Forever Free.

      Both very good books, IMHO.

      Part of the feeling of irrelevance came from Joseph and Marygay's feeling of being stranded in time. ST:TNG touched on this topic one episode, though with a different treatment - the soldier who fought for a society, and is no longer able to return. In Forever War, the alienation is from cultural drift exaggerated by time dilation. In ST:TNG is was from the violence conditioning the people received in order to become soldiers.

      Which brings us back to Forever Peace, in an odd way.

      I also preferred the SciFi Dune miniseries to the old movie. I hope they do good treatments of both Forever War and Amber.

    • Re:Forever War (Score:4, Funny)

      by Genom ( 3868 ) on Thursday April 04, 2002 @10:05AM (#3283754)
      Wow, great! Forever war was a really good book. I also liked the sort of seqel, Forever Peace.

      I'm a fan of the spinoff show, Forever Knight ;P

    • Re:Forever War (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Grab ( 126025 )
      Just been bought FW for by birthday. Not bad, some interesting stuff, but it didn't seem like great or anything. Just another Vietnam-era "fighting-a-pointless-war" thing, plus teenage male fantasy stuff with compulsory promiscuity. Interesting ideas in changing society over time, but nothing outstanding ("Brave New World" but gay).

      Trouble is, most SF authors are good at coming up with ideas but crap at writing. Witness Clarke, Asimov, Bova, Bear (and Crichton just about makes SF too) - all got great ideas and concepts, but lousy execution.

      Off the topic, anyone know anything about Laurence M Janifer? I've got his book "Survivor", and that seems pretty good - pretty well-written, decent characterisation, basically an intelligent SF action book. Anyone know what his other stuff is like? I reckon that kind of thing would translate pretty well to screen.

      Grab.

      • Re:Forever War (Score:2, Insightful)

        by stu_ajh ( 260949 )
        >Just been bought FW for by birthday. Not bad, some interesting stuff, but it didn't seem like great or anything. Just another Vietnam-era "fighting-a-pointless-war" thing, plus >teenage male fantasy stuff with compulsory promiscuity. Interesting ideas in changing society over time, but nothing outstanding ("Brave New World" but gay).

        The book is really about how the experience of war seperates the poor bastards made to fight in it from the rest of society. The time-dilation plot device (tours of duty last a few month subjectively, but hundreds of years pass back on earth) is just an exaggerated metaphor for what the author felt like after returning from his own stint in Vietnam.

        I found it to be a really moving, an rather well written book. Definitelyone of the best anti-war novels I have ever read and a good contender for a place in the top ten SF novels.
      • Um ... what you may not realize is that The Forever War was the first "Vietnam-era 'fighting-a-pointless-war' thing" to be done in SF, and for that matter one of the first significant Vietnam novels in any genre. Haldeman wrote it just a couple of years after he came home, and his tour of duty was one of the worst I've ever heard of.

        As for "lousy execution" ... I can understand your criticism of the prose styles of Asimov, Bova, Bear, and Crichton, but if you really think Haldeman and Clarke are "crap at writing," then I have to wonder what writers you consider good stylists. Haldeman, particularly, writes with grace and precision which other writers in all genres would do well to emulate.
        • Check out Rama for a really clunky read. I know there's some decent Clarke stuff. But to me it all seems too clinical, too much like he'd prefer to be writing a paper on it instead of telling a story.

          I see what you mean about FW being the first out - sure, there wasn't anything to judge against. But I'm not sure it stands up too well against later versions of the theme (cf. Lord of the Rings which compares favourable to any other fantasy book).

          Grab.
          • Well, yeah, Rama was an info-dump, not a novel. But works like The City and the Stars and Fountains of Paradise (if I'm remembering the titles right -- it's been a while) are masterpieces of style as well as of ideas. And his short stories, which are numerous, tend to be even better than his novels.

            As for FW not stacking up well against later variations on the theme ... well, I honestly can't think of any works along those lines I've enjoyed as much. I'm fond of David Drake's work, but it's very different in tone from Haldeman's, and he's not the stylist Haldeman is by any means.
      • If you're hungry for good sci-fi concepts, well-executed, there's always Iain (M.) Banks [onetel.net.uk], C. J. Cherryh [cherryh.com], and Vernor Vinge [caltech.edu].

        Actually, I'm not too sure about Vinge yet, having only just discovered him, but so far he's incredible.

        HTH!

  • New Advertising Slogan (Score:3, Funny)

    by mrgaribaldi ( 162490 ) on Thursday April 04, 2002 @09:33AM (#3283639)
    "Never underestimate the power of a dark..."

  • Forever War not on TV (Score:3, Insightful)

    by nuggz ( 69912 ) on Thursday April 04, 2002 @09:35AM (#3283647) Homepage
    Well I thought it was a great book, good story.
    But I don't see how they could make it a miniseries.
    You can't communicate the same sense of irrelevance on TV that you can in a book.

    For me the fact that the characters felt so separated from the world, "They didn't know what they were fighting for".
    This is a common concern in books & movies, and would be lost. (Enders game, he goes and spends a month in his boat, Armageddon, they go out for a wild party)

    I just don't see it working.
    • Why can't you show the irrelevance of life in film? I seem to remember Seinfeld and such doing it quite well.

      When I read this article, I started seeing pictures of a confused, out of place individual at home. I saw a detached, indifferent character at war. I heard the clones explaining the futility of the whole earlier war.

      I personally feel and have always felt that Haldeman will translate wonderfully into film.
    • Just wondering how they will make it PG-13. Tons of sex and foul language in the book should be any standards a headache (let alone the poor guy who has to re-write the book for TV).
    • Well I thought it was a great book, good story. But I don't see how they could make it a miniseries. You can't communicate the same sense of irrelevance on TV that you can in a book.

      Oh, come on. Think how closely "Starship Troopers" followed the book.

      • Oh, come on. Think how closely "Starship Troopers" followed the book.

        How many times do movies follow the book anyway? IIRC the original title was "The Starship Soldier" which IMHO better fits the story.
    • You can't communicate the same sense of irrelevance on TV that you can in a book.

      Ever seen Catch-22?

      • You can't communicate the same sense of irrelevance on TV that you can in a book

      Do you mean irrelevance or irreverance? For those who haven't read it, the training regime in Forever War involves trainees responding to orders with "Fuck you, sir!" to promote independent thinking. ;-)

      I know, you do mean irrelevance, the whole futile Vietnam in Space feel. To be fair, "Space: Above and Beyond" had a good stab at that. It very nearly succeeded, but then it got canned after two series because the viewing figures were tanking. Complex morality plays don't generally go down well with Joe Sixpack. And right now, doing the story of a war based on a cultural misunderstanding might be particulary unpopular. It took a 20 year break for the Klingons to become the good guys, remember?

      • Complex morality plays don't generally go down well with Joe Sixpack.

        That's because "Joe Sixpack" can usually tell when he's being preached to instead of entertained.

        Let's face it, most of us who fell in love with morality-ladden Sci Fi stories did so when we were in our early teens and still growing into our own world-views. To be a 12 year-old and grok Heinlein might make you a little smarter than your peers... It's flattering to a kid's ego: you're not just another nerd, you're '1337! However, once you reach a certain age, it's time to stop kidding yourself that understanding the message behind Asimov's "Darwinian Pool Table" short story makes you any smarter that somebody who instead chose to spend his Sunday afternoon watching NFL games, and realize that the story you just read was kind of crappy, and even preachier than the feminist pablum your dingbat sister watches on the Lifetime channel.

        For my own part, I prefer sci-fi that asks interesting questions (like "2001") over sci-fi that crams answers down our throats ("Cube"). To each his own, but there's no need for us to go on imagining that our tastes for movies about aliens, robots, and outer-space wars makes us any better than the average slob.

        And right now, doing the story of a war based on a cultural misunderstanding might be particulary unpopular.

        Doing a "story about a war" will never be as popular as a story about people. That's why "Glory" (a nice little film about an all black regement) did much better, both critically and commercially, than "The Civil War" (a four-hour movie which did a pretty good job of re-enacting some of the major battles, but never really got you to care about anybody on the screen).

  • It's a little bit of surpise to me, because at least some time ago, domain nineprincesinamber.com was owned by Warner Bros (and redirected to their site). So, the concept has changed? Or will WB make the series for Sci-Fi? We'll see.

    Still, I hope they'll make a good movie. The book's worth it.

    • Re:Surprise? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by arivanov ( 12034 )
      In either case it will suck.

      Compared to this one Lord of the Rings is a child's play. I just do not see how you can make the Courts of Chaos or the GhostWheel in a movie today. Even having the budget for all Star War flicks combined with the budget for Titanic and Independence Day.

      I still get shudders remembering how did they vandalise Heinlein's "Starship Troupers". Dunno about Forever War but a miniseries on the Amber Chronicles will make that debacle seem like a work of high art by comparison...

      Shudder... Shudder...
  • While /. may or may not approve of the film, I think it'll be most interesting to see what everyone else thinks of their adaptation of the Forever War. I can't think of ANYTHING to hit the airwaves that deals with homosexuality in such a manner, and it's sure to raise more than a few eyebrows.

    Hope they can pull it off without watering it down.
  • Which one is that, the "War on Terrorism", or the "War on Drugs"?

  • "edgy" like south park? (Score:4, Funny)

    by d0s ( 550629 ) on Thursday April 04, 2002 @09:46AM (#3283689)

    "Tripping the Rift" will be Sci Fi's first animated series. Produced by Cine Groupe and Film Roman, the show is about a misfit group of cabinmates aboard a spaceship. Created by Chuck Austen and Chris Moeller, the series "will have the kind of edgy feel that makes 'South Park' a hit on Comedy Central," said Hammer.

    Will it have an animated piece of fecal matter called "captain's log"?

    • "Will it have an animated piece of fecal matter called "captain's log"?"

      You're surprisingly close. I found a cartoon called 'Tripping the Rift' on Kazaa, heh it was very funny. You should hunt that down and watch it!

      One little concern tho, the cartoon was a little too adult oriented, they'd have to soften it a bit for TV.

  • Tripping the Rift? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Doctor Fishboy ( 120462 ) on Thursday April 04, 2002 @09:53AM (#3283705)
    My God, how the heck will they get that on TV? The original animation had enough sexual innuendo to give any Conservative American a heart attack. Mind you, it had some excellent quotes:

    Why don't you fight without using your faggot clown powers, son? -- Chode

    Come on you lipstick wearing felch monkey! -- Chode

    Never underestimate the power of a dark clown!! -- Darph Bobo

    I'm looking forward to it!

    Dr Fish
  • Tripping the Rift sounds like a rip off of the brit classic Red Dwarf. We tried to steal the original with an American Cast and it did not work. A white rimmer.

    Nope Sc-Fi can pull it off. Hell Lexx is just plain nasty.
  • It's really gratifying to see a cable channel that's becoming more serious about its stated mission as the audience grows. It's a nice counterexample to certain music television stations that seem to have entirely forgotten about the music...

  • memories (Score:5, Funny)

    by hymie3 ( 187934 ) on Thursday April 04, 2002 @10:10AM (#3283766)
    I first read the Chronicles of Amber in the 3rd grade. I did a book report on it. And one of those shoebox things (diorama?) My diorama was from the cover of the first (second?) book: Corwin, sword in one hand, bloody severed head of talking shadow cat in the other hand.

    I can remember being puzzled why my third grade teacher kept asking me if anyone had tried to touch me in an uncomfortable way....
    • I go back and read the Chronicles of Amber every year or so. For some reason, Zelazny's writing is completely engrossing and satisfying. It will be interesting to see if the TV version can capture the magic of the books as well as some of the fantastic imagery.

  • Good Plan for Sci-Fi Network (Score:4, Interesting)

    by billtom ( 126004 ) on Thursday April 04, 2002 @10:17AM (#3283799)
    I hope that the Sci-Fi network keeps this up. Whatever one's opinions about particular TV adaptations, I think that it would be a very good idea for Sci-Fi network to make bringing classic SF literature to television as part of their mandate.

    That's a lot better reason for the channel to exist than to show continuous repeats of the same old serieses.
    • Yup. There are tons of great sci-fi books and shorts out there. Even if they don't put blockbuster effort into it, it would be great to see some of them adapted for TV. Thats one of the things I love about Outer Limits, good and great sci-fi, and none of the limitations of being stuck with the same characters and situations.

  • Speeling (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by OgdEnigmaX ( 535667 )
    Zelazny. Zelazny. Zelazny.
  • I'm not sure about this one. I'm usually pretty skeptical when it comes to series/mini-series/movies based on books I've read and liked. I'm not saying thy are all worthless of course and some very decent adaptations have been made, yet I'm allways a little disappointed. I read a lot and love the way imagination is used when reading, something that is totally devoid in videos/TV etc...
    Because of this, I'm dissapointed when I see a movie after reading the book and at the same time I'm usually not as enthralled when reading the book after seeing a movie (as it was the cas for Jurassic Park for example).
    What I'm trying to get at is that these series are cool, yes but who are they targeted to? The readers who may be dissapointed? or the people who hav'nt read the books (lots of them running about) and that may be dissapointed if tey decide to do so after? Or probably your average viewer who hs'nt read the book, will like the series and will not read the book?
    Who's a winner in this situation?

  • Sci fi will get it, show four episodes, then wait six months to show the rest all while re-running the FIRST four episodes over and over.. then cancelling the series halfway into showing the rest...

    sigh.

  • Oh dear (Score:4, Insightful)

    by oren ( 78897 ) on Thursday April 04, 2002 @10:25AM (#3283863)
    Imagine Amber as a 2-hour mini-series. It is enough to cover the first *book*, maybe. If anyone had the feeling that Lord of the Rings was rushed, this will be ten times worse.

    Then 'Forever War'. One word: Battlesuits. Certainly the special effects technology is up to showing them... but *you can't see the actor's face* in a battlesuit. My bet is they'll throw away any part the book which doesn't relate to combat action, and botch that by throwing away the suits. Result: a 'Starship Troopers' clone. Enough Said.

    WHY can't the movie industry *build* on the great SF out there? Imagine "Snow Crash" done with the technology used for "Final Fantasy". Imagine Lord of the Rings as a *series* - say, 5 hours for each book. Imagine a production of "Bridge of Birds" on the same lines as "Princes Bride". I could go on for *hours*.

    Maybe "we" ("the guild of paying movie-goers and ad-watchers") don't deserve any better. Even when a good production gets made (by accident or thanks to the courage of some producer), it tends to be a commercial flop.

    Take for example the animation move done based on "The Last Unicorn" by Peter S. Beagle. Can you believe it? serious fantasy, in animation, not targeted at kids! In a word: a flop. You probably never even heard of it, but trust me, you won't regret seeing it, even if you've read the book.

    BOOK. That's the answer, *read a good book*. Come to think of it... it doesn't have ads, it costs very favorably compared to a movie ticket, and you don't need Tivo to time-shift it!
    • Take for example the animation move done based on "The Last Unicorn" by Peter S. Beagle. Can you believe it? serious fantasy, in animation, not targeted at kids! In a word: a flop. You probably never even heard of it, but trust me, you won't regret seeing it, even if you've read the book.

      Fortunately, I've seen it on video and it is surprisingly quite good. :-) Hopefully, one of these days they'll transfer it to DVD and market it properly, because it is a much-underrated movie.
      • My bet is they'll throw away any part the book which doesn't relate to combat action, and botch that by throwing away the suits.

      Or they could have a lot of glum people staring at the stars and making psuedo-profound statements about the futility of war. Think "Space: Above and Beyond", and think how quickly that got canned.

    • Imagine Amber as a 2-hour mini-series.

      I saw a post on usenet that says it's going to be 4 hours. (It was a series list, not an individual post, so it's a little bit more authoritive than just an opinion.) So, if you do the first 5 books, that's a little less than an hour per book. The list of what you have to cut is staggering.

      You'll have to cut the story down to it's barest elements. It might be an interesting watch for non-fans, but Zelazny fans will hate it.

    • Re:Battlesuits (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Feersum Endjinn ( 26312 )
      They could easily make the Forever War without battlesuits. The point of the war was that it was dehumanizing, utterly violent, depressing, futile and unnecessary. That could be conveyed without the battle suit, although they do need something better than the Starship Troopers movie.
      Also, the aliens need to be reflexively repulsive. Like a spider on your desk, they have to be something you would shoot on sight without thinking...

      The part I'm interested in seeing is the changes in earth's culture each time the time-displaced soldiers return home. Particularly: How are they going to handle the homosexuality aspects? That plays a large part in the book.

      Finally, it wasn't clear to me at the end of the book, did the humans and aliens merge into one race, or had the aliens actually won the war and taken over humanity? I'd like to see thier take on that.
      • Finally, it wasn't clear to me at the end of the book, did the humans and aliens merge into one race, or had the aliens actually won the war and taken over humanity? I'd like to see thier take on that.

        Humans started creating clones and using them to crew their ships. The Taurans were clones without the concept of an individual.
        The other point was that it was the humans who started the war.
      • Or, they could just give the battlesuits big transparent faceplates. As you say, not a big deal really.

        How are they going to handle homosexuality? I'm more interested in how they're going to handle HETEROsexuality. They seemed to be having sex about every night, at least at first, and that's something you definately can't show on TV.

        Re: the end of the book. As the above reply said, the Taurans were all just clones of a single individual. As humans started using clones to fight the war, they somehow managed to establish a rapport with the Taurans (I think that part was a little fuzzy), and in communicating established that the Taurans had never attacked humanity, early human ships were simply very accident prone. Furthermore, had the war continued indefinately, humanity would eventually have won, because the Taurans were much less used to fighting.

      • Having recently read the re-release of the book, the ending (spoiler):

        Humanity breeds to a perfect individual, and then decides that since that individual is perfect, they'll just make clones of that person so that humanity will be as efficient as possible.

        Once a sufficient portion of humanity is made up of clones, they begin to form a group mind.

        The human group mind contacts the tauran group mind (to me, implied telepathy) and they discover:

        a) the taurans have been all-clones and group mind for a long time.

        b) the taurans didn't start the war. Actually, some humans who wanted to profiteer off of producing war-time goods started the war.

        c) the taurans are more than willing to bend over backwards to achieve peace now that they can comprehend 'human' thought.

        Also, haldeman has brought out two pseudo sequels fairly recently, neither of which measures up to the first, but both of which do help to explain some of this stuff better.
    • The initial DVD of LOTR: FOTR will be the normal 3 hour cut, but a subsequent one coming in November will have a FOUR hour cut, which should be pretty close to your wish. FYI.
    • Then 'Forever War'. One word: Battlesuits. Certainly the special effects technology is up to showing them... but *you can't see the actor's face* in a battlesuit. My bet is they'll throw away any part the book which doesn't relate to combat action, and botch that by throwing away the suits. Result: a 'Starship Troopers' clone. Enough Said.

      There is also the sexuality aspect. Can you really see that making it through a US based production company?
    • People don't want to sit and watch a 5 hour show or movie. Yes they have no problems watching tv for 5 hours, but even the best shows lose your interest after 2 hours. Again which is why we people complaining about how long a movie is when its longer than an hour and a half. Anyway, the last unicorn is an excellent movie. When i was a little kid (80s) i used to watch it all the time, and about 6 months ago i saw it again for the first time in about 15 years. It wasn't as good as i used to think it was, but it was still pretty amazing.
  • I guess I can hope against hope that they will do the same for Daniel Keys Moran's _The Continuing Time_ series, starting with Emerald Eyes...
    • One can hope, yes. There's even a screenplay, which IIRC covers both Emerald Eyes and The Long Run, which has the distinct advantage of having been written by the author of the books. I don't know if there are any current plans for production, though. Check out QueenOfAngels.com [queenofangels.com] for the latest DKM info, if you don't know about the site already.
  • There was once an Infocom-like game based on the Chronicles of Amber; does anyone recall it?

    I've been a Roger Zelazny fan for a long time, somewhere around 1985 when another student gave me "Lord of Light" to read. About that time, after reading the Chronicles, I adopted "Dworkin" as a BBS handle (and that has since morphed into my present moniker).

    Though the first Amber novels are good reads, I think his true talent was in the short story. Pick up "Unicorn Variations" if you'd like a fairly representative anthology. And of course, read "Lord of Light", one of the seminal (heh heh, he said seminal) novels of Science Fiction.

    And if you are a Chronicles fan, stay far away from the Second Chronicles -- they're horrible. There were some really interesting ideas in it such as the Ghostwheel -- a hyper computer that was designed with the assumption that different laws of physics applied, but they were written near to his end, and I think it shows.

    • Re:The game (Score:3, Informative)

      by sammy baby ( 14909 )
      There was once an Infocom-like game based on the Chronicles of Amber; does anyone recall it?


      I do. I never had the opportunity to play it, though. It was one of those games which was text input only, a la the Infocom games, but had still images representing wherever you were.

      There was also a tabletop roleplaying game, called Amber Diceless Roleplay [rpg.net], by the now-defunct (I think) Phage Press. Like the rules suggest, you played it without dice. I own the core rules - it was an interesting game, that I still hope to run sometime, after I find someone else who actually enjoyed the Amber books.
      • I still hope to run sometime

        I don't suppose you live anywere near me, do you?
      • It appears that Phage still exists, although I don't see that they have a website anywhere. (Eric! Get a site! It'll make you feel good good good...)

        For the record, I live in a suburb of Philadelphia, PA. And unfortunately, I'm kinda gamed out at the moment, but drop me a line if you're interested. :)
      • I own the core rules - it was an interesting game, that I still hope to run sometime, after I find someone else who actually enjoyed the Amber books.

        Wow, I haven't played an RPG since somewhere around 1992. I seem to recall playing a Call of Cthulhu module on one of the local BBS's at the time, but none since then. What's involved in setting up something across the 'Net?
      • I've been running an amber campaign for over a year now, and I can really recommend it. Just one thing that needs to be taken care of: More so than any other RPG you need to choose the right people to play with.
      • Phage Press is not defunct, or at least it wasn't two years ago when I met Eric Wujcik in person. Rumors had been going around about the death of his company for a couple of years thanks to one of the major catalog companies claiming that it was dead. The truth of the story is that this company had not paid Phage Press for a shipment of the Amber DRPG and its suppliment "Shadow Knight." Since Wujcik was holding off on another shipment until they paid for the first, this distributor told all the stores that were trying to order more that Phage Press was out of business and continued to refuse to pay Wujcik.

        Since Wujcik does not have enough money to fight them in court, this rumor persists to this day even though you can still get the game through other channels.

        I just wish I could remember which company it was...
        • I was actually unfamiliar with the rumor: my assumption was based on the fallacious belief that if you can't find 'em on the web, they don't exist. I kinda wish he'd put a web site together, even a two page dealie, so that people know that he, like, still exists, and stuff.

          In the meantime, though, I apologize if I helped extend the myth.
    • And if you are a Chronicles fan, stay far away from the Second Chronicles -- they're horrible.

      I don't think the Second Chronicles were as bad as you think they were. IMHO, the worst of Zelazny's writings were better than the best writings of many more widely read authors.

      I'm reminded of an old review (written by Harlan Ellison, IIRC) of the movie 'Field of Dreams.' In it, Harlan claims that most literature (at least that written by men) is about a man's search for his father. The reasons for this are fairly obvious and I won't bore you with them. By extent, there are portions of such fiction that are autobiographical. It's certainly obvious that this theme is pretty prevalent in both Amber chronicles. Read a little deeper and you just might find that the Second Chronicles is worth your time.

      Of course the end of the Chronicles is disappointing. It was meant to be. I think Zelazny made a decision not to tie up all the loose ends. The end of a real story is never wrapped up entirely. Merlin, and Zelazny, get the same ending we all do. We turn and head back to Chaos.

      • I don't think the Second Chronicles were as bad as you think they were. IMHO, the worst of Zelazny's writings were better than the best writings of many more widely read authors.

        I'd agree with this. There was a feeling that the last books were rushed, or possibly ghostwritten ( someone mentioned this may be the case). And I'm sure that the quality of the first books had raised my expectations for the second series. There were just so many little things that could have been developed better. In particular, the Logrus/Pattern matchup and its Faustian undertones seemed too obvious. When Ghostwheel was introduced I wondered if Zelazny had had a copy of Penrose's "Emperors New Mind" next to his typewriter (Wordstar?). In the end, Ghost seemed just another stereotypical AI, a HAL Jr. but with better weapons.

        I will give them another chance though.
    • Yes, I played it. About the best RPG experience I ever had. So many possibilities because of the nature of Zelazny's creation. A group of about 10 got together to start things off and then treated it as a sort of interactive story writing thing. We'd write a few pages about what we where up to then the GM would through in a plot twist and we'd have to respond with a few more pages or get together for an IRC session. Worked great for a couple month until grad school got in the way.
  • Anyone know if they're doing the entire series, or just the first five?

    I think it would be a better series if they stuck to Corwin's story. It's more complete (was the tenth book supposed to be the last? If so, it's the worst ending to a series I've ever read), and it's easier to produce (sure, you've got the Trump effect and the shadow creatures and the Pattern, but all that Logrus/Ghostweel crap is gone). Besides, it's just a better story that way. Merlin's story has always seemed tacked on, and the second-generation characters are far less interesting.
    • I, too, was a bit disappointed by the second Amber series, but let's cut Roger a little slack. If I recall correctly, it was supposed to be only three books. I think he ran against two problems that caused the work to suffer: 1) it was obvious that Merlin's story wasn't going to fit into three books, and 2) Zelazny knew he was dying and hadn't a lot of time to finish.

      Yeah, not as good as the first series, but not a bad read overall. (Of course, he's in my Top Three Authors of the 20th Century, so I'm biased.)

      Tripping the Rift...hooo, boy, that's going to be interesting.

      gm
  • The Chronicles of Amber were some of my favorite books growing up. Yeah, Merlin's chronicles weren't as good... There were good ideas, but they ended up getting drowned in a lot of not-so-good ideas that really changed the entire premise of the series. Still, Corwin's story was excellent. Why do I think the series would fit in a big (or small) screen format? First, the books are short. Really short. Teeny, in fact. I'm sure that the entire Amber series (Merlin's series included) doesn't even reach the length of some of the books in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series (I mean, Lord of Chaos was what, 1000 pages?). The problem with most movie adaptations is that the source material is much longer and richer than could ever be put in the standard 2 hour movie format or in a mini-series of reasonable length (reasonable to the networks, not to the viewers). Now, not only are the books short, a huge portion of those books are taken up by descriptions. Somebody up above mentioned Eric's "moist" beard and how Corwin hates getting hairs under his shirt. Stuff like that fills the books (unfortunately, it has been so long since I've read them that I couldn't think of my own examples, but oh well). You know how they say that a picture is worth a thousand words? With a good director, this would be more than true. What about the rest of the book? The stuff that isn't description? Stuff happens, and it happens rather quickly - to the reader at least, if not in the book itself. Take the plot of the first book (ummm... *SPOLIERS*... yeah...): Corwin wakes up, escapes from a mental hospital, goes to Flora's house, beats the crap out of some shadow creatures, goes on a drive to Amber and sees lots of strange stuff on the way (wasn't there a big guy eating cars or something?), gets attacked by Julian's men, runs down to Remba, gets laid, walks the pattern (and lots of flashback scenes), heads on over to the castle, gets in a fight, runs to Bleys, builds an army (this would take, what, one or two scenes?), attacks Amber, and so on. This is pretty much one action scene after another, and with Corwin's initial memory loss, it wouldn't be so awkward when another character gets to explain the Nifty Science Fiction/Fantasy Laws of Physics (tm) to him. Pacing could be made quick without any huge spans of time (like the armies getting built) seeming to vanish due to time working differently in Shadow. Of course, that somewhat changes when Corwin gets thrown in the slammer, but it still could be done very well in a TV or movie format. My only fear is that all the sword fights will be filled with Crouching Tiger meets The Matrix special effects.
  • I was really hoping B5:LotR would get picked up as a series.

    While the Legends of the Rangers tv-movie wasn't the greatest thing ever committed to screen, I thought that like pizza, not so great B5 is still pretty good, and MUCH better than anything Trek has put out lately.

    Jon Acheson
  • I hear "Zelazney book made into movie", And I think "Damnation Alley" [imdb.com]

    Horribe movie, after which Zelazney said he would never want any of his works to be a movie again.

    Of course, now that he's dead, his estate can throw all respect to the wind and cash in!
    Papas dead CHaCHing!
    sheesh.

    by the way, Damnation alley is a great sci-fi book.

  • Sci-Fi's Dune (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Leeto2 ( 237105 )
    I've read Dune upwards of 10 times now. I've seen the 4 hr movie, the horrifically hacked 2.5 hr movie, and Sci-Fi's miniseries.

    If we could've had the costuming and actors of the movie with Sci-Fi's adaptation it would have been a helluva mini-series.

    I will never forgive the original movie for turning the "wierding way" into "wierding modules" quite possibly one of the stupidest ideas in an adaptation. That and the final battle scene..."This is Paul Atredies on a sand worm." "Here's the rear view of Paul Atredies on a sandworm" "Sand worms are REALLY BIG" "Here is yet another shot of Paul Atredies on top of a really big sand worm" "Did we show that sandworms are really big?" It was pathetic. They could've cut 30 min of worthless footage from the movie simply by paring down that scene.

    On the Sci-fi side, the Bene-Geserit costumes were laughable, and the guild navigators looked like ET gone horribly wrong. I also expected the foam sound-stage rocks to come tumbling down if one of the actors leaned on them. Costuming and sets aside, the actual way they adapted the book was pretty good. Giving Irulan a larger role was necessary to allow the audience a better understanding of who both she and Feyd were. You get a glimpse of just how slimy Feyd was.

    I've read the Amber series a couple of times, so I look forward to Sci-Fi's adaptation with a mixture of trepidation and anticipation. Watching Corwin on a Star Trek (the original) style set pathetically trying to pass as one of the more bizarre shadows of amber would be positively painful to watch.
  • I think I'd rather see somethind done along the lines of "Eye of Cat". No large amounts of cash needed; only Cat requires computer animation (and perhaps some of the delusional scenes later in the book).

    Although I doubt 95% of the audience would actually get the ending without it being explained to them....

    Still, it's chock full of action, character development, and even does the Hollywood Politically Correct thing by putting Native Americans in a good light.

    Max

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