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Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama going Hollywood? 266

Posted by CmdrTaco from the wouldn't-that-be-nice dept.
Doug writes "Arthur C Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama is being made into a movie! I first saw it at this interesting article about Pixar. And sure enough, there is a website set up for the movie! Staring Morgan Freeman and Lori McCreary. Its about a huge several kilometer long space craft passing near Earth, visited by humans who are taken across the universe. The trilogy was awesome, and I hope the movie is on par with Clarke's 2001!"
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Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama going Hollywood? More

Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama going Hollywood?

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  • excellent (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 09, 2003 @10:27AM (#5263956)
    excellent... lets hope they dont make the rest of the Rama books into films.. they were terrible.
    • I just finished Rw/R and liked it. It did feel like one of those stories which should never have a sequel, but you know the publisher and book agent will twist an arm out of a socket to get one or three.

      BTW, this article is a Dupe [slashdot.org] from Jan. 16, 2001 Perhaps it just doesn't have much priority on the rendering farm. I think it'll make for a very dull movie, though the graphics will make for some extraordinary eye candy.

    • Rendezvous With Rama was a great book.

      The sequels sucked so bad, I can't tell you how bad.
      • For some reason I used to feel compelled to read a series to find out how it ended. This made me slog through the Piers Anthony "Incarnation of Immortality" series and F. Saberhagen's interminable Book of Lost Swords series. The latter seems to have cured me. I only made it through 1 or 2 of the RwR sequels.
        • I had the same problem with the Dune books: I kept reading the next one in the series, and the next ... long after I'd stopped enjoying them.
          • I thoroughly enjoyed all six of Herber's Dune books. The new ones, collaborations between Brian(?) Herbert and someone else who's name escapes me at the moment are horrible. They aren't quite as bad as the RwR sequels, however. Not only was the writing weak, but the plot was ridiculous and obvious patchwork. Nothing in the original RwR hints at the blather that happens in the sequels. Reading them was a complete and utter waste of several hours of my time.
            • Quite right -- my Dune comparison was off-target.

              The original Rama was excellent, the sequels sucked horribly.

              The original Dune was excellent, the sequels didn't all suck horribly. Come to think of it, the second was the worst of the lot. (Pressure on Herbert to publish in haste?)

              Nonetheless, the original Dune stirred me in a way the sequels didn't.

      • Re:Rama Good, Sequels Bad (Score:4, Insightful)

        by 3dr ( 169908 ) on Sunday February 09, 2003 @05:13PM (#5266363)
        The sequels sucked so bad, I can't tell you how bad.

        Somewhat true. The initial work was classic Clarke -- cut to the chase, no-nonsense, present the story. I don't think I've read more bloviated prose than Gentry Lee's additions in the sequels.

        Although terse, Clarke's approach is very effective. He cleanly gets across the main ideas and issues in the story, and lets your imagination take it from there. Lee's approach was to stifle through belabored description that last, important part of good sci-fi: your imagination's interpretation/expansion.

        I wouldn't say the later novels outright suck. They don't, and there is several good ideas in the later books. But skipping 20-30 pages at a time becomes routine with no lost content as one will see.

    • SPOILER WARNING - if you have not read the so-called "sequels" to RwR, and you do not wish to have the surprise spoiled for you, read no further. However, the advice "read no further" can far better be applied to the sequels themselves.

      In RwR, the sense of wonder was everywhere - here's this BIG HONKING SHIP, build by somebody for some reason we don't know. All we can know is that whoever they are, they put a lot of work into this ship. You felt awed.

      Fast forward through the sequels - the ship was Created By The Hand Of God HimSelf as part of A Grand Experiment To Celibrate His Greatness. To me, that takes the wonder out of it - for mortal beings to build Rama would be impressive, for God to miracle it into existance is trivial. All the wonder went out of it, right there.

      Furthurmore, the "three-ness" of Rama was intrinsic to the first story - the folks who build Rama did everything in threes, with trilateral symmetry. Why? What does it mean?

      Nothing, we find out in the sequels. It was just made that way for the purposes of the experiment.

      No, if you are given the choice between reading the sequels or ramming red hot forks into your eyes.... Make sure they are at least red-hot - that way the pain doesn't last as long.

  • Yeah right... (Score:3, Troll)

    by metlin ( 258108 ) on Sunday February 09, 2003 @10:29AM (#5263960) Journal
    Next everyone will go around raving what a wonderful work the Rama Series is, without having read a single line of the book.

    Just like the way they killed LoTR. Atleast hope that like in LoTR, they mention that the movie has been inspired from the book, rather than an adaptation.

    As one of my friends once said, there's just about one person who can make movies out of Clarke's books just the way they are meant to be, and that is Kubrick*.

    *For those of you who do not know, Kubrick did the 2001 - A Space Odessey.

    • Re:Yeah right... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by 10Ghz ( 453478 )
      Just like the way they killed LoTR. Atleast hope that like in LoTR, they mention that the movie has been inspired from the book, rather than an adaptation.


      How exactly did they "kill" LOTR? Like it has been repeatedly said, books and movies are two different media. You simply can NOT make 1:1 copy of a book for the silver screen, espesially not something like LOTR. LOTR the movie (espesially the extended edition) is an excellent adaptation of the book, but it is not 1:1 copy of the book, and to expect it to be an exact copy is unrealistic. When you move a book to the silver screen the will be changes. Learn to live with it.

      I see people whining about the movie-adaptation of LOTR, yet no-one give any tangible examples how it should REALLY be done.
      • Changes are one thing; Completely changing the nature of major characters, turning them (both Gimli and Faramir) into a parody of themselves and their race, is to do an injustice to the work of J.R.R. Tolkien; Both the tangible work which we have been reading and enjoying for many many years, and also the intangible thought process behind the work. The beauty of Middle-Earth is that Tolkien never gave it any treatment that made it appear to be anything other than history.

        Hence; The books are intended to be a 'true' representation of the 'history' of Middle-Earth. When the movie leaves bits of it out, that's one thing; obviously there is not time to portray every event. When the movie outright changes things, it makes us angry in the same way that incorrectly reporting history makes us angry, because "that's simply not how it was." The fans, ostensibly the most important people in the moviemaking equation because without them (us) there can be no movie, are being betrayed needlessly by a poor portrayal of characters we cared about. I personally felt that the portrayal of Faramir as feeling the pain of his brother's demise and betrayal of the Ring-quest, and his triumph over the same evil in the very shadow of Mordor was one of the most moving moments in the story. The treatment he received was unjust, but more to the point, unnecessary, which is what makes Peter Jackson a fucking idiot.

        • Changes are one thing; Completely changing the nature of major characters, turning them (both Gimli and Faramir) into a parody of themselves and their race, is to do an injustice to the work of J.R.R. Tolkien;


          Again, they had a good reason for the changes. Why change Gimli in TTT? Without Gimli, it would have been really dark movie. They needed some comic relief, and Gimli provided it.

          The purpose of the movie is to bring the books to the silver screen. And they have succeeded. But changes are necessary (yes, in characters too).

          And, in the end, most people are more than happy with the end-results, Tolkien-fans included! Of course, considering the importance of the books and the scale of the movies, there are (of course) people who are unhappy with the movies. But most people are happy with the results.

          Yes, there are changes. Yes, in the end those changes are needed and they have good reasons for those changes.
          which is what makes Peter Jackson a fucking idiot.


          And I'm sure you would have made alot better movie? For some reason, I doubt it. And you are in the minority on this case.
      • You simply can NOT make 1:1 copy of a book for the silver screen

        Yeah you can, it's called Harry Potter and the Sorceror's/Philosopher's Stone [imdb.com]! :-)
        • sorry grammar police... Sorcerer's

  • Ok, reality check... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by march ( 215947 ) on Sunday February 09, 2003 @10:30AM (#5263965) Homepage
    The trilogy was awesome, and I hope the movie is on par with Clarke's 2001!"

    First of all, I, too thought the trilogy was good. But, as with most trilogies, it got worse as it went on. And, as with _2001: The Movie_, it paled in comparison to the book, especially when Kubrik and Clark started to disagree towards the end.

    I am hoping that this will be a great movie, just like I am hoping that the Matrix II will be great. I can only keep my fingers crossed and my hopes not too high to minimize the disappointment.
    • But, as with most trilogies, it got worse as it went on.

      Could that be because there was less Clarke as they went on?

      I have a number of Clarke books, both solo and co- works.. and like the solos better. Only exceptions were the Rama books (I WANTED to like them) and The Trigger.

      .. and the stretching out of the 2001 series, though I thought the last one was a rather weak grab at more dollars.

      -r

      • IMHO, the original 2001 was different. It was, in a way, more than just a movie. Which made it kind of hard to watch for some people, while being very interesting for others (like me). The sequels very "just" normal sci-fi flicks, which is not a bad thing at all, since IMO they were rather good sci-fi flicks.

        On a sidenote, I think the recently released Solaris was, at least, trying to be different. Obviously, whether it succeeded or not is a matter of taste, and IIRC there was a large discussion about it here on Slashdot. I missed that, though, not having seen the movie at that point I didn't want to be spoiled. I must say I liked it a lot, after I gave it some time. Extremely moody film, with a fantastic soundtrack. However, as with 2001, I can see many people absolutely "not getting it" - and I mean that in an absolutely neutral way.

    • Re:Ok, reality check... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by actor_au ( 562694 ) on Sunday February 09, 2003 @11:11AM (#5264182) Homepage
      ..especially when Kubrik and Clark started to disagree towards the end.

      The reality was that Clark wanted it on one of Saturns moons(for the life of me I can't remember which one) because it had the unique trait of being brighter when seen from differant sides of Saturn and having an unexplainable black dot in the very center of it or something which was meant to be TMA-2(forgive me please for every error in that sentence I haven't read the book in a very long time) Kubrick wanted it on Jupiter because making Saturn out of models and making it look real(non-tacky) would have been very expensive and couldn't have worked anyway and that a floating TMA-2 would have been more visually impressive against the backdrop of Jupiter.

      It wasn't so much a disagreement, the two were good friends based on most accounts, as an understanding that the two mediums would have to be differant to portray the vision that they each had.

      The follow-up books(2010, 2061 and 3001) were pretty good although the 2010 movie wasn't as good as it could have been (the Russians wern't as human as the books made them out to be, instead portrayed as near robots, curse you cold war, curse you).

      • Maybe the newspaper article I read (some 15 years ago now) was "spicing" it up a bit, but even now, a search on the web seems to confirm that Clarke had no idea what Kubrick was doing with the end of the movie.

    • Re:Ok, reality check... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by metlin ( 258108 )
      The Movie was different, and it echoed different sentiments, in a very different way.

      You should see this run-through [kubrick2001.com] on the movie.

      Very neatly done, provides insights into certain parts of the movie that are a little puzzling.
    • First of all, I, too thought the trilogy was good. But, as with most trilogies, it got worse as it went on. And, as with _2001: The Movie_, it paled in comparison to the book, especially when Kubrik and Clark started to disagree towards the end.

      Now, back when I read a lot of Clarke, one of his essays was about the inception of 2001. It was designed as an elaboration on one of his earlier short stories "The Sentinel" (about the black Monolith) I forget which short story collection it was in, it wasn't "Tales from the White Hart" but the another one. Anyway, when Kubrick and Clarke sat down to write 2001, (yes, they both co-authored both works, according to Clarke) they decided that Clarke would take full billing on the book and Kubrick would take full billing on the movie, so it's not like they got in some big argument about the end. Then Clarke decided that since the movie was more well known than the book (go figure) that 2010 would be a sequel to the movie instead of the book.

  • John Lennon Is My Cousin (Score:3, Informative)

    by Acidic_Diarrhea ( 641390 ) on Sunday February 09, 2003 @10:30AM (#5263966) Homepage Journal
    "Revelations is in heavy rewrites with "Panic Room" director David Fincher on "Rendezvous with Rama." Morgan will star in the Arthur C. Clark (author of "2001: A Space Odyssey") sci-fi epic. Bruce McKenna is revising his own first draft with David. Revelations is currently awaiting the approved "Fincher draft" before going out to financiers.
    Rama will be ground breaking and possibly even record breaking in its digital effects. That is why we're taling to "all the usual suspects" for special effects bids. We are also in serious negotations with Intel to become a major technology partner in the making of Rama."

    More info can be found here [tnmc.org].

    • I don't know, but isn't this whole news like very old news? That site linked about the Revelations website, I think I saw it like 2 years ago. It was going to be done by Fincher before he even took Panic Room instead. Morgan Freeman went to do Sum of All Fears and Dreamcatcher among others.

      There was also a Morgan Freeman video somewhere, where he was at an Intel conference where they presented some test VFX for the film, done by Grant Boucher (from now defunct Station X Studios). They wanted to build their own inhouse VFX dept. (like what was done with Pitch Black, though thta eventually turned to Double Negative) using Intel machines, which I thought wasn't a good idea. Why not get bids from pros and let hem do the work and use what they want, instead of spending more money trying to setup your own?

      Fact is Rendezvous with Rama is in development hell or limbo. If it gets done the earliest would be 2004 and I seriously doubt that. Fincher apparently is all set to direct Lords of Dogtown, a skateboarding pic, so he wouldn't be available until late 2003 to do Rama. I believe Morgan Freeman is also doing other movies instead. This movie is long ways off to be actually made.

  • Awesome! (Score:2, Informative)

    by CvD ( 94050 )
    OMG! This is my favorite SF book! I've read it many times and still every time I really enjoy reading it. There are some very spectacular scenes that can be done very well screen. I hope they do a good job of it.

    If you haven't read it yet, do so.

    Cheers,

    Costyn.
  • Rendezvous with Rama demonstrates Clarke's immense spacial imagination and intellect. It will take the same kind of skills that were required to bring Lord Of The Rings to the big screen in order to carry across the immense visual scope of Rendezvous. Let's just hope it is not Hollywoodized and turned into an explosion fest. We should leave the theatre wowed and satisfied, not fattened.

    • It's very hard to believe that they'll be able to capture the sheer awe one has when reading this book, just imagining what Rama looked like by Clarke's descriptions. To put this in a movie, you'd have to be damn carefull not to lose that, or really it'll just fall flat. There are no explosions, no real love interests. Look at slide 6 [rendezvouswithrama.com] from the mentioned site. That sure doesn't give me the sense of awe I got when I read the book.

      The way I see it, they'll wind up playing up on the big bad Hermians (cue sinister music), and throw in a bunch of details we didn't see (at least in the 1st book) of the two wives of Captain Norton (i.e., "insert love interest(s) here"). Otherwise, the only people who will bother to go see this movie are the ones who read the book. I mean, what would they put in a trailer that would not only draw people to go see it, but not ruin the awesome spectacles once would witness by actually going to see the movie?

      Oh, I also found a script review [corona.bc.ca] while doing some Googling, which seems to have a bit more information.

  • Sounds like a mix of R with R and Rama II (Score:5, Interesting)

    by wass ( 72082 ) on Sunday February 09, 2003 @10:33AM (#5263987)
    Hmmm, sounds like they are mixing Rendezvous with Rama and Rama II. Potential Spoiler but nothing you won't see on the back of the flap.

    .

    .

    In the first book, astronauts visit Rama, but are only taken several AU through the solar system. They explore the ship, but must leave Rama before it's course takes them straight through the sun (IIRC).

    In Rama II, then Rama returns to Earth, this time taking some humans with it on an interstellar journey that spans the next 3 books (which degrade in quality in each subsequent book).

    So, if the astronauts are really taken across the universe, as the poster has suggested, it sounds like this movie will be a mix of several of the Rama books (or at least with many more creative liberties).

    Or some purist will say that a trip of only a few AU within the solar system is still technically a trip around the universe.

    • Begin Spoiler
      The sequence of slides shows what roughly look like the Octopods, so it seems this movie will span several of the books.
      End Spoiler

      The first book is the best IMHO, but is mainly hard sci-fi, and would make a movie that would probably please geeks, but definitely not the general public. Though the plots are vastly different, a movie made of the first book would remind me of the movie Andromeda Strain. In this movie, lots of cool science is done (in a cool high-tech secret lab). But I bet most people not interested in science thought the movie was mostly boring. I envision a movie based on the first book only to be like this.

      Going into parts of books 2,3,4, then adding some fantasy flightsy kind of stuff, it'll he more in line for an actual movie plot that Joe Public would be used to and possibly enjoy.

      BTW, you should read RWR regardless of this movie. It's a pleasant read, and goes quite quickly. In fact, it's one of the two books that I've read in a single day (the other being the first book of Hitchiker's Guide).

      • The sequence of slides shows what roughly look like the Octopods, so it seems this movie will span several of the books.
        duh ? On which side you see octopods? Slide 8? Can't you count to three? This is obviously one of those roving spider-cameras "biot" they catch in Rama-I...
      • Andromeda Strain... most people not interested in science thought the movie was mostly boring.

        The Andromeda Strain has to be one of my all time favourite SF Movies. Last time it was on I managed to get my wife to watch it - she was pleasantly suprised.

        Now you've pointed it out the similarities with RWR are blindingly obvious. It's just a shame that the other three books contain the kind of "sexy SF" Hollywood goes for. A film of just the first book would indeed be awesome.

        In fact, it's one of the two books that I've read in a single day (the other being the first book of Hitchiker's Guide).

        It's one of three books I've read in a day too. As is HHGTTG. The other is Robert Heinlein's Citizen of the Galaxy.
    • ...interstellar journey that spans the next 3 books (which degrade in quality in each subsequent book).

      It's dirty old sf-writer effect at it's worst:

      Female Protagonist: Hey grandpa, you and me and my sister have to repopulate the human race!

      (I'm not making this up- I thought only the Old Testament could get away with this stuff)

      Does this malady afflict other genres? It's not that I'm completely uncultured, it's just that I tend not to exhaustively read every book good-or-bad by of a given author outside sf.

      Although, most of the worst books were co-written with Gentry Lee, perhaps we can blame it on him.

  • A book, huh? Who would've guessed? All of these years, I just thought "Rendezvous with Rama" was a really good early adventure game. [retrosite.de]

  • Been in production for a long time.. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Ndr_Amigo ( 533266 ) on Sunday February 09, 2003 @10:35AM (#5264001)
    I first remember looking at the site and reading about this project at least four years ago. While it's something going ahead, and four years is probably an acceptable time for developing the technology to create such a world (the technology has been demonstrated at various trade shows many times).... I can't help but wonder what/if the final result will look like.

    I could easily manage a production plauged by the same problems as Duke Nukem Forever - constantly changing base platforms to keep up with advances in technology. And given the huge leap in CG capabilities over the last four years, I also have to wonder how the Rama team has dealt with it. Hmm, a interview with Morgan's crew would be intresting :)
  • ..but I fear a movie adaptation will turn it into another Mission to Mars farce.

    How much you want to bet theyll add in a couple of explosions and a love interest to get bovine america to watch it.

    • How much you want to bet theyll add in a couple of explosions and a love interest to get bovine america to watch it.

      Sure sounds that way from this script review [corona.bc.ca]:

      "One thing that did take me by surprise is the amount of action contained in the script, especially the second half. Once Norton and his crew start venturing deeper into Rama and into the southern hemisphere things start really happening. There seems to be more opportunity for the movie to have action sequences than I remember from the book's story arc, but I write that off as part of the financial necessities of adapting a novel into a mainstream cinematic story."

      BLEH!

  • bah (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nomadic ( 141991 ) <`nomadicworld' `at' `gmail.com'> on Sunday February 09, 2003 @10:35AM (#5264004) Homepage
    I just don't understand the mentality of "wow, that was a great book--they should make a movie of it!". Does anyone truly think that it won't be changed drastically to get on the screen? I mean, hell, there weren't really any bad guys, so they're probably going to add some.

    Another 2001: A Space Odyssey would be great, but I doubt it's going to be anything like that. That movie came out during that tiny window between the bland, silly, middle-american movies of the 40's, 50's, and 60's, and the soulless blockbusters of the 80's. Right now the chances of a decent, introspective, philosophical sf book being faithfully copied to the big screen is close to nil. Probably just be focus-grouped into mediocrity.

  • The site looks fake.. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by chrisseaton ( 573490 ) on Sunday February 09, 2003 @10:36AM (#5264006) Homepage
    Am I the only one who thinks the site looks like a fake? Hardly a typical movie site - complete with clip art navigation buttons and cheap looking posters.

    • Re:The site looks fake.. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by SWicklund ( 464892 ) on Sunday February 09, 2003 @10:48AM (#5264076)
      I noticed the site looked a bit cheap too. It doesn't look like a site intended for future audiences, but one setup as a pitch to financiers ("future revenue streams?")
      Looks like this one is very early in the production stage, if financed at all...
      Its been a while since I read the book, but as I recall, its not exactly action packed. The best part about the book is its suspense, and the growing desire to satisfy ones curiousity about what is in the object, and then where it came from. Fairly hardcore Sci-Fi, I can't see it becoming a blockbuster type success.
    • This must have been the pitch. This /. article may in fact be part of the pitch. I doubt they have money yet.

      Interesting idea, using traffic to the concept site to quantify demand...

    • And what's more, slide 3 [rendezvouswithrama.com] says it will be out "christmas 2003" and slide 6 [rendezvouswithrama.com] says "october 2004". This must be bollocks.
      • I've worked on these kinds of pitches before (although never on the interweb).

        When the artists put these pitches together, they usually add some kind of "coming soon" date, both to make the poster look more genuine to potential investors, and to show that yes, there is a release schedule planned. Some material will even have the full credits at the bottom, despite the fact that nobody's been signed to the crew yet. I always add my own name to "Senior Directing Producer" or some such nonsense.

        But no, this site is not bollocks. The biggest message it shows is Freeman's dedication to the project, to those who are interested in writing checks.
  • This was one of the domains I registered in 1997 and I let it expire in 2000 when movie theaters started things like www.rendezvouswithramathemovie.com and www.sony.com/rendezvous

    This is truely a great series - only thing is I think the world is almost at war and different countries are fighting over commodities during the process of the book on earth. Is that correct? This could be a politically incorrect move, such as the movie "Collateral Damage" and World Trade Towers in the SpiderMan Trailer.

  • Let's hope... (Score:2, Informative)

    by CoderByBirth ( 585951 )
    ...they don't film the last three books.
    That Gentry Lee dude is one perverted mother.

  • The essential info (Score:5, Informative)

    by ThesQuid ( 86789 ) <a987@@@mac...com> on Sunday February 09, 2003 @10:52AM (#5264101) Journal
    Director: David Fincher
    Starring: Morgan Freeman

    Morgan Freeman owns the rights to this book, and has been keen to do it for a number of years. He's the one who approached Fincher about doing it. And scuttlebutt is that Moebius is doing the conceptual art.

    Lots of info can be found here [zeal.com]
  • ...does anyone else agree that this is going to make the single most boring movie ever? Perhaps even more boring than that French film with the woman eating sugar from a bag for 20 minutes? The one with the most boring lesbian sex scene ever? (They made lesbian sex BORING! Good lord!)
  • Because the book was only mediocre. The second two followed Arthur C. Clarke's general method of piling pointless philosophizing on top of boring exposition, killing off everything that made the originals any good. I can't even go near 2001 after reading the idiotic tripe that was 3001. The last two Rama books (especially the last one) were truly buffalo chips.

    Unless they do a completely bangup job and completely ignore the book, I will be staying FAR away from this one. Oh, and Kubrik's dead. No one else on this planet could do 2001 as well as he did. Get over it.
    • The Rama series is simply a case of a Big Name milking sequels for all they're worth. Rendezvous With Rama was a fascinating adventure, but the sequels sucked serious donkey - as did pretty much anything Clarke cowrote with Gentry Lee. One of the sequels, and my memory has blessedly let me forget which one, is the most depressing thing I have ever read in my life! It was even more of a downer than Greg Bear's Forge of God, which at least left me with a little hope in my heart. You call the Rama sequels buffalo chips? That's being extremely kind.

      "The Ramans do everything in threes." Clarke should have stopped at one.

      --Jim
      • It was even more of a downer than Greg Bear's Forge of God, which at least left me with a little hope in my heart.

        Downer? Why would you say that? I think Bear took the Alien Invasion theme to its logical conclusion. Anvil of Stars might cheer you up, though.
        • I'm not saying Bear did a bad job - just the opposite, it was a good book. I just found it enormously depressing that my home world got destroyed, even though Humanity did manage to survive. It's just hard to cope with the destruction of good ol' terra firma. (Well, I guess that depends on the author's purpose - it was funny in Hitchiker's Guide.) I recognize that this is a highly personal reaction.

          I read Anvil of Stars. Nice sequel. I think it would have been fun to be one of the Peters.

          --Jim

    • Personally, I thought the first book was quite good, and it was the later ones (which were written MUCH later and with a co-author), that started throwing in bullshit.


      The first book was just human scientists exploring a mysterious abandoned spacecraft; the subsequent books abandoned the tone of scientific investigation and built up Rama to cosmic significance until the authors had no choice but to show us the ridiculous "revelation" we get in the last book.


      I think the movie could be good if it followed the tone and content of its namesake, Rendezvous with Rama. That certainly wouldn't be the Hollywood thing to do, though.

  • I've been following the production and rumours of this movie since 1997.

    See Corona Coming Attractions [corona.bc.ca] for Rendevous with Rama [corona.bc.ca] for more details (*cough*rumours*cough*).

    • Some of the highlights
    • April 6, 2001 - "On 4/4/01, Morgan Freeman and Lori McCreary appeared onstage in Chicago at Comdex (for an Intel presentation) to show the audience samples of the computer-generated cylinder-world and the spider-like monster. They can rotate it and zoom in from hundreds of feet in the air. Freeman crossed his fingers and said it would be released in 2003."
    • February 18, 2002 - You can read the full review of the Rendezvous With Rama screenplay by clicking here [corona.bc.ca].
    • July 22, 2002 - ZDNet Article [com.com] about I.L.M. switch from RISC to Intel, and their work on the Rendezvous with Rama movie.
  • Gads, this is old news [scifistorm.org]. Most recent new I am aware of is that Paramount has first dibs on anything Morgan's company (Revelations Entertainment [revelationsent.com]) develops, and that was last November.
  • The Sci-Fi movie that I'd like to see is an adaptation of Larry Niven's "Ring World." After seeing the preview of Halo some years back at Macworld, I've always thought that the potential for the FX for Ring World is quite high. I believe that done right the visuals in such a movie would be completely stunning.

  • When will people learn? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by TheRaven64 ( 641858 ) on Sunday February 09, 2003 @11:12AM (#5264193) Journal
    The things that make a good book are not the same things that make a good film or TV series. How many good film adaptations of books can you name? How about the other way around? The same goes for Film / TV crossovers. Books thrive on deep character development, usually involving an insight into the character's mind. Films relly more on the 'Wow Factor'.
    • How many good film adaptations of books can you name?

      Right.

      I love "Starship Troopers", the book, but the movie sucked big time.
    • After seeing lots of beloved books turn into really horrible movies, I did finally come up with a case in which I felt the movie was better than the original book, namely "High Fidelity".

      I'm probably going to get flamed to hell for saying that, but since music was such an important part of the story, actually getting to hear it made a big difference. (I do think that a hypothetical radio drama based on the book and set in London would be the ideal version, but I'm quite happy with the movie.)

      I agree with the parent post, that good science fiction novels don't make for good movies, and vice versa. Most of the best literary science fiction is too complex or too introspective to make for a good 2-hour movie. Likewise, I don't think that "The Matrix" would have been very enjoyable in novel form.

      Cheers,
      Mzilikazi

      • Election was a much better movie than it was a book, IMHO. The simplified ending is much more delicious, and Tammy Metzler's campaign speech has much more impact when delivered than when read.

        If you haven't seen it, do yourself a favour and rent the DVD and spot the parallels with the 2000 election (though they're coincidental, the movie was made in 1999).

    • How many good film adaptations of books can you name?

      Well, it's not a whole book--just a quarter of one, but I thought Stand By Me was actually better than the original story (The Body).

  • As you can see from this Corona entry [corona.bc.ca], this project came into existence 6 years ago! And that C|Net article didn't seem to have any news, really. It just said that Morgan Freeman's working on it, which was already the case 6 years ago... And according to Corona, they still only have an exploratory deal so far with Paramount.. certainly no go-ahead yet, thus, no real news.

  • From http://www.hsx.com (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sbillard ( 568017 ) on Sunday February 09, 2003 @11:16AM (#5264217) Journal
    From Hollywood Stock Exchange [hsx.com]

    Rendezvous with Rama
    Symbol: RRAMA
    Status: Active
    Genre: Sci-Fi
    Phase: Development
    Price: H$23.04 Change: 0 Volume: 1,801,012
    Gross: $0

    Based on the book by Arthur C. Clarke, Rendezvous with Rama is the story of a gigantic alien spaceship named Rama which entered our Solar System in the 22nd Century. No one knows where this mysterious craft came from. Earth decides to send out an exploration team to the advancing vessel to determine its intentions. Once onboard the spaceship, which is in the shape of an immense cylindrical tube, the explorers observe a self-contained world, less one thing-living beings. It seems to be abandoned-or so they think. Director David Fincher and Morgan Freeman are attached to the project.

    HSX is a play-money stock exchange of prospective movie projects set up like NYSE stocks. They also offer mutual funds of varios portfolios, (star) bonds if you want to invest in "J Lo" or Rodney Dangrefield or Tom Berringer. Long, Short, Buy, Cover. Options too. It's focus is the movie industry. There is another "market" for the music industry. I know we all dislike the MPAA and RIAA for their shortsighted efforts at futile legilation, but this site is fun to kick around once a day - or week - or whatever.

    BTW - I'm invested in a Phillip K. Dick story.
    Again from: Hollywood Stock Exchange [hsx.com]

    Paycheck is a thriller based on a story by Philip K. Dick. After an engineer agrees to have his memory erased after working on a top-secret project, he decides to stick around and piece together the mystery. John Woo directs the film scripted by Stuart Hazeldine and Dean Georgaris

    I'm not completely sure the name of the story is indeed "Paycheck". I've only read a handuful of Dick's work and some short stories, but some movies based on his stuff make up at least 2 of my all-time top ten favs: "Bladerunner" and "Total Recall".
    • The short story is indeed called "Paycheck". A copy of the story is in a Dick anthogoly called The Phillip K. Dick Reader (ISBN 0-8065-1856-1). The anthogoly contains other short stories such as "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale" (the basis for Total Recall), "Second Variety" (basis for that piece of drek Screamers), and "The Minority Report", which the recent movie is based on.

      Here is a brief summary of the short story: an engineer named Jennings is leaving the Rethrick Construction Company, which he has been a contractor for for two years. Two interesting parts of the contract: he has to have his memory erased before he leaves so he cannot tell anyone what he did; and instead of the $50 000 payment for work, he can opt to be paid in an alternative fashion. Jennings, fresh from the memory wipe, is surprised to find that he took an alternative payment of meaningless junk (a cloth sack that contains a code key, a ticket stub, a parcel receipt, a length of fine wire, half a poker chip, a piece of green cloth and a bus token) instead of the cash. Jennings is soon on the run from the government that is very eager to learn what goes on inside Rethrick. Jennings must use the items he gave himself to elude capture and piece together the puzzle of what he did at Rethrick and why the government is after him.

      It is a very good story, as is most of the literature in the Reader and I would highly recommend the book to anyone.

  • Well I guess your an optimist (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sielwolf ( 246764 ) on Sunday February 09, 2003 @11:20AM (#5264246) Homepage Journal
    and I hope the movie is on par with Clarke's 2001!"
    Yeah and why shouldn't every contemporary drama be on par with Citzen Kane and every epic be on par with Lawrence of Arabia? I'm sorry but constant comparison to other excellent movies has buried more than a few dozen movies.

    In truth all great movies are usually done out of a desire to make a film unlike any other. If you end up using another movie as a measuring stick, you end up with something that's derivative. So it would be best to get off of Fincher's back and let him make a movie instead of living up to another one.

    (And I'll ignore the fact that it was Kubrick's movie based off of Clarke's book).
    • Actually Clarke's novel of 2001: A Space Odyssey was based on the movie screenplay (which was in turn inspired by one of Clarke's short stories The Sentinel). It's the only example I can think of where a significant novel resulted from a film rather than the other way round.
  • Taco, you just made my day! I remember when 2001 first came out as a book, then a movie. It blows my mind just as hard now as it did back then (tho it may help to read the book first...)

    Anyway, I just checked out the website for the mavie; it has to be one of the classier designs I've seen, no doubt. Bummer I'll have to wait another year for the movie.

    Strangely enough, I was downloading a copy of Strauss' "Also Sprach Zarathustra" while you were in the middle of posting this story.

    BTW, does anyone here know if Mr. Clarke is alive or dead? Last I heard, he said he was alive and well in Sri Lanka, writing 2010 on a Kaypro 2 running CP/M 80.
    • He is alive and well last i heard. And he ditched the Kay pro way long ago, he wrote 3001 on a ibm thinkpad.
      • Thx for the info, the Thinkpad makes sense. It's a lot lighter than the Kaypro, (I have a Kaypro myself) and he's not getting any younger.... neither am I. 3001 is actually news to me; I lost track completely after 2010, so I guess that now I will have to find a copy.
  • Well, let's at least hope that A.C.C. will live long enough to see the movie...
  • Just asking, since they always seem to think "oh, this book would make a good film, as long as we just change the story, the characters, and the plot"
  • Outstanding novel except for one aspect, the stairs! For those who haven't read the novel on the north pole of rama is the entrance with three very very very very very very long flights of stairs.

    • Well anyways in the novel everytime a crewmember of the Endevour climbed up or down these stairs Clarke would go on about how tiresome, the difference in gravity at the bottom and top, also how awe-insipiring they were.

      He did this almost everytime a character went up and down!

  • Not a trilogy (Score:3, Informative)

    by KingPrad ( 518495 ) on Sunday February 09, 2003 @12:13PM (#5264548)
    There were 4 books....I read them several times:

    Rama

    Rama II (Rendezous with Rama I think)

    Garden of Rama

    Rama Revealed.

    I think that's the order...

  • ...is Stephen Donaldson's Gap series, especially the 3rd and 4th books. Actually, anything by Donaldson would be great. Of course we've got about a snowball's chance in hell of ever seeing that come to fruition.

    Maybe that should be the subject of a Slashdot poll? SciFi books we'd like to see on the big screen?

  • Wait a minute... (Score:5, Funny)

    by fgb ( 62123 ) on Sunday February 09, 2003 @01:12PM (#5264892)
    Wasn't this movie already made. I swore I saw the Rama spacecraft in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. It was looking for whales ;-)

  • Rama series is THE best (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Nicodemus ( 19510 ) on Sunday February 09, 2003 @01:28PM (#5264979) Homepage
    Am I the only person that thinks that the entire series is awesome? I enjoyed the first book for it's technicality and vision, but let's face it... characters are not Clarke's strong point. The following trilogy, however, have the best characters and aliens in any SciFi I've ever read. They are fully realized, have very different personalities, and are very believable with plenty of flaws. Just look at Wakefield and Des Jardins for very good examples. Hell, even O'Toole isn't perfect. I've read everything that Gentry Lee has put out so far, and it's all top quality stuff, especially if you love good characters. The combo of Clarke and Lee is definitely the BEST combo I have ever seen. Clarke does the technical SciFi type stuff, and Lee adds the human touch.

    I'm beginning to wonder if people who didn't like the series are the type that think Star Trek and Star Wars are SciFi, and are really only happy with Pop SciFi or mech anime. For those of us that actually enjoy literary tales, the whole Rama series is breath taking. The rama series is always the first books I recommend to anyone, followed closely by George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. So if you're on the fence on whether to read this series, do so. I've even gotten several females to read it that aren't into SciFi and they all ate it up ravenously.

    Nicodemus
    • Clarke does the technical SciFi type stuff, and Lee adds the human touch.

      Eewwww. Gentry Lee is an awful author, who when not teamed with someone like Clarke, belongs in the romance novel section. I once read about a classification supposedly used in the publishing industry called S&F - nothing to do with SF, it stands for shopping and fuc****, which hardly needs much further description. Anyway, Gentry Lee could be a master of that genre, and IMO, it spoils any book he's involved with.

      I loved the first Rama book though.

  • Freeman has been pitching this for a long while. here is a link to more information about the long history of bringing this to the big screen:

    http://www.corona.bc.ca/films/details/rama.html
  • Doug writes "Arthur C Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama is being made into a movie!

    Shouldn't "Rendezvous with Rama" be in quotes, or Italicized, or bolded or something?

    I was wondering who Rama was, what point she was Mr Clarke's love interest, and what made a quickie between an old author and an Egyptian interesting enough to be a movie..

  • What's this crap about a Rama Theme Park [rendezvouswithrama.com] and Rama Collectibles?
  • I'm not going to deny that this is one of the all time greatest sci-fi novels. It is. I absolutely loved this book.

    What I worry about is that it's the type of sci-fi which mostly revolves around characters who spend most of the story simply gawking in awe and wonder at whatever they stumble across. In a book, this is alright, as the author can stop and explain in detail what a character's looking at and why it's important. However, this is exactly the sort of thing which creates lousy sci-fi movies.

    2001 is possibly the only movie ever to make this sort of extended gawking interesting. I might hear some objections, but I thought the first Star Trek movie came pretty close to pulling it off too. More recently, however, we've seen movies like the Solaris remake and Mission to Mars do this in exactly the WRONG way.

    I'm going to have to say I'm going to wait for this one with nervous anticipation. There's so many ways this movie can go completely wrong, yet, somehow I still want to see them make the attempt.

    I mean, what if they do it right?

    It'll be damn cool, that's what.

  • What they should do to pull off a RAMA franchise. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by YinYang69 ( 560918 ) on Sunday February 09, 2003 @08:04PM (#5267346)
    Let me say that I, for one, enjoyed the Rendezvous with Rama series far more than I have the 2001+ series by Clarke. However, I also feel that Gentry Lee's presence in the writing process both added to and took away from the series. The new-tradition of Arthur C. Clarke books are "don't fuck around and tell the story event to event". Its been his style all along but these days, it seems to me, he's become a lot more Spartan in his storytelling.

    Gentry Lee's style added an additional human element to a lot of the sequels that were not to be found in the original. However, Lee also filled the books with a lot of bullshit that no one really found interesting, either. :) And the plot twists in the series (Rama II and on) were not to my liking (or many other people's liking). In my estimation, Lee took away more than he added to the mix.

    That said, I realize they've only announced the first movie. It's a risk (it's not as popular as Clark's other movies and the last one--that I'm aware of, Deep Impact--based on Hammer of God was completely eclipsed by the inferior Armageddon), so the Movie Studios aren't going to risk a three or four movie deal and blow the first one to hell.

    That said (if the first movie does well), Hollywood should do the following with the movies in order to have a most successful investment.

    1. Hollywood needs to make the first movie true to the heart of the first book. The book is a classic. And it seems that they are off to one hell of a start with the cast. They need a true script and complete the arc of the story as much as possible with the first movie. Add a little crap-Hollywoodness to it, and they will have a successful start.
    2. "The Ramans do everything in threes." That was the last thought that Clarke left us with the book. And then he forgot the whole damn thing until people started complaining that they weren't seeing sequels. And he came back to the table thinking, "Thats a hell of an idea!" So what's he do? Come out with three more books (not two, as it would suggest). So Hollywood should correct this grievous error and pull a LOTR-butchery.
      • Yes dammit, I think LOTR movies became butchered in the 2nd movie. However, some may argue that it was to the good of the whole. I disagree on it mostly. However...
      • It can only be to the benefit of a Rama series to order it logically in a 3-movie deal. Three visits by the alien ship, three movies. Three reactions. Three plots. The books are, to some extent, already charted out this way. Due to the fleshing out process of Lee's and Clarke's writing, they felt that their storylines were too large for two additional books, so they arrived to the conclusion of three. This worked out for the books just fine (though I don't like them as much), but the movies are going to cut out a lot of the bullshit anyway, and with some stealthy cutting in the script area, they can come together quite nicely in the trilogy vein.
    3. Finally, they need continuity. Which destroys much if not all of the latter books. In the books, the first ship comes in the year X (can't remember offhand, and I ain't looking it up). The 2nd ship comes X+150 years later. Holy God. Buuuut, the 3rd ship comes only 30 years or so later. That continuity is crappy. It works for the books, but not for a movie. Unless you're working in the horror genre, and you're not. You're going to need repeat actors in order to mesh the movies together intelligently movie-style. This destroys much of the future storylines in the additional books, but people will think it sucks if not done this way.
    Ah well... forgive my not-very-well-put-together rantings. I'm thrilled to death about the whole thing. I can't wait for it. Can't wait, can't wait, can't wait.

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