"The Chronicles of Amber" and "The Forever War" For TV 217
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..."
Continuity. (Score:3, Funny)
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)
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.
Re:Continuity. (Score:2)
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)
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.
Amber should work well (Score:2)
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.
Re:Amber should work well (Score:2)
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.
Re:Amber should work well (Score:2)
Re:Continuity. (Score:3, Interesting)
So you missed the scene in the first book with the queen of Rebma? And the entire first half of of the second book with Lorraine? And the interlude with Merlin's mother? And the attempted seduction by a creature of chaos on the black road? Or the lady near the end of the world?
Did you even read the same book I read?
Re:Continuity. (Score:1, Funny)
Ohh, even better... (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Ohh, even better... (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Ohh, even better... (Score:2)
Complete, utter crap, unless filtered through the non-discerning lens of a 6 - 12 year old's mind.
Forever War (Score:1)
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
Re:Forever War (Score:2)
The sequal to Forever War (Score:3, Insightful)
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)
I'm a fan of the spinoff show, Forever Knight
Re:Forever War (Score:3, Insightful)
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)
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.
Re:Forever War (Score:2)
As for "lousy execution"
Re:Forever War (Score:2)
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.
Re:Forever War (Score:2)
As for FW not stacking up well against later variations on the theme
Re:Forever War (Score:2)
Actually, I'm not too sure about Vinge yet, having only just discovered him, but so far he's incredible.
HTH!
Re:Forever War (Score:2)
And I found Heinlein's style to be all over the board--some of it is good, some of it is just abysmal. At this point in my life, Heinlein holds little draw for me. He's light on advanced science, and Iain Banks does a better job with advanced societies. IMO, of course. YMMV, &c.
Re:Forever War (Score:2)
Donaldson's Gap series is good in parts - trouble is, he really does tend to go on a bit! And the same old phrases crop up throughout which makes it a bit repetitive sometimes. But on a characterisation and plot level the Gap series is outstanding, with a dozen main characters, each with their own agendas and all trying to work out what the others are planning. Pretty awesome, if you've got the stamina to work through it.
Grab.
New Advertising Slogan (Score:3, Funny)
Forever War not on TV (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Forever War not on TV (Score:1)
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.
Re:Forever War not on TV (Score:2)
Re:Forever War not on TV (Score:2)
Oh, come on. Think how closely "Starship Troopers" followed the book.
Re:Forever War not on TV (Score:2)
How many times do movies follow the book anyway? IIRC the original title was "The Starship Soldier" which IMHO better fits the story.
Re:Forever War not on TV (Score:2)
Re:Forever War not on TV (Score:2)
A miniseries is rather longer than the average movie. Dune is rather longer than the average length novel too.
Re:Forever War not on TV (Score:2)
Ever seen Catch-22?
Re:Forever War not on TV (Score:3, Insightful)
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?
Re:Forever War not on TV (Score:2, Interesting)
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).
Surprise? (Score:1)
Still, I hope they'll make a good movie. The book's worth it.
Re:Surprise? (Score:3, Insightful)
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...
Re:Surprise? (Score:2)
What will be the popular response to Haldeman? (Score:1)
Hope they can pull it off without watering it down.
Re:What will be the popular response to Haldeman? (Score:4, Insightful)
Forced sex & conscription? That will be good, might as well get the pleasure platoons out. (Moon has a harsh mistress - heinlein)
Star Ship Troopers was a decent book, but the movie just skipped all that "stuff" that didn't make a flashy movie.
Heck they didn't even have battle suits in it.
Re:What will be the popular response to Haldeman? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re Starship troopers (Score:3, Insightful)
As was said at the time: "Starship troopers: Based on the back of a book by Robert A Heinlein"
Re:What will be the popular response to Haldeman? (Score:2)
Can't see either "The Moon is a Harsh mistress" or Ben Bova's "Moonwar" (which is very similar) being made into a movie or a miniseries right now...
Unfortuneate (Score:2)
Although he has an obsession with the super intelligent quick witted character.
Re:What will be the popular response to Haldeman? (Score:1)
The forever war? (Score:1)
Re:The forever war? (Score:2)
No, wait, I got it -- it's the "War on Lame War Metaphors Used for Political Posturing". That's a Forever War.
"edgy" like south park? (Score:4, Funny)
"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"?
Re:"edgy" like south park? (Score:2)
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)
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
Re:Tripping the Rift? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Tripping the Rift? (Score:2, Informative)
or you can visit Google's cached version of the downloads page [216.239.51.100] to download the episode 1 movie
Red Dwarf! (Score:1)
Nope Sc-Fi can pull it off. Hell Lexx is just plain nasty.
Nice to see more sci-fi on sci-fi (Score:1)
memories (Score:5, Funny)
I can remember being puzzled why my third grade teacher kept asking me if anyone had tried to touch me in an uncomfortable way....
Re:memories (Score:1)
Re:memories (Score:2)
One has to admire his dedication.
Good Plan for Sci-Fi Network (Score:4, Interesting)
That's a lot better reason for the channel to exist than to show continuous repeats of the same old serieses.
Re:Good Plan for Sci-Fi Network (Score:2)
Speeling (Score:1, Offtopic)
reader's dissapointment (Score:2, Insightful)
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?
Just Great (Score:1)
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)
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!
Re:Oh dear (Score:2)
Fortunately, I've seen it on video and it is surprisingly quite good.
Re:Oh dear (Score:2)
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.
Re:Oh dear (Score:2)
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)
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.
Re:Battlesuits (Score:2)
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.
Re:Battlesuits (Score:2)
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.
Re:Battlesuits (Score:2)
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.
5 hour LOTR: FOTR? Not quite, but close... (Score:2)
Re:Oh dear (Score:2)
There is also the sexuality aspect. Can you really see that making it through a US based production company?
Re:Oh dear (Score:2)
Re:See the Dune series (Score:2)
It was the movie that had the "happy ending". An inexplicable planetwide monsoon.
What's next, then? (Score:2)
Re:What's next, then? (Score:2)
The game (Score:2)
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)
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.
Re:The game (Score:2)
I don't suppose you live anywere near me, do you?
Re:The game (Score:2)
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.
Re:The game (Score:2)
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?
Re:The game (Score:2)
Phage Press and Dirty Little Secrets (Score:2)
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...
Re:Phage Press and Dirty Little Secrets (Score:2)
In the meantime, though, I apologize if I helped extend the myth.
Were the Second Chronicles bad? No. (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
Re:Were the Second Chronicles bad? No. (Score:2)
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.
Re:The game (Score:2)
You can buy it from Amazon.com (Score:2)
Re:You can buy it from Amazon.com (Score:2)
How many Princes? (Score:2)
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.
Re:How many Princes? (Score:2, Insightful)
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
Amber is perfect for a mini-series, or movie even. (Score:2, Interesting)
What No B5:Legends of the Rangers? @#*%!!! (Score:2)
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
A word about Zelazney (Score:2)
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)
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.
Eye of Cat (Score:2)
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
Re:But.. (Score:1)
Their treatment of Dune definately gives me hope that they'll do at least a passable job with The Forever War. Just don't let Dino have anything to do with it - please!
Re:But.. (Score:1)
but hate the mini-series.
I guess the first episode they liked, but the others
they just hated!
As a big fans as they are, they expected to see
a lot of details, presented in the book, into the mini-series too. For example, some dialogues were ignored (that is the first 'why' they were pissed off), or passed by without a major attention given
or the actors didn't interpret such dialogues as good as they expected.
I guess all this hate come from the greatest richness of scenario and characters. Such dialogues were very important to give the right pace to story.
My friends want a great mini-serie based on Duna. It's almost a pleasure see such book on screen.
They don't want prevent director adapt the script,
but they expect he pay attention on key dialogues.
I saw the mini-series. I liked, but I felt it missed some key points, and left other more or less unexplained, but I did like it.
Re:NO WAY!!!! (Score:2, Interesting)
It's great to see an underground(ish) cartoon like Tripping The Rift get some real recognition instead of them just showing another program invented by a major TV company 'cause their marketing stats say it'll do well.
Amber novels current availibility (Score:4, Informative)
_The Great Book of Amber : The Complete Amber
Chronicles_ [Eos (Trade); ISBN: 0380809060], which
has all 10 books in it.
Of course, I wish they'd done it as two separate
books for the Corwin and Merlin series, since I
think the former is *far* superior.