Skip to main content

Yes, but will it Translate to Film?




I just finished reading Deepsix by Jack McDevitt. It is the second book in his Academy series, and no, you don’t have to have read the first one to enjoy this one. In this novel the scientific community has gathered to watch a planetary collision. A gas giant cast out of its own system is about to smash into the terrestrial planet Malevia 3 (now nicknamed “Deepsix” as its future is doomed). Everything is going to plan, as scientist and tourists have gathered to watch the event until one of the scientists observing the world through powerful imagery, notices signs of civilization on the surface. Now a team will have to investigate, and it will only have days to do so before the world is to come to an end. Deepsix a real potboiler of a novel. Plenty of action, plenty of risk. Strong characters that we care about, and others that we dislike.

It struck me that this would make a wonderful movie or a limited series. But then, how many times have you heard that before. “This would make a great movie!” Some people think that just because they like a book means it would make a good movie, but books and movies are two different media. We could all name bad movies that came from good books. Sometimes that is the result of a director who doesn’t know what he’s doing or studio interference. But it can also be because that particular book does not translate well into film. Books that are too cerebral, that take place too much inside characters’ heads tend not to not work well as movies. Movies tend to need to move along at a faster pace than books. Sometimes the movie makers have to change so many things to make it work cinematically that it scarcely resembles the book. Soylent Green is was a decent movie, but you can’t find much of Harry Harrison’s novel, Make Room! Make Room! in it.

Anyway, it got me thinking about what science fiction/fantasy novels would make good movies. I came up with a very incomplete list. It is possible to make a good movie out of anything if you change it enough. I tried to make a list of movies that could be made without substantially changing the plot. So, besides Deepsix, I have:

The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold
Blackout/All Clear by Connie Willis
Old Man’s War by John Scalzi
Red Mars/Green Mars/ Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson (But you would have to do it as a series)
The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal
The Warrior’s Apprentice (actually the whole Vorkosigan series, if you could find an actor to pull off the part of Miles) by Lois McMaster Bujold
Split Infinity by Piers Anthony
The Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison
Bloodsucking Fiends, (a Love Story) by Christopher Moore
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. (The one they made was not great, but that does not mean that it couldn’t be made into a fantastic movie)
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien (same note as above)
A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs (same note as above)
The Dark Tower series by Stephen King (same note as above, but maybe we should give Stephen King a rest. He’s had plenty of movies)

This list just scratches the surface, and every such list is subjective. What about you? What books do you think would make good movies? Feel free to add your own suggestions in the comments below.

(My novel Star Liner, is now available in paperback or as an e-book through Amazon and other online sources)


Star Liner

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Child of the . . .

  What was it like to grow up as a child in the 90s? How about the 1940’s? Thinking about a child growing up in each different decade, conjures up images in my mind. But that is all they are: images. I was a child in the 1960’s. I can tell you what it felt like to be growing up in the 60’s and 70’s, but what it felt like to me is not what the history books remember. History will tell you the 60’s was about the Viet Nam War, civil rights, and the space race. The 70’s was Disco and Watergate. I remember being aware of all of those things, but to me this era was about finding time to play with my friends, something I probably share with a child of any decade. It was about navigating the social intricacies of school.   It was about the Beatles, Three Dog Night, The Moody Blues, The Animals, Jefferson Airplane. It was Bullwinkle, the Wonderful World of Color, and Ed Sullivan. There are things that a kid pays attention to that the grown-ups don’t. Then there are things the adults ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Bureaucrats

  I am one of those nameless, faceless bureaucrats. Yes, that is my job. Though I actually have a name; I even am rumored to have a face. Bureau is the French word for desk, so you could say bureaucrats are “desk people.” In short, I work for the government. I sometimes have to deliver unpleasant news to a taxpayer. I sometimes have to tell them that the deed they recorded won’t work and they will have to record another one with corrections. Or we can’t process their deed until they pay their taxes. I can understand why some of these things upset people. The thing is, we don’t decide these things. It is not the bureaucrats that make the laws. The legislature writes the laws. We are required to follow the law.   If you are going to get mad at someone, get mad at the legislature. Or maybe get mad at the voters who voted the legislature in (That’s you, by the way). The same thing happens when the voters vote in a new district, or vote for a bond, or a new operating levy for an ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Telephonicus domesticus

Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone from 1877 bears about as much similarity to the modern smart phone as an abacus bears to a PC or Mac. There are just about as many leaps in technology in both cases. It’s funny how a major jump in technology happens (like the actual invention of the phone). Then there are some refinements over a few years or decades until it gets to a useful stable form. Then it stays virtually the same for many years with only minor innovations. The telephone was virtually unchanged from sometime before I was born until I was about forty. Push-buttons were replacing the rotary dial, but that was about it. (Isn’t it interesting though that when we call someone, we still call it “dialing?” I have never seen a dial on a cell phone.) Cell phones were introduced and (once they became cheap enough) they changed the way we phone each other. New advancements followed soon after, texting and then smart phones. Personal computers were also becoming commonplace and wer...
Post a Comment
Read more