Foundation movie trilogy
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Somebody said:
So the way to improve a sci-fi story you don't like is to add action? Solaris is a sleeping aid? Starship Troopers the companion book to Mein Kampf?
Diagnosis: subject suffers from narcolepsy, chronicle inability to grasp politics and is easily distracted by film explosions, loud sounds and bright lights. :roll:
Prognosis: With SF fans like these, Emmerich's "Foundation" and other similes are doomed to sucess.
Sign of the times I guess...
Sturn said:
A director filming an adaptation of a literary work doesn't even read it in full? :shock:
And he openly admits it?!
Is California a gun-free state or something? Because if it isn't, I'm surprised all these Hollywood idiots haven't been shot by concerned citizens yet.
Colin said:
Heck, I don't even like Foundation. I simply recognize the fact it is one of the cornerstone works of SF (and one of the inspirations for Traveller), and know Emmerich is an extremely bad choice. Whether one likes his movies or not, the reality is that Foundation-like they most assuredly are not.
If you want to adapt something to the silver screen, the least you can do is hire a director with a style concomitant with what you're trying to adapt.
I mean, what next? Will we see Uwe Boll getting hired to shoot the remake of "Shindler's List"?
Sturn said:Somebody said:
Wow. I couldn't have more of an opposite viewpoint. I almost thought this was sarcasm at first.
As a fan of the Starship Troopers novel, I completely hated the movie that only had "scifi war against alien bugs" in common. The number one gimic of the book was power armored elite soldiers. These were replaced by masses of lightly armed troops. The patriotic military social system debated in the book was portrayed as extreme Nazi-Facism in the movie (perhaps your Mein Kampf reference is influenced by watching the movie and guessing what the book was about?)
I guess if Paul Verhoeven had actually read the book (he stated he didn't even finish it) the movie would have had more resemblance to the book. Instead he borrowed the title of the novel to rob fans of the book of some ticket money.
It could have been enjoyable and intelligent and was completely botched. Rename it, I'm fine with it. Just don't call that movie Starship Troopers after the novel. Very little in common.
Sorry, /rantoff
Actually I read the book twice :
+ The german translation in 1987/88 during a boring guard duty at Ahlens "Lager W" army depot
+ The english original in 1989 because I found the first one bad and (having read the translation of "Number of the beast") considered this might be because of the translation
I still found it (like Number that I also re-read in englisch) to be a bunch of fashist bulls***
So no, it's not the movie that colors my view. The movie is "popcorn cinema" at it's best, two hours of fun and who cares about PA's
Oh and Vagr: Politics in books is something that I must find "acceptabel" to read the book. Faschisten are never acceptabel as the "good guys" and the societie Heinlein features in SST has all elements of such a system (Power to a selected few, access to power through membership in a special organisation etc.) Acceptabel as the "bad guys" like in Buchheims "The Fortress" but not as a positive picture.
Somebody,
I could write a post deflating point-by-point the arguments of your last one, as well as making evident the self-defeating contradiction between what you just wrote and what you had written before.
But now that I know where you are coming from and have an insight into your upbringing, I realize doing so would serve no purpose and might perhaps inflate this thread into a pseudo-political flamewar mixed with movie likes and dislikes...or at the very least piss you off quite a bit.
Since neither are something I wish to see or cause, I will refrain from commenting any further about this issue.
I could write a post deflating point-by-point the arguments of your last one, as well as making evident the self-defeating contradiction between what you just wrote and what you had written before.
But now that I know where you are coming from and have an insight into your upbringing, I realize doing so would serve no purpose and might perhaps inflate this thread into a pseudo-political flamewar mixed with movie likes and dislikes...or at the very least piss you off quite a bit.
Since neither are something I wish to see or cause, I will refrain from commenting any further about this issue.
alex_greene
Guest
Guys.
Rust's signature says it best. Even though it is the only thing I can remember of Foundation from my epic reading of the entire trilogy back in one lazy, hot summer of SF literature during my childhood, that line best describes Asimov's philosophy throughout that trilogy.
And so it should be on this board, too.
Retire to your corners, guys, before mods take an interest. Agree to disagree about the Starship Troopers issue and move on. I'll express my own misgivings about the ability of Roland Emmerich to encapsulate the vast scope of Foundation in a later post. Suffice to say that I have a few.
Rust's signature says it best. Even though it is the only thing I can remember of Foundation from my epic reading of the entire trilogy back in one lazy, hot summer of SF literature during my childhood, that line best describes Asimov's philosophy throughout that trilogy.
And so it should be on this board, too.
Retire to your corners, guys, before mods take an interest. Agree to disagree about the Starship Troopers issue and move on. I'll express my own misgivings about the ability of Roland Emmerich to encapsulate the vast scope of Foundation in a later post. Suffice to say that I have a few.
In my view the main problem with Emmerich and Asimov is that author
and director have mutually exclusive intentions.
Asimov, like most of the Golden Age science fiction writers, used science
fiction to tell stories about the real world. He used a "distant mirror" to
show what he considered ideas important for human society, be it philo-
sophy, technology or whatever. He wanted to make his readers think
about the world they live in now as well as its potential futures.
Emmerich, on the other hand, provides pure escapism. His intention is to
make the viewer forget the real world and not to have to think about it
(or, as I suspect, not to think at all ...). He uses "flash and bang" as his
means to keep the viewer away from the real world for as long as the
movie lasts.
Both approaches are fine with me, escapism has its place (and is one of
the basic reasons why roleplaying games exist), but they do not get to-
gether at all.
and director have mutually exclusive intentions.
Asimov, like most of the Golden Age science fiction writers, used science
fiction to tell stories about the real world. He used a "distant mirror" to
show what he considered ideas important for human society, be it philo-
sophy, technology or whatever. He wanted to make his readers think
about the world they live in now as well as its potential futures.
Emmerich, on the other hand, provides pure escapism. His intention is to
make the viewer forget the real world and not to have to think about it
(or, as I suspect, not to think at all ...). He uses "flash and bang" as his
means to keep the viewer away from the real world for as long as the
movie lasts.
Both approaches are fine with me, escapism has its place (and is one of
the basic reasons why roleplaying games exist), but they do not get to-
gether at all.
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