Posts by Kracklite
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Our man morphed into a slimmed-down, suited-up media mogul with a metal fist that he was unafraid to use to squash those who annoyed him.
It's, um, "interesting" how we (a very loose "we") need clearly designated heroes and villains and operatic hyperbole. I'm surprised that I haven't seen any caricatures of PJ in a top hat and monocle. He's a clear and present target, but hardly the all-knowing, all-controlling Dark Lord. He's beholden to the studio when it comes to funding, and they're beholden to their shareholders and backers. He knows that, they know that, but the People's Front of Judea doesn't. The paleoleft - and I'd not normally put Matt McCarten in that category - simply can't seem to get out of the epistemological rut of a simplistic bosses/workers dichotomy.
I don't think that any substantial progress is going to be made until progressives grasp the realities of globalisation - and "the working class has no borders" does not express an understanding of globalisation (not that I have any answers...).
Maybe I'm a scratched record here, but the rhetoric has been disturbing not only because of it's vitriol, but because of the naivete of its implied narrative. I've been reminded, peeking through my fingers at the PFJ blog (sorry, T' Standard) of George W. Bush's black and white view of the world, saying "You're with us or against us", handing out roles for people to play and then interpreting everything that happens afterwards on the terms of that initial allocation.
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Some of his other ones that follow a bunch of youth in a space ship seeking revenge seem too... non-standard to make a popular movie.
Ooh, nerdgasm time. The Forge of God and Anvil of Stars , respectively. Actually, I think that they could be pitched to a studio successfully, considering some projects that have gone ahead and made money. It would need a good director with a good rep... Not sure if it's X'fer Nolan's thing...
Ian D, thanks... I'd heard of that... and that it was awful.. or at least that Moorcock hated it... but then, he's like Alan Moore regarding film adaptations... come to think of it, has anyone seen the two of them in the same room together?
I think Craig may have mentioned The Silmarillion ... Alas, IIRC the Tolkein family own the rights and have been very hostile towards film adaptations in general. Probably not a goer.
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(The Zone in which reminded me of Tarkovsky's Stalker thru Ballard's Vermilion Sands type glasses...)
Admire your nerd-fu... Lessee, New wave Brit SFF has never had the regard it deserves... Howzabout The Drowned World -surrealist prophecy looking all too real now- and howzabout Jerry Cornelius as a counter to James Bond? Now who'd do that?
Hmmm, re Ballard, Cronenberg did rather well with Crash methinks (and Howard Shore did the soundtrack too - he being a former Jacksonian collaborator).
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Yes, certain narratives suit series format better than film. Watchmen , I think, would have better as a serial. Battlestar definitely benefitted from series format rather than being a film.
The 80s and early 90s saw some excellent television drama that could only have worked on television, with it's gradual building up and convergence of plot threads and its unveiling of layers; consider The Singing Detective, Edge of Darkness and Our Friends in the North . The anticipation between episodes was part of the drama.
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The funny thing is that speculative fiction/fantasy is one of the most lucrative genres of film... it's so very, very odd considering that American fiction is supposed to to be realist in mode... and yet Philip K Dick is one of the most influential writers around if Hollywood is any guide - apart from the adaptations of his works, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Inception, Requiem For a Dream, Memento, The Matrix [etc] , Battlestar Galactica could all be pastiches.
Certainly Hollywood sf is at a crass, unimaginative, formulaic level, but so many directors and writers manage to get some quite sophisticated, layered stories produced, and make money doing so (Hello Mr Cameron, are you listening? You were once.).
And, and and... Ridley Scott's supposed to be making Haldeman's The Forever war and I'd looove to see an adaptation of Pohl's Gateway ...
Excuse me, I need a cold shower.
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Roughan sounds like he just doesn't like speculative fiction, "childish" being one of the main criticisms of that school of thought.
Emma, Craig, there's a good riposte by Tolkein himself in the essay "On Fairy Stories" - Google will show it's various publications.
Yes, I'm very tired of the condescending "speculative fiction is for children, now eat your broccoli - it'll make you a man" argument.
If there's any novel begging to be adapted to film,
Now while The Book of the New Sun would make a splendid series (hmmm, and M. John Harrison's In Viriconium would be a nice little low-budget piece), it would be rather shocking ("No-one expects the Seekers of Truth and Penitence!"), I'd be quite keen to see an Iain M Banks adaptation too... get the discomforting chair...
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And on the feline theme, most charitably and trivially:
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Theory: the longer you attend university, the more you become convinced that you have no idea about anything. Or is that just me?
11.5 years of full time tertiary education and 3 degrees later, I know enough to know that this theory is entirely correct.
The best lesson, Shirley?
I'm a cop and knowledge is a donut bakery. Pile 'em higher and deeper!
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You bastard - I jumped forward a few pages just to read that :)
Discretion is the better part of courtesy. Sometimes I have to/should bite my tongue.
:)
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