Ringworld and Snowcrash
- Thread starter Jim of WVa
- Start date
I admit I have zero confidence in Amazon or MGM to do Ringworld correctly. I don't think they will show it proper respect as it is one of the greatest science fiction books ever written (to me the original Foundation trilogy is still the apex of science fiction). Plus I don't see how you can jam Ringworld into a movie - maybe a 9-12 hour miniseries but a movie?
I don't think I want to see any Ringworld movie. It is one of my favorite books!
The more I think of it the more I see a movie having major problems to overcome such as:
- The absolute necessity of establishing the racial and cultural backgrounds of both the Kzinti and the Puppeteers, as these are literally crucial to the plot of Ringworld. Without a film managing to display the "cultural cowardice" of the Puppeteers while not making them ridiculous the entire reason for the expedition disappears. And without establishing the Kzinti and their violent history with humanity and indeed every other species they meet key plot elements involving the reason Nessus specifically recruited Speaker to Animals make no sense.
- You also have to cover the Core explosion in the Milky Way, make reference to General Products and its spaceship hull technology and so on.
This is why I said a 9-12 hour mini sounds more like what is needed.
- The absolute necessity of establishing the racial and cultural backgrounds of both the Kzinti and the Puppeteers, as these are literally crucial to the plot of Ringworld. Without a film managing to display the "cultural cowardice" of the Puppeteers while not making them ridiculous the entire reason for the expedition disappears. And without establishing the Kzinti and their violent history with humanity and indeed every other species they meet key plot elements involving the reason Nessus specifically recruited Speaker to Animals make no sense.
- You also have to cover the Core explosion in the Milky Way, make reference to General Products and its spaceship hull technology and so on.
This is why I said a 9-12 hour mini sounds more like what is needed.
That might work, but I fear that any of the new-age writers doing it will change crucial elements of the story and make me hate it. I think that the miniseries of Childhood's End was done very well, so they MIGHT be able to pull Ringworld off that way, but most definitely not a movie. You can't compress the story into 2 or 3 hours without sacrificing the character development and cultural evolution.
Jim of WVa
Well Known GateFan
If I understand the article correctly, Ringworld will be a miniseries.
PussyGalore
Meow
The other shows they listed sound a bit "Game of Thrones/teen angsty". I have yet to read the Ringworld series of books but am looking forward to it. What concerns me is the inability of Hollywood to cinematically reproduce books in a sincere fashion. For instance, the show The Strain just concluded after 4 seasons on FX -- and it concluded very badly. Compared to the books it was terrible. The writers went so far as to jettison key plot elements from the books, including characters, which made the show unintelligible and just plain dumb. I can't recall the last time I was this disappointed in a show, especially since season 1 was amazing. (Many, many fans were dejected by the way the writers ruined it by deviating from the books over the seasons.)
I know it's easy to be a cynic when it comes to this stuff but I think we have a right to be. It's understandable that when translating a book to the screen that things have to be tweaked and sometimes eliminated, but the problem comes in when the screenwriters toss out the original author's key plot points and instead insert their own bizarre story elements; often ones that make no sense.
It's great that scifi is getting noticed and produced, but not so great if they muck it up.
I know it's easy to be a cynic when it comes to this stuff but I think we have a right to be. It's understandable that when translating a book to the screen that things have to be tweaked and sometimes eliminated, but the problem comes in when the screenwriters toss out the original author's key plot points and instead insert their own bizarre story elements; often ones that make no sense.
It's great that scifi is getting noticed and produced, but not so great if they muck it up.
Lord Ba'al
Well Known GateFan
I'll be very interested in watching Ring World given that I've heard great things about the book. I don't want to know anything about the story before I get to watch it.
I love the first Ringworld book, but the others almost seem like an afterthought cashing in on the first book. The Expanse series of books are ALL excellent.
The combined book would be a bit over 700 pages, and encompass two expeditions to the Ringworld. Plus there are plot points in The Ringworld Engineers which came about due to fan reaction to the original novel (Larry Niven recounts attendees at the World Science Fiction Convention chanting "The Ringworld is Unstable!").