SciFi books that ought to be movies

They're making that already hehe.

More information on the Jennifer Government move here.

Well @!$%#, that's awesome.

Good idea. Dancing and singing monks are always enjoyable.

The linguistic stuff in the plot probably wouldn't translate to the screen well. The rest would be awesome though.

It's funny that you say that 'cause I'm in a class this semester called Psycholinguistics & Science Fiction, and I suggested Snow Crash as possible reading for the course to one of its professors (he was looking to expand the Science Fiction portion of the class), and he read it and said that linguistics doesn't play a big enough role.

I haven't read it; I just knew that there was a linguistics connection.

I second snowcrash. It would be especially socially relevant today, both the metaverse (mmo games such as wow, second life, FFXI, everquest and social networks such as myspace, facebook, newsvine and the like) and the megachurch media conglomerate

I only read the book about a month ago, and I was struck by the Metaverse's similarity to Second Life.

Any book with a main character named Hiro Protagonist deserves to be made into a commercial empire the likes of which topples Star Wars.

That was an awesome series.

I can't believe this wasn't like the first post in here. Ender's Game is one of the most expected Sci-fi films in a long time. (even more so than the freakin star wars prequels).

The only more profound movie from a book needed is: FOUNDATION!!! Asimov deserves an epic film for his epic novel.

Spielberg is probably the best person for Ender's Game though, I thoroughly agree.

Spielberg would ruin Ender's Game and would never happen because Orson Scott Card has little respect for the recent Spielberg. Seriously, what was Spielberg's last decent original movie? E.T.?

Sorry again, but of all of Asimov's works Foundation would by far make the worst movie. It isn't even rally a novel, but a collection of short stories. Besides, Asimov himself admits in his various biographies that his earlier works completely lacked dynamic characters and any character development. If you cannot relate to the main characters and care about them, then the movie is dead from the onset. Now, his later works, the Foundation prequels featuring the life of Hari Seldon would be good, but not exactly blockbuster or epic. Nemesis would be good, as could potentially Nightfall if it was expanded from its short story to add some characters and a plot to what is a great concept story. Regrettably, perhaps Asimov's best novel, The Gods Themselves would make a terrible movie, but we can always read the book again.

From the two others in THE BIG THREE, there is little I would want to see from Clarke, while Stranger in a Strange Land or The Moon is a Harsh Mistress would both be amazing from Heinlein. I wouldn't mind a serious attempt at Starship Troopers, but I have a feeling that has already been ruined by the farce of a movie that shares its name but shares little else with the novel.

Adam, I couldn't agree more with the sentiments on Starship Troopers... it needs some serious re-imagination. Something in film format that would be a respectable portrayal of the the story in the books. Its high time... anyone interested in a 3D animation version (Maybe Weinstein Co could do it? They are redoing TMNT, and the previews look like a QUITE promising re-imagination of the sewer turtles). I know there was an animated version series for awhile, but it lacked in quality of acting and animation... It needed SO much more attention to catch on... how sad :-(

Foundation would do well with more development placed on Hari Seldon... I agree. There really isn't ONE plot in foundation, that must be why I like it... so much happening all at once, in a huge galaxy, not really following ONE single story, but all of them and how they are inter-related. (its a personal preference in story types) For example, I loved "CRASH", the stories intertwining yet staying quite separate in structure (all surrounding a similar racial conflict). Its my thing... yeah, sorry for the rant, but I like stories like that.

Seriously, what was Spielberg's last decent original movie? E.T.?

What exactly does original mean here? If it means original as in 'not adapted from a previously published or produced work,' why is that relevant when we're talking about having him helm the adaptation of a short story/novel? And what difference does it make if a movie is adapted from something else anyway?

Do you mean movies he's actually written himself? I can't imagine that that's relevant for two reasons: 1. There are only three of those (AI, Poltergeist, and Close Encounters), and 2. E.T. isn't one of them.

Maybe you mean non-sequels. Except that the only sequel he's made in the last seventeen years is The Lost World: Jurassic Park.

Either way, out of just the last ten years, find me the bad movie out of this group: Munich, Catch Me If You Can, Minority Report, Saving Private Ryan. There aren't a ton of directors who've made four movies of that caliber in the last decade. And if one were to expand that to fifteen years, Jurassic Park and Schindler's List would suddenly count.

The whole 'recent Spielberg films are @!$%#' thing is a myth. Sure, he's made a few @!$%#ty movies. But so has mostly everyone else.

I would love to see Ender's Game on the big screen, but I fear it would mainly be a genre film without broad appeal unless a really good trailer was made for it that could draw in the non-scifi fan. In the same way Serenity was a good movie but few outside the Firefly fan base bothered to see it.

Point and laugh all you like, but I thought that Starship Troopers was an entertaining flick. It's a terrible adaption of the book, I'll give you that, but if you put that aside, and most of your mental reasoning, it's a fun ride.

Foundation would do well with more development placed on Hari Seldon... I agree. There really isn't ONE plot in foundation, that must be why I like it... so much happening all at once, in a huge galaxy, not really following ONE single story, but all of them and how they are inter-related.

But the thing about Foundation was that there was not a bunch of intertwined plot lines as we are used to them, but instead one plot at time a, then jump ahead 50 years to plot at time b, then jump ahead 200 years to plot at time c. The trilogy would fail miserably on the big screen, but perhaps a Sci Fi miniseries is in order. They did as good a job on Dune as can be expected.

What exactly does original mean here?

I mean Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade doesn't count because it is basically Raiders of the Lost Arc with a new plot line, nothing to really change the directing.

Munich and Minority Report were terrible. Catch Me if You Can was okay, and Saving Private Ryan was pretty darn good. But look at his other recent movies, AI was garbage, Hook was one of the worst movies of the '90s, Jurassic Park was okay, but could have been so much better, War of the Worlds was mediocre. The problem with Steven Spielberg movies are that you know they are Spielberg movies. That's not how directing should work. The less you notice the directing in a movie the better a job the director did. It is only when you notice the directing that they have failed at their job of delivering a story that you can get lost in. When their directing pulls you out of the story then they have failed and that is the problem with recent Spielberg movies, he has too many moments where he goes, "hey look at how amazing a director I am, no other director would do this!" and there is a reason no other director would, it's just bad.

Regarding who should direct a film version of Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card had this to say about the movie Serenity and how he would like the movie to feel.

The key to this kind of movie is that you create a community that the audience wishes they belonged to, with a leader that even audience members who don't follow anybody would willingly follow. That will be the key to Ender's Game if the movie is ever successfully made; and it is the key to Serenity.

Ender's game would be SUCH an awesome movie...if done well.

Nightfall [would be good] if it was expanded from its short story to add some characters and a plot to what is a great concept story.

Asimov and Silverberg did exactly that: http://www.amazon.com/Nightfall-Bantam-Spectra-Isaac-Asimov/dp/0553290991

Yeah, but that expansion would make a poor movie. It needs a new, movie specific expansion.

Actually..When listening to Ender's Game on me Ipod Mr Card said they had been working on a movie for a couple of years.

However, finding a producer that didn't wanted to write in a love story and change the ages to teens...was..virtually impossible.

The difficulties are to find lots of good actors around the ages of 7-15.

They found a producer after all, and I think we'll see Ender's Game - the Movie within a couple of years ^_^

Pug is would totally dominate Fizban! Too bad I can't stand any of Feists more recent Midkemia novels; they all suck. The Magician series was excellent (as were the stories from the other side of the rift, I can't remember then name of the series; boy has it been a long time).

Sorry to have gone down this path - I'm not trying to hijack the thread but here's my one last comment:

yes the Empire series - I really liked that one. I thought it was just as good, if not better, than the Magician series.

Silverthorn and Darkness at Sethanon were pretty good too - but in my mind I clump them together with Magician simply because I read them all at pretty much the same time.

I have not read the Legends of Riftwar Series; perhaps I will give it a chance. Maybe I have read some though because I remember the character name "Jimmy the Hand".

Honestly up to this year it had been close to 13 years that I remember reading a Feist book and I choose to read the Conclave of Shadows books about "Talon" or just "Tal" and they were horrible. I was suprised they were written by Feist (based on my memory of Magician and Empire). The plot was weak, the characters fairly shallow, Pug wasn't even well written, and the whole story seemed very cliche'

Believe it or not, that wretched Dungeons & Dragons movie was originally supposed to be Dragonlance. But then Dragonheart (Sean Connery as the talking dragon) came out and completely flopped, and some genius decided that a movie with a heavy focus on dragons = unprofitable, so we got the cliched crapfest that is Dungeons & Dragons. The irony here is that the only thing even remotely watchable in that movie is the dragon sequence at the end. ;)

HOWEVER... they are now making an animated Dragonlance movie! Some interesting choices for the voices... most notably, Keifer Sutherland is going to be Raistlin. I think he will do Raistlin's rasp proud... picture his scientist from Dark City. Also, having Jack Bauer headlining the cast should give it some much needed publicity. Other voice actors include Lucy Lawless as Goldmoon, Michael Rosenbaum (Smallville's Lex Luthor) as Tanis, Michelle Trachtenberg (Buffy's annoying sister) as Tika, and Phil LaMarr (!) as both Riverwind and Gilthanas.

Weiss and Hickman are both involved as creative consultants too. Looking like it could be pretty sweet.

Official Movie Site

IMDB Page

Also in the same vein, Armor by John Steakley was excellent. Rather similar to Starship Troopers with the battling the bugs though.

I could definitely see Spielbergh directing A Fire Upon the Deep. Totally up his alley what with the Tines and all.

Which begs the question: who would play Friday?

Whoever it is, she would need to be sexy, athletic, and willing to do nude scenes. Friday, after all, was grown in a test tube to be a concubine before she was bought by Boss, and trained to be a secret agent. Physical perfection is compulsory for whoever takes on the role.