Posted on 10/11/2024 8:46:42 PM PDT by BenLurkin
So, with the third Dune film, Dune Messiah, still very much in development limbo, what can we expect from Villeneuve’s other big science fiction project, the much-discussed adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama? The short answer is: don’t expect it to be anything like Dune. And, if Villeneuve is very smart, he and his collaborators will make Rama very different from its source material.
At the risk of sounding reductive, Rendezvous with Rama is a bit easier to define: It’s an epic work of speculative science fiction that firmly favors its concepts over its characters. Anecdotally, even huge fans of Clarke would struggle to name 10 characters in Rendezvous with Rama off the top of their head. Contrast this with Dune, in which characters are arguably everything.
...
However, Rama — at least the original novel by Clarke — isn’t like that. It’s a fairly self-contained novel about a semi-sentient mysterious alien starship that enters our solar system and is explored by human astronauts. Villeneuve has called the concept “Arrival on steroids,” and it’s easy to understand why.
...
But, how would Villeneuve and his collaborators adapt Rama? What would it look like?
...
A fully faithful adaption of this Arthur C. Clarke novel won’t translate to film, which means for Rama to be a truly great science fiction film, Villeneuve will need to utterly reinvent it.
(Excerpt) Read more at inverse.com ...
>> And, if Villeneuve is very smart, he and his collaborators will make Rama very different from its source material. <<
Then don’t make it. Leave it alone. Let someone who finds a way to make the source material work have their crack at it. But quit sh!++ing on the people who actually have original ideas.
He criticizes the book for lacking ten memorable characters; the book is about an expedition of three people.
Dune story. It’s a work of soft sci-fi, that is epic and small, but transgressive, profound, and often confounding
I stopped taking the author seriously upon reading that.
Because Ramans do everything in threes. ;) Not that this sci-fi illiterate would catch such a thing. I am not much of a Clarke fan (Ellison, Knight, and Heinlein are more my cup of tea), but if you’re not going to follow the source material, then write your own damn story. I shudder when I think that my beloved “At the Mountains of Madness” is going to get the same treatment.
I just hate it when a movie is made about a book that I like that is so far from the original that I can't watch the movie out of fear it will ruin my memory of the story. Rendezvous with Rama is such a great story that there is no reason to deviate from it. Not every movie needs to be a love story.
I would like to see Riverworld done over.
I REALLY want to see Ringworld done, but these two works have to be done carefully.
Looking forward to the next chapter of Dune.
I read the three sequels, and they were progressively worse.
SPOILER.
The fourth book revealed that the ship had been sent by God to gather intelligence about the universe that He had created. God apparently has Rama ships all over the universe, reporting back to Him.
Also, all xenophobic people, people who hate diversity and hate being around aliens, are sterilized and quarantined on another ship, to humanely live out their lives and then go extinct. So that their xenophobic genes won't contaminate our diverse universe.
“A fully faithful adaption of this Arthur C. Clarke novel won’t translate to film, which means for Rama to be a truly great science fiction film, Villeneuve will need to utterly reinvent it.”
Then call it something else. What’s the problem?
Rama is a HUGE ship, miles and miles long and in diameter.
Large enough that it has weather and a sea inside. And other beings it has collected, voluntarily, from other planets that are in separate compartments...............
I’d like to see a director take a shot at Clarke’s “Childhoods End”. Yes, some of the story has been used in other sci-fi movies, but I think this is the best of alien “Overlords” benevolent control of a World with a very interesting ending and theme throughout. No SPOILER here. Read the book.
I’m waiting for the folks who did the IT movies to take on Attack on Titan. Hope they don’t screw it up.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.