Posted on 07/20/2004 9:43:06 AM PDT by jalisco555
Isaac Asimov was the steak-and-buffet restaurant of American authors: What he lacked in quality, he made up for in volume. If you didn't like what he was serving, you could wait a few minutes for him to bring out something else. By the time he died in 1992, at the age of 72, Asimov had published more than 470 books, ranging from science-fiction classics to annotated guides of great literature to limerick collections to The Sensuous Dirty Old Man, a defense and celebration of lechery. "His first 100 books took him 237 months, or almost 20 years, until October 1969, to write," his New York Times obituary observed. "His second 100, a milestone he reached in March 1979, took 113 months, or about 9 ½ years—a rate of more than 10 books a year. His third 100 took only 69 months, until December 1984, or less than 6 years." By the end, Asimov achieved the Grand Slam of book writing, turning out at least one volume for each of the 10 classifications in the Dewey Decimal System.
The thread that connected this prodigious output was Asimov's role as a teacher, "the greatest explainer of the age," as Carl Sagan called him. Whether the subject was science, Shakespeare, or the Bible, Asimov was a popularizer who wrote with clarity and concision. Even in his science fiction, the work for which he will be most remembered, Asimov was as much an explainer as a storyteller, an advocate for science and reason over mysticism. In fact, the rap on Asimov the fiction writer is that his stories are too simple, too obvious, too easy to be the stuff of great literature. In Wired, the science-fiction writer Cory Doctorow recently described Asimov's work as "proto-fiction … from a time before the field shed its gills and developed lungs, feet, and believable characters." True. But if Asimov is so easy, why do so many people—including Alex Proyas, the director of I, Robot, and the movie's screenwriters, Akiva Goldsman and Jeff Vintar—keep getting him so wrong?
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.msn.com ...
Agreed. Blade Runner was a remarkably infuential film and an exception to the general rule.
Wouldn't that be more like hitting for the cycle? (a far rarer event, too)
I bet it sucks!
True enough. But it's best for an author to be self-consistent within a saga. Beyond that, the original Foundation Trilogy was very much in the tradition of the old, "hard" sci-fi, i.e. extrapolations of what is known. The Gaia hypothesis was from the new age, drug-induced culture of the '70s. This sort of literary shift generates laughter more than contemplation or wonder.
I'm still waiting for Glory Road that Marjo Gortner optioned decades ago.
"Minority Report" was, IMO, a very good movie and a good piece of visual SF. I think "I, Robot" was trying to do a lot of what Minority Report got right, with the near-future society. Only the story wasn't as interesting. But Philip K. Dick's work is too weird to just transfer straight to film.
I'd love to see a good movie of "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress". Hey, if they can do Tolkien... But if it'd come out like the Starship Troopers movie, forget it. The people in charge of that clearly didn't know what Heinlein was talking about.
I have the first generation plain-ol' Roomba. I does good on bare floors for between vacuuming cleanings. I couldn't throw out the regular upright vac, though, which is what I was after. It's an interesting system, but not quite ready for prime time.
They have a new one coming out that will find it's way back to the charging station, recharge, and vacuum on a schedule. If I could have the floors done every night when I sleep, that would be pretty slick. I might give it a try.
IA<-->AI bump.
The only serious error the movie made was to mass the troops as if nuclear warfare is like medieval warfare. Eight troopers have enough firepower to take a planet.
Let's do mention it. Lest we forget.
I disagree. I think that Verhoeven knew exactly what Heinlein was talking about and deliberately set out to discredit it.
The last I heard of it, in 1991, it was supposed to be financed by a Kuwati investor, whose finances were interrupted by the Iraqi invasion. I don't think it would work as a live-action--too many child actors and not enough talent. Maybe as a CGI picture?
I think he thought he knew what Heinlein was talking about, and tried to discredit that strawman. Do I believe someone capable of making an execrable film like that had any chance of truly understanding what Heinlein was on about? Nope. I think he was one of the sorts who reads Starship Troopers and thinks it's praising fascism, glorfiying capital punishment (and that this is bad) and calling for a military dictatorship. Which isn't what the book was about.
Why do movie makers keep getting it wrong?
Don't know but they sure do, don't they. Of course sometimes the quality shines through despite what the directors try to do. The best example of this is Blade Runne aka "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" by Dick.
If Ender's Game was going to be animated (which I don't believe it is), I'd love to see it done by a Japanese studio. They might be able to do justice to it, while American animation in the last few years has been truly lousy. While American CGI is great, I haven't seen a CGI "style" that would suit Ender's Game - imagine it done in the style of Toy Story, or Finding Nemo. Eww.
But stories keep cropping up about "so-and-so is writing the screenplay" and "so-and-so is signed on to direct", so we might get it someday.
Starship Troopers (the movie) was so camp it was great! Yes, I loved the book, but it was clearly an inspiration only.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOO
It certainly synched with how we visualize a frontier!
I was fascinated that they had the courage not to use aliens. How few Science Fiction tales have dared to suggest that we might really be alone in the universe? I found that to be a fascinating element.
The good news is that Yahoo Movie News reports that they are doing a movie, Serenity, due out in 2005.
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.