I just realized while reading the the polygamy raid thread that, in the right hands, a movie version of Under The Banner Of Heaven could be one of the most awesome films ever. It almost certainly will never be done which is a shame.
It would be like a combination of Natural Born Killers and the Joseph Smith episode of South Park.
Re: movies that SHOULD be made
Somebody should make a movie version of Tolkien's novel "The Two Towers."
"the only thing worse than a freeper is a blue state freeper that doesn't realize they're a freeper." -dhex
hoisted by their own waterboard!
-dhex
Re: movies that SHOULD be made
I'm all for a scifi channel miniseries of The Silmarillion.
But, as Deepak Chopra taught us, quantum physics means anything can happen at any time for no reason! Also, eat plenty of oatmeal, and animals never had a war... who's the real animal?
=Professor Farnsworth
Re: movies that SHOULD be made
I was hoping they were going to make Mefisto In Onyx, but I'm also kind of relieved they didn't.
Re: movies that SHOULD be made
Titan, Wizard and Demon would kick the LOTR trilogy's ass with the right director and a BIG budget.
The sun is barely up and the streets are already filled with drunken Scots. That can't be good. - mk
Re: movies that SHOULD be made
I'd like to see a good film biography of Tariq ibn-Ziya or Saladin.
If you weren't doing anything wrong, then you have no reason to be afraid while they kick the crap out of you. - D.A. Ridgely
Re: movies that SHOULD be made
I think they should make a trilogy or something out of Cryptonomicon.
I'm trying to cast it in my head. The best I can do is that the Dr. House guy should be Enoch and maybe R. Lee Ermey should be Doug Shaftoe.
A movie version of Larry Niven's Ringworld might be cool, and there's been some talk of it, but so far only talk.
"My intellect is gigantic, monstrous, terrifying."
Re: movies that SHOULD be made
I've always thought that The Principality of Sealand would make a great setting for a movie.
Oddly enough, I think it should be a based-on-true-events comedy.
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Re: movies that SHOULD be made
You know, I can see this. Indeed, a comedy of errors is the only way you could make it interesting.
"Still, though, being fat isn't some kind of moral failing. Unless you're fat from, like, eating the people you murder...then it's probably a moral failing of one sort or another." -- Timothy
Re: movies that SHOULD be made
Plus you have bigger-than-life colorful characters. Dude declared himself the king of an anti-aircraft platform.
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Re: movies that SHOULD be made
A lot of folks expressed a liking for Arthur C Clarke's 'Childhood's End'. It's not my favorite Clarke book, but I think it would make a great movie. It's right for a movie, because it's not too long and you can hack big hunks out of it without overly upsetting the plot.
seriously though, i think you're crazy on this. and you think i'm crazy. everybody wins! - dhex
Re: movies that SHOULD be made
I would prefer a movie version of Grail, or several-short-movies-in-one including Strange Wine (my favorite Harlan Ellison story), Paladin of The Lost Hour and maybe Life Hutch or I Have No Mouth, But I Must Scream.
The best part about an Ellison movie adaptation is I would be very surprised if they fucked it up, given Harlan's tenacity when it comes to control of his work.
I would love to see the Ringworld Series on film. LOVE IT.
"Hey, any chance to show off my eru — erudi — my book learnin'." - David L. Watkins
Re: movies that SHOULD be made
Yeah, well, this is why not too many Ellison movies get made. Which is a good thing, don't get me wrong. You should see the choice words he had for the screenwriter who did the first draft of MIO. (I mention that one in particular not because it's my favorite story, but because it did come relatively close to actually becoming reality.) I think terms like "simian" and "sub-moron" were bandied about...
Personally, I think a whole bunch of his stories could make good movies - "Shattered Like A Glass Goblin" for its intense hallucinatory visuals and subtle social criticism, or "All the Birds Come Home To Roost" for its psychological terror, or hell, just about any of them, if they could be done right.
And speaking of authors, I think there's a lot of Bradbury that would make good shorts; I once started to analyze the process of making "Chrysalis" into a movie, just for the heck of it.
Re: movies that SHOULD be made
Well, my love for Ellison is tempered by the fact that the episode he wrote for Babylon 5 dashed my hopes for a good episode in season five.
Edit: He only gets story credit, but not writing credit. Apparently he had the idea for the story, and then JMS wrote it. JMS had lost his mojo for 5th season. This does not reflect on Ellison's writing ability.
"But if it makes you feel better, I would also enjoy a world in which there are men, women, transsexuals, genderqueer folk, etc. who all enjoy pelican role-play." - JD
"Extraordinary conditions do not create or enlarge constitutional powers."
Re: movies that SHOULD be made
I'd like to see a new version of Something Wicked This Way Comes. If Tim Burton could be involved somehow, that would be ideal.
"Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind... I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions.."-Emerson
Re: movies that SHOULD be made
Apparently so, IMBD has a space reserved for it, but no info I can retrieve.
Proud Cosmotarian
Re: movies that SHOULD be made
HOLY PANTS-LOADING CRAP!
8-o
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Re: movies that SHOULD be made
I'm thinking a good Cthulhu flick made by a talented director. It would be all too easy to mess up.
Re: movies that SHOULD be made
The Phantom Tollbooth. This is my third favorite children's book of all time after the Alice books. A so-so animated film version was made in 1969 but like all great fantasy books, it really requires the sort of special effects only recently possible in non-animated films.
BTW, speaking of films that should be made, has anyone here seen (alas, I haven't) the 2007 film version of Flatland?
"love is like porn, you know" -- Ali
Re: movies that SHOULD be made
FLATLAND! MUST GET DVD!
A parasite feeding on bacteria growing on fungus growing on cow excrement? The only way the parasitic chain could get any longer would be if the cow excrement worked for the government.
- Smacky
Re: movies that SHOULD be made
Critics are saying that the characters are one-dimensional.
If you weren't doing anything wrong, then you have no reason to be afraid while they kick the crap out of you. - D.A. Ridgely
Re: movies that SHOULD be made
That's a valid point but an old line.
"love is like porn, you know" -- Ali
Re: movies that SHOULD be made
http://store.flatlandthemovie.com/
"ps not an lp member so stop beating that drum. the drum is tired and wants to go home now, to the family that loves it. i haven’t even mentioned PRECIOUS PRECIOUS GOLD or ferrets or anything." - dhex
Re: movies that SHOULD be made
Some math-major friends and I were drinking in the math building and decided to watch that movie. Of course, we had to come up with an appropriate drinking game. We eventually decided that we should drink every time the characters did something that wouldn't have been possible in a 2-dimensional world (i.e. required rotation through the third dimension).
Re: movies that SHOULD be made
I would love to watch/write/drool over a historical-epic style telling of the 1916 Easter Rebellion in Ireland.
See, if only we could drill in ANWR, we'd have enough energy for faster-than-light travel. - mediageek
Re: movies that SHOULD be made
Your movie ideas are too complicated, Taktix®.
Me, I'd rather watch an epic movie about the French Indochinese Women's Suffragette Lingerie Bikini Spanking Uprising of an Alternate 1979.
"My intellect is gigantic, monstrous, terrifying."