Month: May 2025

But Which Story?

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The previous post (“Have I Got a Story for You”) produced some stimulating comments and feedback (below in bold print):

I think it just proves there’s a ready market for good science fiction out there.  Larry Niven’s Known Space; David Weber’s Honor Harrington stories; Niven and Pournelle with “Footfall” “The Mote in God’s Eye” and “Lucifer’s Hammer.”  The stories are already there.  But apparently the powers that be want a different kind of story but for an audience that doesn’t like science fiction!

For adults all of the below comments give ideas that should easily be translatable to cinema or television series productions.  The technical problems have long ago been conquered with computer generated imagery.  The only problems are lack of imagination and ideological blindness.

And the people who want the good stories are both young and old.  I’d love to be able to bring my grandkids to see age-appropriate science fiction that isn’t just poorly disguised gender and racial grievance propaganda but actually tells a good story about people they can relate to.

In the spirit of selecting something I could bring my grandchildren to (and enjoy myself!) I figure I’ll throw out a couple of safe but entertaining choices.

My first choice has some problems.  The story premise has become dated based on the current state of the art in computing and thinking machines.  It’s Heinlein’s “Starman Jones.”  Max Jones’s unusual rise through the ranks from stable boy to astrogator was predicated on his “eidetic” memory and abilities as a lightning calculator.  Well, that would seem to be a kind of silly plotline today.  Even the most phenomenal human mind cannot hope to compare with the speed and precision of a modern computer.  So, some other skill will be needed to distinguish the young hero.  The FTL process could be changed so that sensing the space warp is an individualistic skill that he happens to possess to an extreme degree.  Or some other skill, whatever.

But the rest of the storyline works fine for a book or a movie concept.  Max and his mentor Sam can show their qualities on some lost planet in a star system far, far away.  I think it would make a billion bucks.

And even more apt Heinlein juvenile would be “Have Spacesuit Will Travel.”  The protagonist Kip Russell goes through a collection of adventures that are ready made for the big screen.  He’s accidentally drawn into an interstellar police action between a galaxy-spanning civilization and a race of evil predators that have invaded our solar system with the intent of conquering humanity and using them as food.

It’s got FTL space travel, time travel and high adventure.  It even has humanity put on trial in front of a galactic court to determine whether they deserve to exist.  What’s not to love.

And of course, the Heinlein juveniles include at least a half dozen more stories that are highly qualified to be considered for the big screen.  All it would take would be a director with a decent ear for dialog and a script writer who isn’t totally woke.

So, any of you guys aware of any recent science fiction that would be appropriate for adolescents and young adults?  It’s a bit more of a specialist niche but I’m sure it exists out there.  All that has to be done is look.

 

Ed Brault

I would love to see Larry Niven’s Known Space stories and novels brought to the screen. Big, sweeping arcs like Ringworld Series, The Fleet of Worlds, or the epic Man-Kzin Wars; or smaller sets like the Gil Hamilton organlegger detective stories, or the individual novels that help flesh out the Known Space Universe: Becalmed in Hell, the Coldest Place, World of Ptaavs, A Gift from Earth, and especially, Protector, and the related Peace Corben novellas. These would probably be best done like The Expanse; a multi-year episodic TV drama.

The biggest problem would be preventing the studio suits from doing a Disney on the stories. I would consider that an Organ-Bank-worthy crime!

 

Abraham

David Weber’s Honor Harrington series would work well, even with a woman hero.

 

Tregonsee314

I think Ringworld has been in development a couple times, most recently with Amazon/MGM. It is Tough to get a large audience for it (especially as you move into Ringworld Engineers and later) as it wanders into hard R territory though one COULD limit that somewhat. It also would probably push limits of even current special effects for Kzin and Puppeteers. I love Protector it has the advantage that it sticks with a couple characters across its story. It probably would want to be a limited miniseries as it is a smidge too long (at 218 PG) to make a single two-hour movie, though you could perhaps time compress some parts and maybe get there. My own favorite for a series (or maybe 2 movie pair like the recent Dune) would be Niven and Pournelle’s Footfall, if for no other reason than the final battle using Project Archangel.

 

TomD

Reply to  Tregonsee314

It’s been decades since I read Footfall, I really would like to reread that. Niven alone

Niven and Pournelle put out so much. I still think Lucifer’s Hammer was the absolute best of the type.

Ahhh, but Ringworld made “real” and the Mote in Gods Eye—–

 

Ed Brault

Lucifer’s Hammer: The surfer dude riding the tidal wave would be worth the price of admission!

 

Tregonsee314

So many attempts and so little success. Looking for successes I think the latest incarnation of Dune, although flawed in some aspects, was probably the most successful of the 3 (4 if you count the aborted Jodorowsky attempt). I think the Jackson Lord of the Rings was very good even without certain sections (sorry Tom Bombadil, you just aren’t central to the plot). The Expanse did middling well, though I lost track of it mid-2nd season.

The failures are more plentiful. Jacksons Hobbit was a mess with unnecessary additional characters and subplots, even though the acting (Bilbo and Thorin especially) was superb. The Foundation series by Apple mangles the timeline (mostly because with the longer timeline there is no character continuity but for the shade of Hari Seldon) and adds wokish subplots all over the place. Effects were nice and Asimov having ONLY humans in Foundation/ Robots universe simplifies that. All in all, it was a disappointment and I bailed after 3-4 episodes. I think it fell flat for the public because many of its ideas seemed like retreads (E.g. Trantor as a planet covered with civilization feels like warmed over Coruscant even though Trantor predates Coruscant by 20+ years and likely inspired Lucas). And Rings of Power? Mauling the lore of Tolkien to pander to a variety of subgroups combined with puerile 4th-grade fanboy scripts produced an utter catastrophe.

Almost anything Sci-fi that Hollywood has done without a sci-fi novel or story at the heart is a mess. Hollywood seems to want to revert to the pre–Star Wars Sci-fi where all is Dystopia and nuclear hellscape. That things might work out is anathema. Even the vaunted Federation of Star Trek has been being mauled with its hidden perfidy in Discovery and Picard. Not to say dark is bad. Babylon 5 was amazing (especially given the limitations of cost and mid 1990’s special effects).

What seems to matter most is that the primary vision for converting the Sci Fi to the screen needs to LOVE the material. JMS wrote much of B5 and was its director, Peter Jackson Adored Lord of The Rings and co-wrote the script, Denis Villeneuve is a Dune/Herbert fanboi. Each loved the story in its original form and tried very hard to leave the original plot beats and characterizations in place, not bend them to tell their own story like Rings of Power or Foundation did.

Guest Contributor – Tregonsee – 28MAY2025 – Science Fiction Movies

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So many attempts and so little success.  Looking for successes I think the latest incarnation of Dune, although flawed in some aspects, was probably the most successful of the 3 (4 if you count the aborted Jodorowsky attempt). I think the Jackson Lord of the Rings was very good even without certain sections (sorry Tom Bombadil, you just aren’t central to the plot). The Expanse did middling well, though I lost track of it mid 2nd season.

The failures are more plentiful. Jacksons Hobbit was a mess with unnecessary additional characters and subplots, even though the acting (Bilbo and Thorin especially) was superb. The Foundation series by Apple mangles the timeline (mostly because with the longer timeline there is no character continuity but for the shade of Hari Seldon) and adds wokish subplots all over the place. Effects were nice and Asimov having ONLY humans in Foundation/ Robots universe simplifies that. All in all it was a disappointment and I bailed after 3-4 episodes. I think it fell flat for the public because many of its ideas seemed like retreads (E.g. Trantor as a planet covered with civilization feels like warmed over Coruscant even though Trantor predates Coruscant by 20+ years and likely inspired Lucas). And Rings of Power? Mauling the lore of Tolkien to pander to a variety of subgroups combined with puerile 4th-grade fanboy scripts produced an utter catastrophe.

Almost anything Sci-fi that Hollywood has done without a sci-fi novel or story at the heart is a mess. Hollywood seems to want to revert to the pre Star Wars Sci-fi where all is Dystopia and nuclear hellscape. That things might work out is anathema. Even the vaunted Federation of Star Trek has been being mauled with its hidden perfidy in Discovery and Picard. Not to say dark is bad. Babylon 5 was amazing (especially given the limitations of cost and mid 1990;s special effects).
What seems to matter most is that the primary vision for converting the Sci Fi to the screen needs to LOVE the material. JMS wrote much of B5 and was its director, Peter Jackson Adored Lord of The Rings and co-wrote the script, Denis Villeneuve is a Dune/Herbert fanboi. Each loved the story in its original form and tried very hard to leave the original plot beats and characterizations in place, not bend them to tell their own story like Rings of Power or Foundation did.

Serenity Now

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So today was finally the day.  I had an appointment to get that bad tooth pulled.  I drove myself there with Camera Girl riding shotgun.  The understanding was she’d drive home after I had been dosed with enough lidocaine to allow me to chew razor blades.

We got there and the dental assistant immediately found a problem.  My dentist had listed the wrong tooth.  So, there were more x-rays and phone calls and running around in circles.  Finally, the oral surgeon walked in looked at the x-ray, looked at the tooth and said, “Serenity now!”  So of course I replied, “Insanity later.”  And he started to laugh uproariously.  If I were the type to worry maybe I might have taken all of this as a bad sign.  But I’m a Seinfeld fan and I figured that a Middle Eastern oral surgeon who likes Seinfeld must have hidden depths of wisdom.

Well, the man did his job flawlessly.  He numbed my mouth completely, pulled the tooth in one twist of his wrist and installed the implant post in nothing flat.  He was good at his job and cheerful to boot.  And a few hours later he called my home to check in on me and answer questions.  He was like the opposite of my dentist who can’t do anything and avoids contact like the plague.

But that implant post means that for the next few days I’ll probably be living off “Ensure” and very carefully avoiding the healing tissues around the implant.  Also, I’ll be on antibiotics for another week so I won’t be at my most robust.

When I got home, I decided to walk around the yard to take my mind off my medical issues and I came upon one of the preying mantis egg sacs that I planted on various branches six or eight weeks ago.  And what do you know?  The little critters hatched out today.

Now there’s scant assurance that even one of these tiny critters will make it to Labor Day.  There are just so many insects, spiders, other invertebrates, frogs, toads. salamanders, snakes and even rodents and birds just waiting to devour them that if two of them survive it will be a miracle.

But I like to bet on long shots.  When school ends and Princess Sack of Potatoes arrives to visit for the summer, I hope to point out some thriving mantids in various areas of the yard.  She is particularly enamored of the preying mantis ever since she saw one in a story book called “The Very Quiet Cricket.”

Tonight “High Noon” was on tv so Camera Girl and I watched it.  I had forgotten that Grace Kelly (playing his wife) actually shot one of the outlaws in the back and scratched the face of the head villain just as he was about to shoot Gary Cooper.

Now I’ve been aware of the political leanings of the director of “High Noon” and how the townspeople leaving the Marshall to his fate was a metaphor for the lack of support that the blacklisted film industry people got during the McCarthy era.  Well, I’ve never placed much importance to this subtext.  But I will state my opinion that Gary Cooper’s character getting help from his wife in the way he did brands him as terminally low energy.  He might as well have been Jeb Bush.  A total loser; very sad.

Well, anyway it was a very successful day and hopefully my recovery will proceed smoothly.  Serenity now.

Guest Contributor – Ed Brault – 27MAY2025 – Niven’s “Known Space” on Screen

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I would love to see Larry Niven’s Known Space stories and novels brought to the screen. Big, sweeping arcs like Ringworld Series, The Fleet of Worlds, or the epic Man-Kzin Wars; or smaller sets like the Gil Hamilton organlegger detective stories, or the individual novels that help flesh out the Known Space Universe: Becalmed in Hell, the Coldest Place, World of Ptaavs, A Gift from Earth, and especially, Protector, and the related Peace Corben novellas. These would probably be best done like The Expanse; a multi-year episodic TV drama.
The biggest problem would be preventing the studio suits from doing a Disney on the stories. I would consider that an Organ-Bank-worthy crime!

Have I Got a Story for You

photog Current Events, Movie Reviews, Reviews, Science Fiction / Fantasy, SF&F Movie Reviews , , ,

I’ve been so busy lately with a lot of annoying stuff so it’s been hard to concentrate on what to write my posts about.  I don’t feel like talking about current events today.  Let’s talk about the movies.  I feel I’m unqualified to discuss the state of cinema because in the last five years I’ve gone to so few movies.

But I do think I can talk about what direction science fiction and fantasy movies should go in.  I guess I’ll start with where it shouldn’t go.  And that would be the way it’s currently proceeding.  What we see for the most part are movies that provide a science fiction setting (interstellar civilization, advanced technology, humanoid robots) but uses it as a backdrop to play out sociological scenarios of interest to the film makers, specifically, wish fulfillment about various sexual and race grievance issues.  A good example is Disney’s decision to turn their various Star Wars productions into propaganda films for why women and blacks are the only acceptable heroes in the galaxy far, far away.

This is a really dumb strategy.  They took a wildly popular and lucrative franchise and tanked it in the name of race and gender equity.  And this with a franchise whose primary market were white boys.  Let us say this was ill-advised.  So, there is the counterexample; what not to do.  Now what would be popular and lucrative?

Well, it probably doesn’t take a genius to say write a story that plays to the people who like science fiction (boys and men) and make it imaginative and exciting.  Look at the original Star Wars movie for a simplistic and not highly original plot that allowed the audience to get lost in the likeable characters and impressive special effects and smile along to the space opera that followed.  And there are hundreds of old pulp stories from Barsoom to Dune that do exactly that.  Whether it’s weird aliens or human galactic empire or some combination of the two we want to see the same story dynamic that’s been around since the Odyssey.  We want to see the hero on his quest to:

  1. Find his way home.
  2. Or, save the princess.
  3. Or, defeat the evil sorcerer.
  4. Or, invent the FTL drive.
  5. Or, whatever! As long as it’s not boring and doesn’t involve girl bosses and racial grievances.

And it’s about time that someone put together another science fiction (or fantasy) franchise to replace the tired ones that are currently limping along.  Star Wars is tapped out.  The Republic, the Empire and the Rebellion have become stale and boring.  Nobody cares.

As have the superhero movies.  We’ve used up everybody’s interest in Marvel’s and DC’s stables of 1940’s to 1960’s spandex wearing heroes.  It’s enough.  Nobody is clamoring for more Captain America or black Captain America or Gay Hispanic Spiderman or She-Hulk or any of this.  It’s now a bore.

And it doesn’t have to be legacy space opera.  Although I wouldn’t mind a Doc Smith or a Heinlein storyline.  It could be anything as long as it appeals to the male audience that enjoys this genre.  It needs action, adventure and maybe a pretty girl that needs saving from some fate worse than death (like middle-management cubicle captivity).  Add in some lively music and lots of cutting-edge special effects and you’ve got a billion-dollar hit.

Hey Elon Musk, if you want a trip to Mars make a movie about a trip to Mars that gets people excited about it.  You’ll even make a pot of gold while doing it.