Topic: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress - film in the works

[Nemesis]

Link to full article

Bryan Singer is tackling an adaptation of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, based on the classic sci-fi book by Robert A. Heinlein. Twentieth Century Fox recently picked up the movie rights.

Arrow executive producer Marc Guggenheim will adapt the book for the project, which will be titled Uprising. Singer is producing with Lloyd Braun of Whalerock Industries and Thor Halvorssen. Executive producers are Andrew Mittman and Jason Taylor.

[Tulwar]

Remember Starship Troopers?  I never want to see another Heinlein title slapped on some stupid Hollywood pile of manuer again.

The really funny thing about Troopers is that they stole a big part of the plot from a book titled Armor.  Whoops!

[Sirgod]

I don't know, this one may be worth it, as it was from his "young readers" collection, more so than starship troopers was.

Heh, as a side, I still have a copy of Armor, that Frey gave me for my 30 th birthday. Talk about how the years have passed. This means I've known some of you know for almost 15 years.

[Nemesis]

Remember Starship Troopers?  I never want to see another Heinlein title slapped on some stupid Hollywood pile of manuer again.

The fundamental issue will be how they approach it.  If like Starship Troopers where the director apparently never read the book and was after making it to match his own agenda then no.  If like Harve Bennet who set out to make a continuation of what came before and made The Wrath of Khan then yes. 

[Nemesis]

I don't know, this one may be worth it, as it was from his "young readers" collection, more so than starship troopers was.

Both books had a lot to make you think.  SST on ethics and voting and leadership vs command among other things.  TMHM about colonialism and the nature and role of government and ways to limit government even ecology and what it takes to be "Human" (was Mike Human?).

I'm a little concerned that they will make Mike into something far less then the character was or even eliminate him.  Wyoming Knot could just be reduced to good looking fluff.   

Heh, as a side, I still have a copy of Armor, that Frey gave me for my 30 th birthday. Talk about how the years have passed. This means I've known some of you know for almost 15 years.

I don't have birthdays so no time has passed at all.

[Brush Wolf]

Remember Starship Troopers?  I never want to see another Heinlein title slapped on some stupid Hollywood pile of manuer again.

The fundamental issue will be how they approach it.  If like Starship Troopers where the director apparently never read the book and was after making it to match his own agenda then no.  If like Harve Bennet who set out to make a continuation of what came before and made The Wrath of Khan then yes. 

I don't think Singer is a Verhoeven so there is some hope there.

[Tulwar]

To put the problem with movies in a nutshell, it's on the buisness end.  The movie buisness has changed radically since the days of Stanley Kubric.  Worse, the present buisness model has calcified into this international pattern.  You can't make a sophisticated comedy, because jokes don't translate well.  That means anything more than a fart joke gets cut.  Chick films can still be good, because they're all about character and relationship development.  Just sync the translation voice actors with the lip movements, boy meets girl, excetera, excetera.  It's all the same.

Science fiction?  Only in America, Russia, and Japan do adults give a rat's buttocks about sci-fi.  That means anything written above a 3rd Grade level falls to the cutting room floor.  Well, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe had a couple adult level jokes in it, but that was because the target audience was so young, parents would be trapped as a captive audience.  Otherwise, sci-fi scripts are written so some lady in Argentina can drop off her son and his buddies at the cinema for a couple hours, while she does grocery shopping.

What does this mean for our movie?  We'll just see our heroes running around in circles, while the bad guys chase them around.  Oh yeah, as this is a revolution movie, it's a good place to inject some anarchist propaganda.  You know, "Government is evil."

[Sirgod]

hehe, but government is evil.

Nah, I get what you are saying on the above. I really do man. Hell, I'd like to thank you for making a point also, that I have preached for years, but no one seems to listen, but that is for another time in another thread not here.

But yeah, I can see where sci fi does not appeal to a larger international audience. I would add India to the mix however, as I've seen a change in bollywood the last few years. 9yes, I have no life, and watch bollywood movies at times.)

Can you imagine what would happen though, if they tried to make Stranger in a Strange World in this day and age? My word, every one and their uncle would be up in arms over that one, and to me, it was one of his best works for that time period.  I always thought it was a shame that groups like the Manson family took it seriously, like a guide book. Hell, I still like the whole idea of Professional Witnesses, and the old lawyer Jubal Harshaw, is just my type of old miserly asshole.

"I have the right to part your hair with a shot gun, if you don't get that chopper of my grass, and present a warrent."

Man I love that old dude, maybe even more than Lazarus.

[Nemesis]

I get people mad at me by answering the question they asked accurately rather than what they thought they were asking.  I attribute that to a combination of the True Witnesses in Stranger and learning to handle computer software problems by figuring out how the computer was interpreting what the programmer told it to do.  That does at times result in answers like Yes to what they think is an either or question but isn't or "This side is white" types where they don't understand my not assuming a uniform colour extending to the areas not visible to me.

SciFi drives my interest in science and science my interest ins SciFi.

[Corbomite]

I get people mad at me by answering the question they asked accurately rather than what they thought they were asking.

I can completely empathize with that. It happens to me a lot too. It's usually more important or serious, not humorous like this, but here's an example that I'll never forget:

My friend and I were walking toward the entrance to a Renaissance fair, me decked out as a Saxon forester and he as a Saxon knight, when a lovely young woman approached us and asked sweetly, "Have you been kissed today?" Now, what she was really asking was "Would you like to kiss me?"; something, given the loveliness of the girl and the atmosphere of the place I  had no opposition to doing, but the impish perversity of my mood that day made me look her square in the eye with a large grin on my face and cheerfully say "No!" I then proceeded to turn and continue walking into the fair. My friend just burst out laughing. The look on her face was priceless and almost as good as the kiss would have been.



As far as The Moon is a Harsh Mistress movie, chances are they will gloss over all the political stuff in favor of a basic prison riot type film. It's got Colin Farrell written all over it.

[Nemesis]

If something actually needs the answer to be of the type they expect they usually get it.  Sometimes though in those cases the literal answer can be effective in changing the attitude of the situation which can help resolve things. 

I also often resolve problems my attacking them backwards from the (required) solution.  Sometimes I get the solution more from intuition than conscious thought and again have to think backwards to the problem to connect them and people again find it hard to understand I didn't get to the solution by conscious thought so I have to give them that backwards developed explanation to shut them up as they won't accept the "I just knew" answer even though it is true.