I’ve often wanted a movie/series based on the Dragonlance books or the Dark Elf trilogy. What would you all like to see done if you had the ability to do it?
I want to see some Brandon Sanderson novels made into movies or TV shows. Preferably animated as I don’t think a live action would work.
Word is that it’s coming. And he’s probably the most well known speculative fiction author without an adaptation.
He’d have to be heavily involved to me. And stay away from Amazon… as much as I’d love to see live action Roshar or Ferochemy, I don’t trust studios to do well with it.
Yes! The graphic audiobooks have been awesome.
The Culture series by Iain M Banks.
Though I am not sure how you would translate some of them (Excession…) into a visual story.
I honestly think that would ruin it for all the Culture fans. Much as I love Banks’ work, I like the movie of the books that I’ve produced in MY head more than what anyone else could make.
I’m kinda in this boat too. I’m glad Banks’ estate didn’t let the Amazon series go through. Something about a guy like Bezos hailing the books while being a billionaire capitalist egomaniac just makes me uneasy with the whole idea.
Post-scarcity communism is fine. I’d actually consider the culture just lib, not even left or right. It’s a totally voluntary society. Except maybe for some special circumstances.
Post-scarcity communism is fine.
Post scarcity makes labels like communism/capitalism meaningless. They are both systems to deal with the scarcity of resources.
One of the best lines in Bank’s work to describe this is from LTW:
“Money is a sign of poverty”
Ie: A society that needs money to apportion scarce resources is always poor as there is never enough to go around.
It certainly has shaped my own ethics and ideas.
I understand your point but feel it is a bit selfish.
I honestly think that would ruin it for all the Culture fans.
But it would also create a lot more Culture fans. Just as the LOTR movies got a huge number of people to read Tolkien.
I would love to see more people read Banks.
I like the movie of the books that I’ve produced in MY head more than what anyone else could make.
If they are ever adapted no one is going to force you to watch and you can reread them when ever you want.
Totally agree with you, many people said the same about Lord of the rings before Peter Jackson made an amazing adaptation. That doesn’t mean every adaptation is good, far from it, but that shouldn’t stop people from trying.
My first thought. Though you could do Use of Weapons, Inversions, and The State of the Art. The Algebraist, Feersum Endjinn, The Player of Games, could all be their own trilogy. Use of Weapons, Look to Windward, Surface Detail etc.
They turned the inside the suit moments of Iron Man into pop culture. They could figure it out, I bet!
I always thought the drone scenes would be so interesting on film like a mix between bullet time and 10000fps. Also weird storytelling seeing the other scenes pop up in drone time.
Redwall.
Do it in full photo realistic CGI; I want to see the beautiful castles and countryside, all the delicious food, and the gruesome battles in all their glory.
Instead of cgi I want it done with traditional cell animation on a huge budget. Like princess Mononoke or spirited away.
There already was a traditionally animated show though…
That would either be fire or a smoldering pile of shit.
There’s so much source material that I think it could work.
The Redwall video game is actually a lot of fun, so there’s that at least 🤩
Or they could hire furries
No thanks
Bit of a normie but the Dark Tower series would be awesome. Mixing tons of genres, having very different locations to film in. It would be extremely expensive to produce.
The gunslinging of Idris Elba in the movie was nice but everything else wasn’t.
Yeah. That movie was a disappointment. I love Idris Elba in everything he does, but that movie should not have been made lol
When I first saw the casting I thought Elba was going to play the man in black and McConaughey was going to be Roland which I thought was great casting but then they flipped it around.
Mike Flanagan is making the TV series. It’s been in the works for a year or so and has King’s nod of approval on it. No casting has been solidified yet and stuff is of course currently halted due to the strikes, but it’s currently a high priority project after Hollywood can start up again.
Came here to say this. But tbf It will always be a horrible adaptation for a movie, even the first book, the shortest one, is to much for a movie.
Also I don’t think they would ever adapt Odetta the way she is and she is awesome
I’d love to see the last 3 books of The Expanse series made into a trilogy of movies.
I would prefer at least 10 episode seasons, but I’d take anything at this point. The last 3 books were the best of them all, and that’s with the first 6 being absolutely amazing as well.
Greatest series ever, I will die on that hill.
There are a couple really spectacular scenes that I really want to see visualized. In my head I extrapolated what the last 3 books would look like based on the series visualizations which made them like watching the show. That last scene with Draper though… that would be a sight to behold.
!Like a fuckin Valkyrie!< 😭
This whole thread is making me want to listen to the audiobooks all over again.
Let the dark sideExpanse flow through you
Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons
Came here for this comment, wasn’t disappointed.
Maybe? It’s been decades since I read it, but I remember enjoying Hyperion and fucking hating Fall of Hyperion. It felt like Hyperion was amazing and well thought ought but then Fall was just mailed in.
Because Fall rushed the story with a fuck ton of plotlines. It really should have focused on continuing the story and have a third book conclude the major plotlines. That way a lot of things that happened wouldn’t feel like they were pulled out of left field.
The Witcher but they actually follow the source material.
It does exist actually, it’s just Polish media.
Not really, what you’re referencing is like a half-remembered retelling of a few of the stories from The Last Wish and Sword of Destiny.
I have only played The Witcher 3 and its DLCs and watched The Netflix show up until S02, so far I like it (especially the game).
I’m slowly introducing in the books/reading field, and just started with classics like Dracula (so far liking it) are the books of The Witcher stand on their own as a good entry point for my “current phase”?
I also had only played the witcher III when I started the books. The games are all set after the events of the witcher saga (books), and are honestly just really really good fan fiction based on the characters (like, really the best fan fiction you could think of), so you can feel free to just read the books.
If you’re not a big reader (if I understand the note about dracula correctly) the witcher audio books are really well done, and the stories lend themselves very well to being listened to.
Finally, I could write a treatise on the failures of the netflix show, but it would all be old news—about 10% of the show is accurate to the stories told in the text (and the text is so much better), the rest is a bunch of made-up nonsense that serves nothing other than to muddy the narrative.
In short, yes, read the books (also why do people need to ask advice about reading books these days. just read books).
Thank you for the explanation! If they are a prequel of The Witcher III then that’ll make it better for me!
(also why do people need to ask advice about reading books these days. just read books).
About this, well, there is a reason why book communities exist right? I am not asking for validation in this matter but definitely like to hear all opinions and personal experience before setting off on this kind of time consuming activity.
I will only say this: reading a book takes no more time than it does to read a bunch of bullshit on the internet. Why would one need to consult with people prior to opening a book and reading 5, 10 or, 500 pages? I would argue that opening a book and reading it first is better than asking for peoples’ opinion and permission prior to reading anything.
To paraphrase Kamina: “Don’t believe in the text, believe in the text that believes in you!”
yes
Ursula le Guin anyone?
The Left Hand of Darkness might be interesting. The Word for Tree is Forest would likely get thought of as an odd Avatar clone. But The Dispossessed would probably never get made, people would find worth in the politics and abandon the megacorp making it.
Le Guin prose is exceptional and would be nearly impossible to bring to screen well. I’m sure it will be tried at some point. Maybe a dark horse, but I actually think The Lathe of Heaven might be the most adaptable. It’s the simplest story and has plenty of room for exciting changes and visuals in a film.
And… the 1980 adaption of Lathe of Heaven is fantastic. (There’s also a remake I refuse to acknowledge.)
I just finished The Disposessed and found it critiqued both the capitalist and anarchist society. The people of Annares have simple happiness, but they starve and strive to keep the society alive. It’s also very explicit that it only works because they don’t uphold their anarchist ideals and coerce everyone into work through social pressure.
I think a film would work and would present a “you could have a different society, but it would never be a paradise” type idea.
Her Earthsea book was actually adapted. By Studio Ghibli no less. It was so bad that the dad of the director left the theater halfway through to have a smoke. Said dad was no other than Hayao Miyazaki (Director of Spirited Away, Howl’s Miving Castle, Castle in the Sky, etc)
The Mars trilogy by KSR. I think 3 8 hour long episode seasons could work
I first read that as three 8-hour long episodes. Like, damn, the books are great but I’m not sitting for that long–oh-- 3 seasons each with 8 hour-long episodes… that makes sense lol
As long as they edit it a bit. IMO, it felt like Robinson was paid by the word and padded the crap out of the novels.
And we were teased about it on the SciFi channel a bunch of years ago before they instituted cost savings measures.
Was going to say the same. They would make an amazing series of series.
Mistborn by Brandan Sanderson.
If done right, he could probably pull off the entire Cosmere.
Give me animated cosmere over films any day, it’s so expansive and only growing. A well done animated series would be incredible and easy to maintain.
Pretty much any Brandon Sanderson book series. Mistborn, Steelheart, Way of King’s, Skyward… Etc
*Stormlight Archives
I was gonna say that… Even if I just read Way Of Kings yet. It’s so good. Really liked it.
I’m currently entering “The slump” in Wheel of time. Can’t wait to get to Brandon books.
Wot-encyclopedia.com it has excellent chapter summaries for the slog books.
Murderbot, but I don’t think it could make the transition to film.
I thought that while reading it, so good but first person narrations can never really get adapted well.
It isn’t that they can never get adapted well, it’s just much harder to do. I think Fate/Stay Night has examples of terrible and great adaptations. Studio Deen’s adaptation of the Fate route was awful, their adaptation of Unlimited Blade Works was even worse. Ufotable’s adaptation of Unlimited Blade Works was pretty good, and their adaptation of Heaven’s Feel was great.
Mushoku Tensei was adapted amazingly, and while many details were left out, the adaptation is a masterclass of how to do it well.
If we’re talking about ordinary books, Andy Weir’s The Martian had a pretty good adaptation, and I am expecting Project Hail Mary to be good as well.
The Nights Dawn Trilogy by Peter F. Hamilton. Not as a trilogy, though, this would have to be series, maybe three seasons per book.
I came here to say this - Night’s Dawn (or his other massive series the Commonwealth Saga) would make excellent TV. But it would have to be skilfully made, probably animated (like Sonnie’s Edge in Love + Robots), and cover many, many seasons.
The First Law series by Joe Abercrombie. I think it actually might become a movie.
Discworld - preferably the City Watch novels. Books have been adapted a few times, but usually as lone events, and even the ones with a serious cast are just… okay.
Looking from one beloved dead author to another, Douglas Adams mercilessly chopped up the Hitchhiker’s Guide between mediums. There was no “original version.” It was all the same story, but sometimes with different events. That is the attitude necessary for capturing why Discworld is so good. Don’t film a book, page-for-page. That’s not how moving images work. Keep the characterization clear and fill in a storyboard from the Wikipedia description.
Anyway the real reason to go for a series would be consistent casting. Have the same guy play Vimes across a bunch of stories. Get cameos for Vetenari from the same wizened thespian. Call-forward future stories by turning bit-part scammers into Moist appearances, throw Gaspode in any scene with dogs, that sort of thing. Make Ankh-Morpork feel connected. Lived-in. Real, for a reality where wizards sometimes where fake glasses so people think they’re badly disguised as wizards.
