OFF: Starship Troopers

[Andrew A. Apold]

>There in lies the rub.  How many great books have been sucessfully
>translated into movies?  I'm hard pressed to think of many.

It's harder than it sounds.  Some people who write great books
cannot write good screenplays...

I mean, there are situations... I think Contact was a better movie
than a book, Sagan's not the greatest writer of fiction, and the
actors can portray certain things better than he could write them....
but it's not a great book in the first place, so doesn't qualify...

Blade Runner, adapted from "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep",
is great, but still different from the book.  Still, it would have
to be my pick for favorite adaptation...

lessee, Dune, I didn't think was that bad... Johnny Mnemonic
got a lot of the atmosphere right...  David Brin's 'The Postman'
is okay...

But for every one of these 'okay' adaptations there are a dozen like...
oh, Roger Zelazny's "Damnation Alley" that made an abysmal film,
how you can turn a biker renagade like Hell Tanner into a clean-cut,
military-like crewcut sporting good guy is beyond me....

>"60 seconds to Midnight...60 seconds to nowhere baby.
>You have all become victims of the Evil Midnight Bomber what bombs...hey
>pay attention."  EMB

speaking of adaptations (and comics, to tie two OFF threads together),
comics often adapt much better to movies since they are already a
visual medium to begin with, and their layout gives a direct storyboard
for a movie.  One of the best adaptations to a tv format of a comic would
have to be The Tick, which your quote indicates you are familiar with.
Still wish Edlund would at least do one or two more issues of the comic,
though...

there are dozens of movies which have been adapted from comics (MIB, TMNT,
Spawn, Crow, Superman, Batman, etc. etc.), and their success rate seems
to at least succeed that of books...

+---------------------------------------+
Andrew A. Apold (mordru at magg.net), aka  |
Roger Shrubstaff,                       |
Duchy of Silverwater (BL), Amtgard      |
aka Asgrim Dragon -=UDIC=-              |
+--------B-L-U-E--Ö-Y-S-T-E-R--C-U-L-T--+
 "I was corrupt before I had power!" - Random