I'll watch this. As long as the main protaganist is some kind of Hero.
Snow Crash movie to be written and directed by Joe Cornish
41–50 of 89 posts
Re: Snow Crash movie to be written and directed by Joe Cornish
#42More discussion from yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4114513 Jon6 points out that an audience today might not realize how cool this all was because (as ynniv puts it) they're seeing it in the future .
Considering that one of the cool toys in this story was the inspiration for Google Earth, yeah, most people might not be too impressed. I love the story (love most of Stephenson's works, quirks/"flaws" and all), but it was "20 minutes in the future" when it was released in 1992. Hopefully they'll keep the snarkiness towards capitalism and religion and won't do a whitewash on Hiro or Raven.
So google earth was released soon after 1992?
Re: Snow Crash movie to be written and directed by Joe Cornish
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
Snow Crash is an interesting book, but a deeply flawed one. Stephenson's later books are much better (though after Diamond Age they become too long to film anyway). It is a bit of a dumb action movie, in many ways. A guy with a sword takes on an entire flotilla, if I recall correctly. The coolest moment in the entire book involves somebody saying "I'm sure they'll listen to reason" and then pulling out an enormous gu…
> The coolest moment in the entire book involves somebody saying "I'm sure they'll listen to reason" and then pulling out an enormous gun labelled "REASON" It's actually quite a small gun, labeled "Ultima Ratio Regum", and the original owner (who delivers that line) dies when its software crashes. And if you think that was the coolest moment, I'm not sure what book you were reading... Did you miss the downhill skateb…
"Snow Crash is definitely action, and definitely dated (it's more alternate present than near future at this point), but if it's dumb I would sure like to see smart."
I enjoyed reading Snow Crash, but I have to agree with the other posters -- it's a good story, not a great book. The prose is ...weak, to say the least, and it felt like science fiction for the sake of science fiction -- which is not to say that's bad in of itself, but it lacks the thrust and weight of Vonnegut or Pynchon (both of whom I recommend reading if you want to see 'smart').
Re: Snow Crash movie to be written and directed by Joe Cornish
#44I'm afraid they'll leave out the most interesting parts of the book and make it a dumb action movie. For me, what makes the book great isn't the plot, it's the satire of american suburbia, globalization, and the weird tangents into sumerian mythology and NLP. I hate when they make movies out of my favorite books...
You really think the writer of Attack the Block can't handle weird-ass tangents like in Snow Crash ? :)
This guy wrote Attack the Block? I hate to say it, but I didn't get that movie. Was I supposed to identify with heroes that are petty street criminals in a gang who like to steal cell phones from innocent people?
Sorry, I have a really hard time with movies that glorify the stupidity of a bunch of kids that skip class and become young gangsters.
Re: Snow Crash movie to be written and directed by Joe Cornish
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
What you are portraying as negatives (meandering detours into entirely unnecessary, but hilarious, trivia; absurdly unlikely plot scenarios [since when is anything about Snowcrash a likely scenario?]; etc.) are probably what loom as the largest selling points for fans of Stephenson's work from Cryptonomicon onward. I don't think we buy the books for the "plausability" factor. Also, the books hardly take themselves se…
The Baroque Trilogy literally changed how I see the way the world works. Those endless detours are worth quite a lot.
Some of them are. Some of them are truly pointless. Neal Stephenson apparently had a giant map of 18th century London on the wall of the room where he wrote it, and as such apparently feels compelled, on certain occasions when a character goes from one place to another, to name every street he passes on the way. That's not atmospheric or interesting, it's just filler.
Re: Snow Crash movie to be written and directed by Joe Cornish
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why would they want to avoid legions of pissed off fundies protesting? You couldn't buy advertising that good for any amount of money.
There's good and bad publicity, and while the line might be blurred for software startups, it's fairly clear for film studios. Pissing off the conservative crowd in North America comes with some consequences for an entertainment/media company. Case in point: The Golden Compass. The studio was shooting for a $30 million dollar opening weekend. They grossed something like $8.8 mil. You might recall that leading up to t…
Yeah, but The Golden Compass wound up being just a bad movie. I loved the books.
Re: Snow Crash movie to be written and directed by Joe Cornish
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Considering that one of the cool toys in this story was the inspiration for Google Earth, yeah, most people might not be too impressed. I love the story (love most of Stephenson's works, quirks/"flaws" and all), but it was "20 minutes in the future" when it was released in 1992. Hopefully they'll keep the snarkiness towards capitalism and religion and won't do a whitewash on Hiro or Raven.
So google earth was released soon after 1992?
The style of writing was near-future, not the actual tech :)
Re: Snow Crash movie to be written and directed by Joe Cornish
#48I would feel a lot better about it if it was being done by Christopher Nolan. Inception was proof that he doesn't let suits dumb down complex plots. But you have to admit that the opening sequence will at least be awesome: a pizza delivery guy who works for the Mafia flying through an extremely dangerous libertarian dystopia.
Inception was a shaky plot wrapped in enough accidental complexity to make studio execs -- and audiences -- think they were watching something profound. I get a sense of Christopher Nolan as a filmmaker who desperately wants to be taken seriously, which is just the opposite of who we need for Snow Crash . Given his admittedly short body of work ( Attack the Block , The Adventures of Tintin ), Joe Cornish seems a grea…
Nolan's made some of the most inventive movies of the past decade. Memento, The Dark Knight, and Inception were pinnacles of the form.
I'm not saying he'd be ideal to direct Snow Crash, but your criticisms of his work are unfounded.
Re: Snow Crash movie to be written and directed by Joe Cornish
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
Of course. One of the themes in the book is the adolescent fantasies of male badassitude which follow them well into adulthood, with a diminishing but ever-present sense of possibility. Not to sound too pretentious, because it definitely presents those fantasies in a sincere way, but the book also satirizes the idea; Hiro, a consummate badass who literally carries samurai swords with him everywhere he goes, is consta…
One of the themes in the book is the adolescent fantasies of male badassitude which follow them well into adulthood, with a diminishing but ever-present sense of possibility. Actually I'm not sure that is a theme. There's a brief meditation on the theme of adolescent badass fantasies, but it's only used as a way of introducing a new character who is an even more ridiculous adolescent badass fantasy than the ridiculou…
The passage you're talking about is specifically about the fact that Hiro feels a sense of relief from the fact that he will never be more badass than Raven. That's a very particular angle on the situation, and you can read it at least partially ironically, because in fact it doesn't stop Hiro from trying to be, well, a hero, and if anything causes him to be more badass in the future.
But the book is full of male characters who die because they are trying to be or think that they are badasses. Raven is held up as an an ironic sort of idol; he demonstrates how badass you actually have to be in order not to die, and it's a comically excessive amount. And yet he's the only one who seems not to be motivated by that desire at all; he's just trying to get something done.
I don't think it takes a particularly close reading to see this theme; you just need to be willing to entertain the possibility that it's not just adolescent fantasy.
Re: Snow Crash movie to be written and directed by Joe Cornish
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
Of course. One of the themes in the book is the adolescent fantasies of male badassitude which follow them well into adulthood, with a diminishing but ever-present sense of possibility. Not to sound too pretentious, because it definitely presents those fantasies in a sincere way, but the book also satirizes the idea; Hiro, a consummate badass who literally carries samurai swords with him everywhere he goes, is consta…
One of the themes in the book is the adolescent fantasies of male badassitude which follow them well into adulthood, with a diminishing but ever-present sense of possibility. Actually I'm not sure that is a theme. There's a brief meditation on the theme of adolescent badass fantasies, but it's only used as a way of introducing a new character who is an even more ridiculous adolescent badass fantasy than the ridiculou…
Almost all 60-70-80s SciFi is the adolescent fantasies of male badassitude of the author.