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Snow Crash movie to be written and directed by Joe Cornish

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Re: Snow Crash movie to be written and directed by Joe Cornish

#62
post #58
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 i…

The prose is ...weak, to say the least Really? I mean sure, on the scale of "everything written in the English language" it may not be top notch, but I think it's one of Stephenson's best crafted works. The allusive density and rhythm of the prose is delightful, and it's packed with juicy, gritty metaphors. Who could forget: The Deliverator's car has enough potential energy packed into its batteries to fire a pound o…

A lot of people really hate the present tense, I think.

Re: Snow Crash movie to be written and directed by Joe Cornish

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

TO be fair adapting a book about the evil church with the studio forcing them not to mention the church. It's a bit like having Sony insisting that Pearl Harbor shouldn't mention the Japanese.

Re: Snow Crash movie to be written and directed by Joe Cornish

#64
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand the book will sell like hotcakes in a new shiny-covered reprint with a "Now a Major Motion Picture" banner across the cover.

can we stop now, I'm getting really upset

And 20 years later there will be a series of directors cuts with/without the voice over explaining the metaverse

Re: Snow Crash movie to be written and directed by Joe Cornish

#66
post #47

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So google earth was released soon after 1992?

The style of writing was near-future, not the actual tech :)

Yes - odd to think that once the idea of the military being outsourced to Haliburton, 3D city models on your phone/glasses and a cyberspace landgrab for new domain names was in the future.

Re: Snow Crash movie to be written and directed by Joe Cornish

#67
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

you're right - you didn't get it.

Re: Snow Crash movie to be written and directed by Joe Cornish

#68

I fell like Snow Crash would be much more successful as an animated movie. There's a lot of whimsical, somewhat silly stuff in there that works in a book and could work animated but doesn't translate well to live action.

I fully agree. Cyberpunk (or post-cyberpunk nostalgia) will work really well in animated or comic form. Its actually silly to see a guy in a three piece suit run around with a katana or a cyborg girl in a fishnet bodysuit shoot a machinegun at a group of robot assassins.

Once you try to make it "gritty" and "real" you end up with clunkers like Hackers or Johnny Mnemonic. I guess you could point out stuff like the Matrix or the recent Batman franchise, but those tend to be the exception not the rule, and to be frank, cater to an almost goth-level of drama and pathos.

Re: Snow Crash movie to be written and directed by Joe Cornish

#69
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The style of writing was near-future, not the actual tech :)

Yes - odd to think that once the idea of the military being outsourced to Haliburton, 3D city models on your phone/glasses and a cyberspace landgrab for new domain names was in the future.

I used to wonder when the cyberpunk future was going to happen. Then I realized it already has.

Re: Snow Crash movie to be written and directed by Joe Cornish

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What? That's definitely not what late 60s - early 70s sci fi was all about. It would be hard to get much further from the truth, actually.

That was a period of social introspection in sci fi, to almost too great an extent.

Now, late 70s and 80s, maybe was about male badassitude. Some of it, anyway. But even then, there's a lot of deeper stuff in that era.

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