111–120 of 124 posts
There's a lesson there for AI I think. We anthropomorphize AI in the media but perhaps the more realistic possibility is that AI is a fundamentally different type of intelligence that may never be fully human-like.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
2010 is also good. The movie is also competent, but it could never fill the shoes 2001 left.
I am a big fan of both films, and have over many years come to the firm conclusion that, while 2010: The Year We Make Contact could never live up to its best-films-of-all-time predecessor, it’s both a terrific film on its own merits and could be tweaked even today to be better. What it needs, fundamentally, is the Blade Runner treatment: Kill the expository voiceover, tighten up the edit, make the ending less sentime…
I would completely redo the sets and get rid of CRTs everywhere, add understandable displays in Russian to the Leonov, and re-add the 1:1 flat displays to the Discovery. Also, remove the keyboards, which weren’t there in 2001.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you talking about the same Rama sequels by Gentry Lee? I admit it's been a long time since I read them (maybe 20 years), but I certainly don't remember anything quite like this. I remember it more like the other poster here said: they basically said everyone was corrupt. In a nutshell, Rama comes back to Earth with instructions that a bunch of humans need to come aboard to live out their lives there. But instead…
All right, I think perhaps then I'm smearing all the sci-fi books I read in my teenage into one. Thanks.
Unlike others in this comments tree, I liked the other books. These go against the typical space exploration journey where you have humans on their ship surrounded by technology they're familiar with and on which they can fully rely. Here, characters are uncertain of their future - they don't know where they're going, have to adapt to the surroundings, discover the unknown and face downsides of human beings. There's none of that familiar splendor of "going boldly where no man has gone before" or heroic actions, great fights in the outer space. Lee's contribution shows us as small, even unsuited to live among others - here and there.
On the other hand, I'm not fond of his other books where he tried to continue this universe: "Bright Messengers" and "Double Full Moon Night". These felt like distilled, fast-tracked version of "Rama" with more religious overtones because of two characters included.
---
Clarke's own books and these which he co-wrote with other authors have potential for adaptations for the big and small screen. "Rama" series taken by good writers and directors could become a new hit comparable to "Lost" show - which if you stretch some things, feels somehow similar.
I always thought that, out of the Clarke novels, “Songs of Distant Earth” would make a good movie adaptation. Rama may turn out unrecognizable after the Hollywood script jockeys have been through with it, as happened to Foundation. (I actually like the Apple TV version, but it’s definitely its own thing.) For sci-fi takes on truly alien first contacts, Lem’s “Solaris” still holds its own, and the Tarkovsky movie is i…
As much as I love "Songs of Distant Earth", I suspect a Hollywood version of it would amount to "giant lobsters vs space marines", whereas in the book they're a minor sideshow.
It would be surely minced thru to fit all the standard of the industry - and that's the fear I'm having while craving for screen adaptations of books today.
To be honest I had always a lot of thoughts about this how Rama would be filled with air.... I mean it spins, but how Ramas filled it with air? Central Sea was one of sources, but water wasn't possible there before whole Rama being filled with air. So my thinking was always, air enters in the center, goes in all directions, hits surface which is 750 km/h... so ~40% of speed of molecules... how much it "slows down" Ra…
In the other books characters are put into hibernation so they could travel at high speeds. Perhaps atmosphere was removed and only minimal breathing mixture was provided for the passengers.
By the way, I think SciFun had an episode on this channel about O'Neill cylinder
Re: 2001 > Clarke wrote the movie screenplay with Kubrick I don’t think this is true? I thought the two of them sat together and worked out the plot, and then Kubrick went off and wrote the screenplay and Clarke went off and wrote the novel. So neither is really “based on” the other. Anyway though, Rama is great, yes. I’m skeptical of the idea of a movie adaptation but Denis Villeneuve is probably the right one to tr…
I always thought that, out of the Clarke novels, “Songs of Distant Earth” would make a good movie adaptation. Rama may turn out unrecognizable after the Hollywood script jockeys have been through with it, as happened to Foundation. (I actually like the Apple TV version, but it’s definitely its own thing.) For sci-fi takes on truly alien first contacts, Lem’s “Solaris” still holds its own, and the Tarkovsky movie is i…
Denis Villeneuve (Dune, Blade Runner 2049, Arrival, Prisoners, etc) is set to direct and is writing the script as well:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendezvous_with_Rama#Film
Though it may be a little while since he first has to release adaptation of Dune Messiah, and a Bond film is probably next:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis_Villeneuve#Upcoming_proj...
I always thought that, out of the Clarke novels, “Songs of Distant Earth” would make a good movie adaptation. Rama may turn out unrecognizable after the Hollywood script jockeys have been through with it, as happened to Foundation. (I actually like the Apple TV version, but it’s definitely its own thing.) For sci-fi takes on truly alien first contacts, Lem’s “Solaris” still holds its own, and the Tarkovsky movie is i…
While he is a bit snobby and complaints too much, you can't deny he really envisioned huge amount of things to come. His imagination is next to none, and probably some things he described we will see only in the distant future, or maybe during the singularity, if it happens.
DO NOT READ THE SEQUELS One of the few cases where they actively ruin the first book, to the extent you take them as true sequels. Clarke basically licensed his name and plot to Gentry Lee, who proceeded to ruin the sense of wonder by explaining everything, often in deeply unsatisfactory ways. They would have been reasonable scifi books (for their time) if they hadn't attempted to follow up the classics. Star Wars pr…