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“Snowcrash” to be HBO series, compete with actual early Metaverses for viewers

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Re: “Snowcrash” to be HBO series, compete with actual early Metaverses for viewers

#21

Post by Pfhreak »

bduerst wrote: post #17
jasondclinton wrote: post #3

I'm glad to see this happen. Suspect that a network exec somewhere said: "Sci-fi! Dystopia! Rogue AI! Cyberpunk!" and then HBO went through the list of books meeting that criteria (copying the Game of Thrones formula) and picked a best-seller to make a screen play out of. The subject matter seems to fit quite well with the tech malaise we are feeling at the end of the 2010's.

Disney has Mandalorian . Amazon has The Expanse and recently picked up Ringworld for a tv-series too. Another unnamed network is supposedly currently considering Red Rising series as well. Sci-Fi dystopia is hot right now.

Netflix has Altered Carbon and Black Mirror.

Re: “Snowcrash” to be HBO series, compete with actual early Metaverses for viewers

#22

Post by bduerst »

gumby wrote: post #19
bduerst wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disney has Mandalorian . Amazon has The Expanse and recently picked up Ringworld for a tv-series too. Another unnamed network is supposedly currently considering Red Rising series as well. Sci-Fi dystopia is hot right now.

Is Ringworld really dystopian? I mean the ring world civilization(s) did fall, but Known Space and the puppeteers were pretty much doing OK.

For the majority of the story, the fallen-empire setting of the ring is dystopian. Earth itself is a utopia, which bores the main character and is their motivation to explore the ring to begin with. So both?

Even if they don't follow the main plot, the ring presents a great backdrop for exploration and the freedom for some pretty interesting stories.

Re: “Snowcrash” to be HBO series, compete with actual early Metaverses for viewers

#24

Post by unreal37 »

Pfhreak wrote: post #21
bduerst wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disney has Mandalorian . Amazon has The Expanse and recently picked up Ringworld for a tv-series too. Another unnamed network is supposedly currently considering Red Rising series as well. Sci-Fi dystopia is hot right now.

Netflix has Altered Carbon and Black Mirror .

"3%" fits that definition too.

Re: “Snowcrash” to be HBO series, compete with actual early Metaverses for viewers

#25

Post by caffeinewriter »

jasondclinton wrote: post #3

I'm glad to see this happen. Suspect that a network exec somewhere said: "Sci-fi! Dystopia! Rogue AI! Cyberpunk!" and then HBO went through the list of books meeting that criteria (copying the Game of Thrones formula) and picked a best-seller to make a screen play out of. The subject matter seems to fit quite well with the tech malaise we are feeling at the end of the 2010's.

I'm still holding out hope to see Daemon and Freedom™ by Daniel Suarez adapted into a movie, or a miniseries, or really anything.

Re: “Snowcrash” to be HBO series, compete with actual early Metaverses for viewers

#26

Post by notahacker »

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #6

Nearly thirty years on, any adaptation will have to lose some of the book’s charming elements that made sense at the time, such as an America dealing with the fallout of specifically the Reagan administration, or a conspicuous amount of immigrants from early post-Soviet Tajikistan. Still, the theme of everything being privatized has held up well. The one downside of bringing Snow Crash back into the public consciousn…

The biggest challenge is going to be getting the levels of irony and cartoonishness right, especially if the network executives are hoping for something more like Blade Runner. The one downside is it could end up taking itself too seriously or going too far down the road of kitsch crap.

I don't think finding a Reagan substitute is going to be a challenge though, and I don't think there's too much to worry about viewers absorbing themselves in Julian Jaynes' work, not least because any form of adaptation is going to cut Stephenson's exposition to the bare minimum "it's like a virus for your mind. This tech is older than the pyramids; it's how they controlled the people that built them", and it's going to be in the context of skateboarders latching onto mafia pizza delivery drivers, Mr Lee's Greater Hong Kong and villains with harpoons hooking up with underage heroes

Re: “Snowcrash” to be HBO series, compete with actual early Metaverses for viewers

#27

Post by slg »

Pfhreak wrote: post #20
ggm wrote: post #12

Watch them ruin it.

The book is a lot of fun, but it's also not a sacred text. It's a story about a pizza delivery driver who will be murdered if he delivers pizza too late and is also a hacker getting bound up in a story of Sumerian brain programmers run amok. (And somehow these brain programmers also can infect someone's blood?) For all of its foresight, the book is goofy and dated as hell. If it's going to come to screen there's no w…

Any book that names is hero/protagonist Hiro Protagonist doesn't take itself too seriously. I think both the producers of this adaptation and the fans would be well served to do the same.

Re: “Snowcrash” to be HBO series, compete with actual early Metaverses for viewers

#28

Post by Analemma_ »

ggm wrote: post #12

Watch them ruin it.

Don't get me wrong, I fucking love Snow Crash, but let's be honest with ourselves: it's basically a dopey Schwazenegger-esque action movie for the IQ 115 crowd, in book form. We're not talking about something with ton of depth or philosophical complexity. I think HBO can manage.

Re: “Snowcrash” to be HBO series, compete with actual early Metaverses for viewers

#29

Post by ggm »

Pfhreak wrote: post #20
ggm wrote: post #12

Watch them ruin it.

The book is a lot of fun, but it's also not a sacred text. It's a story about a pizza delivery driver who will be murdered if he delivers pizza too late and is also a hacker getting bound up in a story of Sumerian brain programmers run amok. (And somehow these brain programmers also can infect someone's blood?) For all of its foresight, the book is goofy and dated as hell. If it's going to come to screen there's no w…

Not all, but many wrecks of books include the authors imprimatur on the uplift to live actors. "yea, I know its hard to do a skeleton, lets make death be an actor with a black hood" is low bar. "No, the lead didn't get to sleep with the other lead in the book, but what the hell, put a sex scene in episode 3" is medium bar. "I changed the ending for you, if you need more changes just let me know for $" is high bar. Actually, they're all low bar.

Even Margaret Atwood says she willingly works with the production company to "make it work" on screen. Plot evaporates in an instant.

As you say, and I agree: its not a sacred text. Speaking of which, I think TV novela versions of sacred texts usually wind up where 'hail ceaser' went: a committee of wise men (and it always is men) arguing about whats sacred anyway..

Re: “Snowcrash” to be HBO series, compete with actual early Metaverses for viewers

#30

Post by OJFord »

Pfhreak wrote: post #20
ggm wrote: post #12

Watch them ruin it.

The book is a lot of fun, but it's also not a sacred text. It's a story about a pizza delivery driver who will be murdered if he delivers pizza too late and is also a hacker getting bound up in a story of Sumerian brain programmers run amok. (And somehow these brain programmers also can infect someone's blood?) For all of its foresight, the book is goofy and dated as hell. If it's going to come to screen there's no w…

Fully agreed, except that reading your comment made me realise that 'retrofuturist 80s interpretation' is exactly my picture of 'the future' now, and I was born in the 90s.

It's not that it's actually what I expect, it's just that if contemporary futuristic stuff's being made, I'm not watching it. But I have seen the Back to the Future trilogy, and 2010, and so on.

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