Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Snow Crash movie to be written and directed by Joe Cornish

geek.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 89 posts

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

#21

Post by pavel_lishin »

Cushman wrote: post #18
planetguy wrote: post #10

Earlier 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…

The barrel of Reason is small, but you're forgetting the suitcase-sized ammunition case and the isotope heatsink.

My desktop computer is not hand-sized because I have a slim keyboard and mouse.

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

#22

Post by liamondrop »

adriand wrote: post #19
planetguy wrote: post #10

Earlier 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…

> Stephenson's later books are much better (though after Diamond Age they become too long to film anyway). I disagree - his most recent novel, REAMDE, is twice as long as it needs to be (and badly in need of a ruthless editor), takes itself far too seriously, is full of absurdly unlikely plot scenarios, and is in general almost totally unreadable.

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 seriously.

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

#23

Post by pavel_lishin »

adriand wrote: post #19
planetguy wrote: post #10

Earlier 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…

> Stephenson's later books are much better (though after Diamond Age they become too long to film anyway). I disagree - his most recent novel, REAMDE, is twice as long as it needs to be (and badly in need of a ruthless editor), takes itself far too seriously, is full of absurdly unlikely plot scenarios, and is in general almost totally unreadable.

I was with you up until the final point; I loved it, and devoured it in a couple of days on my phone.

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

#24

Post by eli »

adriand wrote: post #19
planetguy wrote: post #10

Earlier 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…

> Stephenson's later books are much better (though after Diamond Age they become too long to film anyway). I disagree - his most recent novel, REAMDE, is twice as long as it needs to be (and badly in need of a ruthless editor), takes itself far too seriously, is full of absurdly unlikely plot scenarios, and is in general almost totally unreadable.

I enjoyed it, though I'd agree that it comes off as a bit of a goofy spy novel in the end. My guess is that Stephenson overcompensated for the perception that his earlier novels had anti-climatic endings.

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

#25

Post by newman314 »

I feel torn about this.

On one hand, I'm excited that this is finally being made into a movie but on the other hand, IMO Snow Crash is one of those books which the movie has to faithfully reproduce much like the Lord of the Rings movies.

Not knowing much about Joe Cornish, I hope he is able to properly capture the outrageous, over the top parts of the story.

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

#26

Post by eli »

knieveltech wrote: post #20
rabidsnail wrote: post #15

Earlier 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…

According to Rotten Tomatoes, both critics and audiences thought Chronicles was simply a better movie. Unless you think the critics were somehow swayed by protestors? Seems unlikely.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/his_dark_materials_the_golde...

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/chronicles_of_narnia_lion_wi...

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

#27

Post by jff »

Cushman wrote: post #18
planetguy wrote: post #10

Earlier 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…

> Did you miss the downhill skateboarding in an office building? The nuclear-powered cyborg security drone? Hiro deflects a spear with a katana. There's a man with his own nuclear deterrence strategy.

Seriously, all these things are like you asked a 90's teenage what would be "kickin' rad". I loved the book, but in many ways it was just Stephenson saying, "Check out all this cool shit I thought up".

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

#28

Post by newman314 »

JPKab wrote: post #5

I 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.

I always imagined Hiro's truck looked something like the Batmobile/Tumbler in Batman Begins.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tumbler_in_Toronto.JPG

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

#29

Post by Cushman »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #21
Cushman wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

The barrel of Reason is small, but you're forgetting the suitcase-sized ammunition case and the isotope heatsink. My desktop computer is not hand-sized because I have a slim keyboard and mouse.

Your desktop computer was called a microcomputer in the era when normal computers filled rooms. Reason's a depleted uranium gatling gun which is man-portable... that's small. Hiro is counterattacked by guns of a similar type which are way bigger.[0]

Perhaps I should have specified "small for what it is", though.

[0] Something like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phalanx_CIWS , as I recall.

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

#30

Post by npsimons »

sp332 wrote: post #12

More 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.
Post reply on HN