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

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

nwn.blogs.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 120 posts

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

#81

Post by FeepingCreature »

caffeinewriter wrote: post #25
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.

I don't know. It's kind of a bit too "Settings Document: The Book" for a miniseries, imo. It's like reading a blueprint for a scripted society more than a novel, sometimes.

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

#82

Post by anp »

ethbro wrote: post #51
Pfhreak wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netflix has Altered Carbon and Black Mirror .

grinds teeth to dust at Netflix Altered Carbon's bastardization of the Envoys

Hey, Richard K Morgan said he was ecstatic with the adaptation. I prefer the novels’ Envoys too but am willing to follow the authors lead overall.

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

#83

Post by utopian3 »

ljm wrote: post #79
madrox wrote: post #61

My fear with any Snowcrash adaptation is that it will feel like John Carter of Mars (or Warhammer Online [1]). John Carter was a groundbreaking novel, but its ideas became so adapted and universally understood that revisiting them in a movie felt ironically like derivative work. If I have to endure years of my non-cyberpunk friends talking about how Snowcrash feels like a rip-off of Ready Player One, then I will flip…

But of course it's HBO so it'll have plenty of softcore porn embedded within the plot. Despite the jokes, HBO tend to do a decent job of this stuff. Ignoring the shitshow that was GoT after season 4. The Wire, The Sopranos, Westworld... probably better in their hands than, say, Netflix.

I wish they’d spend more time on sub-plots, character development, etc. If HBO removes all the sex scenes, they could probably squeeze in an extra episode of actual content per season (I’m being slightly sarcastic).

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

#84

Post by Keverw »

akira2501 wrote: post #75
Keverw wrote: post #41

Interesting, didn't know HBO was going to be doing online only shows now like Netflix, Apple and Amazon. Snowcrash is the book that inspired Philip to create Second Life. Then he moved on to create High Fidelity, but they are now pivoting more for virtual meetings and business use it looks. One thing I kinda don't like about the new virtual worlds, they are disconnected spaces while Second Life tried to have a sense…

> but they are now pivoting more for virtual meetings and business use it looks. I feel like they tried that before and a room full of literal flying penises ended that experiment just as quickly as it started.

Yeah griefers. Particle spam it sounds. Wasn't someone being interviewed for a media report who made a bunch on virtual real estate? Back in the early days too. SL got a bunch of media buzz back in 2006 and 2007. CSI did a tie in too.

I think the HiFi idea might be private spaces though, so probably need to be invited. Kinda like how Google Apps let businesses have their own private version of Gmail and Docs.

I guess that's one of the problems of creating a platform... Got to balance being too open or being too closed... One of the coolest things I thought about SL is you can just start building in world and scripting. However now with Mesh you create stuff externally and upload it, but don't think there's a way to really preview it much so stuck to pay to upload it, unless you logged into the beta grid. But not sure how much stuff can be stopped other than responding to abuse reports. I think screening all content like Apple does might be a solution too, but still has it's own pro and cons. I guess give people tools, and they'll abuse it.

I was thinking maybe charge like half of what a high quality game on a console is to create an account, but then I doubt it would grow as much but it would limit people from creating troll accounts and help fund developments and servers.

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

#85

Post by porknubbins »

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.

Makes sense. Just shouting out a list of random popular concepts with zero artistic vision or message is exactly how I feel that Netflix originals are generated.

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

#86

Post by jacobush »

andybak wrote: post #48
jacquesm wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you liked the series you should definitely track down the original movie with Yul Brynner. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westworld_(film)

I'm very familiar with that movie - it was on TV fairly regularly when I was younger. My partner has watched the new series - I wonder what she'd think of the original movie...

First movie with CG

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

#87

Post by notatoad »

munk-a wrote: post #45
ggm wrote: post #12

Watch them ruin it.

I'm looking forward to it being a critical success and then to watch them search for other works by the author to videoize and either grab Cryptonomicon or, even better, the Baroque Cycle... Actually, Seveneves would be a kind of amazing long running serial if they just ran a chunk of anthologies during the portion of history the book skips between stabilizing the asteroid and recolonizing earth.

I would love to see the last section of seveneves picked up as a TV series. There's so much to explore there.

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

#88

Post by jdhn »

munk-a wrote: post #46
jdhn wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there's any channel that I'd trust with translating a book to TV, it's HBO.

So long as that book (and all sequels involved) have actually been written already.

Fair point, but in this case we're lucky that Snow Crash already has been written :)

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

#89

Post by msla »

Analemma_ wrote: post #54
omarhaneef wrote: post #44

While Snow Crash is one of the all time great sci fi novels, it famously has a huge plot hole: although Stephenson saw a lot of things about the future with remarkable accuracy, he did not foresee the ubiquity of the cell phone. A simple cell phone would have undercut the main plot. Now that we know what we know, how will they account for it?

L. Bob Rife is a telecom mogul; presumably there will be some handwave about how he's manipulating the phone network to keep anyone from interfering with his plans.

I wonder if L. Bob Rife will be manipulated more to avoid offending the Scientologists in Hollywood, the corporate synergy with the Rupert Murdoch/Ted Turner types, or the Holy Roller/Southern Baptist/Evangelical Republican bloc.

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

#90

Post by claudeganon »

Analemma_ wrote: post #54
omarhaneef wrote: post #44

While Snow Crash is one of the all time great sci fi novels, it famously has a huge plot hole: although Stephenson saw a lot of things about the future with remarkable accuracy, he did not foresee the ubiquity of the cell phone. A simple cell phone would have undercut the main plot. Now that we know what we know, how will they account for it?

L. Bob Rife is a telecom mogul; presumably there will be some handwave about how he's manipulating the phone network to keep anyone from interfering with his plans.

IIRC, Hiro lives in a self-storage facility in a semi-collapsed America, so you could probably just say that he can’t afford the Metaverse equivalent of a data plan.
Post reply on HN