Your favorite scene, on the silver screen!
Posted on: July 16, 2016
I recently hosted a roundtable over at Semiotic Standard, asking a group of folks from the SFF-o-sphere the following question:
Which Sci-Fi or Fantasy book would you most love to see on the as a movie? What scene are you most looking forward to seeing on the big screen?
Click here to see everyone’s responses.
and now, I put the question to you! What book or short story would you like to see as a movie or tv series? Are there particular scenes that you’re most looking forward to? What about scenes that would be difficult to film, how do you think a director might do them?
12 Responses to "Your favorite scene, on the silver screen!"
July 16, 2016 at 3:52 pm
Top pick would be The Legacy of Heorot by Niven, Pournelle & Barnes.
Second pick would be The Uplift War by David Brin.
Both would make terrific films, and with CGI at it’s current level they would be so believable.
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July 16, 2016 at 9:10 pm
Oh, and if you’ve read The Legacy of Heorot, you’ll know what scene. If you haven’t, why on earth not??
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July 18, 2016 at 8:12 pm
“If you haven’t, why on earth not??”
lol! i haven’t gotten to it yet. You have any idea how many books there are in this place? 😀
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July 20, 2016 at 3:18 pm
Well, at least it sounds like you have a copy… It’s one of my favs.
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July 16, 2016 at 4:52 pm
I’d love to see WOOL by Hugh Howey on the big screen. I have a picture of the silo in my head, and I’d love to see it in a movie. And the midpoint scene, when Julia leaves the silo… I get chills just thinking about it.
I read online several times that Ridley Scott bought the movie rights. I hope a movie actually happens.
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July 18, 2016 at 8:12 pm
I’ve not yet read WOOL, but I remember when it came out everyone was crazy for it. so that’s good, right?
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July 18, 2016 at 10:58 pm
I really liked Wool a whole lot. I’d love to see you review it sometime. :::adding yet another book suggestion to the endless queue:::
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July 20, 2016 at 6:25 pm
I’d like to see all of Hobb’s novels filmed, but in particular I’ve always thought that The Liveship Traders trilogy would be great on screen. It would be a big, period drama (but with sea serpents and talking ships), over three or four seasons. High production values, of course – I’m thinking maybe of ‘John Adams’. Lots of rocking ships and waves splashing up dramatically, interspersed with well-dressed people arguing in well-dressed rooms. More than a hint of Dickens about the edges. There are so many scenes that would be great on film. Tintaglia, of course. But maybe more impressive might be some of the action scenes – I seem to remember an improvised-surgery-at-sea scene, for instance, that would make for a dramatic few minutes. There could be a great diversity of tones and visual styles: from the decadence of Jamaillia to the keeping-up-appearances middle-class delapidation of the Vestrit house, to the dark and groans below decks on a slave ship, to the aerial pathways strung between the trees of Trehaug… And then there are the quieter, character moments, like Malta on the river (camera pans out from high above), or Althea in the driving rain on the whaler…
The music would of course be Khachaturianesque, for any surviving fans of The Ondeidin Line…
‘Only Forward’ would make for an interesting… thing. I guess it’s too much for a film, but a short miniseries. It’s got the material for a longer series, but it should be manically fast, so a short series it is. Lots of dutch angles, I’m guessing, and clashes of tone and style. Music evokes the zither score from ‘The Third Man’, but mixed with some propulsive modern beat.
Speaking of dutch angles, though… ‘The Man Who Was Thursday’ must surely be filmed by Terry Gilliam. Or possibly Wes Anderson? Either would make for a good adaptation, though in different styles. The scene I’d be looking out for would be ‘The Criminals Chase The Police’, although the duel scene and the car/elephant/balloon chase would also be delightful.
Oh, and I’ve just read (/reviewed) a Pern novel, Dragonsdawn. It’s not a great novel, but I was thinking while reading it that it could work well as a TV series. It would let you rewrite some of the dialogue and add a lot more depth to the characters. Frankly, I’d adapt it pretty loosely, just retaining the core ideas and the plot outline. You’d start it off all idyllic and gentle, and then BANG you’d have the scene where someone has all their flesh digested in moments by crawling/squirming threads of deadly fungus raining from the sky.
That would make fans of the Red Wedding blink, at least.
You could make, say, 8-10 episodes out of that pretty easily and have a of them be really gripping action.
And speaking of old pulp fantasy novels… Gemmell’s ‘Legend’. Made for adaptation. Big heroic roles, fantasy Band of Brothers sort of thing.
[For those who don’t know it: a city with six walls is attacked by a mongol horde. They gradually break through line after line of defense as a number of Heroes die heroically trying to resist them, knowing that defeat is inevitable.]
Unfortunately, most fantasy novels have too much content for a single film, and too little for a multi-season show. So we’ll have to wait until single-season high-budget miniseries and anthology series become much more widespread…
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July 21, 2016 at 8:37 pm
oooh, Liveship Traders would make an awesome TV series! because yes, way too much material and drama for just a movie.
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July 28, 2016 at 5:09 pm
The Scott Lynch books – but I’d be terrified about who they’d cast in the role of Jean Tannen – can’t mess that one up after all!
Lynn 😀
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the Little Red Reviewer 
July 16, 2016 at 2:23 pm
Oh definitely Blindsight by Peter Watts. The whole thing would be really creepy and dark and alien. I think I’d most look forward to seeing the scenes where the team enter the alien ship. Scary!!
I would also love to see every scene from a movie of Perdido Street Station by Mieville.
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July 18, 2016 at 8:11 pm
Blindsight would make a freaking AWESOME movie! that is one of my favorite books!
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