Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy deserves a good adaptation, rather than that trash movie and that too short BBC series.
The BBC series was brilliant.
Agreed, just too short.
I would love that, I dont think the movie is terrible, its just that everything after Ford and Arthur get thrown out the airlock isnt as funny or absurd as the books. The main issue is the first 2ish books are unadaptable because there is no central conflict (or arleast the main cast dosent care or know there was supposed to be one).
Zaphod is the only person with motivation to do anything other than to continue existing, and he is unaware (or dosen’t care) he is being hunted until they meet those suprisingly progessive law enforcment officers on Magrathea and when he visits the guides publishing offices.
And it should be of the first three books, not just the first book.
The BBC series does up to them being on >!prehistoric hairdresser and middle management earth!< Iirc
Which I’m pretty sure is the third book. But I haven’t read it in a loooooong time.
Wha… really? I’ve seen the BBC HHGTTG, but I’ve never even heard they did the sequels!
Book 2 was Restaurant at the End of the Universe, and book 3 was Life, the Universe, and Everything.
Two books followed… So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish and Mostly Harmless constituted Books 4 & 5, but were detached from the main characters and plot.
Ah, ok. The [Show](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hitchhiker's_Guide_to_the_Galaxy_(TV_series) does the first two books. Not the third.
Because I remember them going to the restaurant and then meeting the hairdressers and telephone sanitizers and the mess they get the main characters into, but forgot about the Krikket/wikket people.
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Hyperion Cantos.
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Neuromancer.
https://www.theverge.com/24086056/apple-tv-plus-neuromancer-streaming-series-william-gibson
Neuromancer Might be getting made.
Neuromancer has been optioned before but no one did anything with it. I think it was in play again but recently but haven’t heard much lately.
Hyperion Cantos would be great.
Gormanghast might also be cool.
I think neuromancer is being done? Maybe it’s something else tho I forget
Watch Inception and think of Neuromancer and you will find that its probably the best closest match for the way the story is told. So many things made me realize there are so many little “I loved that story but I cant make that movie so I will just give you clues”. The throwing star is the top.
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Always felt like that Eragon series could have been good. Too bad they never made a movie for it. Never once. I’m sure it would have been solid if they had. But they didn’t.
The Iliad. Not a “take” or an “adaptation” or a “re-imagining”. Just play it straight as it is, cut out some of the monologues and replace the “throwing spears at each other” parts with swordfights.
I want to see the gods descend from Olympus to fight on the battlefield.
Old Man’s War by John Scalzi was made for this, I swear. His latest books also read a lot like movie scripts are contained therein.
Charles Stross’ Laundry series has a ton of potential too, if less Chtullu is required, I wouldn’t mind a Merchant Princes series either.
I heard rumours about Forever War being optioned at some point, but nothing came of it.
I vote for laundry series too
I had thought that some Hollywood people were talking to Scalzi about Old man’s war, but nothing ever came of it. Sad.
The original TSR Dragonlance D&D series from the '80s by Weis and Hickman.
At least we finally seem to be beyond people wondering why Drizzt isn’t around.
This is what I was looking for. Sure, we have a crappy animated movie, but all I have ever wanted was to see the Heroes of the Lance in real life.
Hell yes!
I would love a true to the book series of World War Z. I’m not even sure anyone involved with that movie read the book. It should be a 3 season HBO series with an episode for each persons vignette. Intros and outros of each episode has the recurring reporter meeting the person and starting his recording as they launch into their narrative of what happened. If you need more episodes, just write additional vignettes. Season 1 is the events that lead up to the outbreak, season 2 is the war itself, season 3 is the aftermath. I’m pretty sure this is what Max Brooks was writing towards. It could be amazing.
I’ve been saying this for years. It’s ideal for a series. Was terribly disappointed with that zombie movie that borrowed the name.
I would have loved Name of the Wind, but that lazy fuck Rothfuss is going the way of George Reorge Reorge Martin: he’s been promising book 3 for a decade and can’t finish it.
The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett and some guy who’s name is harder to remember.
An inventor uploads a schematic to the Internet for a cheap, easy-to-assemble device that lets anyone (or almost anyone) “step” into parallel earths. A nearly infinite stretch of untamed wilderness sees people abandoning the polluted, crowded, government-run Old Earth in search of new opportunities. The catch: No iron or iron alloys can “step” across, sending these new earths back to the bronze age.
Also: Zeppelins that are also reincarnated Buddhists that are also the first true machine intelligence; robot cats; libertarian communes; sapient nonhuman primates; sapient nonhuman non-primates; radioactive ziggurats; space programs to parallel moons; and grumpy survival chicks.
Almost anything from Neal Stephenson.
Oh shit. The Baroque Cycle getting the Game of Thrones treatment… minus the executive meddling.
You wouldn’t even have to obsess over the history, alchemy, etc., just don’t fuck it up. People get too wrapped around an axle thinking every single infodump has to be there. Stephenson’s got issues (coughendingscough), but the stories are informed by the same research as the infodumps, and they’ll hold up well.
Seveneves is coming as a series. Not sure if they could pull off Baroque, but I’m game. I’d love a Snow Crash film.
Typing that comment made me do my semi-annual check for adaptations, and I just saw that announcement came out a couple of weeks ago. Hope it comes along better than the movie that got stuck in development hell.
Seconded.
The Red Rising series would be an awesome TV show. Each of the 6 (so far) books would be excellent as long seasons.
Yes and I want the people who did The Expanse to make it.
Who (actors) do you think would be Darrow or Goblin?
Benedict Cumberbatch and Judge Reinhold
I kinda fell off after book 3.
Book 4 is a bit slow but it picks up a lot after that.
That said don’t feel obligated to read something that Doesn’t interest you of course
4 is the weakest of the series imo, it does pick back up
You ask as if that was a good thing. Like an honor for a book. But I way too often find myself defending books with “It’s nothing like the movie. Don’t juge it by the awful movie.”
Especially fantasy adaptions are regularly awful and damaging for the books.
Examples: The Dark Tower, Eragon, Percy Jackson, The Giver, Inkheart.
Netflix’s Persuasion, The Beach to name a couple of non fantasy as well.So I’d rather they leave the books alone and make original stories into movies.
You said it better than i ever could. Starting at Jurassic Park, and going all the way to The Wheel of Time, just keep Hollywood away from my literature!
After the Dark Tower movie came out, I heard a whole bunch of people on the internet saying that the movie was awful and the books are so much better. I didn’t see the movie, but if the books are so well-liked I thought I’d give them a try.
I tried my best, I really did. But I just couldn’t finish the first book. It was just way too surreal and abstract for me.
You are not alone in this. The first book is awful. It made me doubt my english reading comprehension. Everybody hates it.
It’s unfortunate, that such a great series starts off with the worst book, not only of the series, but imo of all of Kings books.
Somehow the real story starts (for me) with the second book. The first is more of a world introduction, a world building tool. And otherwise quite irrelevant.I urge you, to give the second book (The drawing of the three) a chance. You won’t regret it, because if you disregard the first book, the series is fantastic.
I generally prefer to start series from the very beginning so I don’t miss anything, but I think I’ll go pick up that second book and give the series another try.
The second book begins with a kind of forword that summarises all relevant details of the first book.
Try reading it alongside the podcast the KingSlingers. The podcast is set up where they read a couple chapters at a time, then spend a 2 hours talking about those chapters. One person read the series multiple times and the other is just reading it for the first time. I’m halfway through the series, and now I want them to break down and discuss every book I read.
Any of the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett
There are a couple animated adaptations of some of the books, and the live-action adaptation of Hogfather is pretty good!
There’s also a Sky One live action of Color of Magic and Going Postal that are pretty solid.
Edit: Thanks Madjo!
Sky One, not BBC.
Blood Meridian (decades of false starts not withstanding).
One of my faves. I’ve never understood why people say it’s impossible to adapt.
Because a huge chunk of the story is wandering the gorgeous, but empty desert with a bunch of psycho killers. Occasionally that group commits grisly large scale harvesting of passable scalps to sell off to bigger towns with a scalp trade. Sometimes one of them, usually the judge, will commit a little extra horrific crime against humanity as a treat for themselves. The “good guy” isn’t exactly someone to root for either. It’s a story with muddy, dark morals and an ending that’ll bum out a lot of folks. No happy days here.
I loved the story and would watch a well done movie about it. I highly doubt that’ll happen. To do it right is to include almost all of the horror of what these people are, which would be a lot of money on effects that will anger a ton of people due to what they portray. It’s not that it’s unadaptable. It’s that it would be a slow burn movie with brief, hyper violent hollowing out of small villages including baby smashing. It’s slow, mean, and ends in a way that’ll have you stare off into space feeling a little bad about the nature of humanity. Not a very profitable idea for a movie.
What’s your ideal cast lineup? I want this live action so bad but it would have to be a mini series to get all of it in, and then can never think of anyone who could bring the Judge to life.
Stellan Skarsgård as Judge would be terrifying. Not sure a out accent.
if he had the body of a WWE wrestler like The Big Show. The Judge is suppose to be a monster of a man, 6’7 and 270, with no hair and a baby like face
The Kiefer Sutherland from The Young Guns era as the Kid
Any Batman story that focuses more on how he’s mainly a detective and only breaks out the concussion gloves if he’s attacked or there’s literally no other way to resolve the situation at hand?
Society thinks he’s The Punisher in a funny hat because of those damned nolanverse films.
He was supposed to do some detective work in The Batman movie, right? It’s been awhile since I’ve seen it, though, so I don’t remember how much they fulfilled that promise.
I mean theoretically, but it was crap like everything else in that film. He figured nothing out on his own