Expectations

To the Zealots of the Honor Harrington Series, understand that making a movie is about making money! That purpose is the most basic premise of any movie. Second, making a movies is total different animal than a book or series. Their is a time limit factor which causes an extreme modification of any script. For example, what if they made Nimitz into a regular looking cat to save money! CGI is very expensive and cutting costs like making Nimitz a real cat helps. I'm not saying that's what they are going to do that. Heck Weber has even tried to temper some of the die hard expectations. So lets enjoy the movies and keep it separate from the books. I mean their are going to be some major differences.

Yet, there must be some expectations or it is no longer an Honor Harrington movie. It would then be a completely different movie that just happens to have a lead character named Honor.

There have to be expectations. The question becomes what they are and how likely are they to be met. At what point does a movie become unrecognizable as an Honor Harrington movie?

Having said that, here are my list of expectations. If they aren't met I can't see how it could possibly be called an Honor Harrington movie. (Bear with me, some of these are no-brainers.)

1. Lead character is a female named Honor Harrington.

2. Honor is a military starship captain. (A military starship captain (and crew) wear a uniform containing rank insignia and a nametag.)

3. Honor has a 6-legged grey furred companion named Nimitz who is small enough to ride on her shoulder.

4. The starship is cylindrical, has circular bands at the ends that create a gravitational wedge that propels the ship. (This is what makes Honorverse ships unique and drives 99% of the space combat. Without it the movie might as well be called Star-whatever.)

5. Honor serves the Star Kingdom of Manticore which is the hub of a wormhole network. (This drives the whole strategic storyline of why there is a war in the first place.)

6. The enemy is a much larger nation called the People's Republic of Haven who suffer from an economic meltdown. (This is the second half of why there is a war in the first place.)

And that's my list. Everything else is negotiable. I can overlook the uniforms. (Though I'd prefer something closer to canon.) I can overlook the actual ship design as long as they apply to #4. (Though they cannot have so much 'ginger-bread' the cylindrical shape no longer exists.)

What are your list of must-haves for the movie to qualify as an Honorverse movie?

I expect them to merge some minor characters into single entities. I have seen this done multiple times when long books are translated into movies and it seems to be necessary to avoid the confusion of having too many minor characters in the movie. When done right it works, when done wrong the character(s) appears to have a multiple personality disorder. Lord of the Rings is an example of where this was done correctly.

Borealis wrote:
[snip]

What are your list of must-haves for the movie to qualify as an Honorverse movie?

The single most important thing - for me - is the emotional impact that DW's stories can convey so extremely well:

Hero up against nearly impossible odds. Hero getting screwed over by supposed friends. Hero getting despised by some of the people she's sworn to protect.
Hero tries to do her best anyway.

smr wrote:For example, what if they made Nimitz into a regular looking cat to save money! CGI is very expensive and cutting costs like making Nimitz a real cat helps.

Oh, please. This is a modern SF movie; a large amount of CGI is assumed going in. Too many movies have been CGI-heavy in the last twenty years for Nimitz to be much of a burden on the budget.

Yes, I know that was only an example. But your tone implies that we are all morons who somehow missed watching franchises with loyal fan bases hit the screen-- that none of us were paying attention to how the makers of LOTR or Harry Potter adapted to the new medium.

Surprise! I was a fan of those books long before I found the Honorverse. I know Glorfindel is going to get axed. But I also expect Frodo to look like a hobbit and the Balrog to look like a demon. I expect the movie to explain why this ring is so important, and I expect a Fellowship to do a lot of walking and a lot of fighting before they chuck the thing in the volcano.

I don't expect the Honor Harrington movies to be the same as the book. Go too faithful, like the Ender's Game movie, and I might as well stay home and read the books over again. But I expect Honor to be a female (Asian!) starship captain with a six-limbed mammalian BFF. They may ax Andy Venizelos in favor of Mike Henke; they may ax Alfredo Yu and make Tom Theisman the sole Peep. But at the end of the day, she'd better be thwarting assassination attempts bare-handed and saving a hostile, sexist, hyper-religious planet on her own against overwhelming odds, or it's not the same story. At which point, what IS the point?

Going back to LOTR, all we hope is that they try to be as faith as the LOTR movies were... and not the new Hobbit movies.

YMMV, of course.

Notice, I directed my comments the Zealots not the average fan. Nimitz is the perfect example for the interest of making a movie/tv series. A TV series would find it hard to have CGI for every show, that's why we would have to have 4 limbs instead of six limbs. A live animal would certainly would reduce costs. The treecats are important too the whole Honor Harrington universe but 4 to 6 limbs is immaterial in my eyes. Now, the reason I wrote that was one fan's protest on every post of Evergreen studio's. The way this person has been posting and protesting...the movie will never be good enough. He's basically going to hate the movies before it's been shot.

NortonIDaughter wrote:

smr wrote:For example, what if they made Nimitz into a regular looking cat to save money! CGI is very expensive and cutting costs like making Nimitz a real cat helps.

Oh, please. This is a modern SF movie; a large amount of CGI is assumed going in. Too many movies have been CGI-heavy in the last twenty years for Nimitz to be much of a burden on the budget.

Yes, I know that was only an example. But your tone implies that we are all morons who somehow missed watching franchises with loyal fan bases hit the screen-- that none of us were paying attention to how the makers of LOTR or Harry Potter adapted to the new medium.

Surprise! I was a fan of those books long before I found the Honorverse. I know Glorfindel is going to get axed. But I also expect Frodo to look like a hobbit and the Balrog to look like a demon. I expect the movie to explain why this ring is so important, and I expect a Fellowship to do a lot of walking and a lot of fighting before they chuck the thing in the volcano.

I don't expect the Honor Harrington movies to be the same as the book. Go too faithful, like the Ender's Game movie, and I might as well stay home and read the books over again. But I expect Honor to be a female (Asian!) starship captain with a six-limbed mammalian BFF. They may ax Andy Venizelos in favor of Mike Henke; they may ax Alfredo Yu and make Tom Theisman the sole Peep. But at the end of the day, she'd better be thwarting assassination attempts bare-handed and saving a hostile, sexist, hyper-religious planet on her own against overwhelming odds, or it's not the same story. At which point, what IS the point?

Going back to LOTR, all we hope is that they try to be as faith as the LOTR movies were... and not the new Hobbit movies.

YMMV, of course.

smr wrote:Notice, I directed my comments the Zealots not the average fan. Nimitz is the perfect example for the interest of making a movie/tv series. A TV series would find it hard to have CGI for every show, that's why we would have to have 4 limbs instead of six limbs. A live animal would certainly would reduce costs. The treecats are important too the whole Honor Harrington universe but 4 to 6 limbs is immaterial in my eyes. Now, the reason I wrote that was one fan's protest on every post of Evergreen studio's. The way this person has been posting and protesting...the movie will never be good enough. He's basically going to hate the movies before it's been shot.

"Never work with kids and animals" is an old adage in the film industry. Nimitz has to act in very specific ways, ways you can't train a cat reliably in, and so there will always have to be some CG involved in his creation. Since it is easier to fake all the pixels instead of just a few of them at a time, a full CG (or partially animatronic) Nimitz isn't that hard to do.

Yes, for a full TV series, the cost would be prohibitive. But that's not the only format available; the Honorverse would function really well as a Sharpe-style series, or similar to the BBC's recent Sherlock series.

Also, consider that Evergreen's whole claim to fame is the CG work in Walking with Dinosaurs; if anyone can produce a fully CG character on budget repeatedly, it's them.

I remember during Honorcon that Evergreen stated that figuring out the six-leg movements (how a six-legged creature moves in all situations/dimensions) was one of the big challenges of the program, but that they were intending to solve it and give us a Nimitz with six limbs.

Since the only other creature I know of with six limbs that has been portrayed is Appa, the flying bison in The Last Airbender, there isn't a lot of history to work with...

we shall see.

Hutch wrote:I remember during Honorcon that Evergreen stated that figuring out the six-leg movements (how a six-legged creature moves in all situations/dimensions) wa sone of the big challenges of the program, but that they were intending to solve it and give us a Nimitz with six limbs.

Since the only other creature I know of with six limbs that has been portrayed is Appa, the flying bison in The Last Airbender, there isn't a lot of history to work with...

we shall see.

DO NOT MENTION THAT FILM!
It ruined a brilliant cartoon series.

Michael Everett wrote:

Hutch wrote:I remember during Honorcon that Evergreen stated that figuring out the six-leg movements (how a six-legged creature moves in all situations/dimensions) wa sone of the big challenges of the program, but that they were intending to solve it and give us a Nimitz with six limbs.

Since the only other creature I know of with six limbs that has been portrayed is Appa, the flying bison in The Last Airbender, there isn't a lot of history to work with...

we shall see.

DO NOT MENTION THAT FILM!
It ruined a brilliant cartoon series.

I was referring to the cartoon (have never seen or intend to see the movie), albeit I have seen pictures of Appa from the movie, so I presume that the creators had to work out the 6-legged stuff (albeit it will be easier for a multi-ton animal than a very active treecat...