Updates from David

OrlandoNative wrote:

saber964 wrote:
Battlefield Earth was so bad that one critic speculated that certain scenes looked like someone had urinated on the print and that it wasn't a bad idea.

IIRC the movie was bankrolled by John Travolta and his buddies at Scientology.

I thought the book was fairly good, though longer than it probably should have been.

But the movie adaptation sucked; again, mostly, because it didn't really follow the book story line closely enough and include what really made the story *interesting*.

All those "executives" really need to do for any movie based on a book is to read the original story, compare it to the script, and see how closely it at least follows the original story line. If it's too different, what made the book a good seller probably isn't going to help make the movie one.

Believe me, I've seen movies based on books that the only thing they have in common is the title and the names of some of the carecters. Look at the Harry potter movies, the first two are visually right out of the books but over the next few they get less and less like there out of the books. They can also expand the heck out of book, look at the Hobbit battle of the 5 armies which takes up about two pages in the book.

I notice that nothing was mentioned about Prince Roger.

lexisgrandpa wrote:I notice that nothing was mentioned about Prince Roger.

If you are referring to Empire of Man, Prince Roger that is John Ringo's bailwick.

saber964 wrote:

lexisgrandpa wrote:I notice that nothing was mentioned about Prince Roger.

If you are referring to Empire of Man, Prince Roger that is John Ringo's bailwick.

But it is David's story, too - (didn't David even developed the story and invited John Ringo to write it with him?) and as far as I remember, there is at least a start of a new book (written by John Ringo, and at least in the first parts to find on his homepage), but iIrc, there are ... disagreements between both of them concerning the further development of the Prince-Roger-series.

According to David, the King Roger series was intended to help get John Ringo started off professionally. The first book was led by David, but each subsequent book he's scaled back his involvement. At this point it's pretty much entirely Ringo's series.

Eagleeye wrote:If you are referring to Empire of Man, Prince Roger that is John Ringo's bailwick.

But it is David's story, too - (didn't David even developed the story and invited John Ringo to write it with him?) and as far as I remember, there is at least a start of a new book (written by John Ringo, and at least in the first parts to find on his homepage), but iIrc, there are ... disagreements between both of them concerning the further development of the Prince-Roger-series.

Oh i always thought he took John Ringo in the boat if there has to be slaughtered Billions of people/aliens whatever.
Sorry but any book (at least the ones i know), that writer is involved, is about genocide.

saber964 wrote:

OrlandoNative wrote:
I thought the book was fairly good, though longer than it probably should have been.

But the movie adaptation sucked; again, mostly, because it didn't really follow the book story line closely enough and include what really made the story *interesting*.

All those "executives" really need to do for any movie based on a book is to read the original story, compare it to the script, and see how closely it at least follows the original story line. If it's too different, what made the book a good seller probably isn't going to help make the movie one.

Believe me, I've seen movies based on books that the only thing they have in common is the title and the names of some of the carecters. Look at the Harry potter movies, the first two are visually right out of the books but over the next few they get less and less like there out of the books. They can also expand the heck out of book, look at the Hobbit battle of the 5 armies which takes up about two pages in the book.

Tom Clancy's "Sum of all Fears" and "Clear and Present Danger" are 2 fine examples of movies which only have the dust jackets in common with the books. I can see expanding or eliminating a part so it changes a medium properly ( ie. you can visually show an object, instead of 5 pages of inner monologue on it.) But if you modify the script so much that it's practically a new story, it really deserves a new name.

OrlandoNative wrote:

aairfccha wrote:Interestingly enough, allegedly the B5 creator had it's future mapped out. I can't remember exactly for how many years of shows, but at least 5. However, after season 4 episode 22, they seemed to lose track. Either they skipped over episodes that would have made it a smoother story line, or else just dropped the outline, I'm not sure.

Crusade had some good episodes, but others seemed "out of place". Especially "Strangers from down the street"; which was an obvious takeoff on the X-files.

I think it might have done better if it had been better "positioned".

As an old B5 junkie, I think I can talk about the history of the series. Babylon 5 had a 5-year story arc. It distinguished itself for being one of the forest series with an overarching format. Every season, we at the old Usenet groups would very as the show was renewedon a yearly basis except for Season 3, when it got a two-year renewal. John Michael Stazcynski (heretofore JMS) was told Season 4 was the last one, hence the clean ending. PTN (the syndication group that distributed Babylon 5) was acquired by Time-Warner and they requested a 5th season to be shown on TNT, which became the somewhat disjointed thing we saw on TV.

Crusade became the second series, but TNT started to exercise a lot of control and JMS walked away after one season. The saddest part about Crusade is that it ends in a cliffhanger.

JMS tried his hands at another series, thus time on the Sci-Fi channel (Legend of the Rangers) but the pilot movie was a dud and the series died. He has tried getting a B5 movie off the ground, but alas, unsuccessfully. The last thing I've seen is a direct to DVD movie which are basically two B5 episodes. It's actually pretty good and I suggest you rent it.

I know it's odd topic, but I feel in love with B5 and I keep my eyes out over at the Lurkers Guide website.

OrlandoNative wrote:

saber964 wrote:
Battlefield Earth was so bad that one critic speculated that certain scenes looked like someone had urinated on the print and that it wasn't a bad idea.

IIRC the movie was bankrolled by John Travolta and his buddies at Scientology.

I thought the book was fairly good, though longer than it probably should have been.

But the movie adaptation sucked; again, mostly, because it didn't really follow the book story line closely enough and include what really made the story *interesting*.

All those "executives" really need to do for any movie based on a book is to read the original story, compare it to the script, and see how closely it at least follows the original story line. If it's too different, what made the book a good seller probably isn't going to help make the movie one.

Scientologists consider any deviation from the word of L. Ron Hubbard sacrilege. Although Travolta is a dilettante amongst Scientologists, I doubt he'd break a cardinal rule of this group known for its bloodthirsty and ruthless tamping of dissent.

Hans wrote:

kzt wrote:It's easy to show how a media property is a sure winner if you only look at the winners. And the people that run studios only invest in things they think are winners (or are low cost and ideologically correct). It turns out that they are not always right.

Let me remind you of some of the other SF/F films out there that you have somehow failed to mention:

John Carter lost $122 million dollars.
The most well known story of Japan, the 47 Ronin, was turned via the magic of Hollywood into a $150 million crater.
Green Lantern lost $90 million
Jupiter Ascending lost $87 million.
Treasure Planet lost $85 million.
Supernova lost $82 million.
Tomorrowland lost $76 million
Battlefield Earth lost $73 million
Red Planet lost $63 million
Sphere lost $61 million

None of this mentioned movies are worth to be mentioned.
Battlefield Earth for example was shown in German TV within a series 'Worst Movies ever'
Whoever invested into this movies, the losses are well earned.

I often read about 'RFC' what is this standing for?

It's also a lot more difficult for a movie than for a to fill in the background – the section that starts off by somebody saying "Now tell me, Professor, . . ." is a bit hackneyed by now, and in any case, I doubt whether modern audiences have the patience. Zero chance of any significant info-dump

Consider Dune for example. In its time, it was a wonderful book (for those who didn't dislike SF, that is), and it made an enjoyable film, but only if you'd read the book. The commonest comments I heard from those who saw the movie without having read the book, even if they enjoyed SF, amounted to "I had no idea what was going on."

If you're going to make an SF movie that stands a chance of making money, you need to place pretty severe limits on what you need to put over to the audience. You can limit the plot so that is next thing to simple-minded (e.g. Star Wars), base it in the near future so the audience already has the referents (e.g. 2001), or limit the scenario (e.g. Groundhog Day, or The Truman Show). And there are probably other ways that I can't lay mind to right now.
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