Amazon TV adaptation of Iain Banks' Culture series is cancelled
This is a shame. Could have been interesting. And better as a series than as a film, with more time to go in to depth.
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IHaveABadFeelingAboutThis most likely working from home on, Wed 26 Aug 2020, 14:36,
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I'm late to the Culture party - I just finished Player of Games just a couple of days ago.
I did enjoy it, and I'll continue with the series, but while I was reading it though I was struggling to see how you could visualise it. So much of the description of the actual games seemed intentionally vague, and you just couldn't do that in a visual medium.
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evil_andy Stick stick stick stick sticky sticky stick stick, Wed 26 Aug 2020, 14:43,
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This.
I'm similarly slightly worried about the forthcoming Foundation adaptation.
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Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Wed 26 Aug 2020, 15:25,
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It can't be as bad as some of the source material (and I really like Foundation).
The science of psychohistory is perhaps more silly than the genetic memory stuff in Dune. Both require a device like the Mule/Siona to paint the story out of the corner, if you see what I mean.
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brb man-child cuck corporate supplicant fuck, Wed 26 Aug 2020, 16:04,
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Not sure I agree, to be honest.
Psychohistory can be passed off as just applied sociology. No drama there, but not too silly. The problem for me is that the original novels are simply too episodic.
You could do Foundation's Edge or Foundation and Earth as more straightforward dramas - but without the prior stuff, they'd make no sense.
I think.
I mean, it's 30 years since I read any of 'em.
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Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Wed 26 Aug 2020, 19:32,
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I understood Psychohistory as extremely advanced mathematics rather than sociology. Maybe I need to read that again.
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evil_andy Stick stick stick stick sticky sticky stick stick, Wed 26 Aug 2020, 21:06,
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I think it's a kind of probablistic forecasting.
I read somewhere that Asimov considered the possibility that he should have called it psychosociology or something.
It doesn't strike me as all that important. It's still a matter of extrapolating trends to predict the future (though in Foundation it does seem ridiculously precise).
Hari Seldon was basically a Space Actuary.
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Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Wed 26 Aug 2020, 22:43,
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Not all that important? It is the foundation of The Foundation!
Isaac Arthur has an episode explaining many reasons why it cannot work (black swans, unpredictable quantum events, lack of computing power, stacking errors/random variables, 'free will,' quantum cheeseburgers, etc.)...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Uh-VQy24l8
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brb man-child cuck corporate supplicant fuck, Thu 27 Aug 2020, 14:51,
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I think it's meant to be a combination of both.
Like, once the you're dealing with social organisations of many billions of individuals, then your sociology is predictable with maths.
I always saw it as analogous to chemistry... you don't know what any individual molecule is doing precisely, but you do know how an Avogadro constant of molecules will behave in general.
(, Thu 27 Aug 2020, 10:31, Reply)
What other excellent sci-fi series can get fucked up by a glossy, shallow TV adaptation and the inevitable godawful fanbase that accompanies it?
Omg did you see Marvel's "Person In The High Castle" last night? That was really good, wasn't it? I proper loved the bit where Captain America came smashing thru and punched Hitler.
(, Wed 26 Aug 2020, 16:58, Reply)
E.E.Doc Smiths Lensman Series might work
The books themselves were so shallow, hammy, and utterly pulpy sci-fi that a glossy shallow TV adaptation might end up being better than the books.
Obviously with Robert Downey Jr as the lead.
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My Name was saying these words inside your head on, Wed 26 Aug 2020, 17:25,
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I really must get around to reading those. They sound gloriously bonkers.
Edit: found the first two as part of a kindle bundle for 69p. That'll do.
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evil_andy Stick stick stick stick sticky sticky stick stick, Wed 26 Aug 2020, 17:47,
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"Our velocity is faster than the speed of light
looks like Einstien was wrong!"
And so on.
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My Name was saying these words inside your head on, Thu 27 Aug 2020, 1:17,
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There was an anime version of Lensman
I was dead into the books when I was younger, so I jumped at the chance to see an animated version. Manga released it on VHS. Even then it was shallow as hell and ignored 90% of the novel's content, but it was fun.
Terrible american dub here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=-td8Jp0hJVA
For extra bonus nostalgia points, the first time I saw a clip of the anime, it was being used as a 'aren't the Japanese mental' clip on the Clive James show.
(, Thu 27 Aug 2020, 9:18, Reply)
I should really give that a go
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evil_andy Stick stick stick stick sticky sticky stick stick, Thu 27 Aug 2020, 20:51,
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Ringworld probably has the potential to make a decent serial.
By which I mean 6-8 hour long episodes, not being dragged out over three series.
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jonbob loves you, Wed 26 Aug 2020, 22:44,
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Might have to be a pornhub exclusive though.
And might fall foul of various anti-bestiality laws.
I think Niven writes in a very tv/movie friendly way though. E.g. the opening of Ringworld Engineers reads like an awesome kung-fu/action movie.
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brb man-child cuck corporate supplicant fuck, Thu 27 Aug 2020, 14:54,
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Footfall would make a pretty good film, if the basic plot hadn't already been filmed like 20-30 times now.
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evil_andy Stick stick stick stick sticky sticky stick stick, Thu 27 Aug 2020, 17:07,
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Foundation is the sort of thing that just seems too vast to be able to pull off properly.
What I really want to see is a Red Mars series.
That seems much more doable, but apparently it's been stuck in production hell for the last five years or so.
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evil_andy Stick stick stick stick sticky sticky stick stick, Wed 26 Aug 2020, 21:05,
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Rendezvous With Rama has been stuck in hell for decades, too.
It would make a great movie but the sequels drag it waaaaaaaaay down.
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brb man-child cuck corporate supplicant fuck, Thu 27 Aug 2020, 15:00,
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Well you could do the same shit they do in a lot of sci fi films,
where you have a big board apparently displaying the positions of friendly and enemy fleets in some futuristic abstract way, and just make it so when the the good guys do well it all gets a bit bluer, and when the enemy is doing well it all gets a bit redder.
If you need more detail than that, then early on in the story you show a weird graphical element that is easily distinguishable from everything else and which causes a big red/blue shift and makes the audience gasp (and with ensuing discussion which roughly explains what it represents)... then later you drop that element in at the key moment it is needed, so the viewer can now gasp.
The last thing you'd want to do with the game in The Player of Games is make it actually understandable, I think, since it is basically not understandable in the book.
(, Wed 26 Aug 2020, 15:31, Reply)
I can't tell if you're being sarcastic, sorry
but I like your idea - I think it would absolutely be possible to give visual cues about the progress of the game, without actually spelling out what's meant to be happening.
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IHaveABadFeelingAboutThis most likely working from home on, Wed 26 Aug 2020, 15:53,
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No I'm really not!
Basically "the game" in this case is the same as "the war" in so many films. The actual positions and movements of all units on the board doesn't usually matter for the story, only a few bits do for a few scenes.
If you want to make a situation look bad in a WW2 film, you get a guy with a croupier's rake to push a handful of swastikas towards a lone Union Jack. You can do the same here.
(, Wed 26 Aug 2020, 15:55, Reply)
(, Wed 26 Aug 2020, 16:14, Reply)
106 votes so far today on /links
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evil_andy Stick stick stick stick sticky sticky stick stick, Wed 26 Aug 2020, 16:21,
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Nah, only 4 at the moment.
I got 11 for the Dutchie joke I posted a month or two back, that seems to be the most popular thing I've ever posted with this account.
(, Thu 27 Aug 2020, 0:00, Reply)
Coming back to this because I've got the ability to concentrate on it at last - you make a good point. You don't have to have all the rules fleshed out and so on. However there's enough in the book that talked about gaining and losing territory and strategic moves that pay off later that make me concerned for how it would work visually. If you have someone stand there and explain it to us, then that's a huge cop-out.
But I suppose you could do it like Cricket highlights, where you don't have to watch all five days to get a feel for how it went.
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evil_andy Stick stick stick stick sticky sticky stick stick, Wed 26 Aug 2020, 17:52,
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I doubt the material would work well on screen
and anyway the budget required to do it properly would be ridiculous
(, Wed 26 Aug 2020, 14:47, Reply)
Even done properly it might not work
I went to see Ian Banks at a book store and he read out some of his work. His high pitched Scottish voice was so at odds with the sci-fi scene he was describing that it ruined his books for me for about 2 years until I could read them without thinking of the author saying the words.
I cannot help but think the author knew the right way to say the words but it totally did not work.
He has a voice for print you might say.
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My Name was saying these words inside your head on, Wed 26 Aug 2020, 17:22,
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Done well, Consider Phlebas would probably make a reasonable TV series, but even as I was reading that I was groaning internally at all the cliches. Done badly it would be dire.
World on the brink of destruction only just escaped by the heroes?
Ship sinking sequence?
Train tunnel sequence?
Shape-shifting alien?
I mean come on.
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evil_andy Stick stick stick stick sticky sticky stick stick, Wed 26 Aug 2020, 17:56,
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member those synopsis on the back of the vhs cassette tape case from down the video shop back in the day? member?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consider_Phlebas#Plot_summary
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artifus is doing it all wrong, Wed 26 Aug 2020, 20:36,
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Pretty much.
I mean the only thing that doesn't mention is all the nonsense on the boat while the Orbital is getting Ryan Johnsoned.
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evil_andy Stick stick stick stick sticky sticky stick stick, Wed 26 Aug 2020, 20:57,
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does read like a low budget b movie there though, and i say that as a fan - meaning it could be a hard sell to those who control the purse strings
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artifus is doing it all wrong, Wed 26 Aug 2020, 21:02,
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It's not the strongest of the series.
Not read any of them for a great many years but I seem to remember The State Of The Art being bloody awful. And vaguely Star Trek IV.
Inversions was lovely.
(, Wed 26 Aug 2020, 22:22, Reply)
state of the art rings a bell - wasn't that a collection of short stories?
i liked the one about the sentient space suit if it's the book i'm thinking of
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artifus is doing it all wrong, Wed 26 Aug 2020, 22:32,
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That's the one.
For what it's worth, the part about the Memorial to The Deportation in Paris has always stuck with me.
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jonbob loves you, Wed 26 Aug 2020, 22:41,
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As it's the first, I wasn't expecting it to be. He was just getting his foot in the door of this universe, so it wasn't going to be perfect. The idea of machine intelligences being vastly smarter than humans and treated as equal members of society was an intriguing one though, and was enough to get me into the second book.
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evil_andy Stick stick stick stick sticky sticky stick stick, Wed 26 Aug 2020, 22:51,
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It really didn't help that I'd read POG, UOW and Excession first, so after those CP came across as a bit pedestrian and "what was the point". But yes, still a strong foundation for what was to come.
(, Wed 26 Aug 2020, 23:30, Reply)
100 "Likes" today!
*Party like the internet was young and the Ginger Führer had his own hair!*
(, Wed 26 Aug 2020, 15:25, Reply)
I can't help thinking that a disaster has been averted.
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Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Wed 26 Aug 2020, 15:27,
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You're probably right
But in some version of reality it would have been really good, and we've missed out.
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IHaveABadFeelingAboutThis most likely working from home on, Wed 26 Aug 2020, 15:49,
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Love Iain Banks
Did some illustration work for The Wasp Factory. Met him in a pub in Edinburgh. Top bloke. Still makes me cry thinking about it.
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Boris Johnson's Press Secretary, Wed 26 Aug 2020, 18:01,
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Which edition of the book?
Seems like he would have been great fun to be in a Pub with, provided your politics vaguely aligned.
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Thrill_My_Chinchilla is old and unimproved, Thu 27 Aug 2020, 16:52,
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can't remember, it was 0ver 30 years ago lol
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Boris Johnson's Press Secretary, Sun 30 Aug 2020, 7:33,
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Great to see so many B3tards are into IMB's Culture books. After years reading hard copies I'm listening to them as audiobooks and reckon my visualisation of them is probably better than any corporate mediacorp's realisation. I'm also relieved at them being cancelled so I don't have to subscribe to Amazon. (I only subscribe to Netflix when there are new series of The Crown or Drag Race, so am a tasteless hypocrite.)
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joetotale blear-e'ed, wither'd spectre, Wed 26 Aug 2020, 18:10,
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