(no subject)

[deathboy]

Diamond Age miniseries???

O_O

Comments

[synthclarion.livejournal.com]

*dribble*.

[cyberpunkgrrl.livejournal.com]

Michael Marshall Smith FTW

:D

[girfan.livejournal.com]

Sounds good to me!

[m0rbid-princess.livejournal.com]

I'll be interested to see what they make of it...

[madkatsjournal.livejournal.com]

"the futuristic civilization in which he lives is stifling creativity"

Welcome to the real world...

[cyberpunkgrrl.livejournal.com]

ooo!

Could be interesting...

Will look out for that (and try to get sci-fi channel by then *lol*)

[witchchild]

That would require me believing scifi won't completely cock it up though.

[sclerotic-rings.livejournal.com]

If Skiffy is expected to cover anything other than the actual cost of the broadcast, expect it to get dumped faster than the toilet tank in a Dave Matthews Band tour bus.

[rik.livejournal.com]

hooray. now all that needs to happen is that someone needs to teach Neal Stephenson how to write beginnings and ends of stories, rather than just middle.

[selectnone.livejournal.com]

Yup, he does give good Middle.

[sclerotic-rings.livejournal.com]

Knowing the people at the Skiffy Channel (I used to be a columnist for the house magazine, and I regularly had to beat people to get information for articles that these same people demanded in the magazine), I'll believe it when I see it. One of the things you have to remember is that Skiffy president Bonnie Hammer takes projects based on one criteria: if they're cheap. (For instance, the only reason why Skiffy cancelled Farscape was because the parent company of the Jim Henson Company went under, and Skiffy was asked to pay for a percentage of the production cost. It's also the reason why Skiffy refused the last season of Babylon 5, and why almost all of their programming consists of direct-to-cable garbage nobody else wanted.) Oh, it might get done, but expect a lot of CGI poisoning to conceal the incredible frugality necessary to catch Hammer's attention.

[sclerotic-rings.livejournal.com]

But how much are we talking about needing to get the job done? A decade back, I caught a lecture by William Gibson about the insanity of the filming of Johnny Mnemonic, and he apparently gets a good laugh at people who blithely talk about a film costing "only" $10 million or so. "Have you ever seen $10 million in one place before?" Film investors feel the same way, and one of the reasons why so many films suck so badly is because they're all wanting to make sure that they make back their investment...which is why slasher films and teen tit comedies flood the market while quirky films come along every few years.

[gaius-octavian.livejournal.com]

Well, if you overlook that both Farscape and Babylon 5 were rubbish, which I think is a far more likely explanation.

[sclerotic-rings.livejournal.com]

Point, and I won't argue the issue as far as value. (I feel the same exact way about the new Battlestar Galactica.) What we're talking about here is pure economics: if Skiffy has to pay anything on it, it doesn't get a chance, which is why we get lots of pilots and lots of "Boa vs. Python" movies. (Back when SCI FI Prime was running in '99 and afterwards, every last show run on the Channel was completely paid for by others. Farscape was paid for by Australia Channel 4 and EA, Lexx was a Canadian video tech workfare program, and everything else, from The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne to Black Scorpion, were shows made years before that couldn't get another venue to bite and pay for further episodes. I won't even talk about the primetime rejects, such as Stargate, The Outer Limits, Mystery Science Theater 3000, and Sliders, that Skiffy took for free after the original venues running them realized that they had already jumped the shark.)

[jr06.livejournal.com]

re: farscape, sorry dude, there is no Australian channel 4, I think it might have been channel 9

From what I recall, they filmed it at the fox studio's in Sydney.

[sclerotic-rings.livejournal.com]

You're right: for some strange reason, I was thinking of BBC4, as in "Ha! You're about as alternative as Channel 4!"

[jr06.livejournal.com]

no probs ;)

[selectnone.livejournal.com]

Oooooooh

[organex.livejournal.com]

Thank you, this has just made my day!

[miss-soap.livejournal.com]

Yes please.

[moosipher.livejournal.com]

I can't think of one book that I have seen made into a film or tv thing that has come close to what I have in my head. I would far rather keep my ideas of what happens and the tech involved. I don't like watching something that will then influence my feelings and thoughts about the books. I utterly adore Stephenson, and I love the fact that with his books I get such a complete picture painted. Having to sit back and blithely lap up somone elses vision (based entirely on the 'general public' as that is what makes money) rather than the fireworks is get going off inside my head as I read something is a poor substitution.
And when you give up your right to keep your memories, then they're gone for good. If you re-read a series of books for years, as I have with a few series, you feel you know the characters inside and out. If, when made into a video presentation the way they look , sound or act doeesn't match what I have in my head - it annoys me, and I'm then left with someone else's pictures in my head.
I'm going to pass this one up as long as I can.

[dennyd.livejournal.com]

S'interesting. For me, if they cock it up when they make the film then it can't possibly influence my mental image of the characters etc. Although I have had cases where an unexpectedly good characterisation has thenceforth replaced the one I had in my head, but I'm happy with that.

[sclerotic-rings.livejournal.com]

I have to agree: I'm so sick and tired of people who go completely berserk about the possibility that a particular book or comic might get turned into a movie project and then go even more berserk when the movie adaptation turns into utter crap. The only reason I can see why anyone would care if the book or comic was already that good is the same phenomenon as the people who call radio stations to request songs that they already own. In this case, it's a base primate response of getting everyone else to experience the subject of their obsession.