Monday March 10, 2008
Good sci-fi, bad movies
By A. ASOHAN
The ‘literature’ of ideas doesn’t seem to translate well to the visual medium without some compromise.
More than a year ago, I spotted an interesting-looking book amidst the sci-fi, fantasy and superhero merchandise and memorabilia that compose the gravity-defying room of my fellow Silver Scream contributor Davin Arul.
“Look, I’m borrowing this,” I told him, and he grunted in the affirmative – perfectly in keeping with the level of our usual discourse, of course.
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When slapped onto the silver screen, some sci-fi novels devolve into a long, meandering and boring snooze-fests like Solaris ... |
It confirmed Hollywood not only as the city of broken dreams, but also as the breaker of dreams.
The one thing that many of the people Hughes interviewed and spoke to, in gathering material for the book, had in common was an undeniable enthusiasm and love for science fiction cinema.
But even as I nodded in appreciation of their fanboy ways, I couldn’t help but shake my head.
There seems to be a deeper chasm between sci-fi literature and its silver-screen equivalent than with any other genre.
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... or SFX-fests like Paul Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers. |
They are two different mediums, after all.
Being a fan of the genre in any form – though I’m so old that sci-fi cinema when I was a kid mostly revolved around giant mutant insects wreaking havoc upon scaled model cities – I have to say that sci-fi literature and sci-fi cinema seem like two completely different species.
The filmmaker’s idea of what makes sci-fi is very different from the literary genre they draw their ideas from. Indeed, so different that they could be – pardon the phrase – from two different planets.
Oh, to put it more succinctly – my favourite sci-fi movies would make for bad books bereft of any originality, while my favourite sci-fi books would make for very boring movies indeed.
I mean, it’s been more than two decades since William Gibson’s cyberpunk-genre-defining Neuromancer was published and Hollywood still hasn’t caught up yet, the Wachowski brothers notwithstanding.
Filmdom’s only other attempt at Gibson’s work was 1995’s Johnny Mnemonic, whose cool monofilament whip special effects couldn’t save the movie from box-office ignominy. It was years before Mnemonic star Keanu Reeves would redeem his genre cred with The Matrix.
True, Neuromancer is listed on the Internet Movie Database (imdb.com) as being in pre-production, with relatively unknown director Joseph Kahn at the helm and starring blonde nice-boy Hayden Christensen as the drugged out, lanky-haired console cowboy Case.
Yes, he of the “It’s all Obi-Wan’s fault. He’s jealous. He’s holding me back!” whine.
At the risk of stating the obvious, cinema is primarily a visual medium, while the best definition of sci-fi literature I’ve ever come across was from the late publisher Donald A. Wolheim (him of DAW Books fame): Sci-fi is the literature of ideas.
His definition was coined decades ago, but even as recently as last month, Clive Thompson wrote in Wired magazine that sci-fi was perhaps the last bastion of philosophical writing. Its speculative nature lends itself well to exploring ideas and examining issues in a way few other literary genres can.
It’s a “big picture” kind of genre, but when it’s slapped onto the silver screen, it invariably devolves into an SFX-fest, or a long, meandering and boring snooze-fest.
Examples of the former, Paul Verhoeven’s 1997 poor man’s Aliens known as Starship Troopers, based on Robert Heinlein book of the same name published in 1959; and Exhibit A in the latter category, Steven Soderbergh’s 2002 Solaris, starring George Clooney (and a special cameo by his butt), based on Polish writer Stanislaw Lem’s 1961 book of the same name. (A 1959 book to a 1997 movie, a 1961 book to a 2002 movie – see what I mean about Hollywood trying to catch up?)
When I think about my favourite sci-fi books, I have little hope that any can be adapted effectively to the silver screen and still retain their “special something.” Even the books with scenes that would make special effects guys lick their chops in anticipation have long, thoughtful expositions in between that would have movie audiences nodding off.
Unless of course, you distil all the sci-fi goodness away and just focus on the action scenes.
You could, in this way, make a movie based on Joe Haldeman’s 1974 The Forever War, update its Vietnam War-era sensibilities to Iraq and produce an interstellar war movie with a social message that resonates with modern viewers.
You could adapt Poul Anderson’s “Ensign Flandry” series of books (1966-1985) and come up with a new superspy movie franchise that would give Bourne fans something else to salivate over – thoughtful counter-intelligence agent adventures, only in outer space this time.
Greg Bear’s Eon could break the SFX budget, but done well and updated for the post-Cold War era, it may just be the ticket – start at a measured clip of exploring a vast, high-tech artefact and slowly pick up pace to speed to an explosive, world-changing climax.
But even with these examples, you’d have to drop much of the scientific extrapolation and sociological scrutiny to make them palatable to the movie-watching community.
And that means probably losing that something special as well.
Nope, not the best way to go, I figure.
When I think about it, my favourite sci-fi movies have very little in common with my favourite sci-fi books.
In fact, the most effective sci-fi movies just grabbed ideas from a variety of sources and mixed them all up to create something of their own. They were amalgamations of old ideas in new packaging.
The Matrix series is perhaps the best example of this, as were Alex Proyas’ 1998 Dark City (seemingly based on every Philip K. Dick book ever written, with Jennifer Connelly to boot) and Kurt Wimmer’s Equilibrium in 2002 (equal parts Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, with slick martial arts and the best excuse – “gun katas” – for over-the-top gunplay I’ve ever come across).
Perhaps that’s what Hollywood should continue focusing on when it comes to sci-fi movies – paying tribute via the sincerest form of flattery.
That’s right, Mr Studio Bigwig. Keep stealing ideas, but make sure you mix ’em all up into a heady brew.
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