alt Hacker NewsI always thought that, out of the Clarke novels, “Songs of Distant Earth” would make a good movie adaptation.
Rama may turn out unrecognizable after the Hollywood script jockeys have been through with it, as happened to Foundation. (I actually like the Apple TV version, but it’s definitely its own thing.)
For sci-fi takes on truly alien first contacts, Lem’s “Solaris” still holds its own, and the Tarkovsky movie is its own standalone classic (again something very different from the book).
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> I actually like the Apple TV version, but it’s definitely its own thing.
I do, too, but I had to accept that the books basically gave us names; and that's about it.
The books would have been a complete snooze-fest, if they had been accurately rendered.
The latest episode of Rick Rubin's Tetragrammaton podcast has an interview with Eric Roth who adapted the screenplay for Rendezvous with Rama.
"a fall of moondust" would translate extremely well to screen, and "the martian" has shown that it's the kind of movie that would do well enough in terms of reception.
Counterpoint, I very much enjoyed the sequels (all but the last). They added three dimensional characters, especially women and explored a variety of aspects of first contact. They're a believable examination of how humans recreate the same social ills over and over, given the opportunity for utopia.
I'd all the Southern Reach trilogy (quadrilogy? now) to this list. It's more on the cosmic/eldritch side, but similar sense of unknowable.
SPOILER WARNING
My interruption is that Area X/The Crawler is a probe built to study and build a bridge back to its creator. Area X is expanding because it's the inside of a wormhole. But whatever is on the other side is long dead, and the probe is acting on instinct.
back in 1994, when I was 9 years old, one of my favorite albums that got me into electronic music as a young boy was the concept album "Songs of Distant Earth" by Mike Oldfield.. Also the remixes by Jam&Spoon.. I think he released some kind of weird software about it too.. I think its time to finally read the book.
As much as I love "Songs of Distant Earth", I suspect a Hollywood version of it would amount to "giant lobsters vs space marines", whereas in the book they're a minor sideshow.