Cool News
Alternate Universes, Renegade Space Pirates, And A Madman Bent On Destroying A World?? Bring It On!!
Merrick here...
Shekhar Kapur, who recently wrote and directed ELIZABETH: THE GOLDEN AGE has set his sights on developing & directing LARKLIGHT for Warner Bros. He'll work alongside EASTERN PROMISES scripter Steven Knight to adapt Philip Reeve's novel.
The 2006 book, set in a Victorian-era alternate universe in which mankind has been exploring the solar system since the time of Isaac Newton, revolves around a brother and sister who team with a band of renegade space pirates to save the world from destruction at the hands of a madman.
...says THIS ARTICLE in Hollywood Reporter.
Sounds like my kind of insanity. I was saying to someone the other day that we're overdue for a really cool space movie...maybe this'll be it? I'm referring to something newish...not pre-established universe like TREK.
Larklighter isn't the only genre project Kapur has in the works - he's also developing Paani, which HR describes as...
...a futuristic film set in Mumbai centering on the scarcity of water.
In the past, this theme hasn't worked out so well. I remember SOLARBABIES and ICE PIRATES...do you?
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+ Expand All
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'Ice Pirates' was awesome, just awesome
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...they'll at least capture the fat goth chick demographic.
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Um...Star Trek IS coming next summer, ya know. I'm sure THAT will be the definitive "space movie."
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2 posts in and already someone's slagging an idea they know very little about.
Is it any wonder we keep getting re-makes and sequels when potentially interesting ideas, picked up by quality directors are immediately pissed on by "fan-boys".
Fans of what exactly? All I hear round here is bitching. -
...not to mention the purveyors of moldy, motheaten old clothes and used Bauhaus CDs.
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Hilarious movie!
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... just a silly one that Hollywood will eff up even further.
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...that cool RPG from the late 1980s called Space: 1889 where the European colonial powers compete for their stake in the solar system. It was completely mad, with steam-powered spaceships, muskets and other awesome stuff. I approve.
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Water scarcity is clearly an awesome premise for a film.
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Ice Pirates is a forgotten classic!
o.k. maybe not, but it is a pretty funny movie. Robert Urich R.I.P. -
look out for the space herpes!
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Optimism brother. Let's enjoy the possibility of it being great before they screw it up.
Sorry... I just got finished watching the US versus John Lennon and it let the hippy out of me. -
It's April Fool's Day.
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We've spent too many years on the floating battleship in space look and feel. Give me more Jules Verneian art direction.
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Jamie Gertz and Lukas Haas at their best. Or not. But still the guiltiest of pleasures.
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Apr 01, 2008 10:11:05 AM CDT
As long as the rocket ships look like rockets!
by stereotypical evil archer
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'Course I didn't read Golden Compass OR this story, so what do I know?
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Why did they change the name of the city from Bombay to Mumbai?
Did it just track better? Was there a contest? -
I never understood the point of having films set in "an alternate Elizabethan age" or "a time when the Industrial Revolution never happened" or whatever. It seems to me that it just confuses the point of what you're making, and makes everyone pay more attention to the art design than the rest of the film. Really, what's the difference between a story where mankind has been in space since Newton and a story set 500 years in the future where mankind has been in space since the 20th century? If the point of the story is being in space (as opposed to the Newton bit) why confuse the issue?
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Weren't they zipping around in rollar skates too?
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...it's COOL.
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Sorry, this just isn't my cup of tea. Unless we can get an update to Serenity my interest is swashbuckling space adventurers is done.
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Next candidate, please.
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Interesting point, I was just considering the problem recently of alternative universes in film. They really work better in novels, comics/graphic fiction and occasionally in TV because you have the space to go into detail. But of course, why ignore set design and background detail? Would anyone have gone to see Star Wars if it had been played out like Dogville and people had to use their imagination?
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with 200 mil for Larklight.Let's hope. And I get tired of it, when Science Fiction fanboys scream nitpicking when things in the stories don't go EXACTLY like they're supposed to according to today's theories in physics and begin screaming PLOT DEVICE! PLOT DEVICE! Hate to break it to 'em, but Science Fiction's
itself, is indeed a PLOT DEVICE. -
Sometimes you just don't know what is real and what isn't. Hey, WTF doesn't John Adams have a talkback?
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Solar Babies and Ice pirates are better than about 75% of the films that come out every year. That's not too bad really.
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"Science Fiction's itself, is indeed a PLOT DEVICE."
Now that... is brilliant.
Well done sir! -
So renegade space pirates would be space cops or space hall monitors or space meter maids or something.
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and remember, no matter where you go, there you are!
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The ship has... Space Herpes...
Jethro man... you're lookin BAD -
Showering in white powder=not hot
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TY. If, it is an April Fools joke....at least, I got that off my chest ;)
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You just named two of my all time favorite guilty pleasures. I own both of those movies on VHS and they were a STAPLE of my childhood. Solarbabies and Ice Pirates are 80's B movie classics!
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and they are really good, very inventive even in a genre that can get quite tired. the books are full of really nice illustrations done in a victorian style. Hopefully one day someone like Zemeckis will do Reeves other book series that start with Mortal Engines which are amazing, but need that unlimited imagination / budget style that mo-cap is going for at the moment.
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...Bauhaus reforms and releases its first new album in over 25 years... huh?!!?
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The only way I see it being justified if it's not really an alternate history, but an alternate cosmology. In other words, if the film is set in the solar system as it would exist if all the falsehoods that were believed about space in Newton's time were actually true. So instead of space being a vacuum, it's filled with ether, and so forth. There was a fun alternate cosmology novel called "Celestial Matters" which is set in a universe where the things the ancient Greeks thought about physics were actually true, and where a "space program" to reach the various spheres holding the planets is underway. That would make a fun Gilliamesque film.
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...apparently this IS an alternate cosmology, so it is in fact quite different than just having the space program start early.
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Apr 01, 2008 2:03:54 PM CDT
Damn straight I remember Ice pirates and solarbabies!
by theonecalledshoe
hi-yahh!!!
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I say, I reckon!
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steampunk space pirate TEEEEEEEEEEEENS
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I don't think a movie maker should try to convince an audience that we're in the distant future, AND that we're following an alternate time line. It takes too long and too much effort to establish a substantial back story. It can't usually be done properly in a 2-hour long movie.
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there is no way that this will.
Stupid Victorian era. Go somewhere with your lace! -
I guess it still is in it's way, but honestly movies that step outside of pre-existing franchises are not rewarded with big Box Office, and the suits hate that. Also I don't think retro-period-pieces in space are appreciated much by average movie-goers either (Serenity for example). But hey, give it a try. At worst, we get another let down turkey we'll just have to forget.
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Victorian era? Gay.
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Apr 01, 2008 7:05:59 PM CDT
even tho its not made, the movie has made all the money its goin
by ironic_name
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There was a roleplaying game with this very same premise released back in the 80s. Still, cool idea, even if it was plagiarized...
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I thought he died on the attack on the Death Star.
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that would be awesome.
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Enough of this bullshit, how about something ORIGINAL for once.
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I'm sure I'm not alone in such sentiments.
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...or a re-imagining of *Yor* that actually works.
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Big budget and not made for tv. A planet that is a disc set upon the backs of 4 elephants atop a giant turtle.
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Seriously! I want to know! Let me hear this gigantic list of the steampunk movies that are choking the film market. The closest I have ever seen to a steampunk movie is probably City of Lost Children, and that was over a decade ago. Sure, there are plenty of steampunk books and anime, but I would say as a film genre, it is woefully under-explored.
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for a moment there, I thought this was going to ba an adaptation of Neal Stephenson's "The Diamond Age", but this sounds ok too.
For some reason I'm reminded of Battle Beyond the Stars, and that reminds me of George Peppard and that reminds me of the A-Team...
Don't you just love it when a plan comes together? -
Kinda
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than so was the re-make of "The Time Machine"
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Apr 02, 2008 4:06:46 AM CDT
I agree -- I don't get the whole "Victorian steampunk/alternate
by big dumb ape
Generally speaking, I have to say I agree with Monkey Butler's post about alternate timeline stuff. Personally, I've never really gotten into any of it with the possible exception of some rare cases where it's centered around a strong "what if" scenario -- such as "What if Hitler had actually won WWII? What would the world be like today?" And even there, that's basically okay only because you aren't going TOO far back in history which allows people to get a grasp on things, it allows someone to more easily see what might have been because it touches on the very real world that they live in now.But when it comes to the sci-fi realm, I would agree with FluffyUnbound, too. Unless it's something set IN another universe, a true alternate cosmology, what's the point other than saying "Ooh! Wouldn't it be cool if today's airplanes were designed by Victorian era engineers? Wouldn't that make for cool looking shit?"Well, here's a news flash for you: there are sound SCIENTIFIC reasons and principles for WHY things DO look the way that they do NOW as opposed to 100 fucking years ago when things operated by steam and held together by giant oversized rivets. There are sound reasons why history DID go the way it did. It wasn't a fluke, airplanes evolved (and thus looked) the way that they did for actual technological reasons pertinent to the time they were constructed. I mean for crying out loud, just think about applying that notion to most things in life. Hey! Wouldn't it be cool if the women of today dressed in clothing designed by Victorian era fashion designers? Hmm, I tell you what -- go ask your wife or girlfriend how she'd feel about that. How she'd like putting on a corset every day, even if it was made from the lighter manufactured material of today. They'd say "Fuck you" pretty fast and...much like the analogy to planes...they'd be grateful that clothing, that the world, evolved the way that it did.But, hey, I guess since it is science fiction to each his own. But the idea of a wooden boat with sails that can now fly because it has Victorian steampunk or Titanic-like smoke stacks mounted in the rear doesn't make me think "Cool!" or make me say "Boy, if only!" -- instead it just makes me look and say "What the fuck is THAT thing? What moron actually believes that would fly?"
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he's all about alternative timelines
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This doesn't sound so much like an alternate timeline book like Harry Turtledove or PKD's Man in the High Castle, but rather sounds more like fantasy set in the Victorian age rather than medieval times. Lord of the Rings is basically medieval themed so it makes sense to do something similar in Victorian times.
The difference seems to hinge on the fact that alternate history is concerned with what is possible, while fantasy doesn't care about possibilities, it's more concerned with created a new world, even if that world shares a few things in common with ours. -
The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump
I wish that would be made into a film -
no thanks.
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Elizabeth: The Golden Age was such a step backwards. She didn't even seem like the same character from the first film. The dialogue was atrocious. What a disappointment. Hopefully he'll redeem himself with this one.
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Why the frak can't I find the book that he wrote with Richard Dreyfuss (sic) where the American Revolution was averted? I remember when it came out in hardcopy, but I don't think I've ever seen it in paperback.
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Steam powered cars and airship travel.
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