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Is The Fincher/Freeman RENDEZVOUS WITH RAMA Project Stillborn??
Merrick here...
For years Geeks have wondered how, when, and if we'd see the fabled David Fincher directed/Morgan Freeman produced (and starring?) adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke's RENDEZVOUS WITH RAMA.
And, for years, we've heard passing allusions to the project...and little hints that development might be sputtering forward.
firstshowing.net caught up with Fincher, and pressed him for further details. Sadly, though, the outlook doesn't ems good at the moment.
"It looks like it's not going to happen. There's no script and as you know, [Morgan Freeman's] not in the best of health right now. We've been trying to do it but it's probably not going to happen."
...says Fincher in THIS DISCUSSION with FirstShowing.
I've dreamed of seeing a movie version of this book since I was kid.
Although I understand & concur with Freeman's assessment that RAMA is a very intellectual and challenging story to put on screen, I've also seen "real" FX demos which convinced me that the right atmosphere & scale could be brought to the film.
Of course, getting an adaptation like this "right" requires far more than FX alone...but, considering the subject matter...creating the right sense of ambiance and mystery is a very good start.
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rama and fincher = goodness
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i was looking forward to this
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'Rama' is the name of a native-run casino around these parts, so that title has very a different connotation in my area.
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there are so few films based on Sir Arthur C. Clarke's works...then again, perhaps that's a good thing. Still, he's got tons of books out there that would make for some pretty awesome Sci-Fi movies.
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Dammit, dammit, dammit.
I CAN see the problem though. . . the entire book is about the magical wonder of observing alien technology you can't understand. In other words: This movie needs a huge budget because the effects ARE the story. While I love the book and would love a film adaptation, it's got the markings of a Speed Racer flop. Budget effects can't replace dynamic characters and a cogent story. Ah well . . . -
Rendevous With Rama, the steamy / seamy / sleazy / queasy Sri Lankan child pornography video produced, directed, and starring Arhur C. Clarke. It tells the tale of Rama -- a 13 year old Sri Lankan boy, and the randy rendevous that occurred betwixt his tender, unsullied buttcheeks and the pederast / genius Arthur C. Clarke giving him the ole in out in out. Daisy, daisy, tell me your answer do...
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about Alex Proyas to direct? Seems right up his alley
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Straightforward hard SF with paper-thin characters.
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What's wrong with Morgan Freeman? He's not sick, is he?? DON'T DIE MORGAN FREEMAN!
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but Rama has more the feel of a disaster movie than anything else. There's no straightforward villian/conflict. Good luck whoever tries to make that. There's astounding images involved which would be great on film, but fall in to the classic catch 22, that they're not suited to a hollywood blockbuster, which is the only thing that gets enough money to do the concept justice.
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Oct 13, 2008 12:17:09 PM CDT
Morgan freeman won't die untill batman 3 is finished
by indyabbey jones
chris nolan is hammering out a deal with WB to ensure that one actor from the next batman movies will die after production is finished to ensure maximum box office rersults.morgan freeman has been chosen to kick the bucket after batman 3 is done and nolan has agreed to direct a fourth movie as long as wb can garanteee the 2014 death of micheal caine
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The Arthur C. Clarker pedophile thing was a lie invented by a British tabloid which they were later forced to apologise for. But thank you for being dumb enough to base your opinions on whatever crap tabloid journalists want to make up.
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They would probably make a "villain"...my guess some unstable scientist that loses it when they actually make it to Rama and I'm sure there will be some alien that will look like someone spent a weekend with Zbrush making some weird creature that will attack everyone one by one with only one or two people making it out alive. No, the original Rama has nothing like this...it's a very interesting story, but as vaterite says above, it's not suited to a hollywood blockbuster.
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The main problem with Rendezvous With Rama is that it's too realistic. So essentially you'd be making a sci-fi version of Scott's voyage to the Antarctic or the first moonlanding. There's nothing wrong with that, but you have to spend so much more time working on the script when you can't patch it up with sci-fi weirdness. Plus there'll be people telling you to put more sci-fi weirdnes in to "liven it up a bit". I bet the project isn't stillborn and it's just Fincher removing people's expectations. He still might make it, but not soon.
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I remember reading about this on Patrick Sauriol's Coming Attractions way back when and seeing some of the early production designs.
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Event Horizon, Sunshine? Countless others about a ship intercepting a ghost ship in space and unlocking its mysteries? This would most certainly bomb if it were made.
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And thank you for being dumb enough to get all bent out of shape about a joke. Jackass.
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there's no way to effectively pitch a story in which nothing happens! :) All kidding aside, I bought and read the book based on the news that Freeman acqired the rights. That was back in the 90's I think? Anyways, it was a good read. I just don't know if it would translate well. I'm not saying it's unfilmable, but I AM saying that 2001 made more sense and had a more satisfying conclusion. Just sayin'.
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they would compress the first book in with the trilogy. And then compress the trilogy into a three part miniseries. And they would make the Italian reporter much more evil with actual blood on her hands. And add several shots of her in her underwear.
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than the adaptation of that snoozefest of a book.
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It's a wonderful book but as a movie it might work only for Clarke fans because nothing really happens. There's no big reveal at the end.
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...they would film the final episodes and then sit on them (literally--with their fat asses) for years on end....
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As soon as Gentry Lee starts writing...the entire series turns to shit. I believe he "co-wrote" the second book (as in actually co-wrote it with Clark) but after that it's all Lee with Clark's name on it (meaning it sucks major ass, I don't care that Clark's name is on it, he didn't write any of it).The second book contains the "cinema friendly" drama stuff but the first book is far more "cerebral" (I wouldn't necessarily say 'intellectual' either, the plot isn't difficult/obtuse and the characters are relatively thin in the context of drama...it's more of a journey you go on with the main players to investigate the inside of a huge alien spacecraft than anything else). "Cerebral" in that it's more of a "what's goin on in people heads in this totally crazy and unprecedented situation"...of course, it's been a while since I read it. I could hardly finish the 3rd book it sucked so bad and I hear it just gets worse!A Fincher Rama sounds perfect honestly, but I doubt anybody would distribute or back it financially without gutting it; at best, it would go the route of 'Sunshine' I feel...likely even with a tacked on bad guy just like in Sunshine. Either writers have difficulty with more esoteric antagonists or people find films without specific or even anthropomorphic bad guys uninteresting I guess (meaning even a bad "computer" might not work unless it walks around, and has evil red eyes or something, at some point).
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it's all about atmosphere and mystery almost exclusively. There are no battles or comical robots or alien side kicks or menacing villains in black costumes. Hollywood doesn't make big budget sci-fi FX pieces unless they can check those boxes. 2001 would never get made today. Soderbergh's remake of Solaris was fairly low budget and didn't require the visual set pieces that Rama does - but even so Soderbergh commercialized it and watered it down in comparison to the book and the original movie - making it a "romance in space". I don't see any angle by which Rama could get made with the needed budget without totally raping it.
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...what's wrong with Morgan Freeman?
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An adaptation of this is long overdue, if the world can deal with the concept of benevolent, Satan shaped aliens.
Rama is a good book, but nothing about it suggests that it's in any way suitable for a film version. Probably best to leave it. -
Didn't sound like a joke to me either. Why bother posting that crap in the first place?
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At least it is to me. I didn't realize your sensibilities were that delicate, Maud Dib. Oh, but wait, you wept for robodaddy too, so, I guess you are that sensitive. Aw.
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And have him say "Aw, hell no!" every five minutes. It worked for I, Robot.
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And yes, I know there was one, but it was HORRIBLE. Make it first-person, realtime, with puzzle/stealth/exploration gameplay. ICrysis can do damn-near a whole island, they can do the inside of Rama.
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Was he that badly hurt in the car accident? Or is he sick?
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Spike Lee should direct and cast himself as Mookie who finds a huge alien-built nano-tech Nike Sneaker who tells him theu alien hieroglyphics that he sucks and is a racist and then Mookie burns up in the upper atmosphere and blames jews and whites in Hollywood
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Clarke's masterpiece, in my opinion. The only difficult scripting parts would be the three difference time periods, and the only real CGI would come near the end. I think it would be better as a 3 part mini-series, kind of like an intelligent version of Taken. Bring on the Overlords!
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Rama would make a nice cerebral Science Fiction film in the Gattaca mould.
It probably wouldn't set the box office on fire because it's not that kind of story. But even though there are now simlar themed SF films, this is one of the first, best, and has been said most atmospheric stories of the type ever written.
No, there are no FPS style Alien shoot em up bits in it (I'm fairly sure there are more than a few films like that already and far more to come) but the story unfolds beautifully and never feels cheap or easy. It also has a SUPERB ending sentence. So there IS a bit of payoff.
There's a reason why it's so well regarded as a Novel and though some will ultimately think it would make a "boring" movie it has to be pointed out that 2001 opened to a good many reviews that called it boring.
I'd prefer 1 attempt at a serious and faithfull book to Movie adaptation of an extremely well regarded book than 20 botched adaptations of sensational books or "reworked" or "reimagined" Movies to make them more Box Office friendly or changed so radically they trade in the name only.
And if you want a similar but ultimately far more SPECTACULAR story to make into a Movie then that story is Greg Bear's EON.
Trouble is if people think Rama would be hard to do fathfully EON would be a frankly unbelievably MASSIVE undertaking. To do it "properly" would take an incredible budget and a visionary Director.
Yeah, NEVER gonna fucking happen but a man can dream...
And if we're dreaming then YES get Childhoods End made too! -
Rama is one of those stories that will leave average people feeling like they ate the best damn looking rice cake ever. IMHO, Fountains of Paradise would be better especially if they spend a few moments discussing the fact that evidence of alien life invalidates human religion.
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S.I.G.H. and what's with the retarded as hell "for years Geeks have wondered.." ?!? sounds like the tagline of the Revenge of the nerds remake
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You're not funny asswipe so quit trying to be. Besides, don't you bring this shit up every time Clarke is mentioned. I might be confusing you with some other asshole though.
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What did you suck his cock or something? I just thought it was funny. Apparently for you pussies its serious fucking business though. Try not to pee your diapers too hard. Mama will tuck you in later after I'm finished throat fucking her.
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This would be a horrible movie. The ending makes everything you just saw (read) pointless. I'm glad Fincher is moving on.
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would kinda rather have Heavy Metal anyway (so long as it's good)
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That'll solve the "nothing happens" problem right there, and it'll serve to launch a potential trilogy of films (for anyone who's read the subsequent novels knows that RENDEZVOUS was just the first step in a much larger story where A LOT of stuff happens... a lot of really fucking awesome stuff).
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As a huge fan of Clarke, Fincher and Freeman for that matter, I was hoping that they could get this off the ground. Although I had a bad feeling because the project has been in "development" for so long. A shame that with all of that talent that it may not pan out. If Fincher can't do it, I hope Spielberg or Scott will pick up the project.
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was thinking how cool it was that he solved the whole tripedal motion thing. Pretty clever.
Laserpants, obviously you've been 'inspired' by the "rape can be funny" talkback. So original! Aside from the Clarke thing, I think people are just reacting because it's the most lowest-common-denominator, lamest possible joke you could make. Congrats!
Oh and if you want to read conspiracy and knee-jerk reaction into it, I do have a friend whose life has been ruined because of it. He's a (well he WAS a) teacher, and his students thought it'd be just hilarious to pull a 'prank' on him by writing fake confessions on the net and 'outing' him as a child molester. So basically they made the dumbest, most uncreative joke a schoolkid could make about someone who could possibly be in a more helpless situation, considering our guilty-until-proven-innocent culture. You can imagine how parents reacted, and obviously by the time the truth was revealed the damage had been done. Boy, those kids were so fucking smart and hilarious! Using the web for communication and yucks! "But it doesn't actually matter, it's just the net!!"
But like I say, I don't think that's even it when it comes to you. Your 'epic fail' is just that you couldn't have been more lame or uncreative, people are calling you on it and you're feebly trying to defend yourself. Hooray! And I don't think anyone buys that you've throatfucked ANYONE in your life. Actually your expertise COULD come from the opposite though... -
I'm not sure the combination would work well, unless the original Rama were demoted to just a beginning footnote. Wasn't there something like 100 years between the two books? It is true that there is a much more traditional plot and set of characters. . . I vote for Angelina Jole as Francesca Sabatini.
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Bravely spoken. But then what else could I expect from the intimidating, keyboard weilding badass known as LaserPants?
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Right, right, cause I'm the man hiding behind a computer whilst you are busy boldly stepping into the streets, full man-on, righting wrongs, battling the hard truths of the mean streets, protecting the honor of a beloved sci-fi writer's misfortune someone saw fit to mock! Yeah, you're All Man, All Bad Ass. Please. Don't embarrass yourself.
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...but it wasn't really on display in that pedo post. Hopefully I can say that without incurring a talkback blood vendetta, but, well, ehhh. Obviously, I'd prefer if they kept Rama as close to the source material as possible, but I'd trust Fincher to do whatever he wants, the guy knows quality pretty well. I think this could've given Avatar a run for its money. Not sure why a lack of Freeman would be a dealbreaker, though. And what's wrong with Freeman, anyway? Mo' Dark Knight money, mo' problems?
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ssshhh. hush now. It's ok. go to sleep little baby.
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....to the notion that Gentry Lee ruined the series. If anything I think he took an impossible-to-end plot and wrapped it up pretty well.That being said, RWR is the perfect fodder for a sci-fi classic. Clarke did a superb job of leaving the "image" of Rama up to the reader's imagination. I look forward to seeing this on the big screen some day...if only H-wood stops with the whole comic book thing. Maybe after the Avengers and JLA movies are finally made will we see a new genre get some attention.
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...I thought it was funny BTW...may be just me though.
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sssshhh. try not to make any noise. I just put him down.
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Is that he's still pissed that Laserbrain got the clever SW ref handle first, and he "had to" get the flakey one (same with Laserhead I guess).
You know, like those people that still get the vanity plates even though they have to misspell their own name!
And Ebonic, he MUST be asleep, 'cause my last post got no shitstorm tantrum either. Or maybe he just doesn't read the ones that aren't all about him from the get-go/subject header... -
To the hiding behind a computer thing actually invalidates your initial post! It doesn't at all! Now THAT's humour!!
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It doesn't in fact he proved my point by his withering (in his mind) retort. Brilliant strategist. He must be the envy of his Heroclix clubhouse.
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The old clubhouse fave "Nyah nyah nyah, takes one to know one" self-defeat-defence.
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I was thinking the same thing, about having to place the first RAMA story at the beginning of the film as a sort-of prelude. Thinking about it now though, that probably isn't the best idea since it'll completely remove the speculation and mystery as to what's inside the cylinder which a first film MUST have. It's a tough one.
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I'm sure I've been hearing about this project for at least ten years now
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Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the novel. But no one will come to see it. Aside from the missile attack, there's no direct conflict or antagonist. And
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We need an edit function on the talkback! Or at the very least a preview function before you post.
As I was about to write before I accidentally hit the post button, Rendezvous with Rama, is a nice book, but aside from the missile attack there's no real action or threat--maybe the Dragonfly sequence for suspense too. And that's about it.
You want a blockbuster, go option John Scalzi's Old Man's War and make that film--assuming he'll let Hollywood make it. If they do it right, it could be the next Star Wars and make up for Verhoeven's atrocious "Starship Troopers" film. OMW's got everything you'd want in a film. Drama, suspense, conflict, humor, romance. I'd love to see the funny scene where the Brainpal is introduced or a big battle over the Rraey-dominated colony world on the big screen. But leave it to Hollywood to keep banging their heads against a novel that's practically unfilmable. -
As others have said, the accident was months ago, and while I'm sure his recovery is ongoing, I find it hard to believe that after all this time, the whole thing is going to stop because he's incapacitated for a few months or even a year. Unless his health is worse than reported, this seems like an excuse to admit that they cannot make it work in a way that satisfies them. Sometimes filmmakers are too close and can't be objective. If they're trying to make it as iconic as 2001: A Space Odyssey, then I'm sure really won't happen because Fincher isn't Kubrick yet and I don't think he's on his way there either if he makes more movies like Panic Room. Although he tried not to make a formulaic Hollywood thing out of Zodiac, so he's at least trying to be authentic, but I don't think you can make a 2001 anymore. New Hollywood is over, the experimental auteur has to have made some really really big movies to have any clout. Fincher is still best known for "Se7en" (he's known for Fight Club too but that's not of the same bankable genre). Unless he makes clones of that, they aren't giving him the freedom to make his 2001. Shame though, I'd rather get more of his movies than more of Brett Rattner's or Tim Story's shit. A Fincher Fantastic Four or X-Men 3 woulda been the shit! Back to my point, I truly hope that Morgan Freeman is recovering nicely. Yeah, I'd have liked the Rama movie, but I kind of gave up on this one happening five years ago and was surprised to still catch those references to it. The movie won't happen if the filmmakers can't bring themselves to shit or get off the pot.
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