Dont be! We'll draft you for the job.

Hey, Psychophant, love your new sig! I believe that's the finest single chapter in the history of adventure fiction.

quote:

Originally posted by Mr_Cyberpunk:

"He abandoned the baby on the doorstep, and it will never come to daddy again."

Looks like someone has issues with his father Poor Baby :P

The promo that made Chris Cunningham famous: aphex twin - come to daddy

Thanks for that, Sentinel400, I'm embarrassed to say I hadn't got that.

quote:

Originally posted by John Maddox Roberts:
Hey, Psychophant, love your new sig! I believe that's the finest single chapter in the history of adventure fiction.

Sometimes I just need a straight tale of wonder, friendship and duty. The big axe is a welcome extra.

Sometimes in cinemas I want its equivalent. But I want that from Indiana Jones, not Neuromancer.

(((((Neuromancer: a film): a screenplay): a webcomic): a Myspace blog post): an iPhone pre-movie ad.



"It will never come to daddy again."




"Nigga, you ain't about shit and yo hair ain't neither."

quote:

Originally posted by RobW:
Thanks for that, Sentinel400, I'm embarrassed to say I hadn't got that.

I did, but only because I'd just been listening to this very cd yesterday. One of my absolute favorite Industrial tracks ever. (the "I Want your Soul" part, not so much the slow parts).

As for a Neuromancer movie, I'll happily spend my $6.25 and hope to be entertained and not overly disappointed regardless of who the director is. I kind of like that it's someone I'm not that familiar with, so I won't go into it with the same expectations I would if the director was, say, Ridley or Fincher.

Okay, this is going to sound very egocentric, but the point I want to make is that while it might seem impossible to make a great movie adaptation of Neuromancer, don't be so quick to judge before someone gets a good run at it.

Having helped birth the "most successful adaption"* of a Gibson work to date (the premiere Next Theatre Burning Chrome production of the play adaptation by Steve Pickering and Charley Sherman) I can tell you from the feedback we got why it worked for the Gibson fanatics who saw it.
1. Even though scenes and characters were added to the short story to allow it to work as a full-length play, the majority of what came out of the actors' mouths was word for word Gibson's writing. It felt like Gibson, because it was literally Gibson.
2. We had the advantage of being a play and not a film. It is a medium that allows the viewer to see the 'special effects' that Gibson's words evoke rather than seeing a version as envisioned by someone else. They create their own special effects.
3. The entire production was overseen by a William Gibson fanatic. Someone who got it.

They told us it would be impossible to make a live theater production out of Burning Chrome. How would you get into cyberspace? Where would you put all of the computer and video screens? That was easy. We didn't have any. It was Gibson's words that allowed the audience to see all that.

And that is why a film adaptation is going to be a bitch to do. But, you know, they told us that a live theater version would be impossible to do. Bill told us he had no idea how we were going to pull it off, but he gave us his blessing and with a little spit and blood and a lot of Gibson, we did it. Which means it's certainly possible someone else will make a great "impossible" film out of Neuromancer.

*"most successful adaptation of my work so far" is a quote from Mr. Gibson, based on what he has heard about it from people he trusted who saw the original production.

Early cinema was treated much like an augmented theater, yes?

Done a la Shakespeare might work. A cyberjockey's data dance done as a soliloquy by a guy with trodes on his head.

P.S. God, I miss Evanston by the lake.

On the pitfalls of turning certain books into movies, we have Vladimir Nabokov speaking of the 1962 Kubrick version of Lolita:

"The screenplay is credited to Nabokov, although very little of what he provided (later published in a shortened version) was used. Nabokov remained polite about the film in public, but in a 1962 interview, before seeing the film, commented that it may turn out to be "the swerves of a scenic drive as perceived by the horizontal passenger of an ambulance".

If you really think about there are very few instances in Neuromancer that require special effects out side of the matrix parts that will need effects, some of Riviera's holograms may need some, maybe the riot, and some of the stuff in space may need it. For the most part its people talking to each other.

You know what would be awesome?

If they shoehorned the whole trilogy into a fake Tally Isham sim-stim recording, and told the plot of all three books from her point of view.

(I think it would be awesome. Or funny, at least.)

eek! it's an interesting idea but i'm not quite sure...

perhaps telling it from the AIs point of view would be more apt.

quote:

You know what would be awesome?

If they shoehorned the whole trilogy into a fake Tally Isham sim-stim recording, and told the plot of all three books from her point of view.

(I think it would be awesome. Or funny, at least.)

Jocelyn

I like the concept but the only part of this that Tally would have seen in person is the last chapter in Count Zero.

quote:

The other complaint lodged at me is that my movie Torque basically sucked. It's either a sell out piece of commercial crap, or an incompetant long form music video, or both, and it's a sure sign I'm clueless as a filmmaker. And to all of this, I'll say: they're wrong.

Was he actually trying to defend himself by saying that making movies is hard?

Lets ignore the large number of very good films that get made, even by rookie directors.

Again assuming that this is a legit rant.

quote:

Originally posted by InfinityCircuit:

quote:

Originally posted by RobW:
Thanks for that, Sentinel400, I'm embarrassed to say I hadn't got that.

I did, but only because I'd just been listening to this very cd yesterday. One of my absolute favorite Industrial tracks ever. (the "I Want your Soul" part, not so much the slow parts).

As for a Neuromancer movie, I'll happily spend my $6.25 and hope to be entertained and not overly disappointed regardless of who the director is. I kind of like that it's someone I'm not that familiar with, so I won't go into it with the same expectations I would if the director was, say, Ridley or Fincher.

$6.25 ??? In FLA I will have to wait 25 years (until i am a senior citizen) to get that price.

Offhand I am more than a little underwhelmed with the idea of a Neuromancer movie for a few reasons. First of all it is a movie from a book, with minimal input from the author. Although there is certainly precedent for this to work it is tough to overcome my own interpretation of the story. Especially with somebody like Gibson whose writing is sparse enough that the reader gets to fill in most of the details on there own as opposed to, say, an Anne Rice novel where every detail of every scene is laid out for you in laborious prose.

Next is the track record, Johnny Mnemonics and New Rose Hotel were, in my opinion, just awful. Yes yes I know these films have their fans but by and large I think most folks, even us fans of WG, were disappointed.

And finally, if this really is a rant by Kahn, citing directors such as David Fincher is making your arguement by anecdote. I could just as easily point to Rob Cohen or Steve Carr who come from music video and TV backgrounds and have made such timeless classics as Stealth and Daddy Day Care, respectively.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: editengine,

quote:

Was he actually trying to defend himself by saying that making movies is hard?

Don't worry : there's a good chance this 'interview' is a fake.

Speaking of 'Torque' : I recently tried to watch it, and gave up after 10 minutes.
It's a very poorly done bike-fetish 'Mad Max' clone.

Mad Max? I didn't get that out of it. I just saw it as Fast and the Furious, but, you know, with motorcycles.

The beginning takes place in the middle of a desert, in Australia.

I very much got 'Mad Max' out of that

I have to go with the "Why not" crowd. If he makes it, at least it is made. If it sucks or not, it has no effect on the book. It'd probably be even better if the movie sucks.

quote:

The beginning takes place in the middle of a desert, in Australia.

I very much got 'Mad Max' out of that

This is the one with Ice Cube, right?