September 4, 2000
4:03 PM   Subscribe

Da... da... da... DA DAAAA...
posted by baylink (12 comments total)
 
I'll be there with bells on.

Or maybe a space suit.

Have Space Suit, Will Travel?
posted by baylink at 4:03 PM on September 4, 2000


Sorry, bay, that title's already taken... by a much better storyteller, to boot.

posted by aurelian at 8:42 PM on September 4, 2000


I recently got to touch one of the original spacesuits from 2001 and hold one of the helmets (I work at Sotheby's near the Collectible’s Department). The detail on the suit and helmet from close up was amazing. And the helmet was extremely heavy.
posted by grumblebee at 8:46 PM on September 4, 2000


Best news I have heard all day. I watch this movie all the time, but have never seen it on a screen. Thanks for the heads up. And to be a thorn to those who believe otherwise, what better way to start off the new millennium
posted by thirteen at 9:15 PM on September 4, 2000


aurelian, Clarke is just as good as RAH. No need to run a beauty contest.

Now, I have wished that Starship Troopers could have led to a rush on Heinlein properties in Hollywood. There's two or three that would make killer movies with little alteration, not the least of which is HSSWT (and a girl protagonist to boot), or Citizen of the Galaxy, and I'd especially like to see The Moon is a Harsh Mistress filmed.
posted by dhartung at 9:27 PM on September 4, 2000


Anyway, I loved that detail I'd never heard: the editors CUT THE FILM IN THE THEATERS?! I guess it's cheaper than new prints ...
posted by dhartung at 9:30 PM on September 4, 2000


Citizen of the Galaxy and The Moon is a harsh Mistress are both too long and complex to be able to be converted into 95 minute films; they'd have to be butchered to make them fit. What you should be thinking of of among RAH work for movies is novellas. To do justice to The Moon is a harsh Mistress it would have to be made into an 8-hour mini-series, and I think it would make a good one, too.

Citizen of the Galaxy would never sell. It doesn't have a plotline most people would find interesting. It's bomb in the box office.

One novel I think they could fit into 95 minutes without dramatic loss is Between Planets; consider the opportunity for special effects, among other things. (I want to see Sir Isaac.) And there you've got action, violence, special effects, aliens; everything you could want in a film to compete with Star Wars. (Hmmm...) The only problem is that we now know that Mars and Venus are nothing like that. Minor details.

And while we're dreaming, how about a movie version of The Unpleasant Profession of Johnathan Hoag? (Blair who?)
posted by Steven Den Beste at 10:40 PM on September 4, 2000


No, dan, I was comparing Heinlein to Kubrick, not good ol' "Ego" Clarke. I have too many UK fannish friends to do that. :)

Kubrick was masterfully painterly with his images, but couldn't tell a story. He was like Joyce that way -- do a piece that no academic (and film critics are just as academic in their mindset as lit profs) would admit they didn't understand. Look at Eyes Wide Shut, where the much more interesting way for the story to have gone was to examine how women are inherently more sexual creatures than men... But Kubrick runs screaming from the room, instead.

Anyway.

I wanted to do a radio series of Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, back in college. Even wrote a letter, asking permission. Virginia Heinlein wrote a polite letter back, saying, basically, that they were waiting for a better offer. In hindsight, they should've just let me go ahead and do it, now that we know radio theatre just about sputtered dead (my friends at the Atlanta Radio Theatre Company and ZBS aside).

{shrug}

posted by aurelian at 12:16 AM on September 5, 2000


Hey, Aurelian. Do you know Ginny, too?

Like, well enough to ask her what happens to the rights after *she* dies? I hope they subsume to someone who *loves* them, not just someone who needs the money.

Spider, maybe? He'd Do The Right Thing...
posted by baylink at 7:36 PM on September 5, 2000


You know... I know as "a geek" I'm supposed to think this movie is the greatest thing since sliced bread. But I tried to watch it and turned the VCR off after 30-40 minutes. So boring! Did I just not "get it"?
posted by owillis at 10:27 PM on September 5, 2000


owillis: yes, you didn't get it.
posted by holgate at 1:15 AM on September 6, 2000


I wish he'd kept the scene where the ape-men stormed the moon base with laser guns.
posted by dhartung at 10:20 AM on September 6, 2000


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