Yeah, which is pretty badass considering that almost no one who's not a fan of scifi has even yet heard of PKD while almost everyone has heard of Charles Dickens.
But they've all heard of movies based on his stuff.
Bladerunner
Total Recall
Minority Report
A Scanner Darkly
Next
Paycheck
The Adjustment Bureau
Screamers
And that's not a complete list. And more stuff is coming; just read and saw that Ridley Scott is supposed to be working on a BBC miniseries of The Man in the High Castle.
Yup. Most have them have been re-titled, though. Dick had an amazing, schizophrenic vision of reality and wrote very compelling stories in which we don't always know what's real.
I've got to say, I keep waiting for that book about the autisitic kid on mars to be made into a film. I forget the title, but I've read it several times trying to figure out what was going on!
Richard Matheson is another great author with not nearly enough recognition in my opinion.
I mean seriously. The man is responsible for "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" and a ton of The Twilight Zone's more classic stuff. He wrote one of the greatest novels I've ever read on the nature of how who is telling the story can make even the most honorable/just person into the monster of the tale("I Am Legend"), and one of the strangest short stories I've ever read about homicidal children("Witch War").
Mannahnin wrote:Always need more movies based on PK Dick stories. Does anyone else come close to how many of his have been made into movies?
Steven King.
It
Salem's Lot
Running Man
Misery
Pet Sematary
Tommyknockers
The Stand
The Mist
Stand by Me
the Shining
Christine
I know I am mising a few
and of course, the Master, HG Wells
War of the Worlds
The Time Machine
Island of Doctor Moreau
First Men in the Moon
Invisible Man
Food of the Gods
Automatically Appended Next Post: Sorry but Total recall is classic Ahnald. Plus it had Sharon Stone and that angry guy I like.
Kanluwen wrote:And the fact that he's rather unknown is a shame.
*goes back to reading "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?"*
I don't generally consider Blade Runner to be obscure.
Oh, it certainly isn't.
But not everyone reads the credits or knows that it was based upon a book by Philip K. Dick called "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?"--much like many people don't know that "The Omega Man" was based upon Richard Matheson's "I Am Legend".
Kanluwen wrote:Richard Matheson is another great author with not nearly enough recognition in my opinion.
I mean seriously. The man is responsible for "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" and a ton of The Twilight Zone's more classic stuff. He wrote one of the greatest novels I've ever read on the nature of how who is telling the story can make even the most honorable/just person into the monster of the tale("I Am Legend"), and one of the strangest short stories I've ever read about homicidal children("Witch War").
This is true. Many years ago, I wanted to read "I am Legend," and had a heckuva time finding a copy in libraries. I think it might have been out of print for a while there.
Frazzled wrote:
Mannahnin wrote:Always need more movies based on PK Dick stories. Does anyone else come close to how many of his have been made into movies?
Steven King.
It
Salem's Lot
Running Man
Misery
Pet Sematary
Tommyknockers
The Stand
The Mist
Stand by Me
the Shining
Christine
King's kind of funny IMO. His stuff reads like it's ready-made for movies and TV, but the best (not meaning most faithful) adaptation done of his stuff (Kubrick's Shining) also strayed quite a bit from the source material. King was so unhappy with how it strayed that he made that TV miniseries starring Steven Weber 10-15 years ago. Which was predictably not 1/10th as scary as the Kubrick film, and in retrospect looks like quite the ego trip on King's part.
As I said in the Hunger Games thread, publishers and studios looking for some good tween/teen material should really look to Lloyd Alexander's Prydain Chronicles. The only knock against it is that it's old. But because it's fantasy, it's not really dated. Disney did that horrible Black Cauldron film back in the '80s, but no one even remembers it anyway.
Ok, for serious then? I'd love to see Joseph Gordon-Leavitt as Dekard. I like Hugh Jackman a lot but he's not thin or broody enough, IMO. I don't know who I'd like for the other parts - maybe Ellen Page for Sean Young's part.
kronk wrote:Arnold is Conan! Plus it had that awesome score. And those chicks with the boobs...
See, I read the Conan novels before I ever saw the original movies.
And I'm not talking about the reprints where the artists tried to constantly show Ahnald on the covers. I'm talking about this kind of cover:
Spoiler:
Frank Frazetta defined Conan for me. He was muscular, but not bulky. "Lithe" is the word for it.
Arnold is muscular, but bulky. He ain't lithe by anyone's definition.
Ouze wrote:
Ok, for serious then? I'd love to see Joseph Gordon-Leavitt as Dekard.
Seconded!
I don't know who I'd like for the other parts - maybe Ellen Page for Sean Young's part.
I dunno. Sean Young kinda defined her role quite well; I don't think Ellen Page can do it anywhere near as well.
Ouze wrote:I don't know who I'd like for the other parts - maybe Ellen Page for Sean Young's part.
But the character is female, not a young boy.
I read all the Howard stories as well, and while I agree that Ahnold's character is not the Conan from the books, it still is a great movie on it's own terms.
Kanluwen wrote:"Remake of a good movie" is what people said about the recent Conan movie; and Jason Momoa was a better Conan than Arnie ever was.
Whether or not Momoa was a closer Conan to the books does not make him a better Conan. If you read Agatha Christie's Poirot books, Peter Ustinov's representation is physically nothing at all like him and he plays a comic element to the character that was not there in the books, he is however, totally brilliant and his character is, to my mind, a superior Poirot to watch.
Ahrnold's Conan is iconic and integrated into the public psyche, if Momoa was physically more like Conan, he was also even more wooden than the Governator. That entire movie was so rubbish that until I read this thread, I'd forgotten I'd watched it.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ahtman wrote:
MeanGreenStompa wrote:
Manchu wrote:Man, I wish they'd remake Bladerunner.
Me too, I hope they give Deckard a wisecracking CGI alien sidekick this time to add some much needed comedy.
You have doomed us all.
Call your damnable hunt. We shall see whom I drag screaming to hell with me...
@MGS. Same. Although I saw the Conan remake I can't recall a single thing about that, except the in-utero stabbing. I'm actively trying now, and coming up empty. It's funny because I didn't remember it as being bad, but it clearly wasn't very memorable either.
Ouze wrote:@MGS. Same. Although I saw the Conan remake I can't recall a single thing about that, except the in-utero stabbing. I'm actively trying now, and coming up empty. It's funny because I didn't remember it as being bad, but it clearly wasn't very memorable either.
Kanluwen wrote:I didn't really find him to be that "wooden" personally...but I dunno.
That said, you hit upon the biggest reason why the movie was a flop. Ahnald's Conan is iconic and ingrained into the public psyche.
And because this:
Was nothing compared to this:
The only... only thing I found vaguely interesting in that movie was the witch, Rose Mcgowan's character, who would have made a far more interesting principal baddie, she had a very iconic look and played it up well.
The central villain was forgettable and tepid. Some old dude with a sword. Even when he put on the evil crown and I was expecting a daemonic rebirth into a decent monster, all we got was still him, now running around with a silly hat.
The film felt hollow because the film had no soul.
Mannahnin wrote:Always need more movies based on PK Dick stories. Does anyone else come close to how many of his have been made into movies?
Stephen King by a country mile, 86 of his stories have been adapted to film.
John Hemminway clocks in with about 29
As a fun fact JK Rowling is the only novelist known to have every one of her books turned to film, then again she's not exactly as prolific a writer as say Isaac Asimov.
So in answer to your question not only does someone come close, the surpass him by a great deal.
OTOH I personally like all of the films based on PKDs work. The same can't be said about King or Grisham...who also had ten books adapted to film.
One can hope this version is closer to the source material.
PKD liked to feth with people's heads (or just write when he was head-fethed himself, whatever). Just watching some of the movies based on his work will tell you that (especially 'A scanner, darkly', paycheck and Impostor and Cypher).
The device on mars is not supposed to have an alien hand fit it.
It's a perfect match to Quaid's hand. It was MADE to fit his hand alone. By aliens in the far distant past.
chromedog wrote:One can hope this version is closer to the source material.
PKD liked to feth with people's heads (or just write when he was head-fethed himself, whatever). Just watching some of the movies based on his work will tell you that (especially 'A scanner, darkly', paycheck and Impostor and Cypher).
The device on mars is not supposed to have an alien hand fit it.
It's a perfect match to Quaid's hand. It was MADE to fit his hand alone. By aliens in the far distant past.
That's what we all hoped about the Conan remake and look how well that turned out.
Disney did that horrible Black Cauldron film back in the '80s, but no one even remembers it anyway.
I need to rewatch that one of these days. There's one scene/image I'm sure is from that movie that pops into my head every so often and will then stick there tormenting me because I can't remember it's context.
I think it would be possible to pull off a decent Chronicles of Prydain series since the major characters are adults.
Pulling off a good series with child characters is very difficult, the Narnia movies have not impressed me much and Voyage of the Dawn Treader strayed too far from the source material.
The leads in Prydain are young- Taren and Eilonwy are kids/teens. The supporting characters (Dallben, Gwydion, Coll, Fflewder) are mostly adults.
I'd love to see Prydain done well. I recommend that series to people all the time; probably at least two or three times a year to parents with kids who are getting into reading.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
MeanGreenStompa wrote:
Ouze wrote:@MGS. Same. Although I saw the Conan remake I can't recall a single thing about that, except the in-utero stabbing. I'm actively trying now, and coming up empty. It's funny because I didn't remember it as being bad, but it clearly wasn't very memorable either.
Kanluwen wrote:I didn't really find him to be that "wooden" personally...but I dunno.
That said, you hit upon the biggest reason why the movie was a flop. Ahnald's Conan is iconic and ingrained into the public psyche.
The central villain was forgettable and tepid. Some old dude with a sword. Even when he put on the evil crown and I was expecting a daemonic rebirth into a decent monster, all we got was still him, now running around with a silly hat.
The film felt hollow because the film had no soul.
The new one was somewhat more true to the source material, and I actually liked Momoa better as Conan. He fits the role better and doesn't turn him into a joke. That said, his performance was still not very good. You need someone of Momoa's physical type with more charisma and intelligence. Also, the story was forgettable and more suited to the Savage Sword of Conan comics than to the stories or a proper movie.
The original film is a crappy take on Conan, but a classic, great movie in its own right. Most of the supporting cast is EXCELLENT, including James Earl Jones and Max von Sydow. The sweep of the story and cinematography is grand. The score is one of the all-time-great classic film scores of all time.
The original is imprinted in people's memories for very good reasons. Sadly, it's also loaded with a joke version of Conan provided by Arnie blackblack. Hopefully now that someone has TRIED to make a new one, the way has been paved for a really good one.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Dickens.
Steven King
Okay, I got owned. Okay, so Dick's only the main guy for sci-fi movies.
The reason Phil Dick (Funnily enough how he preferred to be addressed ) has so many adapted movies to his name can be explained in three (two hyphenated) words:
HOLLYWOOD HIGH-CONCEPT
This was the prevalent school of big budget screenwriting throughout the 80's and early to mid 90's. It is still going today but to a lesser extent. Phil Dick stories are as 'High concept' as you get, the crux of most of his pieces can easily be summed up in a sentence. (Which for those who dont know is the definition of High Concept)
@MGS what poirot have you been watching?! There can only be one! Suchet would rip that fat old fudds throat out (At least In 'Topgun Acting' terms).
As for the trailer, is it wrong i think it looks promising?
Meh, looks alright but then again it would do. Is this going to be the shape of Hollywood to come - remaking the same films every 20 years? I can understand why some people hanker for a remake but lets be honest, I don't think there was a great deal wrong with the Arnie version - and this looks like it is following a very similar plot line. It's not as if the Arnie version looks particularly dated; bar one or two scenes, it has held up pretty well I think.
filbert wrote:Meh, looks alright but then again it would do. Is this going to be the shape of Hollywood to come - remaking the same films every 20 years? I can understand why some people hanker for a remake but lets be honest, I don't think there was a great deal wrong with the Arnie version - and this looks like it is following a very similar plot line. It's not as if the Arnie version looks particularly dated; bar one or two scenes, it has held up pretty well I think.
There was not only nothing wrong with Arnie's version, but there was everything right about it!
Harold(from harold and kumar) got kinda awesome.
I like the idea of what the Recall is(kinda like a "Special Massage)
But the action looks predictable(except the scene where he beats them up outta the chair)
Well this is the problem with adpating old movSo they had to get around that with unique sequences. But today we can do anything with computers so those unique scenes arent unique anymore.
filbert wrote:Meh, looks alright but then again it would do. Is this going to be the shape of Hollywood to come - remaking the same films every 20 years? I can understand why some people hanker for a remake but lets be honest, I don't think there was a great deal wrong with the Arnie version - and this looks like it is following a very similar plot line. It's not as if the Arnie version looks particularly dated; bar one or two scenes, it has held up pretty well I think.
There was not only nothing wrong with Arnie's version, but there was everything right about it!
'See you at the pah-ty, Rich-ta!'
Oh boy, Arnold is truly a special, special guy.
This.
Hollywood is just a sad, lame attempt at money grabbing these days, not really making much worth watching anymore. And all these remakes make me want to vomit. It's like they've run out of ideas and are just taking "safe" investments on remaking movies that were big hits when they came out.
Arnie's one-liners are just plain epic hilarity. So good in fact a metal band called Austrian Death Machine has spawned several albums with each song being based around a classic arnie line. Who is your daddy and what does he do?
Um hollywood was always a business first. Take a look at where films like casablanca, rear window, citizen kane. Al movies made when hollywood was a production line.
The problem may be consumers now.
Ill watch it for sure, might even be a decent film. Im not a fan of whats his face though, but hey, take what ya get. But I agree, The original Total Recall, was and still is a fantastic/fun movie
I enjoy seeing new and interesting takes on old material. The original isn't exactly religiously faithful to the story either, so I don't mind someone else taking a crack at their own vision. The problem isn't typically remaking things, as that has been going on longer than any of us has been alive in one form or another, is that often they aren't very good or are uninspired. It also isn't the job of a remake to replace an older film. I'm able to watch the Adam West Batman film, the Tim Burton Batman film, and The Dark Knight and enjoy them each for their own idiosyncrasies; I don't have to just pick one and make it fight the others. I'm not worried about it being better or worse than the older film, I worry that it just isn't very good in general. As it stands it at least has my interest piqued enough to go and see it.
I remember going to the cinema to see the original. As for this remake, why? Dear god Why? Why? WHYYYYYYYYYYYYY????
You get the gist
The original had everything: cheesy soundtrack (who can forget last resort) Ronnie Cox as the bad guy, Michael Ironside as a bad guy, Sharon Stone!!!!
Cheesy One liners, old school 80s soundtrack, I could go on. Damn you hollywood. Shameless, profiteering b$$$$$$s!!!!!
Get your ass to Mars!!!
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:I remember going to the cinema to see the original. As for this remake, why? Dear god Why? Why? WHYYYYYYYYYYYYY????
Becuase you were old enough to see the original in the theater means you are also generally outside the demographic this is aimed for: 18-24. The 24 year olds would have been 2 years old at the time.
The full trailer makes it look alot worse. I mean aside from (seemingly) no mars it looks to be just a ripoff of the old film (including actual lines of dialogue). I thought they were just takiing the key idea from the short story and making a new story.
@MrDwhitey Suchet all the way. Love the themetune/opening credits to poirot, so classy, so art deco.
That's what we all hoped about the Conan remake and look how well that turned out.
I'll take your word for it - I haven't seen the Arnie version OR the last version of it - I never got into Conan (or RE Howard's work in general).
The version of Total Recall they (De Laurentiis Entertainment Group) were going to make here had a more "everyman" version of Quaid. We had ALL of the sets and props done before we got told to destroy it all. I can't help thinking "what might have been?"
Hmmm intrigued - despite the critical handjobbing, (post T1 and others) I thought Arnie was.... well ......plausible in it (hullking barley speaking english giant much? - nah - he tried).
Whats this secret script you have?!
I dont like Verh overall but if you ride it on with his films they do have a certain....appeal.
Its a sit back Sci fi - OTT dollywhopping - C'mon (stick that in the Oxford) jaunt.
It's not a 'secret script'- just another treatment for a movie that got cancelled because DEG went into the toilet - allowing Carolco to pick up the rights.
Whilst it's still (c) to the writer of it, it was just so much ... toilet paper after we got our marching orders.
The Martian city was epic (10-12' tall scale model). It filled a 6x10m space. Shame it got destroyed.
If you include TV as well as cinema then Agatha Christie has a load of her books filmed.
Also there's Ian Fleming who has most of the James Bond films from his books (substantially different in many cases but if you can accept the Blade Runner as an adaptation of Electric Sheep...) and the likes of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
Okay, so Dick's only the main guy for sci-fi movies.
.
