And I doubt anyone would argue that Blade Runner is not one of the best films ever made. The story is great, and the special effects still look better than a majority of new movies. CGI has made people lazy and often looks terrible.
Speaking of Ridley Scott how about the movie Prometheus coming out soon? Looked like an Alien precursor to me the first trailer I saw, with the torus-ish ship looking like the crashed derelict they found where they made first contact with the creature. And with Ridley Scott directing... On Tue, Apr 17, 2012 at 4:28 PM, Raymond E. Feist <[email protected]> wrote: > > Again I don't mean to imply that people who don't know how film making works > are stupid, but rather that ignorance of how an industry works can lead to > some very erroneous assumptions. > > "We know way better than the author how this should be done." Well, ya. > Otherwise the author would be a film maker and not a novelist. > > No one sets out to make a bad film or a bad TV show. Really. There are some > seriously fringy bits like Troma and the films of Fred Olin Ray that are sort > of in an "Ed Woods-ish" category all by themselves. John Waters, too, but > he's more mainstream. But there are people who can't stand Quintin > Tarrantino's or Tim Burton's films. > > So assume you've got a mainstream company. They often make choices that are > about what audience they're shooting for, or what the realistic running time > for the film is, or any of a dozen other reasons. You can have a > screenwriter who read the book and said, "I really like this bit over here, > but we need to lose that thing over there, and it works better if the two > lads aren't friendly rivals, but bitter enemies. . . " Your milage may vary. > Lord of the Rings, the Fellowship is a good example of a bit that improves > it. In the book, Aragorn makes a choice to follow Pippin & Merry that makes > no sense, given Frodo is the ring bearer and needs protection. In the movie > they have an interaction where Frodo convinces Aragorn it's a better choice > if he and Sam sneak in so he should go save the pair. It is a small > improvement, but it is better writing. > > Sometimes the train flies off the tracks and you end up with something that > just makes no sense at all. Alan E. Nourse sold his story The Bladrunner to > the studio because they wanted a cool title for Philip K. Dick's "Do Androids > Dream of Electric Sheep?" So, what he saw on the screen looked nothing like > his story. Philip Dick's story was changed radically in places, but it's > still a hell of a film. > > And sometimes studios do things for specific reasons. > > You just never know. > > The only way to look at it is what Kingsley Amis said after the premier of > the film based on his first book, Lucky Jim. A lady friend said after, "Oh, > you poor dear. What horrible things they did to your book." His reply: > "Why, nonsense. Not one word on the page of my book has changed." It was > actually a decent film; it just wasn't his book. > > Best, R E.F. > > > ---- > www.crydee.com > > Never attribute to malice what can satisfactorily be explained away by > stupidity. > -- Nick A "You know what I wish? I wish that all the scum of the world had but a single throat, and I had my hands about it..." Rorschach, 1975 "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."- Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759 "Suburbia is where the developer bulldozes out the trees, then names the streets after them." Bill Vaughan "The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." Plato
