Aug 21, 2009
2081: When Everyone Will Finally Be Equal.
In the age of Obama, the timing of this movie, based on a Kurt Vonnegut story, couldn't be better. I hope it delivers.
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Jonathan Dresner - 7/1/2009
Depending on what you expect, long short stories and novellas seem to make adequate movies (see Philip Dick, Robert Heinlein, William Gibson), but I'd rather watch every single one of the movies you named, than something stretched like Mike Teevee in the taffy-puller (e.g., Jim Carey's Dr. Seuss, Polar Express, etc.)
I understand the creative editing process in which a work is made to fit a new medium. But the building up process is usually hubristic and destructive.
Justin Bowen - 7/1/2009
I've read a number of books that were later turned into movies and was thoroughly disappointed with the movie versions. I've found this to be particularly true of longer books (The Lord of the Rings, The Last of the Mohicans, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, The Count of Monte Cristo, and others come to mind). Too many important plot lines are frequently left out or changed when turned into movies. I, for one, am looking forward to this movie. I would think that a shorter work might be more faithfully represented when turned into a movie.
david t. beito - 6/30/2009
Sad to say, you're probably right.
Jonathan Dresner - 6/29/2009
the right tool for the right time.
The right medium, though, matters: what works as a very short story will usually translate to 90+ minute big screen format quite badly. They'll have to add stuff to the story, and either it will be mind-numbingly repetitious riffs on the central theme, or it will be romanticizing fluff which obliterates the real message, or it will be ham-fisted presentist political screeds connecting whatever bugaboo the screenwriter has to Vonnegut's absurdist dystopia.
Which version of bad movie-making do you think it'll be? (I'm guessing a bit of all three, just so nothing actually gets accomplished)
Crawdad - 6/29/2009
Sometimes a sledgehammer is called for; the right tool for the right time.
Jonathan Dresner - 6/29/2009
The trailer takes almost as long to watch as the story does to read. I don't see how you could make that into anything more than a fifteen minute short without it being interminable.
It's a sledgehammer allegory: it's going to make a pretty lousy movie.
They'd be better off making "The Marching Morons": better story, more issues.
Aeon J. Skoble - 6/29/2009
Great!!