Thursday, February 14, 2008

My hopes are up.....

One of the books I've mentioned I'd like to see made into a movie is Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama. It's one of the most intriguing sci-fi stories I've ever read and tells the tale of an alien object, shaped like a cylinder 50km long and 16km wide that enters our solar system. A manned spaceship is dispatched to investigate the object - dubbed 'Rama'. The ship manages to rendezvous with Rama, the crew figures out a way to enter the massive object and explores its vast interior, but the nature and purpose of the object and its creators remains a mystery throughout the story. The crew see things that boggle the imagination.

Morgan Freeman has been hinting that he would help turn the story into a movie for years now, but various stumbling blocks got in the way, not the least of which is how to keep the story from being turned into a cowboy action film as Hollywood is known to do with 'boring science stories'. Having not heard any news at all about this project in a while, I dug a little lately and discovered that the project is still a go, and there are clues it may see theatre screens in 2009. If Mr. Freeman (who will also star as the leader of the expedition into Rama) does this story justice, it could be awesome. The best news being, that Rama had 3 sequel books, all excellent stories in their own right, as the mystery of Rama and its creators are slowly revealed.

Go Rama!

[update] I found a nice short animated trailer-like film that was developed by an NYU art student. Nice work.

2 comments:

Retro Blog said...

It has been a long time since I read "...Rama", however there was quite enough cowboy stuff within the books to keep Hollywood going through multiple sequels. I wish Hollywood would film "Dragonriders of Pern" Any discussion?

Karl Plesz said...

I've only heard of the Dragonriders books in passing, but am aware that anyone I know who has read them are very impressed with the stories.

According to wikipedia, in the Television & Movies section of the entry on 'Dragonriders of Pern', an option to the movie has been given to Copperheart Entertainment, who have announced their intention to bring Pern to the big screen.