Cinematic vs. Literary Science Fiction
By John DeNardo |
Friday, March 11th, 2005 at
3:20 pm
Editor Lou Anders started a blog with an excellent entry discussing the difference between “science fiction” and “scifi”, that is the difference between cinematic science fiction and science fiction literature. It centers around the idea that there is an intrusion on the status quo and how each medium presents and resolves the intrusion.
It’s an interesting way to look at it and, as he applies it to The Matrix films, it makes sense. Could he have tapped into the reason why many film adaptations of books are so lame? Hmmmm…
[via Tobias S. Buckell]
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“Smart is the new dumb”
Classic.
Applying his theory to LotR, the movies, seems to work. Sauron, after laying low for awhile, begins his intrusion into Middle Earth to gain control of the ring. But what about the books? They follow the same theme, so maybe that’s why they made a good movie? I’d assume, then, the Rendezvous With Rama ought to be a good movie as well. In fact, in thinking on this a bit, I see a lot of modern day SF, space opera/hard SF, to be of the ‘intrusion’ type, and therefore should be susceptible to being made into good movies. Certainly Reynold’s Inhibitor books fit this. Others I can think of are: A Fire Upon the Deep, The Hyperion Cantos, and Night’s Dawn Trilogy, just to name a few.
Then again, maybe even in the literary field, there will most likely be an ‘intrusion’ aspect of some sort to liven things up. Thus, muddying the water somewhat.