this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2024
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[–] hperrin@lemmy.world 46 points 3 months ago (6 children)

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy deserves a good adaptation, rather than that trash movie and that too short BBC series.

[–] Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 35 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The BBC series was brilliant.

[–] hperrin@lemmy.world 17 points 3 months ago

Agreed, just too short.

[–] Bahnd@lemmy.world 24 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I would love that, I dont think the movie is terrible, its just that everything after Ford and Arthur get thrown out the airlock isnt as funny or absurd as the books. The main issue is the first 2ish books are unadaptable because there is no central conflict (or arleast the main cast dosent care or know there was supposed to be one).

Zaphod is the only person with motivation to do anything other than to continue existing, and he is unaware (or dosen't care) he is being hunted until they meet those suprisingly progessive law enforcment officers on Magrathea and when he visits the guides publishing offices.

[–] conciselyverbose@sh.itjust.works 7 points 3 months ago

Zaphod's 2 heads were the biggest let down of the movie.

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[–] yuki2501@lemmy.world 30 points 3 months ago (8 children)
  • Hyperion Cantos.

  • Neuromancer.

[–] Chozo@fedia.io 16 points 3 months ago (1 children)

For being what I would consider one of the founding fathers of cyberpunk, I'm surprised there hasn't been a Neuromancer film yet. Especially when so many of the tropes we know from the cyberpunk genre originated from Neuromancer, to begin with.

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[–] SnokenKeekaGuard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 28 points 3 months ago (5 children)

Every single thing Brandon Sanderson ever wrote

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[–] Meltrax@lemmy.world 27 points 3 months ago (4 children)

Always felt like that Eragon series could have been good. Too bad they never made a movie for it. Never once. I'm sure it would have been solid if they had. But they didn't.

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[–] Cryophilia@lemmy.world 24 points 3 months ago

The Iliad. Not a "take" or an "adaptation" or a "re-imagining". Just play it straight as it is, cut out some of the monologues and replace the "throwing spears at each other" parts with swordfights.

I want to see the gods descend from Olympus to fight on the battlefield.

[–] ZeroGravitas@lemm.ee 20 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Old Man's War by John Scalzi was made for this, I swear. His latest books also read a lot like movie scripts are contained therein.

Charles Stross' Laundry series has a ton of potential too, if less Chtullu is required, I wouldn't mind a Merchant Princes series either.

I heard rumours about Forever War being optioned at some point, but nothing came of it.

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[–] Nemo@midwest.social 19 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett and some guy who's name is harder to remember.

An inventor uploads a schematic to the Internet for a cheap, easy-to-assemble device that lets anyone (or almost anyone) "step" into parallel earths. A nearly infinite stretch of untamed wilderness sees people abandoning the polluted, crowded, government-run Old Earth in search of new opportunities. The catch: No iron or iron alloys can "step" across, sending these new earths back to the bronze age.

Also: Zeppelins that are also reincarnated Buddhists that are also the first true machine intelligence; robot cats; libertarian communes; sapient nonhuman primates; sapient nonhuman non-primates; radioactive ziggurats; space programs to parallel moons; and grumpy survival chicks.

[–] conciselyverbose@sh.itjust.works 8 points 3 months ago

Stephen Baxter

The premise was better than the execution, but I've definitely been curious if you could use the world stepping premise in an RPG in a compelling way.

[–] Blackthorn@programming.dev 17 points 3 months ago (6 children)
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[–] Worx@lemmynsfw.com 16 points 3 months ago (6 children)

Dragonriders of Pern, by Anne McCaffrey. Currently doing my umpteenth read-through completely accidentally. I wanted to read one of the books then got sucked in. I'm nine books in and read several of them in one sitting, despite having read them all plenty of times.

And while I'm on the subject, I don't think I've ever seen anyone taking about Pern online but I see mentions of Isaac Asimov every few weeks. They're of a similar age and Pern is equally good as Isaac's work, if not better. Grumble grumble...

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[–] Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works 16 points 3 months ago (4 children)

Sanderson's Mistborn series could make some good film or TV. Honestly they could probably even pull off a whole cosmere MC universesque type thing... Although I think deals keep falling through because the author wants full creative control.

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[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 15 points 3 months ago (3 children)

The original TSR Dragonlance D&D series from the '80s by Weis and Hickman.

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[–] FourPacketsOfPeanuts@lemmy.world 14 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Any of the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett

[–] DesertCreosote@lemm.ee 11 points 3 months ago (1 children)

There are a couple animated adaptations of some of the books, and the live-action adaptation of Hogfather is pretty good!

[–] CarolInHR@lemmy.world 7 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

There's also a Sky One live action of Color of Magic and Going Postal that are pretty solid.

Edit: Thanks Madjo!

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[–] invertedspear@lemm.ee 13 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I would love a true to the book series of World War Z. I’m not even sure anyone involved with that movie read the book. It should be a 3 season HBO series with an episode for each persons vignette. Intros and outros of each episode has the recurring reporter meeting the person and starting his recording as they launch into their narrative of what happened. If you need more episodes, just write additional vignettes. Season 1 is the events that lead up to the outbreak, season 2 is the war itself, season 3 is the aftermath. I’m pretty sure this is what Max Brooks was writing towards. It could be amazing.

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[–] Drusas@fedia.io 13 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The Dark Tower.

Whatever that monstrosity they released a few years ago was doesn't count.

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[–] Orbituary@lemmy.world 13 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I would have loved Name of the Wind, but that lazy fuck Rothfuss is going the way of George Reorge Reorge Martin: he's been promising book 3 for a decade and can't finish it.

[–] send_me_your_ink@lemmynsfw.com 9 points 3 months ago

He wrote himself into a corner. Somehow he needs to wrap up a spiralling plot in one book...

It's never gonna happen.

[–] Damage@feddit.it 12 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Old Man's War

Tom Godwin's The Survivors, it's pretty short so they could do their thing where they always mess with the story and it wouldn't have much effect.

Asimov's Robots stories, particularly those with Powell and Donovan, US Robots, etc could be the basis for a cool series, ideally retro-futuristic...

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[–] RabbitMix@lemmy.blahaj.zone 12 points 3 months ago (1 children)

mass effect could be a huge tv and movie franchise but the designs of the aliens would make the effects budgets prohibitively expensive. damn would I love it though.

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[–] wjrii@lemmy.world 12 points 3 months ago (7 children)

Almost anything from Neal Stephenson.

[–] Plum@lemmy.world 8 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Oh shit. The Baroque Cycle getting the Game of Thrones treatment... minus the executive meddling.

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[–] Orbituary@lemmy.world 8 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Seveneves is coming as a series. Not sure if they could pull off Baroque, but I'm game. I'd love a Snow Crash film.

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[–] ivanafterall@lemmy.world 11 points 3 months ago

A well-done Brothers Karamazov could put your Downton Abbeys and Bridgertons to shame.

Maybe call it "Three Brothers..."

[–] norimee@lemmy.world 11 points 3 months ago (6 children)

You ask as if that was a good thing. Like an honor for a book. But I way too often find myself defending books with "It's nothing like the movie. Don't juge it by the awful movie."

Especially fantasy adaptions are regularly awful and damaging for the books.

Examples: The Dark Tower, Eragon, Percy Jackson, The Giver, Inkheart.
Netflix's Persuasion, The Beach to name a couple of non fantasy as well.

So I'd rather they leave the books alone and make original stories into movies.

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[–] lm_meowvelous@lemmy.world 11 points 3 months ago (6 children)

The Red Rising series would be an awesome TV show. Each of the 6 (so far) books would be excellent as long seasons.

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[–] sanguinepar@lemmy.world 11 points 3 months ago

Infinite Jest. Just for the sheer impossibility of any attempt to do so :-)

[–] PhlubbaDubba@lemm.ee 10 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Any Batman story that focuses more on how he's mainly a detective and only breaks out the concussion gloves if he's attacked or there's literally no other way to resolve the situation at hand?

Society thinks he's The Punisher in a funny hat because of those damned nolanverse films.

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[–] nayminlwin@lemmy.ml 10 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Hyperion series. That thing's gonna be hard to adapt though.

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[–] AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world 9 points 3 months ago (5 children)

Blood Meridian (decades of false starts not withstanding).

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[–] ramble81@lemm.ee 8 points 3 months ago (6 children)

They need to do a good Dark Tower series. Make it a mini-series or a series of films.

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[–] bulwark@lemmy.world 8 points 3 months ago (4 children)
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[–] Evotech@lemmy.world 8 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Any Brandon Sanderson books of course.

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[–] pachrist@lemmy.world 8 points 3 months ago

One of my favorite books is called Inherit the Stars.

Mankind is starting to reach out into the solar system, but finds a man on the moon entombed in a space suit, and he's been dead for 50,000 years.

It'd make a pretty good movie, 2 hours tops.

It does one of my favorite things, by strongly blending two genres: mystery, and sci-fi. A sci-fi show, movie, or book that's purely sci-fi is rarely good. Same goes for fantasy. Season 1 of Game of Thrones is good because it's primarily a mystery/drama story in a fantasy setting. A New Hope is great because it's a western, coming-of-age story in a sci-fi setting. Rebel Moon is garbage (for many reasons) because it's pure sci-fi schlock with no nuance.

[–] llamapocalypse@lemmy.world 7 points 3 months ago (5 children)

The Lies of Locke Lamora is just begging for an Ocean's Eleven-type treatment.

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[–] FitzTheBastard@lemmy.world 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Assassin's trilogy by Robin Hobb.

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[–] Zipitydew@sh.itjust.works 7 points 3 months ago (4 children)

Lot of good ones in here. Only idea I can think of is The Black Company. Not specifically to follow Croakers story either. Could be about battles and drama of the past from the annals.

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[–] allcretansareliars@lemmy.ml 7 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Not a book, but a true story from WW2:

5 May 1945 Troops of the 23rd Tank Battalion of the 12th Armored Division of the US XXI Corps led by Lieut. John C. "Jack" Lee, Jr., a number of Wehrmacht soldiers led by Major Josef "Sepp" Gangl, SS-Hauptsturmführer Kurt-Siegfried Schrader, and recently freed French prisoners of war defended Castle Itter against an attacking force from the 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division until relief from the American 142nd Infantry Regiment of the 36th Division of XXI Corps arrived.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Castle_Itter?wprov=sfla1

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[–] leftzero@lemmynsfw.com 7 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Something from Iain M. Banks The Culture. The best books, like Excession would probably be hard to adapt due to the protagonists being mostly ships, but others like Consider Phlebas or The Player of Games could probably make great films or miniseries (and Use of Weapons would probably be great as the later).

Probably excessively expensive in the CGI department if done well, but one can dream.

[–] stringere@sh.itjust.works 6 points 3 months ago (2 children)
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[–] ptz@dubvee.org 6 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Would love to see (and probably be disappointed by) a Revelation Space adaptation.

[–] infinitevalence@discuss.online 6 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

I think diamond dogs would make a really interesting animation short or maybe full-length movie.

But any of the books from the main series would require the kind of love and effort that the Expanse got early on.

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[–] JizzmasterD@lemmy.ca 6 points 3 months ago

A good version of “Riverworld” by Philip Jose Farmer would be awesome. “Borne” or “The Strange Bird” by Jeff Vandermeer. “Dance, Dance, Dance” by Murakmi. The Maddaddam Trilogy by Atwood.

As a deep cut, “The Woman in the Dunes” by Kobo Abe. Totally surreal.

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