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AGH!!!!!

Yay for people with brains!

I just found this letter on the Sci Fi Weekly Letters Page:

m I the only one tired of letters of the form: "Dear SCI FI, I haven't seen movie XYZ, nor do I intend to. Yet I will trash it anyway as if I knew what I was talking about. Sincerely, I.M. Pontificating"


I mean really. So what if I, Robot was not based 100 percent on Isaac Asimov's short stories? I think they did an excellent job marrying what it was based on (a script treatment called Hardwired, from what I read elsewhere) and elements of Isaac Asimov's robot stories.


I just recently re-read the I, Robot set of short stories, and while they were interesting and enjoyable from an intellectual point of view, none of them would have made a particularly good movie, even though they are great (though slightly dated) stories.


The film, on the other hand, did make a good movie. It pulled classic elements from Asimov, added good characterization and dialogue and action, with a very enjoyable result, and they even managed to include some of the thought-provoking aspects of Asimov's writing. Sure, it did not match perfectly the Asimov stories. So? Few and far between are the written works that can translate exactly to the big screen, and typically attempts to translate prose exactly result in a dull end product.


I think more people need to evaluate films based on their own merits rather than on some arbitrary comparison to an entirely different medium.


Burt Smith
burt(at)pslashg.org

Well said. Damn well said.

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Joss Whedon—who is directing the upcoming SF movie Serenity, based on his canceled Fox TV series Firefly—told fans at Comic-Con International that he also intends to write a new series of comic books based on the universe and characters. Speaking to thousands of fans in the San Diego Convention Center on July 25, Whedon said, "We have every intention of putting out a comic book of Serenity as well."


Whedon is no stranger to comics, having written the Dark Horse title Fray, a futuristic take on the universe introduced in his UPN TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, as well as the current Marvel title The Astonishing X-Men. "We're talking with Dark Horse right now about doing a Serenity comic book, because of Fray," Whedon added.


Serenity picks up the story of the short-lived Firefly, set 500 years in the future, about the ragtag crew of a transport ship traveling the galaxy in the wake of a galactic civil war. The movie, from Universal Pictures, is currently in production, with an eye to a spring 2005 release. Universal is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.

Neat. Fray was a nice take on the Slayer mythos, so I'm not worried he'll screw up a comic.

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( meme )