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About Me
- MWS
- firmly believes that if you don't already know who he is, you're wasting your time hanging around here. Go buy a book or something.
29 comments:
Right on.
Did you guys see Avatar? Had some Overworld type aspects. Made me think of the "Caine-shits" when he came out back out of his Avatar...
Filming a quality version of Acts of Caine becomes more plausible every year.
Except Heroes Die is considerably less stupid than Avatar, and studios would probably be quite unwilling to underwrite an expensive adventure with some brains (and assorted other viscera) behind the spectacle unless, maybe, a big name star or director were attached to the project. But I live in hope.
I went to try to see Avatar today, but it's been sold out here every day since opening day. I read that it's still pulling in like $15 million/day. That's just insane.
But Avatar looks kind of retarded. As soon as I saw the trailer where the old scarred-up Army dude was all "They want to eat your eyes like JuJu Bees" I started to wonder if Stephen King had written the dialogue.
So I went to see Sherlock Holmes instead. There's a bit of mindless action tropes where there really shouldn't be, but overall I thought it was a great movie. The chemistry between Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law was fantastic.
And Robert Downey Jr. kicking ass in this movie makes me convinced he could pull off the kinds of things we've seen Caine doing.
I would sell a substantial fraction of my soul to get RDJr interested in playing Caine.
Unfortunately, no one seems to be buying.
It's also very unlikely that Caine will be showing up in a theatrical feature, unless it's one crafted from an entirely new story. The word I've been getting from my (few) sources in Hollywoodland is that his best shot of seeing the light of Modern Multimedia is in a pay-cable series (or, if toned down in language and graphicosity, maybe on Syfy).
If ever given the opportunity, I'm kind of thinking I might restart him from his early career (i.e., with the Retreat from the Boedecken sequence or something), and follow him all the way through the end of HD (given lack of catastrophic cancellation), and maybe beyond; the story of BoT would make a pretty good Climactic Blow-Down for the story . . .
But right now, all that is buried under a giant pile of Never Gonna Happen.
Avatar was very very stupid in a way that diminished the (very overlong) film immeasurably. I know a lot of people found the visuals immersive enough to overlook the stupendously poorly handled plot and awful script, but for me, in this case. . . no. The action set pieces were stupendously staged, but whenever there was anyone speaking on screen the thing was a catastrophe.
Sherlock Holmes was merely very stupid (and only slightly overlong), but was a lot of fun regardless, and its narrative digressions were engaging enough on their own that I didn't begrudge them my willingness to suspend disbelief. I'd watch it again. (They sure did waste Rachel McAdams in a that role, though.)
Wouldn't that be a trip? You've written Star Wars books, which became an expansion of the movies, then you'd get to create a television expansion of your books franchise.
Avatar was painfully bad, I agree. I knew going in I'd hate the subtext; I was unaware just how dumb the text was going to be.
And Sherlock Holmes was better than anticipated, though my expectations going in were quite low. (From the trailers, I expected more of a James Bond character, and at least we didn't get *that*.)
The chances for virtually all quality projects seeing light of day is near zip. Yet some still happen. Might as well dream.
I liked Avatar, just cause it was easy on the eyes. Lot of hot blue chicks in 3D. Don't see that everyday... Story was a preachy oreo cookie of Abyss pseudo-spirituality smooshed against Aliens' rejected characters as performed by understudies.. You knew everything that was going to happen a mile away, but it was still kind of fun. Eat some popcorn, who cares..
Some recent TV shows are demonstrating that they can be as good or better than features: Sopranos, Deadwood, Dexter, Firefly (film was good too though), BSG, House..Any of these beat 95% of films that come out in terms of entertainment value. The writers get that they have time for character development, and plot is better planned these days than in the past (e.g. Twin Peaks starts strong and falls apart). I think it could be really good in that format..
But all that is moot cause I would sure as hell rather just another book or 2 or 3, and that's a hell of a lot more likely to satisfy...
How is your work coming along MWS? Any progress on the crime projects?
I haven't seen Avatar and don't plan to, and I haven't seen Sherlock Holmes either, but want to.
The idea of an Acts of Caine Syfy series does intrigue me very much. I'd be curious to see how you pull off a potential reboot of his story (going in a more linear fashion, that is).
Matt, it sucks that retard fantasy like Goodkind's Sword of Truth can get made into a series (which I actually don't mind), but outstanding fiction like your stuff won't ever be.
We should make a petition or something. Right?
Anyways, happy new year.
PS: I liked Avatar. So did my girlfriend. Its one of the few movies we both enjoyed together.
Love,
Greg
After watching the first season of TrueBlood, I'm now convinced an HBO series is the only way to do Caine justice, in terms of content/gore/sexy and because I've wrestled with how to adapt Heroes Die in my head so many times and failed to eliminate a single setpiece, leaving me with an 18-hour script dwelling in my mind.
Seriously, what could be cut out from that story? It's pretty lean on fluff to begin with.
Btw, Matt, how difficult was CBK to write, with the two parallel storylines? I've seen a tv series that used a similar (I don't want to say 'gimmick' but) gimmick, and it was pretty coherant as well.
The dual storyline structure of CBK was insanely difficult to write -- and once written, even selecting the exact point where I would leave off one narrative and switch to the other just about broke my brain.
I have at least seven wholly different versions of Caine meeting Angvasse Khlaylock, for example -- in different settings, at different points in the narrative . . .
The only sequences that ended up in the book mostly unchanged from their original conception are "Maximum Bad," "Gift," "The Caine Show," and "Half-Eligible."
I've been thinking about the concept of a Caine TV series, just for shits and giggles. It struck me that each of Caine's Crowning Moment of Awesome adventures could be the spine of a whole season, while also including the concurrent Earthside narrative as well.
Season 1: Retreat from the Boedecken
Season 2: Last Stand at Ceraeno
Season 3: Race for the Crown of Dal'kannith
Season 4: Servant of the Empire
Season 5: For Love of Pallas Ril
Then Seasons 6 and 7 both would cover BLADE OF TYSHALLE -- Season 6 ending with Caine delivered to the Donjon.
So if any of you are buddies with any HBO or Showtime bigwigs (or Syfy or whatever), here's your chance.
Either I have bad taste, or i'm just not a curmudgeon. I enjoyed Avatar, I wouldn't be so hard on it. Especially after witnessing Twilight mania. I've never read Twilight, but I was asked by 2 kids I was babysitting to see it. They took their books with them to the theater, and were absorbed by it.
I felt very alienated... it was an AWKWARD movie.. the acting/dialogue... perhaps it was awkward enough to emulate realworld adolescence, but it was the only movie i've seen in a while that I wanted to walk out on.
I never got that feeling with Avatar.
As for a caine/overworld based movie... I've thought about that alot. I think to be faithful, it would have to carry an NC-17 rating, which would kill its sales and turn off producers.
So if anything, we'd get a watered down version. R-rating at least, I'd hope.
In addition, I think its unfair to compare a book to a movie, especially if comparing two seperate stories/series. A movie just won't have the runtime to explore the characters with enough depth. Sure, it can be done, but with significant plot butchering.
I've always thought the biggest impediment to getting Caine on any sort of screen(movie or TV) would be Ma'elkoth. I can't imagine any human being or computer correctly portraying his personality and presence. 'Course, I certainly wouldn't mind an opportunity for someone to try.
MWS said:
"It struck me that each of Caine's Crowning Moment of Awesome adventures could be the spine of a whole season, while also including the concurrent Earthside narrative as well."
Matt...OMG...you're a troper! I love you all the more for it :D
JMD, ever see the actor that played Xerxes in 300 without all the cgi and make-up? If they can make that guy bigger than life, it can be done. I always picture Ralph Fienes with the 300 treatment.
Oh hell, you need someone of Ma'elKoth proportions, all you have to do is synthesize William Shatner's ego into steroids and whatever actor that gets the role will be like 10' tall within a month.
just find a troupe of little people to play all the people in the cast, and then put a body builder as ma'elKoth
Kinda like what they did with LOTR...All camera angles and little people!
So how many fetishes does a midget Kierndal satisfy?
Rule 34.
I cant think of any current actor that could play any part in any of the books. Without the right casting,a TV show or film would be ruined by it.It would be awesome though if they got if right.
Whenever I see Timothy Olyphant's portrayal of Bullock on Deadwood, I think of Caine
http://www.hbo.com/deadwood/img/castandcrew/actors/timothyolyphant.jpg
Warlord, have you seen Olyphant as the American Jedi in A Perfect Getaway? Not exactly Caine, but very hard to kill nonetheles.
Caine cannot be played by a man whose name reminds you of a pachyderm.
Imagine a film with a $400 million budget, filmed in ground-breaking 3D, with a script by Matthew Stover, starring RDJ as Caine.
I've always had a vivid imagination -- but not that vivid.
Honestly, I felt that the writing of Avatar kind of sucked.
Has anyone ever heard the term "art from adversity"? I'm a big believer in not giving directors too much money to work with, because art that reflects the circumstances of its creation is all the better for it.
I mean, shit, think of our beloved Sci-Fi series. The Original Trilogy ended up being almost nothing like Mr. Lucas intended, and if you read his original script and the descriptions of a lot of things, it ended up being all the better for it.
And then with the Prequel Trilogy he just got way too much money and too many special effects and, in my humble opinion, it didn't add up to dick.
The Phantom Menace didn't even make any *sense*.
Avatar felt like it was written by a 15-year-old, which is perhaps appropriate, because Cameron has said that it's the movie he's wanted to write since he was 15.
Anyway.
I'd like to see a Caine movie made by an independent director. Not sure exactly why, can't really articulate -- but I think it'd be awesome.
Oh, and I volunteer myself to play Ma`elkoth, just in case anyone gives that serious consideration.
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