@siles.m: This is a pretty old post but I happened to be auditing new commenters and saw your interest in Consider Phlebas. Do you want a summary of the plot? Some folks hate spoilers, but here's a taste...
The protagonist is the last of a race of shapechangers that has been working against The Culture, which is like Star Trek's Federation only way whacked out. It is controlled by powerful artificial intelligences called Minds. The Culture is at war with the Iridians, big three-legged bug guys, really tough and religious zealots too. One of these Minds has been lost in a space battle before it could be turned on and the race is on to find it.
Banks is great for the jaw dropping set pieces and can be very funny to boot. You'll read about space-pirates, a cannibal cult, a cruise ship so big it could use the Titanic for a life raft, an artificial world like Niven's Ringworld or Halo, a game where players manipulate each others emotions and bet with the lives of volunteers, and so much much more.
I really like this book. Banks wrote it when he was still fairly young and some people think it lacks the finesse that maturity gave his later books. I still say check it out!
I hope this helps and welcome you to io9. Have fun.
@disatess: The movie was better than the comic- there I said it.
As great as Alan Moore can be, he is by no means infallible. Yes, the glorious League of Extraordinary Gentleman was butchered into a nauseating, gooey pulp, but V for Vendetta was an improvement over the sometimes aimless and kind of dull book.
I'm excited to see more from the director that made V better than Alan Moore did. (never read this book, but I'm very curious now)
Altered Carbon's plot was awesome and I must admit that I'm addicted to Morgan's work. That being said, the characters were cookie-cutter straw men that exist solely to deliver preachy sololiquical rants against many things (most of which is capitalism-related)
I can't still fathom the concept of the Envoy Corps. So they're badass elites specially trained to fight in any sleeve their minds beamed into. How? What sleeves? what if the bad guys just destroy the sleeve storage facilities, or simply turn of the needlecast installation?
Despite having only limited understanding of Japanese language and culture, Morgan keeps trying to shoehorn these elements into the novels. Fail.
Kovacs (and everybody else) is so angry and cussy, like, ALL the time. Every other sentence is fuck this and cunt that. Tiresome after five pages. Why is he so emo? I get it, broken family, dead comrades, corrupt bosses, battlefield massacre blah blah. But please! I yearn for a more stoic hero with the composure of somebody who's over 12.
That being said, I have high expectations for the movie, and if the director can at least mitigate some of my personal pet peeves above, I'll be happy. Sorry for my own emo rant.
@Dominus Astra: I've often called Morgan's protagonists "petulant"; the trend reached a new peak in The Steel Remains, but Black Man was full of whiners, too. The fault isn't his alone, though: there are many writers who put Internet rants in characters' mouths.
Call me another one with mixed feelings; loved the Kovacs novels, but not a terribly big fan of the V for Vendetta movie.
I'd feel a lot better about it if it could be arranged for Kovacs himself to provide the consequences for a poor adaptation :-)
there are few things that fill me with quite the same mixture of joy and worry as hearing altered carbon is being adapted for the big screen. it's not that i don't think it's filmable, an absurd notion really, it's that i fear the temptation to turn it into a cheap, summer blockbusting thrillride will be to great and the beauty that was the books noir style and tone will be lost in the translation.
@tetracycloide: Aw, man, it's so interesting, because the Morgan books would make a fascinating Blade Runner-style noir science fiction movie, and the whole "the same person in different bodies" thing would be such a treat to try and work on as an actor.
I mean, McTiegue is okay--he doesn't seem to shy away from non-blockbuster aspects of the work.
I'm curious, anyway.
@braak: v for vandetta certainly makes him a little promising. it's hard to say, really, because so much of his track record is colabrative efforts.
casting will be very difficult. i'm not sure who they're going to find that can pull off the interior monologues that kocacs' character will almost certainly require, much less how they're going to handle the resleaving thing visually.
I have to say that I did enjoy Altered Carbon. However, the rest of the series haven't quite captured the charge and energy I felt when reading the first. Probably could be a decent movie though. Not sure how the "cortical stack" concept will translate on film though. I guess if it gets made, we'll see.
Morgan's subsequent works have changed AC's complexion for me: it is hard to remember how thrilling and interesting it was when Morgan's last few books have strayed so tediously into the didactic.
@Rasselas: you and i must have read different books because in the books i read kovacs was too buzy killing people, unraveling martian shit, getting high, and having sex to wedge in an entire lecture, much less two or three of them. still, different strokes i guess. morgan's examination of the power structure within the world he creates is like crack to me, crack not often found in even the most compelling of science fiction.
@tetracycloide: I think too many liberal SFF fans flip their skirts for any mention of "class" or "power structure" in their leisure reading (or viewing). If our fantasies of power and freedom could be justified, then they wouldn't be very good fantasies.
@tetracycloide: I just like the fact that, somehow in Richard K. Morgan's future world, the dominant culture of the upper-classes is improbably Haitian.
@tetracycloide: I think we differ in our attitudes towards SF's much-adumbrated "what if"-ism. I think it's less an engine for imagination than a shibboleth and a stumbling block, as much as the airport thriller writers' emphasis on getting right the geography of Kowloon and the metallurgy of the SIG-Sauer P228, but I understand where you're coming from.
You know, that wouldn't be too bad, actually - Battle Angel really does have a lot of great places inthe Manga to draw from, and even if they wanted to just pick up the movie and re-do it, it couldn't be too bad.
@Indigen: Yes it uses glasses, but accourding to everyone who's seen it in action, its not remotely lackluster, and the glasses dont bother you like the old ones did.
But to answer your original question, yes it will be in 2D
I honestly don't believe Alita could be faithfully turned into a film that american audiences could tolerate. You'd have to cut out all the dismemberment and brain splattering.
And yes, I have seen the Battle Angel anime, and was quite disappointed. It lacked the punch that the source material delivered. That, and IMO they changed too much of the story.
I mean, okay, compared to the manga it was that bad. But if you saw it on it's own, you might not think it was so terrible! I wound up seeing it before I picked up the manga, so I was happy with the OVA, and it was only after I started the manga did I realize exactly how deeper the story really was.
I think all of the projects around that time (Patlabor, Appleseed, the list goes on from those associated studios) tended to do that for some reason.
@LittleDragon:
That was my reaction as well. Dushku has the look too, plus the athletic skills, but she really cannot act. Maybe Cameron could whip a performance out of her.
08/31/09
08/31/09
The protagonist is the last of a race of shapechangers that has been working against The Culture, which is like Star Trek's Federation only way whacked out. It is controlled by powerful artificial intelligences called Minds. The Culture is at war with the Iridians, big three-legged bug guys, really tough and religious zealots too. One of these Minds has been lost in a space battle before it could be turned on and the race is on to find it.
Banks is great for the jaw dropping set pieces and can be very funny to boot. You'll read about space-pirates, a cannibal cult, a cruise ship so big it could use the Titanic for a life raft, an artificial world like Niven's Ringworld or Halo, a game where players manipulate each others emotions and bet with the lives of volunteers, and so much much more.
I really like this book. Banks wrote it when he was still fairly young and some people think it lacks the finesse that maturity gave his later books. I still say check it out!
I hope this helps and welcome you to io9. Have fun.
08/07/09
08/07/09
As great as Alan Moore can be, he is by no means infallible. Yes, the glorious League of Extraordinary Gentleman was butchered into a nauseating, gooey pulp, but V for Vendetta was an improvement over the sometimes aimless and kind of dull book.
I'm excited to see more from the director that made V better than Alan Moore did. (never read this book, but I'm very curious now)
08/06/09
I can't still fathom the concept of the Envoy Corps. So they're badass elites specially trained to fight in any sleeve their minds beamed into. How? What sleeves? what if the bad guys just destroy the sleeve storage facilities, or simply turn of the needlecast installation?
Despite having only limited understanding of Japanese language and culture, Morgan keeps trying to shoehorn these elements into the novels. Fail.
Kovacs (and everybody else) is so angry and cussy, like, ALL the time. Every other sentence is fuck this and cunt that. Tiresome after five pages. Why is he so emo? I get it, broken family, dead comrades, corrupt bosses, battlefield massacre blah blah. But please! I yearn for a more stoic hero with the composure of somebody who's over 12.
That being said, I have high expectations for the movie, and if the director can at least mitigate some of my personal pet peeves above, I'll be happy. Sorry for my own emo rant.
08/07/09
08/06/09
I'd feel a lot better about it if it could be arranged for Kovacs himself to provide the consequences for a poor adaptation :-)
08/06/09
08/06/09
08/06/09
08/06/09
I mean, McTiegue is okay--he doesn't seem to shy away from non-blockbuster aspects of the work.
I'm curious, anyway.
08/06/09
casting will be very difficult. i'm not sure who they're going to find that can pull off the interior monologues that kocacs' character will almost certainly require, much less how they're going to handle the resleaving thing visually.
08/06/09
@tetracycloide: Interior monolgues did you say?
08/07/09
08/06/09
08/06/09
08/06/09
I knew that when I commented, but never let the facts get in the way...
08/06/09
08/06/09
08/06/09
08/06/09
08/06/09
08/06/09
08/06/09
08/07/09
08/07/09
08/07/09
08/01/09
...could it?
07/31/09
07/31/09
All I know is that 3D in its current form is shit. I hope Avatar comes out with a non-3D version, else I dont think I could stand to watch it.
08/01/09
Cameron spent the better part of a decade redesigning how a camera shoots 3D for his future films.
How this will look on screen, who knows, but the first commercial film to use his new system is going to be Avatar.
08/01/09
08/01/09
But to answer your original question, yes it will be in 2D
http://www.aintitcool.com/node/41244
07/31/09
07/31/09
And yes, I have seen the Battle Angel anime, and was quite disappointed. It lacked the punch that the source material delivered. That, and IMO they changed too much of the story.
07/31/09
That OVA was garbage. Story was trash that butchered the source material, and the voice cast (both japanese and american) were cringe-worthy.
08/01/09
I mean, okay, compared to the manga it was that bad. But if you saw it on it's own, you might not think it was so terrible! I wound up seeing it before I picked up the manga, so I was happy with the OVA, and it was only after I started the manga did I realize exactly how deeper the story really was.
I think all of the projects around that time (Patlabor, Appleseed, the list goes on from those associated studios) tended to do that for some reason.
07/31/09
07/31/09
???
07/31/09
07/31/09
That was my reaction as well. Dushku has the look too, plus the athletic skills, but she really cannot act. Maybe Cameron could whip a performance out of her.
07/31/09