April 16th, 2008
by
Naamenblog
I’m sure this isn’t the first time this discussion has been started in Feminist SF groups but there was a recent blog post listing the authors’ top 10 Science Fiction books that should be movies. Reading the list I realized that there were no women authors on the list or any books by male authors with feminist slant or even a female protagonist, which rankled me quite a bit, so I decided to pose a question to all of you. My question is: What Feminist SF/F books do you think should be made into movies?
To get things rolling here are the first five that that popped into my head:
Dragonsong by Anne McCaffrey – Now before y’all jump on me for this one I know Anne McCaffrey has said some really bat-crazy-ish in the last few years and that most if not all of the books in the Pern series are super problematic (enough so that I’ve never actually gotten through the first duology). Now that being said I loved Dragonsong growing up and Menolly was one of my favorite characters in my little library, I reread this book at least twice a year for quite a while. Awkward, musical and oppressed by her father and her society Menolly finds her own way in the world of Pern. That being said the way the other women in the book are depicted is what eventually stopped the re-reading but I would still like to see Menolly’s story of running away from her father and finding a place for herself played out on screen just adapted so that every other woman is not incompetent or judged as an “evil slut” by every other character. Plus seeing the fire-lizards done right would be pretty cool.
The Orphan’s Tale Books {In The Night Garden & In The Cities of Coin and Spice } by Catherynne M. Valente – Now this would probably work best as a mini-series because there is no way to shorten things, everything ties into everything else, every story is important and most details are clues to the connections between the stories. That being said I would love to see Valente’s lyrical words turned into images though there is a part of me wonders if that would rob them of some of their power. Some of the images in this work are so powerful you can’t help but stop and re-read passages so you can take in all the detail, it would be interesting to see how they would be rendered in a film version.
Jaran by Kate Elliot – I read this when I was in high school and though I don’t remember all the details I remember loving the character of Tess the way she interacts with the tribes of Jaran and it was probably the first sci-fi/fantasy novel I read that had openly queer characters and I remember that being a huge deal for me (another one I remember re-reading quite a bit when I was younger). I would love to see the planet Rhui and the relationship between Tess and Ilya played out.
Brown Girl In The Ring by Nalo Hopkinson – The dystopic view of a Toronto that’s been abandoned by most of it’s affluent/white population is a powerful tale of connecting to lost/ignored heritage and family. It would be beautiful/horrifying (or beautifully-horrifying) to see some of the images described in the book and the vision of an abandoned Toronto still functioning best it can falling back into old ways emblazoned on the screen could be a truly classic image.
Return To Isis by Jean Stewart (I have a whole speperate post in the works on this book) – It would be amazing to see the two seperate societies of this book portrayed on screen, the oppressive Elysium where anyone not white, christian or heterosexual was killed and women are kept in breeding houses unless they are infected in which case they live on the outskirts of society as serf-farmers. And in the west {Freeland}, seven free cities where the People of Color, Queer folks, Women and those of alternative religions fled. Futuristic dystopic sci-fi with only lesbian characters and a betrayal plot dead for ten years that blazing back to life, I love the movie already.
So what do you guys think? Are there any books I list that you disagree with? What books are on your list? Why?
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Naamenblog at
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Filed under Books & Literature, TV & Film, female characters, feminism, women writers | Comments (44)
Zahrah the Windseeker would be SUCH a great movie! The Greeny Jungle, and the gorillas, and all the cool plant tech!! It would be a blockbuster and kids/families would LOVE it.
Dust would also totally rock as a movie! The special effects! The space/vacuum/giant rotating thingie bits and the robots and AIs! Imagine! Plus, the knight errant chicks would be super sexy.
How can we possibly have this conversation and not wonder WTF that there is no Vorkosigan movie. Here is a proven and kick ass giant endless award winning series IN SPACE with super compelling characters and endless movie possibility. We could be watching new Vorkosigan movies every year till the year 2020. Please, movie people! Magic people! Give us our Bujold on a big huge screen with a huge budget!
Also I totally agree that a Dragonsong movie is necessary for our continued existence. It could not lose. I mean, motherfucking firelizards, imagine the franchising. Motherfucking harps, and panpipes, and firelizards (collect them all, have 9 of them just like Menolly) Obviously though I critiqued Pern pretty hard I am a hardcore lifelong Perniac and have memorized the first, oh, 6 or 7 books of it.
That is just off the top of my head… Naamen I *love* this question…
And I don’t even like movies all that much. I am STARVED for some kick ass feminist SF movies! Ones that aren’t the usual hollywood wankery!
Okay I know they would fuck it up but I really would love to see The Dispossessed. It’s not so much feminist as anarchist. The Left Hand of Darkness – there’s all this on again, off again stuff about that, right? I’m sure they’ll fuck it up if they ever make it. Also, it might not work as a film: substituting cinematography for Le Guin’s prose — i don’t know. I did love this little theatrical production of it in Chicago about 12 or 13 years ago: A completely minimalistic production. (Some things would work better as theater than film.)
… They are making movies out of Kritzer’s Temeraire series, right? It’s not per se feminist sf. Also Y The Last Man is coming soon to a theater near us.
You know what would be awesome? Rosemary Kirstein’s Steerswoman series.
I think it’s fairly obvious why the Vorkosigan books have never been considered for a movie: the hero’s a dwarf. Yes, of course they could CGI it: but as The Lord of the Rings demonstrated, Hollywood is not yet ready for the idea that there’s nothing intrinsically funny about being very short.
But I was just re-reading Cordelia’s Honor, and, wow would that make a movie… So start with that?
(Though, while we’re talking about Bujold: The Spirit Ring has a young female protagonist, a neat twist on sword-and-sorcery.)
And, speaking of dwarves, the cinematically obvious:
The Moon and the Sun, by Vonda N. McIntyre – it was even written to be a movie originally.
I’d also like to see Dreamsnake filmed.
More:
The Gate To Women’s Country, Sheri S. Tepper. Most Tepper books would make terrible films (I’d like to see what the format of a good TV series would do with The Awakeners) but I think this one has possibilities. While we’re dreaming, I’d like to do the casting reversal-of-expectations by having all the soldierly heroes played by big name hero actors…
Sharon Shinn’s angel trilogy, especially the first one, Archangel, would make a fantastic movie – but I’d like to see someone doing all three.
And Darkover! While I agree Dragonsong and Dragonsinger would make lovely teenage-girl movies, especially if you could find a young girl who could both act and sing well, I want a movie on Darkover which could elide over the nonsense of telepaths “kept virgin for the Sight”: I want to see Hawkmistress! filmed, and The Shattered Chain and The Forbidden Tower. (Thendara House would be interesting, but a bit static. Still, good character acting could do a good deal. City of Sorcery would have some wonderful mountain vistas, and I suppose a film could carefully look the other way about the plot.)
I’d love to see someone do a live-action feminist movie of Monstrous Regiment. I don’t usually like filmed adaptations of Terry Pratchett, but… oh, and one other book by a male writer: Stephen King’s Rose Madder.
Would it be possible to make a movie out of C. J. Cherryh’s Cyteen? I suspect not – or at least, not without considerable adaptation. The adaptation I have in mind, though, would be the young Ariane Emory growing up and figuring out what happened to her and her precedessor and her predecessor’s azi.
Last but not least; Robin McKinley’s Sunshine. Now that would be a vampire movie and a half.
I’d like to see Octavia Butler’s Dawn. I think the way the story unfolds would work well onscreen – plenty of films have had an offscreen apocalypse that’s established in the prologue, and the less familiar elements get introduced to the audience as Lilith figures them out.
The Oankali are some of my all-time favorite aliens – their psychology seems genuinely alien without being arbitrary.
Plus there are two more books if the studio decides to make it a trilogy.
I’ll agree that casting Miles would be one heck of a challenge, but damn, I’d love to see the Vorkosigan saga on the big screen. Not that I’d trust Hollywood not to freak out over large portions of it.
Much love for this question, which requires me to de-lurk.
I’ve often thought about Dragonsong as a movie as well, although I usually wondered if it would need to be anime/ated what with all the fire lizard action. I’d prefer live action but it seems like it would require SO MUCH CGI.
Sunshine would make a good movie, but when I think of Robin McKinley, I want The Blue Sword. Lots of picturesque desert scenes, plus the contrast between the Proper English-type Homeland expatriate interactions. McKinley always has the best animal companion characters, so you’d need some seriously well-trained horses and I’m not sure that the folstzas could be done without CGI. There’s also the language issue since most of the interesting stuff happens in Damarian and the ease with which Harry learns a new language is a significant plot point.
Another not feminist per se contribution, but I re-read To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis on a yearly basis and would love to see it as a movie. Time travel, romance, a comedy of manners and the possible destruction of the space time continuum! I like Victorian comedies anyway, and seeing it through more modern/ future eyes ought to make it a more viable film possibility than the usual period pieces (not that it actually does – sci-fi / other genre combos never seem to do as well as they deserve). I nominate Hugh Dancy for Ned, Amy Adams for Tess. I have no ready actor idea for Lady Schrapnell but I would love to see that character done right onscreen. Once again, the animal characters present a problem, though. Cyril the bulldog would be especially difficult – I don’t know that canine physical comedy to that degree is a realistic possibility.
Naamenblog – I just re-read the Isis series and am really looking forward to your upcoming post.
Bujold’s Vorkosiverse has been cast over and over by fans. It could be done, and done well post-Lord Of The Rings. The Warrior’s Apprentice was once adapted into a screenplay that reads as essentially the worst SF movie ever, and didn’t make it much further, thankfully.
That One Albino Chick – have to disagree about The Blue Sword; I don’t think it’s in the least feminist. (I’ve not read it in a while, but I have a copy around to flip through if you want me to elaborate on that). I’d make a case for Hero And The Crown – which in many ways is a better version of the same story. Both (see also Deerskin play with the theme/feeling of withdrawal, but H&C is imo both better and more feminist. (Off the top of my head I’m not sure either of those books passes the Bechdel test, even, which makes my head sad :/ )
The book I’d most like to see filmed right now is Sound Mind by Tricia Sullivan, but I could see it being hell to set up. The two main characters are a music student living in a world that’s vanishing under her feet a patch at a time, and a WOC ex-con who just generally geeks out and kicks ass.
Elizabeth Bear’s Carnival could do with some love here. Adorable gay couple, women with swords, renegade male liberationists …. Seriously, there must be massive wankery somewhere about the actors that could play Michelangelo Kusanagi-Jones and Vincent Katherinessen. Slashtastic! Plus CGI opportunities galore with the high-tech gimcrackery of the boys and the wacky alien natives.
The Genny Casey books could be cool too.
I’d love to see Peter Dickinson’s “Eva” as a movie. Teenage girl whose parents work for chimpanzee research center; she gets in a car crash and wakes up in a chimp body. It’s really good and disturbing.
yeah, or even better, “Rachel in Love” by Pat Murphy.
Peter Dinklage was born to play Miles. Go see The Station Agent if you haven’t already.
I also wanna cast Dinklage in the film version of Robert Reich’s Locked in the Cabinet, but that’s another thread.
Cordelia’s Honor would make an *excellent* movie. I think a movie where a war hero kicks the President in the balls would go over well right now, too. Plus the “I went SHOPPING!” line would be an icon – the woman who said that on screen might be our next actor President.
Almost any of Connie Willis’ movies would be great – I would love to see someone make Passage, if they could avoid schlocking it up.
And I think Octavia Butler’s Parable movies would be great, too. Though they’re violent enough, I don’t know if I could actually watch them.
Barbara Hambly’s Time of the Dark would make an excellent, creepy movie.
You couldn’t make a movie out of Cyteen – I mean maybe you could, but you’d regret it. The proper length of source material for a movie is a short story. What Cyteen would be excellent for would be a TV show; like a telenovela, with a planned lifespan. About 2 years long, hour a week, maybe?
Thene: (Off the top of my head I’m not sure either of those books passes the Bechdel test, even, which makes my head sad :/ )
I agree that The Blue Sword isn’t terribly feminist, though I do love it, but it does pass the Bechdel test, just – although all Hari’s main friends and companions are men, there are her two friends at the fort and (Ardelia?) the commander’s wife: and there are women among the other lapruni, whom Hari talks to.
Deerskin more than passes the Bechdel test: there is the old herbalist and the girl who befriends Deerskin in the first part of the novel, and several women friends in the last part.
vito: What Cyteen would be excellent for would be a TV show; like a telenovela, with a planned lifespan. About 2 years long, hour a week, maybe?
Something like the way the BBC did I, Claudius, perhaps. Similar kind of timespan across the whole novel.
The ones I agree with so far are Dragonsong and Most Especially! Rosa’s suggestion of Barbara Hambly’s The Time of the Dark. Gil is a brilliant character. Opening with her finding the scarred battle-wearied wizard in her fluorescent-lit SoCal kitchenette = WIN. That’s a book that would look awesome on the big screen, has a plot that really has a reason to exist as a movie, great characters…
Dragonsong I think I’d like best as animation; particularly if they could do it in a misty/jeweled sort of style like The Last Unicorn. I guess I just want to see a lot of firelizards, well-done (not CGI), not cramped by special-effects budgets.
I guess I just want to see a lot of firelizards, well-done (not CGI)
Like, claymation? I have to say I am generally disappointed in CGI. The more quote-unquote “realistic” it is the less it actually looks believable to me. Why do people keep raving about today’s CGI? It’s all just more and more computationally-intense textures but the fundamental things that make live action realistic are still not there.
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the fundamental things that make live action realistic are still not there
Word to the word. Claymation, eh, I love it but I don’t think it’s right for this story… I see clamation for stories that are either funny or creepy. I’d go either drawn animation with an oil pastel look, or perhaps live action with muppet firelizards. Muppets actually exist in the world! You don’t have to be all “oh look how we almost got the light right over this texture where it’s almost impossible to see the pattern breaks”: you just give a thing skin and film it in the exact same light everything else is getting.
LauraQ: It’s all just more and more computationally-intense textures but the fundamental things that make live action realistic are still not there.
That’s odd. I found lots of stuff to criticise about Jurassic Park and The Lost World (I never got around to seeing JPIII) but the thing I always really loved about JP was the dinosaurs. (And I just amused myself looking at fan clips of Jurassic Park… but I still can’t see what you found so fundamentally unrealistic about them.)
Isaac Asimov’s story ~200 page story “The Mule” from the Foundation book _Foundation & Empire_. (Just reread recently, in fact.)
The hero of the story – Bayta Darell – is a woman coded as non-white*. If you looked up Awesome in the dictionary, there’d be a picture of Bayta there. And if there isn’t, there very well should be.
Bayta’s all the things I like to see in a female protagonist that far too many authors miss. She’s an active character, frequentely taking the initiative in the story. Bayta has beliefs; she is part of the Democratic Underground. While there’s romance in the story, it’s nuanced and non-cliché — particularly since it’s easy to see where more typical story would have forced a love triangle. That is, the love triangle one would expect in “The Mule” is simply Not There. Finally, Bayta’s established intelligence & capableness aren’t downplayed make the male characters look good/allow the male characters to save the day. Bayta gets to save the day. Bayta gets to save the whole goddammned galaxy and be remembered as a hero for it.
And that’s just Bayta.
I’m actually very much liking the Foundation Series, but a lot of the stories are too short or too intertwined with a series as a whole to work as movies. “The Mule” is both the right length and just standaloneish to work. Plus, it has space battles and political clashes and mind control and trippy music and people getting blaster-ed! All of which is very cinimatic.
And I know deep down that a movie adaption would never ever happen without the story getting butchered worse than _I, Robot_ did.
*The Foundation Series is set 12300+ years in the future where Earthian constructs of race don’t have meaning**, but the descriptions of Bayta (along with the descriptions of her famous hero ancestor Hober Mallow from the previous Foundation book) suggest that she (and he) aren’t meant to look what in the Earthian sense would be considered white.
**Which is not to say that the Foundation Series has a ‘race has lost meaning colorblindness yay!’ utopian setting. Humans have simply found other methods of subdividing and inequally distributing power. Think the colonial planet differences on Battlestar Galactica, only more nuanced and actually consistant.
Ohh the whole Foundation is so awful, and especially “The Mule” which has got to be one of the more hideously transphobically written characters ever. At least how I remember the book and story.
I am having second thoughts about Dragonsong now that I contemplate the fact that they would have ACTUAL SINGING in it. Uh oh. That could be so bad. Could they maybe update it for electric guitars* just to avoid it being cheesy fake-celtic folk music? The horrors!
* not really serious about electric guitars
_Foundation_ would make a better series than movie, with its episodic structure and many story strands. It has loads of fantastic female characters, and discussion of the difference in levels of gender equality between the ignorant and backward colonies that maintain traditional, opressive gender roles and the enlightened, civilized planets that seem to practice complete egalitarianism. Bayta’s grand-daughter, Arkady, is the protagonist of another great story in the series. (I’m trying to think how the Mule could be interpreted as transphobic, and I’m drawing a blank.)
Another male author/male protagonist suggestion (sorry!), but I can’t believe there’s never been a movie of Alfred Bester’s _Tiger Tiger_ (published as _The Stars My Destination_ in the U.S.). There are three fascinating, complex female characters (one of them black), some discussion of women’s rights, and a thrilling plot.
Incidentally, the movie of _I, Robot_ made me furious: back in the 1950s Asimov could find it in himself to tell a story with a middle-aged women as the protagonist, but in the twenty-first century? Unthinkable!
_The Stars My Destination_ in the U.S.). There are three fascinating, complex female characters (one of them black), some discussion of women’s rights
… a male protagonist who rapes one of the female characters, but it’s okay because he was upset, and she didn’t mind anyway …
Incidentally, the movie of _I, Robot_ made me furious: back in the 1950s Asimov could find it in himself to tell a story with a middle-aged women as the protagonist, but in the twenty-first century? Unthinkable!
I’m not giving Asimov any points for this. Calvin is described as frigid (“pass her through the sun and she’d come out the other side encased in frozen flame”) – and that didn’t mean she had a cool, professional demeanor. At the time it was written, “frigid” meant a woman who needed to quit saying “no” to men sexually, because that was the source of all her problems.
Not that it would have done Calvin any good, as she was written. She’s a smart woman, after all, and the stories repeatedly remind us that women can be smart or attractive but never, ever both. (Remember the one where U.S. Robotics accidentally builds a mind-reading robot? It tells Calvin that the guy she has a crush on loves her, and she starts wearing makeup – the narration informs us how badly she applies it, and how bad she looks. When she finds out the robot lied, she viciously destroys it.) Career/brains vs. love isn’t an issue for any of the male characters, of course, and the later stories make a point of informing us that the single male characters in the earlier stories married and had families. Not Calvin, though.
It doesn’t stop with Calvin, either. Remember the early story about the little girl and her robot? It sounds cute when it’s described like that, but the girl character is spoiled and self-centered, and her mother doesn’t understand what’s going on and doesn’t appreciate the poor robot. The father is the only person in the family that acts on his thoughts rather than his emotions, but he’s also motivated by higher emotions than the two women: he feels sympathy for the poor robot, while the daughter treats it unkindly and the mother fears it.
Towards the end of the book, we see the world divided into several large governmental regions. One of them is presented as being technologically, culturally, and economically behind the others – having the second-best of everything. It’s the only region with a female leader. (I don’t think Asimov is saying that’s the cause of their status. I think it’s a continuation of the “poor guys, stuck with second-best” theme.)
I am having second thoughts about Dragonsong now that I contemplate the fact that they would have ACTUAL SINGING in it.
They just left it out of the LOTR.
… Transfriendly and screenfriendly: Mission Child by Maureen McHugh. War is always panoramic. But I think it’s kinda grim. I imagine a mood like The Ballad of Little Jo, but with war, urbanscapes, etc.
There’s gotta be some Tiptree that would work well on the screen.
Re: Dr. Calvin
Yeah, Asimov falls into the “career or love” trap. Still, I always got the sense that Dr. Calvin didn’t exactly lose any sleep over never finding love; she was a crabby old lady and quite happy with it, thank you very much. (As for the rest of _I, Robot_, it’s been a while since I read it, so I don’t feel comfortable responding.)
Re: “The Mule”
I’m blanking on the transphobia, as well.
However, I am not quite sure how I feel about the antagonist’s motivations. ‘Galaxy mistreated him so he’s going to conquer it’ is a total cliché. On the other hand, his whole revenge on the galaxy is to…establish the Second Galactic Empire 700 years early. Doesn’t work, obviously, but I thought it made him a fairly sympathetic character.
Re: The Foundation Series
Yes, I could see it as a tv series. And I really like the focus it puts on broad-scale changes in social thought. It’s not enough to establish an empire that spans the galaxy; the Second Galactic Empire is supposed to be Something Different. So there’s shit like, for instance, military imperialism that the Foundation Series is explicitly placing as incompatible with utopia.
I was disappointed in Arkady’s story, though. Yeah, she’s nifty, but the ending rather robs her of her autonomy and heroism. Didn’t help that I had trouble empathizing with the Second Foundation in _Second Foundation_ and was quite pleased to see the deconstruction of them in _Foundation’s Edge_.
I always got the sense that Dr. Calvin didn’t exactly lose any sleep over never finding love; she was a crabby old lady and quite happy with it, thank you very much.
The whole premise of “Liar”, in I, Robot, is how deeply Calvin is hurt by not being loved. It’s the basis of the Three Laws conflict that drives the story: knowing the truth would hurt Calvin, so to comply with the First Law, Herbie the robot must lie and pretend a man loves her. If she was happy, there’d be no pain, no Three Laws conflict, and no story.
And the robot’s assessment of her pain is accurate – at the end of the story she deliberately, vengefully destroys the robot, even though it means never being able to study it and figure out how it developed telepathy. Being a scorned woman trumps being a robotics scientist.
I could imagine an adaptation of Robot with Calvin as a scientist who’s not interested in everyday human entanglements. That’s not what the text depicts, though.
… we probably need an entire separate thread for asimov & susan calvin …
Oo! Jo Walton’s Farthing would make a great movie! They could really get the creepy atmospheric claustrophobia with cinematography!
oh, Farthing would be totally amazing on screen.
… and naturally I have made a wiki page for this, called “Get them on screen”. If we manage to achieve some consensus here on titles (or even if we don’t) feel free to drop them on the wiki page too.
TC,
I was thinking the Dr. Susan Calvin stories collectively, but yes, I see what you’re saying about “Liar”.
I’m still wondering what you found so unrealistic about the JP dinosaurs, Laura. Or indeed, Titanic.
I’ve never seen Titanic and hope I never will.
I wasn’t thinking about Jurassic Park, which I haven’t seen since it was released into the dollar theaters. I don’t think I’ll spend my time on watching it again, even tho you’re are trying to entice me with graphics. If it’s on a plane or hotel room some time I won’t turn it off & will then be better equipped to respond to your comment.
I’m mostly thinking about CGI of people and animals, and how the movement always looks not real to me, particularly facial movement. Also (added later: as in, “in addition”) about computer animation a la “Toy Story” and later works: not intended to be realistic, but intended to be new and improved and I think it’s worse.
No, Laura, I wasn’t trying to entice you to see Jurassic Park again. (I can only bear to watch it myself when it’s on TV and I can keep walking out of the room when it gets to the unbearable parts. But I love the dinosaurs – which are, I just checked, both animatronic and CGI.)
The point of my point was that, in fact, you only think that CGI is always unrealistic because you only notice that a film uses CGI when they do it in such a way as to call attention to it. Toy Story isn’t meant to look like a film in which toys really come to life: it’s a cartoon. It’s done in a new way, as is Shrek, but you see it’s animation because you are meant to see it is.
When you’re not, you don’t.
That’s how the makers of Dragonsong could do the dragons and the firelizards…. so well, you would never know they weren’t real except we’d know they must be.
I don’t want to derail this any further on CGI, so this is my last note here (I’m not trying to get the last word in, either! feel free to respond here on this issue…)
The point of my point was that, in fact, you only think that CGI is always unrealistic because you only notice that a film uses CGI when they do it in such a way as to call attention to it.
I’m not quite as stupid as all that. In The Two Towers, for instance, I think of two different CGIs that worked very differently: First, the army scenes — the long shots. That worked pretty damn well, I thought. Second, the wargs. They did a great job on it — but it still wasn’t good enough; it didn’t pass for real to me. (The worst of all, I thought, was the balrog in Fellowship. Or maybe the eye of sauron which I really didn’t think was good.)
I just think that CGI isn’t there yet on some kinds of things. Close-ups with movement, where we humans are quite able to pick up a lot of nuance even without realizing it — that stuff is very very hard to get right. If the pupils aren’t flaring correctly and often enough, if the nostrils aren’t making tiny motions frequently, little twitches in small muscles, pores — all of these things are stuff we perceive without noticing. That, combined with motion, makes CGI look like CGI to me in those kinds of scenes. So prosthetics are used, but they screw up the tiny motions on the face. Prosthetics + CGI can be pretty good, but they can’t really do whole creatures that have to move. Long shots, crowd shots where there is so much unrelated detail that we can’t really distinguish the many details and our brain is already paring down the information — I think CGI is great for that.
you only think that CGI is always unrealistic because you only notice that a film uses CGI when they do it in such a way as to call attention to it.
When Roger Ebert reviewed Michelle Trachtenberg’s ice-skating movie, he mentioned that she did her own skating. He got a polite letter from the CGI people saying she didn’t – and they were delighted that they’d done their work so seamlessly that a man who’s watched thousands of movies couldn’t catch it.
Coming in late, I second the suggestion of putting the Vorkosigan books on screen, most especially including the Cordelia-centric ones. I’m going to guess that Hollywood would depict Miles as a “dwarf” of about 5′6″ (such as Michael J. Fox or Elijah Wood), and that this would give reasoably good contrast, since Hollywood’s idea of normal male height is 6′ and up. For Miles’ personality, which trumps his height every time anyway, I’d be willing to squint a bit on that point.
Am also fascinated by the notion of letting the routine Hollywood re-write work to remove now-dated sexism in Bradley and McCaffrey stories. I don’t put it past Hollywood to insert some brand new 21st-century sexism somehow, but they’d get past the flat “girls can’t do that” schtick that faced 60s-70s writers’ female characters. It’s also fairly clear in Darkover’s overall history that tower circles were considered subversively free in sexual matters by everyone else, and that Keepers were held to celibacy only during particularly repressive periods when that was socially acceptable, not as an intrinsic feature of using their talents. How a movie would deal with this would probably depend on which of Bradley’s books provided the movie plot.
My suggestion for movie material is Schmitz’s Telzey Amberdon and Trigger Argee books, two women who take very little shit from anybody, and who feature in a number of story-length or novella-length pieces. Schmitz’s other work is worth checking — _The Witches of Karres_ has distinct space-opera possibilities, and several others of his are space opera with colorful, aliens and female human protags. James Schmitz wrote female protagonists at least as often as male, and made them active agents with no apology.
Has someone mentioned the Honor Harrington (aka “female Horatio Hornblower in space”) series? The books are not exactly Deep Lit’rary Stuff, but they get in there with female characters (not just the lead, but the rank and file as well) in a space navy saga.
I think the rape in _Tiger Tiger_ is absolutely NOT portrayed as “OK”. It’s a brutal act from a man who is still little more than an animal, and how traumatic it is for Robin is treated with full seriousness. It’s not brushed off either, the changed Gully is deeply shamed by what he did. Yes, Gully is considered redeemable, and Robin even forgives him later on, but the act itself is neither valourized nor condoned.
I’d like to see Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls made into a movie. Granted they would need to get someone truly amazing to play Sarah….
I also feel confident that it has enough things Hollywood likes (insanity, gratuitous nudity from the ‘tail wolves’, crime) that it might do a decent adaptation. The effects wouldn’t even be too much of an issues as the dragons are supposed to be toys to the rest of the world and only living from Sarah’s perspective.
Though Gate to Women’s Country could be a fantastic film – it’s too blatantly feminist to not get slaughtered in the adaptation. Just briefly imagining the things a casting director alone could do… (shudder)
Kelly Armstrong’s Women of the Otherworld series could make a good urban fantasy franchise. Not feminist per se, but the first couple books in the series directly deal with the misogyny/racism/classism inherit in the entire otherwordly look at modern society.
oh, oh, what about Bareback by Kit Whitfield (Benighted in the USA)? Werewolves, an isolated human protagonist, amazing opportunities for social commentary … !
Sharron Lee and Steve Miller’s Liaden series. Tons of strong women and men, giant sentient turtles, spys, spaceships, power, money, trees, dragons, mercenaries, math, it really can’t get much better. But I have no idea who to trust to produce or direct.
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