Goodreads Bookshelf
Fantasy to film
posted Sunday, 17 December 2006
In the wake of seeing Eragon, it occurs to me to wonder why some other fantasy novels and series haven't been made into movies. Again, I haven't read Eragon or its successors, but I've read a lot of other stuff and I can tell you that there are plenty out there that are more original than this series seems to be; what's more, there are plenty that would probably adapt better to the big screen.
Of course, in the wake of the success of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy, the taste as far as fantasy goes is toward epic fantasy and the problem here is that most works in this genre that would be worth making into films are so long (the same looks to have been true of Eragon) that substantial cuts would be necessary (as was also true of LotR, of course). The problem is that it's usually hard to make cuts from a story like this without destroying large parts of what made the novels successful in the first place. Epic fantasy is, by definition, epic and that means long. We're talking about a lot of characters woven into a tapestry of world-historical significance. You could, for instance, take any one volume of George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire and make a trilogy out of that one book--and you'd still have to make significant cuts. Ditto the amazing recent The Prince of Nothing series by R. Scott Bakker. All of which is to say that these wonderful series will probably never be made into films. Of course, that's fine: they're great novels, so how much do we really need great film versions? However, those of us who appreciate the fantasy genre in print would, I think, love to see more and better fantasy films out there, even if not all of our favorites make it.
There are two fantasy series, though, that I think would be perfect for the big screen (both, however, are not "epic" enough for the current tastes--perhaps when this fad is played out...?). I'm thinking first of Roger Zelazny's two Amber series: the series breaks down into two series of 5 books each, but the beauty here for adaptation is that each novel in the series runs quite a bit shorter than the average fantasy novel: roughly 150-250 pages in Mass Market Paperback editions. They're fast-paced stories filled with good dialogue, oportunities for great visuals and special effects, and they have an originality which shines through even decades after Zelazny started writing the series.
Similarly, the more recent Vlad Taltos series by Steven Brust, which I've review here, has the same advantages: fast-paced stories, good dialogue, and relatively short length-per-installment. Come on Hollywood--start reading more fantasy so you can get to more of the good stuff--even if you don't make movies out of all of them, maybe you'll at least learn a thing or two about the writing that makes a good fantasy novel and, similarly, a good fantasy movie. Maybe, so armed, they could write a good original fantasy film that's actually--gasp--original? It's actually been done before, but I suppose at this point fantasy is viewed as too marginal of a genre unless it comes with a pre-made audience.
Your thoughts?
Of course, in the wake of the success of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy, the taste as far as fantasy goes is toward epic fantasy and the problem here is that most works in this genre that would be worth making into films are so long (the same looks to have been true of Eragon) that substantial cuts would be necessary (as was also true of LotR, of course). The problem is that it's usually hard to make cuts from a story like this without destroying large parts of what made the novels successful in the first place. Epic fantasy is, by definition, epic and that means long. We're talking about a lot of characters woven into a tapestry of world-historical significance. You could, for instance, take any one volume of George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire and make a trilogy out of that one book--and you'd still have to make significant cuts. Ditto the amazing recent The Prince of Nothing series by R. Scott Bakker. All of which is to say that these wonderful series will probably never be made into films. Of course, that's fine: they're great novels, so how much do we really need great film versions? However, those of us who appreciate the fantasy genre in print would, I think, love to see more and better fantasy films out there, even if not all of our favorites make it.
There are two fantasy series, though, that I think would be perfect for the big screen (both, however, are not "epic" enough for the current tastes--perhaps when this fad is played out...?). I'm thinking first of Roger Zelazny's two Amber series: the series breaks down into two series of 5 books each, but the beauty here for adaptation is that each novel in the series runs quite a bit shorter than the average fantasy novel: roughly 150-250 pages in Mass Market Paperback editions. They're fast-paced stories filled with good dialogue, oportunities for great visuals and special effects, and they have an originality which shines through even decades after Zelazny started writing the series.
Similarly, the more recent Vlad Taltos series by Steven Brust, which I've review here, has the same advantages: fast-paced stories, good dialogue, and relatively short length-per-installment. Come on Hollywood--start reading more fantasy so you can get to more of the good stuff--even if you don't make movies out of all of them, maybe you'll at least learn a thing or two about the writing that makes a good fantasy novel and, similarly, a good fantasy movie. Maybe, so armed, they could write a good original fantasy film that's actually--gasp--original? It's actually been done before, but I suppose at this point fantasy is viewed as too marginal of a genre unless it comes with a pre-made audience.
Your thoughts?
Your comments, as always, are most welcome. (3)