morgan freeman has been chosen to kick the bucket after batman 3 is done and nolan has agreed to direct a fourth movie as long as wb can garanteee the 2014 death of micheal caine

This would most certainly bomb if it were made.

The second book contains the "cinema friendly" drama stuff but the first book is far more "cerebral" (I wouldn't necessarily say 'intellectual' either, the plot isn't difficult/obtuse and the characters are relatively thin in the context of drama...it's more of a journey you go on with the main players to investigate the inside of a huge alien spacecraft than anything else). "Cerebral" in that it's more of a "what's goin on in people heads in this totally crazy and unprecedented situation"...of course, it's been a while since I read it. I could hardly finish the 3rd book it sucked so bad and I hear it just gets worse!

A Fincher Rama sounds perfect honestly, but I doubt anybody would distribute or back it financially without gutting it; at best, it would go the route of 'Sunshine' I feel...likely even with a tacked on bad guy just like in Sunshine. Either writers have difficulty with more esoteric antagonists or people find films without specific or even anthropomorphic bad guys uninteresting I guess (meaning even a bad "computer" might not work unless it walks around, and has evil red eyes or something, at some point).

Rama is a good book, but nothing about it suggests that it's in any way suitable for a film version. Probably best to leave it.

It probably wouldn't set the box office on fire because it's not that kind of story. But even though there are now simlar themed SF films, this is one of the first, best, and has been said most atmospheric stories of the type ever written.

No, there are no FPS style Alien shoot em up bits in it (I'm fairly sure there are more than a few films like that already and far more to come) but the story unfolds beautifully and never feels cheap or easy. It also has a SUPERB ending sentence. So there IS a bit of payoff.

There's a reason why it's so well regarded as a Novel and though some will ultimately think it would make a "boring" movie it has to be pointed out that 2001 opened to a good many reviews that called it boring.

I'd prefer 1 attempt at a serious and faithfull book to Movie adaptation of an extremely well regarded book than 20 botched adaptations of sensational books or "reworked" or "reimagined" Movies to make them more Box Office friendly or changed so radically they trade in the name only.

And if you want a similar but ultimately far more SPECTACULAR story to make into a Movie then that story is Greg Bear's EON.

Trouble is if people think Rama would be hard to do fathfully EON would be a frankly unbelievably MASSIVE undertaking. To do it "properly" would take an incredible budget and a visionary Director.

Yeah, NEVER gonna fucking happen but a man can dream...

And if we're dreaming then YES get Childhoods End made too!

Laserpants, obviously you've been 'inspired' by the "rape can be funny" talkback. So original! Aside from the Clarke thing, I think people are just reacting because it's the most lowest-common-denominator, lamest possible joke you could make. Congrats!

Oh and if you want to read conspiracy and knee-jerk reaction into it, I do have a friend whose life has been ruined because of it. He's a (well he WAS a) teacher, and his students thought it'd be just hilarious to pull a 'prank' on him by writing fake confessions on the net and 'outing' him as a child molester. So basically they made the dumbest, most uncreative joke a schoolkid could make about someone who could possibly be in a more helpless situation, considering our guilty-until-proven-innocent culture. You can imagine how parents reacted, and obviously by the time the truth was revealed the damage had been done. Boy, those kids were so fucking smart and hilarious! Using the web for communication and yucks! "But it doesn't actually matter, it's just the net!!"

But like I say, I don't think that's even it when it comes to you. Your 'epic fail' is just that you couldn't have been more lame or uncreative, people are calling you on it and you're feebly trying to defend yourself. Hooray! And I don't think anyone buys that you've throatfucked ANYONE in your life. Actually your expertise COULD come from the opposite though...

Obviously, I'd prefer if they kept Rama as close to the source material as possible, but I'd trust Fincher to do whatever he wants, the guy knows quality pretty well. I think this could've given Avatar a run for its money. Not sure why a lack of Freeman would be a dealbreaker, though.

And what's wrong with Freeman, anyway? Mo' Dark Knight money, mo' problems?

....to the notion that Gentry Lee ruined the series. If anything I think he took an impossible-to-end plot and wrapped it up pretty well.

You know, like those people that still get the vanity plates even though they have to misspell their own name!

And Ebonic, he MUST be asleep, 'cause my last post got no shitstorm tantrum either. Or maybe he just doesn't read the ones that aren't all about him from the get-go/subject header...