Lost Fleet saga as a TV mini-series?

[Kitsune]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lost_Fleet
I think it might make a good TV mini-series. . . .thoughts?

[Mr Bean]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lost_Fleet
I think it might make a good TV mini-series. . . .thoughts?

With cheap enough CGI yes it would make a great Mini Series, small cast good action simple made for TV plots and intrigue. Get a good Blackjack to hold the show together and you get a great man out of time series that slowly morphs into a political series morphs into Are we alone into now the fuck what?

[Dartzap]

It's certainly very procedural in nature, ie the same thing happens in nearly every book Wouldnt mind seeing JAG In Space on the small screen either.

[Zaune]

I don't think you could do it as a miniseries; at a conservative estimate I reckon you'd need at least four one-hour episodes per book, maybe throw in a couple of two-parter for the pilot and one of the really big engagements like Sancere or Lakota so call it 26 episodes to get to the end of the first series. And nearly every single one of those episodes would have a space battle of some sort, which is good for keeping the audience interested but not so good for the budget.

[darth_timon]

I love the books and seeing this realised on the small screen would be fantastic. I'd actually prefer this to Honor Harrington.

[Simon_Jester]

I don't think you could do it as a miniseries; at a conservative estimate I reckon you'd need at least four one-hour episodes per book, maybe throw in a couple of two-parter for the pilot and one of the really big engagements like Sancere or Lakota so call it 26 episodes to get to the end of the first series. And nearly every single one of those episodes would have a space battle of some sort, which is good for keeping the audience interested but not so good for the budget.

Honestly, the books could be compressed pretty substantially. A lot of each book (at least in the first four novels I've read, and I am assuming they're representative) consists of repetition and Hemry detailing character actions and motivations very very clearly to the point where the reader will get it even if he has the social intelligence and cluefulness of a turnip.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if each book could be trimmed down to two hours, especially if certain scenes are compressed. I can't recall a single page of action in any of those books that would require more than 30 seconds of screen time, or a page of dialogue that needs more than a minute, and there's a lot of filler in between. The books are only about 300 pages long, so packing each book into a two-hour movie would hardly be out of the question.

I love the books and seeing this realised on the small screen would be fantastic. I'd actually prefer this to Honor Harrington.

For spectacle it'd be better, but the Honorverse has livelier characters.

Hemry's writing is pretty dry and passionless, and the characters are kind of cardboardy. Geary himself is the only one who really makes the jump from one-dimensional to two-dimensional, at least in the first several novels.

Weber's not great at writing complex characters, but frankly he did a better job than Hemry.

[Kitsune]

What military / semi-military would you give the most lively characters to?
Elizabeth Moon? Joel Shepard?

[Dartzap]

Banks? Reynolds? A Culture tv series would be nifty, as would a Revelation Space one. Doubt the beeb or C4 would be willing though.

[Zaune]

Honestly, the books could be compressed pretty substantially. A lot of each book (at least in the first four novels I've read, and I am assuming they're representative) consists of repetition and Hemry detailing character actions and motivations very very clearly to the point where the reader will get it even if he has the social intelligence and cluefulness of a turnip.

The repitition does get irksome when you read all six of the original series back to back, true. He learned his lesson and started cutting down on it from book five onwards. And I guess that level of detail is kind of unavoidable if you combine limited third person with a plot full of behind the scenes intrigue and wheeler-dealing. The books might have benefited from not having all the action take place from Geary's point of view, with everything he didn't witness being exposition.

Still, all the exposition is directly relevant to the plot and there's not actually that much of it, so personally I can forgive him that.

Hemry's writing is pretty dry and passionless, and the characters are kind of cardboardy. Geary himself is the only one who really makes the jump from one-dimensional to two-dimensional, at least in the first several novels.

Weber's not great at writing complex characters, but frankly he did a better job than Hemry.

Again, I think that's mostly down to everything happening from Geary's point of view. It's not until The Lost Stars -which doesn't even have Geary in it at all- that Hemry stops doing that, and it's a noticeable improvement.

[Simon_Jester]

The repitition does get irksome when you read all six of the original series back to back, true. He learned his lesson and started cutting down on it from book five onwards. And I guess that level of detail is kind of unavoidable if you combine limited third person with a plot full of behind the scenes intrigue and wheeler-dealing. The books might have benefited from not having all the action take place from Geary's point of view, with everything he didn't witness being exposition.

Still, all the exposition is directly relevant to the plot and there's not actually that much of it, so personally I can forgive him that.

It just feels tedious- not because there's so much of it, Lord knows Weber has four times as much exposition in books that take 2-3 times as long to advance the same amount of plot. But because it's all written in this very dry, flat tone, and parts of it are repetitive.

Plus they have their own version of the "does not use contractions" thing going on. I mean, I swear, if he'd just write 'ammo' every time he uses the words 'expendable munitions,' it would shorten the book by thirty pages...

Hemry's writing is pretty dry and passionless, and the characters are kind of cardboardy. Geary himself is the only one who really makes the jump from one-dimensional to two-dimensional, at least in the first several novels.

Weber's not great at writing complex characters, but frankly he did a better job than Hemry.

Again, I think that's mostly down to everything happening from Geary's point of view. It's not until The Lost Stars -which doesn't even have Geary in it at all- that Hemry stops doing that, and it's a noticeable improvement.

Heh.

So maybe it's partly that Hemry needed to improve as a writer, and partly that Geary's perspective on events has a sort of... glassy unreality, a flat psychological affect because he's a fish out of water and everything's a little bit unreal to him?

[Zaune]

You know, I hadn't really looked at it that way, but I think you're right. There's also the fact that every single waking moment we see Geary on the page in eight books, he's in desperate crisis-management mode. (I won't spoil in case you feel like picking up the rest of the series, but suffice it to say that his life only got even more stressful after the triumphant return in Book Six.) Maybe he comes off as a bit flat because he just hasn't got any spare mental system resources to emote with.

[Simon_Jester]

I suppose. The periods he spends in jump-space don't seem quite so pressing and stressful, though.

But yes; everyone seems not only flat, but also very tightly controlled, surprisingly so given how stressful the conditions are.

[Zaune]

Defence mechanism, I guess. The ones who aren't so tightly controlled probably end up shooting themselves or going ashore in straitjackets. I'm reminded a little of the webcomic Gone With The Blastwave only with less black comedy.