Paul Cornell to Adapt Culture Story

[Big Orange]

Personal DW favourite, Paul Cornell, is going to adapt the slightly ropey Iain M. Banks shortstory, The State of the Art, for BBC Radio 4. Let's hope this is a stepping stone for mini-series adaption for one of the longer Culture novels.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Use of Weapons movie. It's been on the cards for over a decade, but dammit, I need to have one some day.

[andrewgpaul]

Excession movie; it'll be an unintelligible mess, but at least it'll have some interesting spaceship porn.

Admiral, UoW would be interesting onscreen; there'd need to be some way of distinguishing the 'present' scenes from the 'past' ones. Filming the past in B&W might work, but I don't think audiences would buy that.

[Big Orange]

Has it now? I would much prefer a mini-series of at least seven and a half hour long episodes to properly render most Culture books into live action (but The Player of Games is the most movie friendly Culture novel, rather than the more multi-layered and longer Use of Weapons).

However on the big screen adaption of Use of Weapons it would be cool if you see Zakalwe talking to the guy who rubs down tables in a cafe and then the camera pulls back over the promenade section the cafe was situated on, then a giant skyscraper sized substructure which is in turn a small component of a vastly larger superstructure of the GSV, then the superstructure is the aft area of the GSV's dozens of kilometres long sprawl - then it pulls back even quickly out through the layers of atmosphere and shielding, until it breaks through the outer skin of the GSV's encapsulating ovoid outer hull of energy, where you finally see that the vast GSV thundering through the electric brightness of Hyperspace.

[CaptJodan]

Excession movie; it'll be an unintelligible mess, but at least it'll have some interesting spaceship porn.

I second the motion. Though I admit the horrid deaths at the end of LtW would be fun to see on screen as well.

I really should eventually read Player of Games, though. Seems to be a lot of people's favorite and it's one I have yet to read.

[Netko]

Consider Phelbas?

I think that one would be the best introductory one - least trippy, lots of spaceship porn options, love interests abound etc, and you can jump right in with the action compared to many others that start out slow.

[Tatterdemalion]

Admiral, UoW would be interesting onscreen; there'd need to be some way of distinguishing the 'present' scenes from the 'past' ones. Filming the past in B&W might work, but I don't think audiences would buy that.

So the Memento approach basically. Worked pretty well the first time, as long as it's well structured it's certainly doable.

[andrewgpaul]

That would work fine, except for people complaining they went to see a big SF film and it was in black and white

[Admiral Valdemar]

Screw 'em. If Nolan directed it, it'd be superb. No one complains about Batman Begins being a gritty almost film noir adaptation of a comic book hero.

If it isn't Trek or Wars then most people don't care for sci-fi unless it's really well done and subtle and can be related to, say, Children of Men.

[Silver Jedi]

I'm going to second Consider Phlebas. It has enough action to keep casual viewers engaged, but there is enough depth and charachter drama in the plot to satisfy even the mainstream critics.

[andrewgpaul]

If State of the Art is well received, that might mean Use of Weapons could folow it; after all, there's a common character.

[Axiomatic]

But just think how spectacularly WRONG the advertisement campaign could be.

ONE MAN.

ONE GUN.

THIS SUMMER, THE FATE OF A PLANET WILL BE DECIDED.

[Crazedwraith]

If State of the Art is well received, that might mean Use of Weapons could folow it; after all, there's a common character.

2 in fact. If we count 'The Drone' though his little footnotes might not make the radio version.

I can't see Use Of Weapons making a good movie myself. The whole plot revolves on you not being able to tell the difference between Cheradine in future and Zalkawe in the past. It strikes me this would be hard to do in film. Especially the bone in the shoulder bit.

[andrewgpaul]

Was that Skaffen Amitskaw in SotA? That never occurred to me before.

[Crazedwraith]

Was that Skaffen Amitskaw in SotA? That never occurred to me before.

Yep. The last chapter is just him bitching about Sma. Signed Skaffen-Amitskaw (Drone, Offensive)

[Axiomatic]

Wait, State of the Art isn't the one with the gun. That was a Gift from the Culture.

[Big Orange]

When I went and saw Mr. Banks himself at a signing session, last evening at Waterstones' Bristol branch, Banks did mention that The Player of Games was bought out by Pathe' Studios way back in the mid 1990s, with the chronically disaster proned Terry Gilliam being a candidate for directing the possible movie, with plans of filming it in China (with the big crowds and exotic scenery). But for some reason or another it sadly fell through. Banks said "don't hold your breath" about a big budget movie adaption of any of his M books.

As for the event itself: Iain Banks seemed a little taller than I expected him to be, and seemed a genuinely nice and good humoured guy, despite the occasional swear word. He said his middle name, Mengis, was actually his family's real surname but it was switched about a grandparent nearly a hundred years ago (a commie union guy on the run from the law). I had Matter and Against a Dark Background signed by him (I was last in a very long queue).

And during the question session I asked two questions: why there are so many humanoids, and why are Culture Minds so benign.