Guardians of the Galaxy: Lessons Learned

The fury Nimitz at the back of issue 4 is much better. They just need to drop those inverted sideburns and give him a proper set of whiskers.

The E wrote:

strapakai wrote:I like your idea of opening the movie with Honor dreaming. What if it was Young trying to rape her in the shower? We'd get action, intrigued, someone to love and someone to hate right off the bat. It would be a hint for future movies. We'd get to see Honor's moves. A hint of skin, for those who it attracts. It would also explain the depth of her reaction to what later happens to Madrigal's crew.

She wakes, out of breath and hugs a cute and cuddly Nimitz.
Instant caring!

Does not work. One, it undermines a lot of Honor's character and credibility. The first introduction to a female character should not be her being threatened with rape. Show her in her area of competence, make the viewer see her as a competent officer first, not a victim.
Two, the plotline this scene belongs to isn't relevant to the story of HotQ. The payoff for it wouldn't happen until Short Victorious War, which is far off into the future.

My thoughts would be perhaps have her dreaming / recalling the her time on War Maiden. Good action, excitement and shows what she is made of. Then to build Nimitz role (even if perhaps technically slightly early), have him intrude on her dream shifting to a more pleasant scene. (ideally perhaps pool/pool-side Frisbee).

This what start of exciting, help explain the relationship with Nimitz that could be harder to do in movie, if done directly as in books. Both showing what kind of person Honor is, and how important Nimitz is AND what stabilizing influence he is on her.

pokermind wrote:
The Movie Poster

The oddity of perception. How many of us who love series of books are disappointed with the moviePoker

I can not think of one movie that was based on a book that I really enjoyed... And when I mean enjoyed it was because Hollywood/movie producers or what ever you call those people up in LA did not INVENT or FABRICATE scenes or story lines that were not in the book just to make a FEW DOLLARS MORE. Look what they have done to LOTR, The Hobbit, Clear and Present Danger, The Sum of All Fears, Star Ship Troopers just to name a few really good books that to my way of thinking Hollywood/movie people ruined by their making things up that never happened.

I love the Honor Harrington series just hate to see it ruined or tarnished by people who think they can make David's story better with their meddling.... MHO for what it is worth

Well, there's going to be changes...probably many of them. Already we have strong signs that Nimitz and the ships aren't going to be exactly as described in the books. In the end, we're going to find out just how well David's writing translates to the screen. There's plenty of material in HoTQ to make a rip-roaring space adventure movie. It can't just be a David Weber novel in visual form, so action, humor and visual spectacle need to pumped up, while infodumps and tedious political doings need to be greatly toned down.

Hopefully, the script won't go through rewrite hell and suffer from the too-many-cooks syndrome, and Evergreen gets the right director. Because that's where the movie can really go off the rails, as the wrong director may decide he doesn't care much for the source material and decides to make his own version of the story. Imagine if Uwe Boll gets hired...who then casts Megan Fox as Honor...who spends most of her time in tight pants and tanl tops. That may not be the worst of it. Someone may decide that the Graysons are too close to Muslims for Hollywood comfort, so they get remade into Space Aliens. Oh, and since the whole political situation is too complex for the average moviegoer to understand, the new Graysons are turned into Evil Space Aliens and made the Bad Guys for the movie, and Haven is left out completely. Oh, and the director thinks Jar Jar Binks was the best thing ever, so Nimitz now talks...with the voice of Gilbert Gottfried. And hey, someone equates the Age Of Sail analog of the battles with pirates, so the ships now fire actual cannons at each other at ranges of 100 meters.

If stuff like that happens, things like the look of the ships will be the least of our worries.

61Cygni wrote:Hopefully, the script won't go through rewrite hell and suffer from the too-many-cooks syndrome, and Evergreen gets the right director. Because that's where the movie can really go off the rails, as the wrong director may decide he doesn't care much for the source material and decides to make his own version of the story. Imagine if Uwe Boll gets hired...who then casts Megan Fox as Honor...who spends most of her time in tight pants and tanl tops. That may not be the worst of it. Someone may decide that the Graysons are too close to Muslims for Hollywood comfort, so they get remade into Space Aliens. Oh, and since the whole political situation is too complex for the average moviegoer to understand, the new Graysons are turned into Evil Space Aliens and made the Bad Guys for the movie, and Haven is left out completely. Oh, and the director thinks Jar Jar Binks was the best thing ever, so Nimitz now talks...with the voice of Gilbert Gottfried. And hey, someone equates the Age Of Sail analog of the battles with pirates, so the ships now fire actual cannons at each other at ranges of 100 meters.

Oh, thank you very much for that mental picture, 61Cyngi. Now I have to go to the store for the X-large bottle of Brain Bleach....

I will make one prediction. They'll call the "Thunder of God" a Battleship, not a Battlecruiser--because everyone knows that a Battleship is something big and mean, but since Battlecruisers haven't been built for 60 years, the term won't add the amount of menace you need to have for the Big Bad.

But hopefully (and as of now it seems the producers are interested in staying with the main story, for potential sequels if nothing else) the movie we finally see will resemble the book we have come to love....more or less.

IMHO as always. YMMV.

Senior Chief wrote:I can not think of one movie that was based on a book that I really enjoyed... And when I mean enjoyed it was because Hollywood/movie producers or what ever you call those people up in LA did not INVENT or FABRICATE scenes or story lines that were not in the book just to make a FEW DOLLARS MORE. Look what they have done to LOTR, The Hobbit, Clear and Present Danger, The Sum of All Fears, Star Ship Troopers just to name a few really good books that to my way of thinking Hollywood/movie people ruined by their making things up that never happened.

I love the Honor Harrington series just hate to see it ruined or tarnished by people who think they can make David's story better with their meddling.... MHO for what it is worth

Or they could add/remove scenes to account for the shift in medium from book to film.

To follow on from your Hobbit example, do you think it would have made sense for Gandalf to disappear for all of the second movie and about half of the third? Later writings said that he left the party to join up with the White Council to remove the Necromancer from Dol Guldur, which is exactly what they're doing in the movie. I listen to a podcast hosted by a professor that teaches college level classes based on Tolkien's works where he analyzes the adaptation process and makes predictions on how certain things will be handled in the movies. He doesn't necessarily agree with all of them, but it's interesting listening. http://www.mythgard.org/activities/riddles-in-the-dark/

Hutch wrote:Oh, thank you very much for that mental picture, 61Cyngi. Now I have to go to the store for the X-large bottle of Brain Bleach....

I will make one prediction. They'll call the "Thunder of God" a Battleship, not a Battlecruiser--because everyone knows that a Battleship is something big and mean, but since Battlecruisers haven't been built for 60 years, the term won't add the amount of menace you need to have for the Big Bad.

But hopefully (and as of now it seems the producers are interested in staying with the main story, for potential sequels if nothing else) the movie we finally see will resemble the book we have come to love....more or less.

IMHO as always. YMMV.

Heh heh, put all that together and you have the ultimate worst-case scenario for the movie...er, actually it could be even worse!

Still, the director usually does put their own stamp on the script. We could get a fan of shakey-cam, or a Michael Bay-type who loves 1000 edits a minute and big loud explosions. Pray that it isn't Uwe Boll.

I agree with Senior chief. I have never enjoyed a movie based on a book or comic book and I've seen so many great works over the years be completely destroyed by Hollywood and it's " hey we know what sells but let's change it up attitude. David lynch's Dune for example. Then there was Eragon and The Watchmen. 10 extra or less of subplot would have made the movie not only make since but retain the genius that made the comics great to begin with. In my opinion, When you start changing stuff around your actually saying that you didn't appreciate the story as it was written. I'm a purist and Originality is my friend. If the book says its a flashback do a flashback if it's a dream do it as a dream. Is that so hard.

I can see where they are trying to cater to a whole new group fans but what are you saying to them when they watch the movie and it's nothing like what's in the books and vice versa.

Hell why don't we make the tree cats sparkle in sunlight. Or maybe the Manticoran marines battle using the weirding way. You could turn prolong into spice!!! Throw in some lightsaber battles or you could change the medusans to parasitic symbiote brain leeches. How about changing impeller drives to warp engines.

Of course these are all my opinions and as we know opinions are like buttholes and they all stink. And what do I know. For all I know these books are total crap but I enjoy them immensely.

I'm sorry that you have never enjoyed a movie adaptation, Duhjoker. I have seen some good adaptations, myself. But your definition precludes even the possibility of a "good" adaptation, because it is impossible to exactly depict the text of a book in a movie. What works in a novel and what works in a movie simply aren't the same.

First of all, unless you are the fastest reader in the world, you cannot fit a full-length novel into a two-hour movie. There simply isn't enough time. Entire scenes from a book have to be cut, at a minimum. And that means rewriting the remaining scenes so that nothing crucial is lost. If you can cut out entire scenes without rewriting the rest, then those scenes should have been cut from the book in the first place.

Second of all, infodumps and mental introspection have to be handled completely differently in a movie. In a movie you can't have three whole pages explaining ship operations or missile combat or social background. You have to demonstrate it, or cut something, either of which requires rewriting.

Modifying a novel to adapt it to the movie format is not necessarily disrespecting the original. I agree that sometimes it is (Starship Troopers is the preeminent example), but modification is always necessary. Or else you just give up the idea of adapting novels to movies entirely.

I am sorry too.

I know that a book has to be condensed in order to fit it into a two hour film. But I also know that reading a half hour of narrative description turns out to be around five seconds on film. The condensing isn't what bothers me. What bothers me is changing original ideas into Hollywood gobbledygook that we've already seen a hundred times or more. Or changing the way a scene develops differently than the book. If the book calls for a scene to happen this way keep it that way. And changing characters is just awful. Nimitz for example. ES' Nimitz 1.0 is quite scary and fierce looking. Reminds me of a dragon. Nimitz is written to be a cute and cuddly creature that only looks fierce when he's in combat mode. Could you imagine the looks of fear on the Mayhews and their children if Honor walked in with that. And sure wouldn't have been any playing with him and forget about offering celery, they would be afraid of losing a finger or two.

All I'm saying is keep it as much to the book as possible. I know omission is necessary but but don't flat out change things from this to that.

Also stuff like ships systems can be explained lil by lil and over time through out the movie. Or while in a battle by showing each system work in real time. There are many efficient ways to go about doing things.

But like I said I'm a purist. And these are my opinions.