Hi, I've read that there's a Ringworld miniseries to be or that has been made by I think it's the SyFy channel. It was supposed to have been started in 2013 and something led me to believe it would be aired in March of this year. Does anyone know anything about it and if so how I can find out more about it? I'd like to buy it on DVD if possible. Does anyone know if it is possible? Thank you for any help! David
^For reasons I have yet to fathom. I mean it wasn't even that interesting a story the first time round. As for Ringworld...I think it'd be pretty straight forward to adapt on a modest budget. IIRC for the most part the characters are walking/flying around landscapes that are essentially Earthlike. They'd just need to do a little sky replacement whenever the shot requires it. Speaker could be a bit of an issue since there are a lot of bad ways to do "cat people" on a limited budget, but not a lot of good ones. To me thought the biggest issue would be the plot. I admit it's been some years since I read the books, but if memory serves there's not a lot in terms dramatic stakes and even less in terms of character motivation. IIRC Louis is just doing it because he's 200 years old and bored, the woman (who's name I've forgotten since she made next to no lasting impression on me) just tags along because...and I totally forget why Speaker is involved. Once there, they just wander around, getting into scrapes (which admittedly is ideal for episodic storytelling) after which Louis decides to go home, while the other stay because reasons. I suspect any adaptation may attempt to incorporated more of the Pak oriented elements used in later novels to give things a little more structure. It's the same basic problem with adapting 'Rendezvous with Rama'. It's not "they came, they saw, they toppled an Evil Empire/were picked of one by one by scary things with pointy teeth/found the answer to life the universe and everything". It's more like "they came, they saw, they went away." Don't get me wrong, these are great books, well worthy of their status and acclaim, but aside from the visual sceptical, they're perhaps not best suited to the medium. At least not under the kinds of demands and expectations a production of this type are usually subject to.
I think earlier in the month, SyFy Channel approved Development for a Ringworld Mini-Series (Check back through the SciFi Series Pilot thread, I believe)
Ringworld and Childhood's End were announced as in development as Syfy miniseries in April 2013. No greenlight has been given yet for either and it looks like both are on the backburner for now as Syfy is making the miniseries Ascension this year.
Teela Brown is the young woman along for the ride. Nessus the Pierson's Puppeteer ensured her participation because the Puppeteers had been breeding humnas for luck (their ability to affect probability factors) by rigging the breeding lotteries for several hundred years. For Nessus, Teela was literay a good luck charm. And speaking, er, writing of Nessus, he could prove even more problematic to depict than Ch'mee the Kzin. You'd have only two practical alternatives, animatronic puppeteering (yeah, I notice the irony) and/or CGI. At least Speaker to Animals could be handled through a Henson-esque type costume and remain an on set "practical" illusion, but full body shots of Nessus would involve far more setup. Sincerely, Bill
No reason you can't do both. Visual effects are about using the best technique for each shot, and often mixing techniques helps sell the illusion. Jurassic Park used animatronics for closeups and stationary creatures, but used CGI for shots that couldn't be done live, like full-length shots of dinosaurs running or jumping. These days, though, CGI is good enough that fully CG creatures can be pretty convincing. Primeval did a good job with fully CG prehistoric creatures, and Sinbad from the same producers did a good job with its mythical monsters. Feature films often use digital doubles of its live actors for elaborate stunts or shots that integrate them into CG environments; and then there's the digital tiger in Life of Pi. So we've reached the point where a digital character can look as real and solid as a living being, at least with enough time, talent, and money put into it.
^But again, didn't that whole "luck charm" thing (which incidentally makes zero sense) not come up until on of the later books? Honestly my memory as sort of blurred most of them together. Similarly, I can't remember just how much of a role Nessus had in the first one. I want to say that he only appeared at the beginning (and end?) If I'm right then he'd be less of a problem since it's only a handful of scenes. Speaker on the other hand has to do a hell of a lot more, so whatever method they choose to realise that design, it needs to be very robust or it'll end up looking terrible. Probably the best approach would be an elaborate make-up appliance, but they'd need to cast a tall actor with some serious presence. Christopher Heyerdahl would be my first choice. On the kind of budget they're likely to have, going full CG would probably be a bad idea given the fur and an animatronic mask would be too difficult to get a convincing performance out of.
Spoiler: Spoiler for Ringworld Novel No, the luck of Teela Brown is kind of the central plot of Ringworld. She is intended as Nessus' good luck charm but it's ultimately ironic because it turns out her destiny was to get to Ringworld so all the bad things that happen to them were really in service of her luck. Also Nessus is central throughout the entire book.