Well, someone sure did because the movie's a pretty sharp satirizing of the book's ideology.
Robert A. Heinlein
- Thread starter Mysterion
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Well, someone sure did because the movie's a pretty sharp satirizing of the book's ideology.
I started on his so-called "juveniles" (The Rolling Stones, Space Cadet, Starman Jones and others) and still think they hold up, story-wise, even today.
I tried Stranger In A Strange Land and The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress and could not really get into them. Time Enough For Love intrigued me enough to go back and read his "future history" stories (The Long Watch, Lifeline, Methusaleh's Children, etc.) and I really enjoyed them. TEFL did put me off a little with the subplot about Lazarus, as mentioned upthread, shtuping his mother.
Number of the Beast is where, IMHO, he really goes off the rails on the Crazy Train. By the time we get to his last book, To Sail Beyond the Sunset, we're having him practically advocate multi-generational incest while suggesting that people who smoke pot should be hanged.
Still, it would be a great tragedy if Heinlein faded entirely into obscurity.
I tried Stranger In A Strange Land and The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress and could not really get into them. Time Enough For Love intrigued me enough to go back and read his "future history" stories (The Long Watch, Lifeline, Methusaleh's Children, etc.) and I really enjoyed them. TEFL did put me off a little with the subplot about Lazarus, as mentioned upthread, shtuping his mother.
Number of the Beast is where, IMHO, he really goes off the rails on the Crazy Train. By the time we get to his last book, To Sail Beyond the Sunset, we're having him practically advocate multi-generational incest while suggesting that people who smoke pot should be hanged.
Still, it would be a great tragedy if Heinlein faded entirely into obscurity.
I love Heinlein, although there's still a lot of his stuff I haven't read. My favorite is probably Friday.
As for fading into obscurity, I doubt it; the science in all old science fiction has become or will become dated, Clarke and Asimov included. This hasn't stopped Verne and Wells from staying in print, or the sub-genre of Steampunk from evolving.
As for fading into obscurity, I doubt it; the science in all old science fiction has become or will become dated, Clarke and Asimov included. This hasn't stopped Verne and Wells from staying in print, or the sub-genre of Steampunk from evolving.
I am the man this thread was made for. I found RAH first, with Bradbury. I love his juveniles, even today, they speak to the reader on a level beyond the juvenile, if you will. His adult stories? The Past Through Tomorrow is amazing. I LOVE If This Goes On... and Coventry is a fascinating view on the potential evils of segregation. I often quote him(RAH) in everyday conversation and have developed a reputation amongst my friends as a funny and wise person because of it. His novels - Moon, Rolling Stones and Podkayne are the best, IMO, although Glory Road is a funny read because it predicts the spoof form of the classic Tolkein fantasy. More importantly, he made Coca Cola and other simple brand names a part of his stories, predicting the presence of corporate America in our pop culture. If his works fade then I think we will suffer from Santayana's Warning and fail to learn from what came before. Might I add that The Menace From Earth, The Long Watch and Methuselah's Children are awesome as well.
Anyone liking his style should check out Allen Steele's Near Earth series-Orbital Decay, Lunar Descent, etc
Anyone liking his style should check out Allen Steele's Near Earth series-Orbital Decay, Lunar Descent, etc
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Yeah, but the fans don't get paid seven figures to direct fan films. PV did.
So he made a movie out of whole cloth that just happened to use the same names from the book, but he never read the book? How does that work again?
The movie is the novel's vision if Heinlein had used his brain.
Yeah, but the fans don't get paid seven figures to direct fan films. PV did.
Exactly the point.
He gets paid well to make films because, among other things, he's got his own experiences, ideas and tastes and is going to produce something other than hagiography.
There was a much more receptive audience and market, at that time, for a Verhoeven movie than for a militaristic Heinlein flick. The kind of "creative thinking" you're asking for results in this:
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6W07bFa4TzM[/yt]
That's called a "fan film;" we have a whole forum devoted to them.
Yeah, but the fans don't get paid seven figures to direct fan films. PV did.
Exactly the point.
He gets paid well to make films because, among other things, he's got his own experiences, ideas and tastes and is going to produce something other than hagiography.
Unless there are enough fans of the original source material to bitch and complain so much that the studio demands a faithful adaptation, which is why the final installment of Harry Potter was done in two parts. If Heinlein had HP's legions of fans PV wouldn't have gotten away with "producing something other."
But it doesn't, so he did.
PS: I thought Atlas Shrugged was a great film.
And there are reasons for that.
If Heinlein were the kind of writer who could command a Stephen King-like following, he wouldn't be Heinlein. As such, you get to choose "popularized (or bastardized, your choice) Heinlein-based movies" or "no Heinlein-based movies."
Or, possibly, a third category: "Heinlein-based movies produced on Asylum budgets."
Here's the bad news, then: the producers could have just piled all that money in a parking lot and set it on fire, for all it would have profited them (ironically enough, Rand would not have been impressed by business people who made such unprofitable choices). If you're waiting for Hollywood to decide that producing expensive films that bomb, in order to push the ideologies of writers like Rand and Heinlein, is a worthwhile business model...don't.
Not that VH's Starship Troopers was up to his usual level of success. Sow's ears and silk purses...
Well to Atlas Shrugged Credit, by all accounts it was a inexpensive production.
I'd never expect that. Hollywood is too busy spending money on liberal think pieces...that still bomb.
In fact, most ideologically-driven films of any stripe don't do well commercially. Commercial movies in this country succeed by entertaining people, not attempting to "better" them.
That most commercial film reflects a "socially liberal mindset," OTOH, is largely a matter of giving the audience - mainly young people who poll to the left on just about every non-economic topic you can name - what entertains them.
So while a sex-laden, gross-out comedy that may offend the socially conservative or religious can be justified entirely on a dollars-and-cents basis without regard to the ideology of its backers or creators, a right-leaning film - one that digs any deeper than big-muscled-dude-blows-up-foreigners-real-good, anyway - is almost always a vanity project doomed to fail.
That's true, but what's interesting are the exceptions to this rule. The ideology has to be packaged in a certain way, and the movie has to be released at just the right time.
Take The Exorcist, for example. For all the criticism it attracted for its puke and head-spinning, that was a very conservative film, at its heart. And it came out at just the right time to capitalize on fears that the 60s had gone too far, that young people and women were out of control, that society was crumbling, etc.
That's true - notably, these things stand as occasional exceptions. The Exorcist (as a film, anyway, rather than the book) contains little, if any, explicit political ideology and the social themes are submerged and to some degree subverted.
A prime example: the "viewpoint character," Father Karras, is a thoroughly modern priest. He's a psychiatrist; his initial response to someone seeking exorcism is "first you need a time machine back to the thirteenth century."
Though Karras eventually comes to accept the supernatural, his final solution to dealing with the demon throws away the traditional trappings of ecclesiastical authority, dogma and practice in favor of tried-and-true Hollywood emotionalism: Regan isn't rescued by the agency of the Church (Merrin is, in fact, defeated by the demon) but by a moment of personal rage and violence and impulsive sacrifice by Karras.
If anything, the message of the movie version is that while evil is real, religion and tradition are ineffective - only the feeling individual makes a difference. "Librul touchy-feely claptrap," that.
Oh, regarding "spoilers" - the movie is almost forty years old. Rosebud is a sled.
What!!! Thanks for ruining the movie for me.
Next thing you will say that Darth Vadar is Luke's daddy.
Expo67
Captain
That's true - notably, these things stand as occasional exceptions. The Exorcist (as a film, anyway, rather than the book) contains little, if any, explicit political ideology and the social themes are submerged and to some degree subverted.
A prime example: the "viewpoint character," Father Karras, is a thoroughly modern priest. He's a psychiatrist; his initial response to someone seeking exorcism is "first you need a time machine back to the thirteenth century."
Though Karras eventually comes to accept the supernatural, his final solution to dealing with the demon throws away the traditional trappings of ecclesiastical authority, dogma and practice in favor of tried-and-true Hollywood emotionalism: Regan isn't rescued by the agency of the Church (Merrin is, in fact, defeated by the demon) but by a moment of personal rage and violence and impulsive sacrifice by Karras.
If anything, the message of the movie version is that while evil is real, religion and tradition are ineffective - only the feeling individual makes a difference. "Librul touchy-feely claptrap," that.
Oh, regarding "spoilers" - the movie is almost forty years old. Rosebud is a sled.
The 1973 horror film a conservative one? I THINK NOT! That movie was not only offensive in A LOT of ways, it should have also been X - rated!
Not only was it offensive, it was downright revolting! What happened to the two priests was definately brutal and violent, and also downright tragic. Granted they saved the life of a young girl who was assaulted and brutalized by that evil force, but it was still at a great cost.
God Love that poor kid. What that young girl had endured, is something horrific beyond comprehension. A violation that is too horrendous, hostile, and unfathomable to describe.
That film, like A Clockwork Orange some two years before, should have been banned!
Banned indefinitely!
True.
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