Why the sudden lack of new releases?

[Christopher]

Have you ever seen Total Recall, Minority Report, A Scanner Darkly, or Blade Runner? Those are all based on stories he wrote.

Very loosely, in most cases. And a number of other films as well, including Paycheck and Next:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001140/

It's amazing how popular the guy's work is in Hollywood, considering what weird, freaky stuff he wrote. But Hollywood likes to imitate, so I guess they figured that if this guy's work resulted in Blade Runner and Total Recall, it was worth mining further. (BR actually didn't do well at the box office, but it was critically well-received and found success on home video.)

 

[Therin of Andor]

I read Warped recently for the first time, and I didn't see what was so bad about it. Nothing great, but nothing terrible either.

The story concept was fine. But it was written in such turgid prose. I really had to force myself to keep reading. Then I endured poor Rene Auberjonois attempting to narrate the audio version.

I loved "Blade Runner" the movie and enjoyed "Total Recall". I even bought KW Jeter's "Blade Runner" novel sequels, but never been game to open them.

 

[tmclough]

Have you ever seen Total Recall, Minority Report, A Scanner Darkly, or Blade Runner? Those are all based on stories he wrote.

I've heard of all of them except A Scanner Darkly, but I've never watched any of them.

 

[Steve Roby]

I loved "Blade Runner" the movie and enjoyed "Total Recall". I even bought KW Jeter's "Blade Runner" novel sequels, but never been game to open them.

Have you read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Jeter's BR novels try to reconcile the movie with the original novel. It's an interesting approach, and I can understand why he might try to do it, but it didn't entirely work for me.

Have you ever seen Total Recall, Minority Report, A Scanner Darkly, or Blade Runner? Those are all based on stories he wrote.

I've heard of all of them except A Scanner Darkly, but I've never watched any of them.

At the very least you should see Blade Runner. It's influenced a hell of a lot of written SF, movies, TV, comics, anime, manga, music videos, etc. Total Recall is not good but Minority Report and A Scanner Darkly are pretty good.

 

[Christopher]

Well, Total Recall isn't universally panned. I think it was pretty successful in theaters. Its violence is excessive and gratuitous, which is pretty much a given for a Paul Verhoeven film; and its science is complete nonsense, but that's pretty much a given for just about any movie blockbuster. But it's an effective homage to Hitchcockian thrillers. Hitchcock preferred implied to graphic violence, but aside from that, it did often feel like the kind of SF film Hitchcock would've made.

 

[Lonemagpie]

Well, Total Recall isn't universally panned. I think it was pretty successful in theaters. Its violence is excessive and gratuitous, which is pretty much a given for a Paul Verhoeven film; and its science is complete nonsense, but that's pretty much a given for just about any movie blockbuster.

Of course, given the premise that it may all be a delusion, the science is deliberately wacky and gory because it's being taken from the lead character's imagination...

 

[Christopher]

^Yeah, that's how I rationalize the scientific lunacy (though it's not from Quaid's imagination, rather it's the scenario designed by the Rekall corporation for his "vacation"). But I don't think that was really the intent of the filmmakers.

 

[Steve Roby]

Some of Total Recall's makeup and special effects looked pretty cheap and unconvincing even at the time, though, and the acting is generally awful.

 

[Christopher]

Well, for what it's worth, those makeup and special effects won an Oscar and were nominated for Saturn and BAFTA Awards. So I don't think the general consensus at the time would've agreed with you.

As for the acting, one doesn't expect subtlety from a Schwarzenegger film to begin with. And when you've got Ronny Cox and Michael Ironside as the bad guys, well, what more do you need?

 

[ProtoAvatar]

^Yeah, that's how I rationalize the scientific lunacy (though it's not from Quaid's imagination, rather it's the scenario designed by the Rekall corporation for his "vacation"). But I don't think that was really the intent of the filmmakers.

I think the filmmajers did intend all to be an illusion - the sheer number and quality of clues they left being the proof - at the begining, in the virtual vacations office, we even saw a picture of the future female lead - not to mention the 'alien artifacts' mention.

 

[Steve Roby]

Well, for what it's worth, those makeup and special effects won an Oscar and were nominated for Saturn and BAFTA Awards. So I don't think the general consensus at the time would've agreed with you.

If they liked stuff like this they're welcome to it.

 

[Dave Scarpa]

Well, for what it's worth, those makeup and special effects won an Oscar and were nominated for Saturn and BAFTA Awards. So I don't think the general consensus at the time would've agreed with you.

As for the acting, one doesn't expect subtlety from a Schwarzenegger film to begin with. And when you've got Ronny Cox and Michael Ironside as the bad guys, well, what more do you need?

"See You At the Parrty Richter !"

 

[Therin of Andor]

Have you read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Jeter's BR novels try to reconcile the movie with the original novel. It's an interesting approach...

I bought DADoES when the movie came out, but still haven't read it, only skimmed it for an article I was writing at the time. I'd had no complaints about his ST novel, "DS9: Bloodletter" and I recognised his name on a second hand copy of Morlock Night (1979) and grabbed that as well, but then "DS9: Warped" was such a disappointment. The same year (1995) was the first of his "Blade Runner" sequels, but I have to admit that my non-ST SF pile was growing - and left me in a quandary about whether to keep buying the rest on spec.

 

[shadowedgalaxy]

I remember when 20 novels came out each year. Now its only like, 8...

 

[Christopher]

I remember when 20 novels came out each year. Now its only like, 8...

Actually it's normally more like 16 or so when you take trade paperbacks into account. The number is lower this year (actually 9 original titles) because of a unique set of circumstances. We already know of 12 original titles on the schedule for next year, and there could be additional trade or YA novels announced later.

And the average novel today is longer and more substantial than the average novel back when there were two dozen coming out a year. The tradeoff for that higher frequency was that the books had to be shorter. Indeed, a lot of those two dozen books per year were actually duologies, single stories published in two volumes. Plus we have a lot more trade paperbacks now than we had in those days. So the decrease in output is not as significant as it seems from the raw numbers.

 

[JWolf]

Star Wars has jumped the shark and it is time to give it a decent burial.

Star Trek still has plenty of life left.