Movies that would be cool, but will never happen

[uv23]

Battletech. There's an amazing wealth of epic historical drama throughout the succession wars and after. Would make for an amazingly epic sci-fi trilogy (atleast) of movies if done properly.

 

[Storm Raven]

The Argonath statues would have axes instead of swords. I'd make Boromir's horn a ringing in the hills, rather than the pathetic tooting it was.

While most of your quibbles amount to taste issues, I couldn't let these two go by without commenting.

(1) The Argonath in the movie were armed as they were described in the book: one with an axe, and one with a sword. Check the scene more closely.

(2) Boromir's horn sounded exactly like horns of that type sound. To have it "ringing in the hills" would have been an innacuracy for that type of equipment.

 

[Tewligan]

The recent movie "Dagon" is a decent adaptation of "The Shadow over Innsmouth", but no great shakes.

Ooh, I quite enjoy "Dagon" - I think it's a lot more true to Lovecraft than "Re-Animator". Mind you, I also love "Re-animator", but it's a little too wacky to be considered Lovecraftian.

 

[Rackhir]

(2) Boromir's horn sounded exactly like horns of that type sound. To have it "ringing in the hills" would have been an innacuracy for that type of equipment.

Ah, LoTR IS after all epic fantasy. Complaining that the horn "ringing in the hills" is not realistic, doesn't really make any sense. In the book it was after all heard by Faramir and his men far, far, far away. Boromir's horn wasn't just supposed to be a tinny little thing you could only hear a couple of hundred feet away. It was supposed to echo for miles, I think from one end to the other of Gondor iirc.

Ooh, I quite enjoy "Dagon" - I think it's a lot more true to Lovecraft than "Re-Animator". Mind you, I also love "Re-animator", but it's a little too wacky to be considered Lovecraftian.

Granted, Re-Animator wasn't the most "Canon" of movies, but it was a Good Movie, in it's own right. What perhaps was more important, it worked as a movie and was a good updating of the original story to modern times. So I would rate it as being better than Dagon, which was missing that certain something that takes a movie from "Eh." to "That was great!".

 

[Dark Jezter]

If the LOTR movies were straight translations of the novels, they'd be the funkiest musicals in history.

I'd like to see a movie trilogy of R.A. Salvatore's Icewind Dale Trilogy series of novels. Those books are great action/adventure fun, and a big-screen adaptation of them would be very cool to see.

I would also like to see a Braveheart-style film about Alaric the Goth; the barbarian who sacked Rome in 410 AD. Unfortunately, if Hollywood made a movie of it, they'd probably throw in cheesy things like a love story and Alaric having a swordfight with the Emperor of Rome.

 

[KenM]

I would love to see A Song of Ice and Fire, but to do it right IMO, it would have to be an epic TV series, like Babylon 5 had a 5 year arc. Also to keep all the adult stuff in it, have to be on HBO or Showtime. And they are working on a LoTR musical.

 

[Shadowdancer]

And I'd reduce all the denigration of the supporting characters (. . . and Merry, Pippin, and Gimli's fourth-wall-breaking descents into comic-relief status).

Breaking the fourth wall? When? I agree that they descended into comic-relief status, but I cannot recall any instance of them breaking the fourth wall.

Haven't seen the third film yet, or peeked at a script, but I have my worries, especially about the Scouring of the Shire.

Well, you're going to disappointed. There will be no Scouring of the Shire. Peter Jackson said in interviews back when FotR came out that there would be no Scouring. The images Frodo saw in the scrying basin are going to be the only depiction of the Scouring.

 

[LoneWolf23]

Regarding all the "ideal adaptation ideas" for LoTR, I think the Fellowship Extended DVD's "Making of" documentary expanded well enough into the difficulties of adapting Tolkien's "Magnum Opus" into cinematic format. There's simply Too Much in the novels to create a 100% Faithful adaptation in a Trilogy Format (In fact, they were originally planning on cutting it into two movies, but thankfully they got a producer who said "You can't make two movies with this. It's gotta be a trilogy." Thank god not all Hollywood Producers are idiots)

In order to do as Trayten suggests, Peter Jackson would've had to create a made-for-TV Maxi-series with 12 or so 1-hour episodes, or perhaps just a Lord of the Ring TV series, and even then it would've suffered from cutting or editing.

 

[barsoomcore]

If the LOTR movies were straight translations of the novels, they'd be the funkiest musicals in history.

I defy anyone (after they've read this post) to see the Argonath in The Fellowship of the Ring and NOT immediately hear the Supremes in their heads:

"Stop! In the name of love..."

 

[Henry]

I'd like to see a movie trilogy of R.A. Salvatore's Icewind Dale Trilogy series of novels. Those books are great action/adventure fun, and a big-screen adaptation of them would be very cool to see.

I would myself enjoy seeing a drizzt story on the big screen, and I don't want to derail this too much, but I doubt it could be done without offending any political organization or person. If there were major accusations with George Lucas over Jar Jar Binks' supposed cultural origins, the very concepts behind "Dark Elves" that we take for granted would be impossible not to misconstrue.

OTOH, X-Men's Nightcrawler getup was very convincing... maybe it could be done.