Science Fiction worth making films of

Larry Niven's 'World of Ptaavs'.

<http://www.larryniven.org/reviews/10.htm>

A review of the story w/ spoilers:
<http://www.sfreviews.net/woptavvs.html>


The novel (his 1st) was written in 1968, and holds up well considering
it was talking about a future still to come.

It involves telepathy, aliens, a stasis field (that blocks radiation AND
the passage of time), why it even has flying cars in it.

All this and it plays out, well, realistically.

A good thing of the times is the CGI we have could realistically
simulate on screen a mirrored finish required for the stasis fields used
in the beginning of the film.

Also it would help to drape the cityscape with a modern yet updated look.

Still, it's not a story about eyecandy- it actually has a story, a well
written piece that, that actually could be a stage play without special
effects really. This is the most important thing, the characters & the
story. Heck with the Rocket Ships.

Now, how to get the suits to fund it.


TBerk

In article <B2ghd.15975$6q2.14836@newssvr14.news.prodigy.com>, T wrote:
 > Larry Niven's 'World of Ptaavs'.
 >
[SNIP. In this NG, it's safe to assume that everyone is familiar with the
plot, so we don't need to discuss that.]

Interesting, are you proposing WoP as being a suitable Niven story
to be the first Niven brought to screen? As opposed to RingWorld?
That would be interesting. The scale of WoP would seem to be more
within the conventional reach of Hollywood - the area of which they have
experience of making movies. Lets see:
Scene setting - dolphin tank (q.v. 'flipper', /ad nauseam/ )
Los Angeles of the future. (q.v. Blade Runner)
Thrint/ Stasis field (CGI, as you say. Plus also small
latex + animatronics for the eating
tentacles. The trickiest thing would be the
tridactyl hands, and even I can figure out
how to do that. Funny feet, funny gait
should be within the repertoire of any
competent "actor of diminished stature"
[What's the real height of the guy who
played Gimli in LoTR?])
Talking heads, injuries, spaceport (run of the mill)
Mission control and various spaceships. (r.o.t.m.)
Exploding planets (r.o.t.m. Star Trek)


 > All this and it plays out, well, realistically.
 >
Agreed. Details above.

 > A good thing of the times is the CGI we have could realistically
 > simulate on screen a mirrored finish required for the stasis fields used
 > in the beginning of the film.
 >
And at the end. Where did I put my plans for a ship to *retrieve*
the Thrint after he'd been dropped into Jupiter.

 > Also it would help to drape the cityscape with a modern yet updated look.
 >
[Blade Runner, the pretty version. Less rain. I can see 'the suits' saying
"Been there, done that, got the tee-shirt".]

 > Still, it's not a story about eyecandy- it actually has a story, a well
 > written piece that, that actually could be a stage play without special
 > effects really. This is the most important thing, the characters & the
 > story. Heck with the Rocket Ships.
 >
 > Now, how to get the suits to fund it.
 >
That's the interesting thing. Since pretty much all the technologies
required are off-the-shelf, then costs could be pretty accurately
estimated. The only complex CGI I can see is the mirror finish of the Sea
Statue and the stasis field around the cage. And guess what - the Thrint is
in a space suit that's got to be built, and the cage is a fine metal mesh
cage - you've already got the "models" (in the computing/ ray-tracing
sense) you need for doing the CGI. As long as the live actors choreograph
their shots reasonably competently, then the CGI should be a fixed-price
contract for Pixar - "Got a model of the action; got a model of the
reflector; got a picture of each texture for each surface; got raw footage
on digital; got a large processing cluster. 1 week to put the data in; 2
hours processing time to do the rush/ approval frames; 3 days for the full
processing run; here's your quote, sir, for the main processing, which
includes one round of rushes/ re-editing. Any further rounds of re-editing
will cost this much each time. HAND."
You could probably do a good job on it for a few million, and if it
looks good, go back and re-do the gimmicky scenes (flying around in LA, Sea
Statue, spaceport) with better CGI.

Definitely do-able.
And definitely a film that, if it comes out reasonably, would raise
the likelihood of a RingWorld film by a lot. Actually, it could be seen as
a toe-dipper if someone was to think of doing the RingWorld, to see how
"Known Space" plays on the big screen.

--
Aidan Karley,
Aberdeen, Scotland,
Location: 57°10'11" N, 02°08'43" W (sub-tropical Aberdeen), 0.021233<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->