perfidy

From murdoc, we hear that there is a new Heinlein movie-book-adaptation thingy in the works. Heinlein's classic juvenile novel Have Spacesuit, Will Travel has been given to the Oscar winning screenwriter David Reynolds (Finding Nemo) for conversion into what hopefully will be the first decent adaptation of a Heinlein book. No word on when the movie is planned to be released.

As I commented in mudoc's post, the track record for Heinlein movie adaptations is abysmal. %$#&^&#$#*ing Verhoeven crucified one of my favorite all time novels. He and his @#$%head screenwriter completely missed the point of the book. And worse, in the HBO 'making of' special, they went on and on about how this movie is a tribute to the master, and how much they admired his work. After seeing just the preview, I wondered if they had even read the blurb on the back of the book. The Puppet Masters wasn't quite as bad, but didn't go beyond mediocre.

What I would most like to see would be for some talented indie-type director to create a film noir version of Heinlein's novella "The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag." First, because it's a great story. It's creepy, ingenious, and has some of Heinlein's better dialog. Second, because short works make better movies. A page of a movie script is equal to about a minute of film time. And also roughly equivalent to a page in prose. So, for a two hour movie, you need about 120 pages of text. Anything more, and you have to start cutting. Get a really big novel, and you have to cut a lot. This is one reason why Dick's stories make better movies - they are the right length. And also why Dune and LoTR are so difficult.

Heinlein's early novels tended toward short, most are less than 200 pages. Better targets for adaptation. Though they can still be screwed up, as witness the two Heinlein movies we have. (And I hope they never make a movie out of Stranger in a Strange Land) There is great potential in several Heinlein books. Double Star is a great political thriller - and could even be removed from the science fiction context and still be a great movie. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is a ripping yarn about a revolution, an intelligent computer who likes practical jokes, and dropping really big rocks on the Earth. Starman Jones is a great adventure, as is Red Planet. The first half of Glory Road could be better than all but three fantasy movies ever made.

And frankly, I'd still like to see a real version of either Starship Troopers or Puppet Masters.