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Ridley Scott to Make First Sci-Fi Film Since Blade Runner

variety.com — Fox 2000 has acquired rights to Joe Haldeman's 1974 novel "The Forever War," and Ridley Scott is planning to make it into his first science fiction film since he delivered back-to-back classics with "Blade Runner" and "Alien."

Who dugg this? Made popular Oct 13, 2008

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  • Splicernyc, on 10/13/2008, -3/+59No Will Smith.
  • williamson389, on 10/13/2008, -0/+38First this, then Brave New World, sounds like another set of classics
  • Wildthing, on 10/13/2008, -1/+35No Shia Lebeuof
  • zeat, on 10/13/2008, -0/+34The Forever War is a fantastic book. Please Ridley Scott, don't ***** it up!
  • tbredofsin, on 10/13/2008, -1/+33The Forever War is a Hugo and Nebula award winner (the two most prestigious awards for science fiction novels). Pairing this with Ridley Scott should be a truly interesting proposition. I can't help but wish it were Ender's Game instead, but I'm not complaining!
  • borez, on 10/13/2008, -1/+33That because you need some level of intelligence to understand it.
  • inactive, on 10/13/2008, -2/+31Despite the horrible special effects in Dune, the tone that Lynch conceived for that movie in unparalleled.
  • MarrowMan, on 10/13/2008, -2/+24about ***** time they got a talented director to do a Sci-Fi classic, too bad Scott couldn't have directed Dune as well.
  • RapidEye, on 10/13/2008, -1/+19I loved "Forever War" when I read it in college, quite a few years ago. The parallels to the VietNam war were fairly thinly veiled, so I expect the same type of treatment this go around; however, for this interpretation, I expect it to go after the Iraq war.
    Not a good thing or bad thing - just an expectation.
  • borez, on 10/13/2008, -2/+20"Aliens was a far superior movie to Alien"

    "Blade Runner was alright, but plodding."

    ????
  • xqpnoted, on 10/13/2008, -0/+17Dune would have been amazing if they had left Lynch alone and given him the control they promised. Instead the studio cut the ***** out of it and switched things around. There's a reason he hasn't done a film without having final cut since.
  • Tr33fiddy, on 10/13/2008, -0/+16Holy *****! What a book...
  • ksgant, on 10/13/2008, -2/+16Dune was a mixed bag for me. I think they got all the right actors to play everyone. I mean, they looked the part. The set designs were really good. The tone was good.

    The editing sucked. The script REALLY sucked. The special effects were laughable and they were trying to cram 6 hours of story into a 2 hour movie.

    Not sure Ridley Scott could have done better either.
  • anagoge, on 10/13/2008, -0/+13No Brendan Fraser.
  • snurfle, on 10/13/2008, -2/+15***** you! Two of my friends were retired by Deckard!
  • Mujokan, on 10/13/2008, -0/+12Will Smith don't gotta cuss in his raps to sell records.
  • feignNU, on 10/13/2008, -1/+13Just bought The Forever War on amazon.
  • Mujokan, on 10/13/2008, -5/+16Blade Runner is beautiful, though so sad. The whole art deco thing is perfectly done, and the acting is great throughout. I even like the way Sean Young plays it. Perfect cinematography, amazing atmosphere. But I can't accept that Ridley actually thought it made sense that Decker was a replicant. Luckily he didn't put that too far into the film. It would have ruined the whole thing.

    Now what I want is a Blade Runner video game. I envisage it as Hitman style individual levels set in an open world. Gotta turn up sometime, right?
  • B1ackD0g, on 10/13/2008, -0/+11That's cool. Joe and Gay Haldeman are regulars at the ICON science fiction convention in Iowa City, Iowa. They're also the most accessable and friendly people you could hope to meet. He wrote the novel while attending the writers workshop at the University of Iowa. He was also involved in starting the convention. October 31st - November 2nd this year. I recommend that anyone in the area come on down, have some fun and meet Joe.

  • VitriolAndAngst, on 10/13/2008, -0/+9It is a very good epic story. Really should be good to get people out of their provincial ideas about society. Because the main character has to survive one war after another and travels at sub-light speed. Thus he is totally removed from his society or even the reason for the war as the story unfolds.

    Should be damn good for visuals, and that sense of dystopia and drift that Scott is so good at. Also that our society totally changes around him. I'm glad a more mature sci-fi story is getting made. Most people watching Star Wars and Star Trek wouldn't recognize REAL sci-fi.
  • spaceman84, on 10/13/2008, -1/+10Remember the dreams of the unicorn that Deckard (not Decker) has? And the little figures that the other blade runner, Gaff (Edward James Olmos), leaves around? At the end, Gaff leaves an origami unicorn for Deckard to find, basically telling him that he's a replicant too.

    I think it's stupid to make Deckard a replicant, but I don't doubt that Ridley Scott always intended for him to be a replicant.
  • wedges, on 10/13/2008, -0/+8there was a blade runner game. it was a click adventure, and it was AWESOME when i played it at 14 on my 133Mhz Packard Bell. 810mb hdd FTW!!!

    wait there was another game i think, a ***** one for amiga.
  • anagoge, on 10/13/2008, -0/+8Is it me, or has there been a severe lack of space movies lately? And good movies at that. Most sci-fi films seem to take place on Earth these days.
  • uthallan, on 10/13/2008, -0/+8Awesome book
  • RubberMullet, on 10/13/2008, -0/+7It's nice to see great directors finally tapping in to the Sci-Fi/Fantasy genre again.

    I'm also looking forward to Rendezvous with Rama directed by David Fincher.

    Now if someone would just make the Elric series in to a movie, staring Daniel Day-Lewis. Or the The Stainless Steel Rat...
  • inactive, on 10/13/2008, -3/+10Orson Scott Card is a douchebag. Seriously, have you heard the guy talk?

  • tbredofsin, on 10/13/2008, -1/+8Card is working on another draft of the screenplay, I hear. It seems perpetually in the state of "might happen sometime soon". A lot of the reason for that, I think, is because Card won't let it get made unless it's done right. I suppose that makes sense--I'd rather have no Ender's Game movie than a better-forgotten piece of *****.
  • xsmasher, on 10/13/2008, -0/+7Wait, what? The lightwave objects and scenes used in the movies? There were none. It was all models, and I don't mean 3d models.
  • zadadka, on 10/13/2008, -0/+6If the film follows the book, it will be interesting to see how some people respond to the non-hetro elements.
    Knowing Scott though, it'll be an implied undercurrent as opposed to central.
  • peterinjapan, on 10/13/2008, -0/+6Okay, going all caps with this...

    YESSSSS!!!!!!!!!! THIS IS THE MOST AWESOME NEWS I'VE READ IN A YEAR OF SUNDAYS. THE FOREVER WAR IS MY FAVORITE BOOK (almost up there with Guns of the South) AND I WAS LITERALLY -- LITERALLY -- READING IT A MONTH AGO FOR THE NTH TIME SAYING, DAYMN, HOW CAN I BRING THIS GREAT BOOK TO THE ATTENTION OF SOME AWESOME DIRECTOR.

    P.S. Don't ***** it up. Seriously. And please UNMAKE everything that was bad about Starship Troopers, since it is teh suck.
  • jezsik, on 10/13/2008, -2/+8Noooooo! "The Forever War" is one of the most awesome sci-fi books ever written. The story spans thousands of years and numerous changes in technology and the impact of that technology on humankind. To turn it into a movie would require cutting out the psychological impact.
  • inactive, on 10/13/2008, -0/+5oh you'll be buried into the depths of hell for saying BR was alright
    and here. we. go!
  • exgiexpcv, on 10/13/2008, -0/+5I have had a silent pleading voice in my head for years wishing for this book to be made into a full film. Let's hope he stays reasonably true to what Haldeman wrote.
  • EmoSLWarrior, on 10/13/2008, -0/+5Don't know why anyone would have given you a negative digg, but I upped you one point. Your comment is quite knowledgeable and insightful. I'm guessing it was some non-cinema person who disagreed.
  • jezsik, on 10/13/2008, -0/+5Far too much of Gibson's cyberpunk novels pretty much expect the reader to know what's going on from the git go - or at least introduce the stuff in such a way as you figure it out. That doesn't work in a movie, at least not a Hollywood movie. The Hollywood audience has to be carefully spoon fed or they spit it out. Remember "Brazil"?
  • Memitim, on 10/13/2008, -0/+5All of Dick's books are far too psychological to be adequately recreated in film, but the basic ideas behind them are so fantastic that they make for great derivatives. I'm afraid that Haldeman's Forever War falls into the same category so any movie adaptation will severely lack, but it might get more people to treat themselves to the book if successful.
  • Blacksoth, on 10/13/2008, -0/+5Ridley Scott has a more retro style. Whatever this movie turns out to be, it probably won't be standard hollywood fair (and that's good for all of us).
  • RungeKutta, on 10/13/2008, -0/+5I agree with you to some degree on Deckard being a replicant. I think it's fine to make him one, but it was way too subtle. The main hint was the tie-in between the unicorn dream scene and Gaff leaving him the origami unicorn at the end. There was another hint when Deckard and Rachael were talking at the piano, but too subtle. Even the last edit he did with the big box set doesn't help - oh well still an awesome movie.

    And as for the video game:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blade_Runner_%281985_ ...
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blade_Runner_%281997_ ...
  • copypastry, on 10/13/2008, -0/+5I see you trollin'
  • yellowfish04, on 10/13/2008, -3/+8yay..but...I want Ender's Game. Scott should be on that project, it's going effing nowhere
  • stringtheory2, on 10/13/2008, -4/+9Dugg for THE BEST sci fi story and THE BEST director, EVER!
  • camiller, on 10/13/2008, -0/+4The The Stainless Steel Rat would make a great series of movies.
  • g33b33, on 10/13/2008, -0/+4Its not about technology at all...it looks at the isolation of soldiers returning to changed worlds.
  • Induane, on 10/13/2008, -0/+4Which version of Dune?
  • gruvsf, on 10/13/2008, -0/+4Still not sure why no one has done Neuromancer yet on the big screens. Seems like a perfect book to be made into a movie.
  • inactive, on 10/13/2008, -0/+4He should make a rule. no hollywood clowns with macbooks allowed to help with the script. you just know they have some sci fi automatic gobbledygook generator. they use the same pseudo science on all the movies and tv shows.
  • ZerothAngel, on 10/13/2008, -0/+4I hope so too. Power armor, severe time dilation effects (not *just* the 20 years that was hinted by the article... it was hundreds of years, nearly a millennium), and the extreme changes in human society...

    After reading the book and the graphic novels, It will be interesting to see how it's all re-interpreted for the big screen.
  • MattBD, on 10/13/2008, -0/+4Seriously? The Forever War is a way better book than Starship Troopers.
  • Satanier, on 10/13/2008, -1/+5My mother? Let me tell you about my mother...
  • inactive, on 10/13/2008, -0/+4There was a PC based Blade Runner game.. i had tons of fun playing it when i was younger. I believe it was one of the heaviest games at the time it was released.. remember it being on 4 CDs and 1GB + in size. Considering the time of release that was a LOT of required space... it also had multiple endings. Great game - actually played the game before i watched the movie. Fantastic style! Supposedly one of the scenes were used in Star Wars.
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