Ythrians, Merseians and other aliens should be represented by Computer Generated Imaging and should not sound human just as Narnian Talking Beasts should sound like talking beavers, wolves, lions etc. Nothing is more incongruous than a human voice emerging from a giant owl.
Maybe the more space operatic installments of Poul Anderson's Technic History could be animated? "Honorable Enemies" with its large green Merseians, small blue Betelgeuseans and tall golden Chereionite hunting flying dragons on individual flyers above jagged mountains under a red giant sun reads like a cartoon. "The Star Plunderer" could begin with explorers performed by actors finding a manuscript in the ruins of Sol City, then segue into a cartoon of human beings fighting four-armed Gorzunians - suggesting that maybe it did not really happen like that.
In SM Stirling's Shadowspawn series, actors would get to swap characters because metamorphosing Shadowspawn impersonate each other and because the memories of a dead human woman are projected into the comatose body of a Shadowspawn woman killed in her aetheric form.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I'm not at all sure I would like to use "cartoonish" animation for the more "space operatic" parts of Anderson's Technic Civilization stories. However outlandish and implausible some of his non-humans might be, Anderson carefully described Gorzunians and "tri-bodied" Didonians in such detail that they looked convincing to my mental eye. The trick would be to use CGI to create images of such beings that would convince our physical eyes as well.
I like the idea, as well, of filmed adaptations of Stirling's Shadowspawn books. One problem would be the need to decide how far and in how much detail the more gruesome parts of those books should be shown.
Sean
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