Potential Series Or Endless Serials
The Polesotechnic League
Avalon
Dominic Flandry
Time Patrol
The King of Ys
Potential Series Written By Other Authors But Based On Poul Anderson's Characters And Settings
The Grand Survey (like Star Trek)
The Allied Planets (also like Star Trek)
James Ching
Christopher Holm and Tabitha Falkayn
Manuel Argos
Diana Crowfeather
Roan Tom
Rangers of the Commonalty
Heroes of Dennitza
The History of Ys
The Old Phoenix
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
While I would be very interested if any filmed or TV versions of Anderson's stories about Nicholas van Rijn, Dominic Flandry, the Time Patrol, etc., were made, another thought came to me. COULD such adaptations satisfactorily bring out the subtleties, nuances, and complexities found in PA's stories? The advantage WRITING has over films/TV is that an author can go into the detail needed to flesh out his stories. The opposite is the case when it comes to films/TV shows, a script will need to cut, reduce, eliminate, streamline, etc., much that is found in a written text.
I agree that a text "translated" to the screen will often need to be streamlined and shortened in order to be filmed at all. But my personal observation is that it's too easy for a film "based" on an originally written text to go too far and chop out too MUCH of what gave a written text its "flavor." Worse, sometimes a director will insist on ADDING material which is simply not to be found at all in the original source.
I had in mind Peter Jackson's LORD OF THE RINGS and HOBBIT movies in what I wrote above. Frankly, I came to loathe because of how dishonestly Jackson handled Tolkien's works. Not because some shortening was necessary, but because of how he mishandled the rest, sometimes doing violence to the characters as Tolkien developed them. I disliked the fight of Aragorn with the Wargs doing Saruman's invasion of Rohan, for instance. Pointless, needless, non-canonical. And I hated how Jackson treated Denethor and Faramir as well. Another totally non-canonical addition was Jackson having Gollum briefly fool Frodo into thinking Sam had wasted their food on the Stairs of Cirith Ungol.
Similar criticisms, in spades, could be made of Jackson's HOBBIT movies! I would urgently stress the need for any filmed/TV versions of Anderson's stories being accurately based on what their author wrote.
Sean
Sean,
I contrast not only prose fiction with screen drama but also both with graphic fiction. Each medium does different things. The screen cannot do what the page does but need not misrepresent or distort it either. There were excellent, accurate TV dramatizations of Jane Austen's PRIDE AND PREJUDICE and of Aldous Huxley's EYELESS IN GAZA. The TV PRIDE... was almost an improvement: the famous opening sentence was neither left out nor "voice over"ed but incorporated into the dialogue; the Mr. Collins actor added facial expressions and mannerisms that were fully consistent with his character although they had not been described in the novel. In EYELESS..., the central character's father frequently spoke in schoolboy slang, pausing to emphasize the words knowingly, almost making the quote marks visible. He did this often in the novel and most instances were left out of the short TV episodes but those that were included were fully authentic.
It would be easy for a suitably fat actor to reproduce van Rijn's flamboyant speech and overacting, another to reproduce Flandry's flippancy etc. It can be done and should be done well or not at all.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I agree, SOME movie/TV adaptations of a written text are done well. Such as the examples you cited. No argument there.
I would love to see an actor doing Nicholas van Rijn WELL! And Flandry was not always flippant. He could be serious and all business as well. And it was during the last time I read "A Message In Secret" that I realized how much comedy was in that story, in Flandry's "Bertie Woosterish" moments. And any such TV/filmed adaptations should either be done well or not at all.
Sean
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