So what would it take?

[Holsety]

First off: if folks around here get serious enough, and can put together a pretty good whatever, I recommend looking into kickstarter and other funding sites if you're not aware of them.

If I'm feeling motivated to try and get some ideas across, I think I'll probably open up LFB in the next few weeks and try and try and create a basic outline of "density" of internal and external "stuff" since that seems like one of the most important challenges, and address what I feel might be some of the harder things to deal with and how they might be dealt with. Regardless of whether that gets anything anywhere in terms of a film, the discussion generated might be interesting.

I'll also point out that regardless of what Donaldson has said in the past, if a "serious" project begins to be undertaken on KW and the fans who have actually met him from time to time take part, I think they should consider letting him know what's up and asking if he'd be interested in some kind of role in the production (paid or not I have no idea what would be best or appropriate). I know the guy is (probably) not a screenwriter, but he may actually have suggestions even aside from creative control and the like that would be helpful in the making of a film.

Maybe the way to go is animation. Think about the work of Miyazaki - look at "Spirited Away" or "Howl's Moving Castle" or "Grave of the Fireflies". There's someone who, I think, both would "get" the Covenant books, and is capable of capturing the essence of them and putting it on film.

From what I saw of the Miyazaki "Earthsea" film, and what I heard from a fan of Howl's (the book) that didn't like the film, I'm not sure that the "translation" aspect will be something "we" like.

But I do kind of think that Miyazaki films do sometimes capture many of the themes and some of the spirit that the Covenant books frequently carry. Even if Miyazaki wasn't involved in the process, I think looking at his films might give some insight into what sort of things might work.

In terms of the visual element, Miyazaki's films certainly have scores and sweeping pictures and an ability to build settlements where creatures and peoples live that I think would sit well with the Covenant trilogy (since that is a tendency of worldbuilding fantasy and other such genres in general).

[Ur Dead]

Or take Hile Troy - some think he's Afro-American, some don't. I'm sure that whatever a movie will look like a lot of readers (and active Watchers) won't be satisfied.

Decided to look it up as a first name.

Hile is the Americanized spelling of Dutch Heil.

From the dutch.. Heil which is from the German
Heinrich..

German and Jewish (Ashkenazic): from personal name Heinrich, composed of the Germanic elements haim, heim ‘home’ + rīc ‘power’. In the Middle Ages this was the most popular of personal names in Germany.



Troy \t-roy\ as a boy's name is pronounced troy. It is of Irish and Gaelic origin, and the meaning of Troy is "descendant of the footsoldier". Surname given to those who migrated to England from the French city of Troyes after the Norman conquest of 1066. As a given name, Troy may derive from the ancientGreek city where the Trojan wars were fought.

FYI

Homepower descendant of the footsoldier.

[Vader]

As far as know my own language and a bit of Dutch I never came across "Heil" as a first name. I cannot even see how it can be derived from "Heinrich".

There is however a German and Dutch first name "Hein". Could your source be mixing things up?

[starkllr]

The more I think about it, themore I think that the problems of translating the Chronicles from the written word to film are just too much to overcome (at least if we want to see a film that's remotely faithful to Donaldson's books).

Partly, the books are just too "internal", and I'm not sure how you can get across a lot of what Covenant's going through purely through acting and visuals.

There are also aspects of the Land that I don't know how you'd represent on film at all - the "health sense" comes immediately to mind.

And, commercially, the parallels to "Lord of the Rings" might well doom the whole thing. Garroting Deep? A rip-off of the Ents. Revelstone? Obviously they just copied that from Minas Tirith. Etc.

We know there are good reasons for all those things, and why they're necessary to the story, but I imagine that the reaction of anybody who hasn't read the novels would be something along the lines of:

"Hmm...a fantasy trilogy that looks like a brazen knock-off of LOTR, except that they kind of merged Frodo and Aragorn and turned him into a leper AND a rapist. I don't think so."

[Linna Heartbooger]

You know, in a movie or mini-series, the "slow" time at the beginning where Covenant is walking in his town would probably go a lot faster.

I don't think the Chronicles is quite as bad as Dune. If anything, Donaldson is expert in making internal conflicts manifested in action. Think of the Covenant/Atiaran/Triock scene in the river. Think of Covenant summoning the Ranyhyn. Think of Covenant trying to throw himself from the side of Mount Thunder. So I don't think that's a direct problem.

I think the problem is secondary to that - whatever you cut, you cut the action that shows the internal conflict.

Does character's narrator voice sound heavy-handed?
(for being specific about what's going on w/ the internal conflict)
I'm thinking "Dresden Files" does it really well...

Other media-based issues have to do with physical vs intellectual perception. For example, reading about leprosy is one thing, but seeing leprosy is quite another thing. There's no intellectual detachment possible when you're looking at festering sores and mutilated people.

I'm thinking short, just a few seconds of seeing the people... some of Covenant's experience at the leprosarium had some of that.
like that one man calling out his advice to Covenant, "...better than this!"

Also, SRD has set up pacing where some of the stories of individual lepers TC knew come out slowly throughout his journey.

It's a lot easier to maintain caring for a character when you read about his rape crime than when you see his rape crime played out before you.

Is it bad if I'm just working my brain to solve individual tactical problems in a giant, sweeping discussion like this?

I'm thinking there's solutions for that scene... the book focused on Lena. If you just focus on her face... can make it almost as if the main character's not present in that scene after his initial decision to attack her.

the whole trick of... cutting a scene to blackness just 1 second into an act of violence... that's how they do it, isn't it?
that's how they make it so people can sustain watching so much of that in a movie?

but I'm still not sure how that works in practice.
Somehow "The Cell" managed to keep a sufficient level of empathy with a psychopathic character. I think it did.
Perhaps largely by 3rd party narration.

Now, there are movies that indulge in these things, but you may not want that kind of movie.

Right.

[mhoram99]

This is a great thread, people. I think it has to be a big blockbuster movie trilogy. That requires some big actors. Your definitely into figures like those for the first Lord of the Rings movies here, hundreds of millions.

A lot of the hurdles mentioned earlier do come down, in my view, to a creative director and scriptwriters. I have no doubt that it could be made into a high adventure set of movies. More action can always be added as long as key psychological developments are not skipped. And these stories would have the added benefit on film of a bunch of stronger female characters. Jackson had to add one to the Hobbit movies to get that in, and that's the right idea. Someone will take a swipe at me for this, but you might even add a woman lord to the quest for the Staff of Law in the first movie (Lithe comes in, but only later).

As for the rape scene, it can be indicated what happens without showing it directly. That's about the best that can be done with that. This would lose one subtle piece of symbolic implication: no blood shown on Lena, so viewers could not make the connection between this and the Blood of the Earth. Ok that has always been a key piece of my interpretation: Lena embodies the Land, in some sense IS the Land. The violation of her leads to the violation of the Land. Somehow a good director would have to get this across (unfortunately the full sense in which it is true is not clear until Book IV though).