The Movie/TV series (again!!)

[mubble]

Love watching GOT on tv right now. It is a wonderfully produced, character driven fantasy series for adults. Could this open the door for Covenent again? God knows there is enough graphic sex, incest, rape, murder, gore and mayhem to make a pervert blanch! Surely us grown ups could tolerate the issues raised by Covenent which might have made it a problem a few years ago? I appreciate the difference of having the lead man as an underage rapist, belligerent anti hero but I would love to see it looked at again. Would HBO or another be brave enough to follow GOT with such an equally big epic?

[peter]

There is a part of me that dreads the day when I read that the Chrons are finally to be produced for either the big or small screen. The images of my imagined journey with TC through the stories could never, I repeat never be reproduced anywhere other than...well... in my imagination. Would the actuality of a visual production leave my internal vision intact. How could it.

Take TLOTR as directed by Jackson. I loved it and thought he did a superlative job in translating the books to film - but Gandolph will forever be McEwan now for me; Elrond Weaving and Aragorn that other guy (whose name briefly escapes me). Similarly Frodo's house in the Shire is fixed, The Mines of Moria and Souron's Morsor. Do I want this for the Chrons be it however well it is done? I have not read Game of Thrones and have heard good things about the series so yes - maybe in this case I should watch it, but the Chrons are I think just too special, just to intimate to my life for me ever to want to see the Haruchai made flesh and blood in my mind's eye.

[Billy G.]

TC is too cerebral a character to ever be put onto the silver screen, I'd imagine. Most of what happens to him is all in his head.

But hellfire, would I like to see The Land, gravelingases, giants, Ranyhyn, Forestals, and Revelstone on TV or in movies?

ABSOLUTELY!

[The Forgotten One]

There is no doubt in my mind that if this were ever put on the silver screen that it would dwarf the LOTR series by far.

[aTOMiC]

There is something about altering the focus of a story to reflect the tastes of a director as opposed to that of a reader's imagination that will always tend to forever alter the events of a story. Excellent example above with regard to LOTR.

Every Chrons fan has their own take on what persons, places and things look like, feel like, sound like. Its not universal. When I consider what a Chrons film experience would be I probably have hopes that others don't share and vice-versa. Suppose you absolutely love all of the scenes depicting Covenant's descent from Kevin's Watch and the film maker decides its not important and has TC materialize just outside of Mithil Stonedown. THAT WOULD SUCK. But it could very well happen. Writing Foamfollower out of the film completely. Omitting the battle of Soaring Woodhelven. We can't imagine watching a film depicting the Chrons without some of these iconic moments but we've seen film makers discard beloved moments for the sake of expediency.

I would love to see the Chrons brought to life either on the big screen or tv however I dread watching said production and discovering a new definition for disappointment.

[Akasri]

I agree - Cause you just know someone would mispronounce "puissance" or "formication" and then the entire series would be ruined

[Vraith]

I agree - Cause you just know someone would mispronounce "puissance" or "formication" and then the entire series would be ruined

Hee hee...I saw that and said to myself..."How would people mispronunciate those...and..........
TA DA!....all my acquaintances will be stuck for the next couple months hearing me exclaim PISSANTS AND FORNICATION at every opportunity [and if opportunities don't arise naturally, I will create them.]
this is going to be so much fun.

More on topic though: the supplanting of vision by movie images is often troublesome for reasons folk point out.

Yet, every once in a while, a great embodiment/iconic presentation ADDS something.

Mostly it doesn't bother me personally unless it's horrible [though I see how it could bug others] any more than seeing one version of Hamlet ruins re-reading or other versions.
I mean PISSANTS AND FORNICATION! Olivier and Burton [among others] are both very cool.

[dlbpharmd]

I would love to see the Chrons brought to life either on the big screen or tv however I dread watching said production and discovering a new definition for disappointment.

This is how I feel about it.

[Wildling]

I may be in the minority in this opinion, but as much as I would love to see something like, say, Hile Troy's army in action, I just don't think the series as a whole would work well either as a movie or as a TV series.

First problem: Everything is internal. How much of the text in the series is taken up with a character (Covenant or Linden) thinking or feeling in silence? That's hard to translate to a screen.

Second problem: A movie is too short to do any of it justice, even if you do the LOTR trip and split the First Chrons into 3 movies. There's still a whole lot to get through even with paring down some of the ... less exciting bits. Yet a TV series would take a while to get going. Probably a couple of episodes before he sees anyone from the land at all, and even then it's only Lena and her family. Most of the main characters wouldn't even be introduced until halfway through the season.

[IrrationalSanity]

Personally, I don't see the First chronicles as solid movie material. I think the second could be.

[Vraith]

[quote="IrrationalSanity"]Personally, I don't see the First chronicles as solid movie material. I think the second could be.[/quote

I can see it being decent...though I've said elsewhere that a good long mini-series would be the best way to go .

And I also think the Gap books are the best film/series option of all the SRD.
The potential for truly great films is huge, IMO.
I've probably said that before, too.

[Cord Hurn]

The Chronicles are cerebral enough that a television mini-series would serve it better than a movie series, I think.

[starkllr]

I think Mordant's Need is, by far, the most cinematic and easily translatable-to-film of any of SRD's work.

For the Chronicles...story-wise, I think a TV series along the lines of Game of Thrones would work best - 8-10 episodes per book, maybe. For LFB, it might break out as:

Episode 1 - introduction to TC, completely in the real world, ends with getting hit by the police car

Episode 2 - Translation to the Land, Lord Foul's message, Kevin's Watch, dinner with Lena & family, Stonedown gathering, ends with the rape of Lena

Episode 3 - Atiaran and Covenant journey to Andelain, ending with meeting Foamfollower

Episode 4 - journey to Revelstone, introductions there, ending with Covenant giving Lord Foul's message to the Council

Episode 5 - Planning the Quest, initial stages, ending with the Battle of Soaring Woodhelven

Episode 6 - Plains of Ra, ending with the horses rearing to Covenant.

Episode 7 - The Quest moves on, Treacher's Gorge, maybe tell the story Mhoram relates in a nice, CGI-filled 10 minute flashback, ending with the trek into the mountain

Episiode 8 - the conclusion.

The problem with TV, though, is that you wouldn't really have the budget to properly show everything the way it really ought to be...

[peter]

I'm not a tv series fan BUT have not seen one for so long that it is entierly possible that much has changed since I last viewed one. I'm harking back to the 80's where tv movies were produced at a much lower quality than big screen films [from the sets to the scripts to the 'stars' themselves]. I'm hearing enough about GOT to realise that it might be time to give the small screen another chance [adult content aside ] but this would [for me] not be comparable to seeing the Chrons done in this way for the simple reason that I have not read GOT and would thus have no mentally formed image to compare it to.

But this aside, I can see the logic of the Chrons being done as a tv series rather than as a series of films ala TLOTR. Always assuming the production quality was of the highest level [comparable to that of the large screen] this format would give the time and scope necessary to explore the issues raised in the Chrons in the detail with which they deserve. I've never thought about this route as a means of getting the Chrons onto the screen before [having always been fixed on the 'film' idea] but actually it makes a lot of sense.

[DrPaul]

starkllr, I'd end the first episode with Lord Foul's message, or just after it (and just before the Watch).