E. E “Doc” Smith’s Lensman saga was early space opera at its purest. All except the sort-of-seventh and last book of the series (an add-on outside the main story arc) were tremendous pulp-fiction fun. So I’m very excited by the possibility that there might just be a project to develop a film. I assume the starting point will be Galactic Patrol, the third book of the series narrative arc, but the first and in some ways the most complete, book to be written, for which its predecessors provided a backdrop.
The power of the Lens
January 12th, 2008 · 3 Comments · Film
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3 responses so far ↓
1 Sam Norton // Jan 12, 2008 at 12:48 pm
It’s uncanny that there is another Anglican Rector and blogger who ALSO grew up reading Doc Smith! Given the state of the art I’d have thought they could do something really good with Lensman, as with the Skylark series, but it would depend a lot on the script and direction (just to state the obvious). They’d probably have to downplay the racist elements as well…
One of the nice things about being unwell is the chance to wrap up in a duvet in front of the TV and I’ve taken advantage of that to watch all the special edition LOTR films backto back. Having re-read the book since last watching it I was more aware of the changes Jackson made to the story, but also more sympathetic as to why. The films certainly stand as a major achievement.
2 doug // Jan 12, 2008 at 10:39 pm
Coincidence rules! On LOTR I have to say I think the films are better than the books. Despite the howls of fans, I think that there were too many places in the books where Tolkein’s fascination with the world he created displaced the narrative. Because the films cut this out, the narrative ended up the stronger. I may yet start a “We hate Tom Bombadil” Facebook group - mind you, I’ll have to join Facebook first.
3 andii // Jan 15, 2008 at 10:34 pm
Interestingly, I too used to read the Lensman books. Likewise interested in what possible films might do. I’d have thought they were reasonably translatable into that medium.
I know what you mean about LOTR book vs film. It’s true that JRR got very into the world he sub-created, but then some of us also grew to love it and for me it opened my eyes to a love of all sorts of other things good and worthy of celebration. But they made the right decisions about cutting stuff, on the whole.
Tom Bombadil however, that’s a different matter: care to step outside?
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