Roland Emmerich Will Film Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy as 3D Motion-Capture Epic

[Forkboy]

:rofl:

This is a story with details so obvious and so easily expected that there is barely any reason to report them. Really, I’m just doing this to bum out the hardcore Isaac Asimov purists who are already despondent at the idea of Roland Emmerich getting his hands on the Foundation Trilogy. It’s all in the headline, really: Emmerich’s adaptation of Asimov’s story won’t just be predictably big and explode-y; it will be 3D and made with motion-capture goodness.

Speaking to MTV, Emmerich says:

Probably now all big movies have to be 3-D. It’s not only the effect of 3-D, just shown that if you do a movie in 3-D, you can ask for more money and that’s the trick. I think now everybody who does bigger movies has to shoot them in 3-D. I think there’s no way around it. I was on the set of ‘Avatar’ and I saw how it worked and I really thought, ‘That’s the ultimate way of making movies.’

http://www.slashfilm.com/2010/02/11/shocker-roland-emmerich-will-film-asimovs-foundation-trilogy-as-3d-mo-cap-epic/#ixzz0fMPyIqDE

Again I say... :rofl:

I heard that next they're getting the director of Porky's to do the Citizen Kane remake.....

[Occulus]

1. Why?

What's the point?

I recently read all the Foundation books because I'd heard soooooo much about them. From a conceptual standpoint, it's a pretty big, epic story, but.... Asimov couldn't write character dialogue to save his life! I hope the writers are talented enough to add a third dimension to the characters, because Asimov certainly didn't (especially for his female characters- yeeeccchh).

I can't even imagine how a Foundation film could possibly work. RAMA would be more interesting, FFS (and far more justified to film in 3D)! And in 3D? Again- WHY? What's the point? There aren't any action sequences that would require it; like most of the science fiction of that era, it was far more intellectual- if I may use that word when applied to these particular novels- than anything we have today.

Now, if someone were to make a film of Kay Kenyon's "The Braided World", or Ben Bova's "The Rock Rats", well, those could be pretty good films ("Braided World" is more than a little disturbing, actually), but.... FOUNDATION?

Come on....

[YankeyMCC]

2. That's why I think the Foundation or Robot Novels would be good fodder for a good film maker

Looking at this Roland Emmerich's resume I have my doubts that he's the right guy.

But speaking as a fan of Asimov, I read the Robot and Foundation novels many times over the year, I agree his genius in story telling didn't usually reach into creating characters. I would not be as harsh as you say about his ability to write dialog, although it's not the flow of modern dialog Lije Baley, R. Daneel, Gladia by the end of the Robot novels, and Lymar Ponyets, the Mule and Bayta become very real at moments at least. In other words the ideas and plots are fun and thought provoking, the potential for great characters and even greater story telling is there.

What is needs is for a talented film maker, and it should be film not another written story to distinguish it, to give it a new perspective, to use the wonderful framework and fill it out with better characterizations.

[Orrex]

3. This will be the worst movie in the history of film making

In years to come, the conversation will go like this:

Person One: Manos, The Hands of Fate is the worst film ever!

Person Two: What about Emmerich's Foundation movie?

Person One: I stand corrected.

[Fumesucker]

5. It would have to spectacularly awful to be worse than Zardoz..

That movie killed brain cells in astronomical quantities.

[Ignis]

7. Just give it to Uwe Boll and get it over with, already.

:argh:

[MrModerate]

4. Well, Asimov ain't exactly Dostoevsky, after all . . .

More like a genial hack. And while the Foundation Trilogy is a justly-respected SF landmark, it's also a pretty good adventure. Given that no movie could capture the breadth of Asimov's universe anyway, I'm not sure that an Emmerich extract from it has to be that bad.

But I didn't think that "2012" stank either, so there you go.

[TransitJohn]

8. 2012 was awful, but in a good way.

I could not stop laughing when they used an airplane to outrun 'disaster' for the 3rd time! In Las Vegas!!!

[Touchdown]

6. They'll find a way to get Jeff Goldblum to say "Must go faster!"

someplace in there.