Lois McMaster Bujold: On WA moviescript (sort of forwarded from LMB mailing list) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- DIGEST 1119: > From: gryphon@execpc.com > To: lois-bujold@herald.co.uk > Subject: Bujold dreams > Message-ID: <199801150228.UAA06779@core0.mx.execpc.com> > > This has rarely happened to me before, but I had a very vivid dream last night > regarding the late unlamented attempt to make _Warrior's Apprentice_ into a > movie. I decided to write down as many details as I could and share it with you > all. The frightening thing is, Diane, that your dream is probably closer to the spirit and characters of the book than any scene in the actual Hollywood script. Really. For one thing, in the script *their* young Emperor, who has another name anyway, is killed around page 26. Along with Aral, lucky for him -- *he* didn't have to suffer through the rest of the moronic thing. Kind of like literary euthanasia. I was envious. We are saved. We are grateful. We are out $200,000 and we are *glad*.(1) It was that bad. (And now I can truthfully say, "It was so bad it gave my fans nightmares.") =============================================== DIGEST 1120: > > We are saved. We are grateful. We are out $200,000 and we are > > *glad*.(1) It was that bad. > ?!?!? you *spent* $200,000 on something you disliked that much? > how did they talk you into putting up any money - much less *that much*?!? > > stunned, > christopher No, no, no, no, no! As several people noted below, that was the so-called "pick-up price", the price they *would* have paid had they actually started shooting the movie, as opposed to the mere option money, a much more modest sum which gave them exclusive rights to play around with the idea for three years. I've never had $200,000 in my life, and if I did, I certainly wouldn't risk it all on any investment so chancy as a movie. Mutual funds are as risky as I go. But the so-and-so's wouldn't tell me if they were going to pay the pick-up price or not right up till the day the option actually ran out. The anticipation was like a weird combination of Christmas and an impending execution. Very... distracting. I daydreamed of spending that money more different ways... Someone later this digest also imagined seeing the script -- sorry, no can do. The script is the property of its producers, not of me; I have no right to copy or distribute it. The only way anyone could see it would be to come to my house and read it here, and the only listee in a position to do so is Pat, and she wasn't able to get more than three pages into it before screaming and running away. =============================================== DIGEST 1124: > >>The emperor gets killed, the regent gets killed; who's left? > > > >Miles, who must Save The Galaxy from the Evil Prince > >Serg, who walks around in body armor and a cape, breathing > >heavily...that was the point at which I ran screaming. > > > > Please tell us that you were joking about this point, a Darth Vader clone!? > > >"Clueless" doesn't *begin* to cover it. I thought Emma Bull's evocative phrase, "Sucks dead rat through a straw" was a good start... > > But I have this sinking feeling that you aren't. > > >Patricia C. Wrede > > Robert A. Woodward robertaw@halcyon.com I don't recall the body armor. Otherwise, no, she's not joking. > From: Sfolse >> > In a message dated 1/16/98 6:02:46 PM, you wrote: > > >Of course, they'd only go *once*, given what they did to it.... a point the > >filmmakers seem to have overlooked. > > Or they'd... order yet > *another* rewrite, ending up with something with even less resemblance to the > original. > > It recasts Barrayar as a Communist Borg-like eeeeevil empire bent on galactic > domination from which a tall, good-looking Miles > Did you know Hollywood's definition of a "short" man is 5'10"? Said so right in the script. (Casper van Diem) emerges > (after having merged the Miles and Ivan characters), the crown prince and son > of the eeeeevil Aral, who is a scenery-chewing, leather-wearing dictator > played by Jack Palance.> No, that would be the Evil Prince Serg, the one with the, no kidding, cape, who makes his grand entrance stepping over the bodies of... I can't go on. < Miles heads up a freedom force consisting of Bothari, > a hard-bitten mercenary (played by the guy who played the gray-haired > mercenary in Under Siege II, not that I watched it, of course) with absolutely > no connection to Miles. > No, in this version it's *Elena* who has no connection to *Bothari*. Otherwise, the following description about sums it up. < Elena (Salma Hayek) is a young spitfire trying to > prove that women can do anything men can do who nevertheless wears your basic > Star Trek costume (spray paint and shoulder pads) with high heels *and* > screams and melts into Miles' arms at the last moment (she does, of course, > get to bonk a bad guy on the head with a flowerpot, and her hair *always* > looks good). Also merging Arde Mayhew and Baz Jesek into one guy played by > Michael Biehn as a strong, silent type out to avenge himself against whoever > killed his young beautiful wife and who is Elena's love interest for a good > portion of the movie until he sacrifices himself by staying aboard the RG-21 > to blow it up for some silly reason. < The transmutation of Tung into a cross between Obi Wan Kenobi and and the Jewel of the Nile was even more bizarre; mystic leader of the Bedouin-like Dendarii peoples, who live in the Deserts of Space... do you think I'm making this up? Do you think I *could*? Bothari is a plant who sabotages or > betrays them to the eeeevil Barrayarans in some way and either is killed > (after Miles, showing his noble nature, tries to save him anyway) *or* suffers > a change of heart and rescues them, then nobly sacrifices himself for their > sakes.> Nope, not even that close. A mere Loyal Bodyguard, who sacrifices himself nobly allowing Miles & Elena to Escape the Bad Guys. In fact, Bothari's entire plot drops out. < Miles eventually conquers the eeeevil Barrayarans and brings truth, > glory, enlightenment and the democratic system to the planet, where everyone > greets him as a saviour and hero, with parades and banners and ticker tape. You left out Miles's fistfight with the Evil Prince Serg at the end for possession of the Magic Orb Which Can Destroy/Save (it's unclear which) the Universe. Miles gets Elena in the end... > > There are lots of explosions. And lots of stupidity. Lots. Sagans and Sagans of stupidity. > > --Stephanie, who thinks she's actually seen this movie somewhere... > Not even that close, Stephanie; not even that close. Though it does have eeevil Bayaarns (that is not a typo. Evidently a 3-syllable word was too much mental overload for them.) Gah. I shall never again sign a contract giving up my "moral rights", that's for damn sure. Moral rights -- live and learn -- are the author's right to have their work accurately represented. The Hollywood contract was very clear and insistant that I give them up to the uttermost limit. Now I know why. Start the Shards discussion, please, please. This topic is making me twitch like a galvanized frog. =========================================== DIGEST 1125: Lizah Martin asked about Cordelia's role; L. Fundis shrewdly speculated that she was either not in the movie script or killed off early. Bingo. Cordelia was completely disappeared. What, you don't think that *Hollywood* would present a positive portrayal of an intelligent, powerful, *older* woman, do you?! You really wonder about these peoples' relationships with their mothers, sometimes. Not to mention the rest of the female gender...