Use of Weapons declared best sci-fi film never made
Iain M Banks tops Reg reader poll
Our poll to name the best sci-fi film never made has returned Use of Weapons by Iain M Banks as the book Reg readers would most like to see projected on the silver screen.
The 50 candidates attracted a whopping 27,088 votes, with the winner securing 10,032. Runner-up was Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's The Mote In God's Eye, which was honoured with 7,099 votes. You can see the full results right here.
So, Hollywood take note: scrap plans to "reimagine" Total Recall and get down to making something original.
I haven't personally read Use of Weapons, so I'll leave it to you lot to suggest how it might best be brought to the big screen. If we get some decent casting/directorial suggestions, we'll look into knocking up a poster to celebrate the movie which is yet to be. ®
COMMENTS
de gustibus non est disputandum
but that doesn't alter the fact that you're wrong.
Distribution of votes.
That's a *very* skewed distribution there. Did somebody use a script?
My favorite is excession
Damned if I can see a way of taking a story mostly constructed from the interior monologues of the unimaginably powerful shipminds, and converting it into a watchable movie.
How the hell do you get a shipminds visible manifestation, and multi-kilomiter long ships hull, probably concealed by layer upon layer of 'fields', to emote in a fasion an audience can appreciate?
Or a drone, for that matter?
Agreed,
though I'd put Player above Consider.
It's worth making the effort for Excession though.
<QUOTE> Ulver laughed. 'It looks,' she snorted, 'like a dildo!'
'That's appropriate,' Churt Lyne said. 'Armed, it can fuck solar systems.'
</QUOTE>
One small flaw
The plot twist that makes Use of Weapons so cool relies on you not realising the details of the Zakalwe/chairmaker situation until right at the end.
If you can see the actors, that won't work.
Additionally, I think it would be beyond challenging to keep track of and show all the flash forwards/flashbacks/reverse chronologies in a film.
Fantastic book, abysmal film potential.
