Forever
War (TBA)
Starring: TBA
Director: Ridley Scott
U.S. Opening Date: TBA
THEY SAY
Based on the Hugo and Nebula award-winning novel by Joe
Haldeman first published in 1974.
The book tells the story of a conflict between humanity
and the alien Taurans. Humans first bumped heads with the Taurans when we
began using collapsars to travel the stars. Although the collapsars
provide nearly instantaneous travel across vast distances, the
relativistic speeds associated with the process means that time passes
slower for those aboard ship. For William Mandella, a physics student
drafted as a soldier, that means more than 27 years will have passed
between his first encounter with the Taurans and his homecoming, though he
himself will have aged only a year. When Mandella finds that he can't
adjust to Earth after being gone so long from home, he re-enlists, only to
find himself shuttled endlessly from battle to battle as the centuries
pass.
This will be director Ridley Scott's first science
fiction movie in more than a quarter of century. (Blade Runner was
in 1982 and Alien in 1979.)
—
Source:
Amazon.com
WE SAY
Despite director Ridley Scott declaring that an
adaptation of Aldous Huxley’s novel Brave
New World starring Leonardo diCaprio will “definitely be what I do
next after Nottingham, the Robin Hood film (with Russell Crowe),” it would
seem that he is putting off Brave New World in favor of another sci-fi
book, namely Joe Haldeman’s celebrated 1974 novel.
“I first pursued The Forever War 25 years ago,
and the book has only grown more timely and relevant since,” Scott said in
an interview. “It's a science-fiction epic, a bit of The Odyssey by way of
Blade Runner, built upon a brilliant, disorienting premise.”
Scott has got that right. It is an action-packed
thought-provoking novel, one of those books that prove that there is more
to science fiction than just spaceship battles and droids. Haldeman did
military service in Vietnam and the novel is largely held to be a wider
metaphor for the alienation that many Vets felt returning to America after
the war. In Haldeman’s novel time passes much slower for the protagonist
than it does back on Earth, meaning that centuries have passed back on
Earth in the few months the novel’s hero spends in space fighting aliens.
The culture shock he experiences upon returning to Earth again is
profound.
The Forever War is justly considered a modern
science fiction classic and deservedly won both the Hugo and Nebula
awards. As you might have guessed by now it is definitely one of our
favorite novels here at the Sci-Fi Movie Page. The mere thought that Scott
– a stunning visualist whose Alien and Blade Runner
redefined the genre on screen – actually intends filming it makes us want
to literally pee in our pants out of sheer excitement.
However these are early days. Just like Brave New
World, Forever War might never get made at all. Even though Fox
2000 has acquired the rights to the novel on behalf of Scott, a writer to
adapt a screenplay has yet to be found. No casting has been announced
either.
Besides, any Hollywood movie that has to explain
Einsteinian relativity to popcorn gulping audiences who merely want to see
stuff get blown up real good has got its work cut out for itself. Also,
Hollywood execs who has to bankroll it might also blanch at the idea of a
depressed central protagonist and the idea of an onscreen future in which
homosexuality is the norm because the Earth government is encouraging it
so as to prevent overpopulation . . . (There is after all a reason why so
few genuinely intelligent sci-fi movies actually get made by Hollywood and
unimaginative and derivative dreck such as
Eragon and Babylon A.D. do get made.)
In the meantime there is still the novel, and if you
haven’t yet read it, then do yourself the favor today. It is a sci-fi
classic.
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