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Iain M. Banks: Upload For Everlasting Life

Mythopoeika said:
Amazon is going to adapt 'Consider Phlebas' - wow!
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/consider-phlebas-tv-series-works-at-amazon-1086840
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Seriously, what is it with the compulsive need to turn decent books into a sodding TV event? Yes, I know they did The Crow Road (and did it really well), but that was years ago, when screen adaptations were usually done sympathetically (if not always successfully) and were still outnumbered by original scripts. Either 1) there are no longer any remotely talented screenwriters in the english-speaking world, or 2) execs can no longer be bothered to pay for original ideas when they can just plunder existing literature, especially when most of their audience won't have picked up anything bigger than a bus timetable since they left school and therefore won't care or even notice. Call me a cynic, but I'm going for 2).

In this case, I'd happily wager any amount that the episodes will be a horrible mangling of various themes and scenes, plucked from all of the Culture books and rearranged in a totally inane but "accessible" way, conveniently omitting all of the subtle undertones and the really unpleasant denouements. That ridiculous quote ^^^ from Dennis Kelly sums up just how shallow and pointless I expect it to be.
 
RyoHazuki said:
In this case, I'd happily wager any amount that the episodes will be a horrible mangling of various themes and scenes, plucked from all of the Culture books and rearranged in a totally inane but "accessible" way, conveniently omitting all of the subtle undertones and the really unpleasant denouements. That ridiculous quote ^^^ from Dennis Kelly sums up just how shallow and pointless I expect it to be.
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They are complex and complicated books and deal with abstract and unusual themes. Someone will try and dumb it down I expect, which will fuck it right up.
 
Consider Phlebas is a magnificent chunk of hard sci-fi. It is though exceptionally brutal at times and I fear that any adaptation would dumb down what is a very adult tale into some wishy-washy PG farce (rather like what happened with The Dark Tower).
 
Mythopoeika said:
Disappointed, I am.
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I was really looking forward to seeing how Prime would handle the exceptionally gruesome chapter "The Eaters".
Not sure if Amazon has rescinded the rights to the serialisation.
Hopefully someone will pick up the baton.
Musk is obviously a fan, as he's named some of his spacecraft after Banks' Culture ships.
 
Don't know if Upload on Amazon Prime was based on an Iain M Banks book, but there will hopefully be a second season of the subscription paid digital Afterlife in 2022 which for me is something very much to look forward to.
 
My apologies for bumping an obviously dead thread but I am big fan of the Culture series by Banks...enjoyed them all; some of the best sci-fi I have ever read and I have read most of the well known authors.
I enjoy his style of writing and it's interesting that a few others didn't. Shows how different we all are in what we like in the way of fiction.
I also read Whit : funny at times but a bit too long, Crow Road: quirky family tale but in the end worth reading.
 
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