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From: leeper@mtgzz.UUCP (m.r.leeper)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: Criticizing the critics
Message-ID: <736@mtgzz.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 11-May-85 22:15:21 EDT
Article-I.D.: mtgzz.736
Posted: Sat May 11 22:15:21 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 12-May-85 06:07:25 EDT
References: <1943@topaz.ARPA>
Organization: AT&T Information Systems Labs, Holmdel NJ
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 >>  I know I am not the only person that this is aimed at, but I am
 >>probably one.  
 >
 >You're right...but I do consider your reviews to be more accurate
 >and fair than most.  They seem to show some thought and analysis
 >behind them, rather than just a first impression being popped
 >out.

Thank you.  As for your statements about the endless arguments about
technical details, I find them frustrating at times.  Some technical
details about space, for example, are fairly well established.  Others
are still in some doubt.  It is clear that you should not hear the
spacecraft go by in STAR WARS, but as to whether aero-braking would
work in Jupiter's atmosphere, I suspect that nobody is really certain
at this point.  There may be technical problems with it.  It is still a
new idea.  I don't think that it is really necessary to require science
fiction film makers to be right on top of the latest technology.  If
they make a film consistant with science as she was understood five
years earlier, that is fine with me.  I have little patience for the
people who think that 2010 was technically all fouled up, but who think
that Thomas Disch's ON WINGS OF SONG -- in which people fly by singing
-- is acceptable as science fiction.  Oddly enough, I often think that
cinematic science fiction must meet harsher standards than its literary
counterpart.

 >All of this has brought up another item of interest.  When a
 >movie is adapted from a book, how obligated is the movie to
 >follow the story?  With the kinds of restrictions I mentioned in
 >my last message, a direct correlation of story elements is
 >usually impossible.  What if the author of the screenplay
 >believes the story can be improved with some plot (or character)
 >changes?  Should it be done?  How much?  

A filmmaker's first loyalty should be to make a good film.  His second
should be to be faithful to the source where it does not come into
conflict with the first.  If it does come into conflict in any but 
minor ways, perhaps the source material for the film was poorly chosen.
More than likely, the source was chosen for its box-office appeal, not
because it would make a good film.  Now rare if the film that breaks
this rule.  VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN/TERROR OF FRANKENSTEIN, for example is
a dull film.  It is only notable because it is the only Frankenstein
film that is faithful to the book.  But the book was not written to
make a good film and it is the wrong book to choose if you really are
concerned about being faithful to the source.  BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN
is a much better film.

Actually this is all academic.  A filmmakers first loyalty is to his
backers.  He has to make a film that people want to see and that does
not cost too much too make.  That is the reason for most revisions.  
(Unless you have a David Lynch or a Ken Russell.  They want to throw in
weird images in the name of art.  Funny how in this field, directing
films, the best people are the craftsmen, not the artists.  But then
that probably reflects my own prejudices.)  Also, occasionally the 
filmmaker wants to make a faithful adaptation but does not have the
rights to the story.  Sound far-fetched?  They are adapting the film
but don't have the rights to do the story?  Ian Fleming sold only a few
of his novels to the films but he sold all of the titles.  That is why
the James Bond films soured after THUNDERBALL.

Little of this really answers your question, I know.  I guess I would
just repeat that first and foremost a film should be enjoyable and then
be as close to its sources as possible.

				Mark Leeper
				...ihnp4!mtgzz!leeper