[ExI] We Need a Movie, People!! Dammit!

Sun May 6 15:43:43 UTC 2007

Yes, getting a great script turned into a great film is a whole other matter of incredible difficulty (generally).  The overwhelming desire in Hollywood to make money and appeal to everyone can result in dumbing down smart scripts and changing plotlines which might disturb someone.  I really thought "The First Immortal" would be turned into a movie by Hallmark Pictures but it never happened (they call it being in "development hell").  James Halperin's book turned into a motion picture or mini series would have been a terrific Transhumanistic primer for the public.  

  One of my favorite films with a Transhumanist theme is "Lawnmower Man" but it shows Hollywood's tendency to portray artificially enhanced humans as prone toward insanity and not trustworthy.  Michael Crichton's novel about rampant killer nanotech, "Prey," will be coming out as a big budget film over the next year or two.  But this will not exactly aid the Transhumanist cause.  Thanks Michael Crichton! lol

  I had hoped the Spielberg film "A.I." would be just what we wanted but it was more of a fairy tale in science fiction trappings.  I did love the scene where we get a brief look at the alien looking Posthumans and their city.    

  Perhaps a decade from now (or sooner depending on how fast the technology improves & goes down in $$$ price) a group of talented Transhumanist filmmakers could "go it alone" and make a movie for well under a million dollars, which in today's money would run thirty or forty million at the very minimum for a similar product.  A film with actors shot almost totally in front of a blue screen (like "300" or "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow") could be the way to go.  

  This motion picture does not have to necessarily be a visual blockbuster ala James Cameron but simply a financially humble treatise on the human condition and how Transhumanism can change things for the far better.  The Spierig Brothers who did the amazing SF/Horror flick "Undead" are fantastic examples of a very small budget (half mil) going really really far due to terrific homegrown CGI work.  The aliens in this film looked much better than most of the creatures I've seen on Star Trek or Babylon 5! lol        

  Grant Walther, who was like a big brother to me during my formative years, went to CalArts and several other top American & Canadian film schools.  He had people like Ed Harris and Tim Burton as classmates but though he came close on several occasions, he never did find fame and fortune (on one occasion an Italian director he was about to work for dropped dead of a heart attack right before shooting was to start).  

  I've seen some of his student films and know he has a great deal of talent but even that alone in Hollywood does not always get one where they want to go.  My friend has many war stories about his time in Tinseltown and he has a certain amount of bitterness.  I've tried to encourage him to try the "Indy film route" but he insists that should one of his award winning scripts be made into a film, it must get the full Hollywood big budget treatment with *A* list stars.  Grant has a pile of "glowing" rejection letters saying his script about a guy trying to survive while building the Alaska Pipeline (loosely autobiographical) is terrific but just not financially viable.  Paul Newman among others actually wrote him that!  I'd like to see my friend give it one last shot with a new project and so I thought of him as this thread got started.  

  As the old saying goes, "where there's a will there's a way."  If nothing constructive happens around here I just might make a little film for YouTube with Legos people!  Really.  Or if I feel more ambitious I can combine forces with a cabal of local amateur filmmakers in my area who were kind enough to take a real interest in me and are professional graphic artists.   

  John Grigg

Heartland <velvethum at hotmail.com> wrote:
  Ben Goertzel:
> Unfortunately, I think the hardest part of getting a good H+ movie made
> would NOT be convincing a producer to take on a good H+ script (though that
> may be very hard), but rather keeping it from turning into something idiotic
> in the course of the movie-making process.

Right. Even if a script was good and you found someone to buy it, a studio would 
probably immediately ship it to its own writers to make it mainstream. By the 10th 
draft, your original H+ masterpiece full of great ideas might morph into a 
cliché-ridden B-movie designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator because, 
at the end of the day, people who fund these projects would care only about making 
money, not about promoting some philosophy people never heard about, so the 
producers would be reluctant to go for a story whose ideas/values might not reflect 
mainstream opinions, namely, a story that could only appeal to a very small 
audience.

The studios might take more risks taking on controversial projects such as this if 
making, marketing and distributing movies wasn't so insanely expensive. Until that 
changes (and digital revolution might change that a bit in few years) or until H+ 
ideas become mainstream, I'm afraid we're stuck with SL0 Sci-Fi.

Ben Goertzel:
> So if y'all are serious about this, the first step IMO would indeed by to
> find producers and/or directors who fundamentally "get it." Without that,
> it's not worth bothering.

Yes, it would probably take someone with Steven Spielberg or James Cameron's clout 
to get something like that made right now but these giants would still have to have 
a "perfect" script ready before committing to the project. Unless you know people 
like that and are an established writer or are a brilliant *and* successful writer 
already, I agree, don't bother.

H. 

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