Sci-Fi Channels' promo page for the recently broadcast Riverworld movie describes the following: "The evil lord Valdemar... thunders in with an army, to announce that he is the ruler of Riverworld." Umm...excuse me, but that is NOT a character from the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning Riverworld series by Philip Jose Farmer (includes "To Your Scattered Bodies Go", "The Fabulous Riverboat" etc.). The actual story is about everyone who has ever lived on planet Earth, waking up (resurrected) on the shores of the 70,000,000 mile long river, learning how to work together and building a civilization. And this series of novels is one of the very best 'speculative literature' Science Fiction stories ever written. To start with, I was really excited when I saw the previews, and after my first viewing of the TV movie, I remain impressed in spite of the major adaptations made by SFC. In fact, there was little in common with the original story, their's was more of a "loosely-based adaptation" rather than a screen version of the story. Many of my favorite characters were missing, and the screenwriter, producer etc. took enormous liberties with the basic concept behind the whole series. This seems consistent with the other most recent SFC mini-series Children of Dune which I have now seen for the second time (in a marathon viewing of 6 hours on 1 night). This was also a less-than-perfect adaptation with character additions, including Susan Sarandon as Princess Wensicia. Now, I'm not one of those fans who criticizes every nitpicky difference between the books and the movies (heck, I was able to get over Tom Bombadil being excluded from LOTR), so I'm prompted to just say "watch it yourself", and enjoy these lavish re-creations of best-selling Science Fiction (and Adult Fantasy) novels that have meant so much to me and have created such huge followings with such loyal fans. The important thing here is: more people than ever before, have been turned on to the works of such fantasy writers as JRR Tolkien and science fiction authors like Frank Herbert and Philip Jose Farmer.
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Sci-Fi Channels' promo page for the recently broadcast Riverworld movie describes the following: "The evil lord Valdemar... thunders in with an army, to announce that he is the ruler of Riverworld." Umm...excuse me, but that is NOT a character from the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning Riverworld series by Philip Jose Farmer (includes "To Your Scattered Bodies Go", "The Fabulous Riverboat" etc.). The actual story is about everyone who has ever lived on planet Earth, waking up (resurrected) on the shores of the 70,000,000 mile long river, learning how to work together and building a civilization. And this series of novels is one of the very best 'speculative literature' Science Fiction stories ever written. To start with, I was really excited when I saw the previews, and after my first viewing of the TV movie, I remain impressed in spite of the major adaptations made by SFC. In fact, there was little in common with the original story, their's was more of a "loosely-based adaptation" rather than a screen version of the story. Many of my favorite characters were missing, and the screenwriter, producer etc. took enormous liberties with the basic concept behind the whole series. This seems consistent with the other most recent SFC mini-series Children of Dune which I have now seen for the second time (in a marathon viewing of 6 hours on 1 night). This was also a less-than-perfect adaptation with character additions, including Susan Sarandon as Princess Wensicia. Now, I'm not one of those fans who criticizes every nitpicky difference between the books and the movies (heck, I was able to get over Tom Bombadil being excluded from LOTR), so I'm prompted to just say "watch it yourself", and enjoy these lavish re-creations of best-selling Science Fiction (and Adult Fantasy) novels that have meant so much to me and have created such huge followings with such loyal fans. The important thing here is: more people than ever before, have been turned on to the works of such fantasy writers as JRR Tolkien and science fiction authors like Frank Herbert and Philip Jose Farmer. |
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The Phoenix Bird
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