The Greatest Sci-Fi Movies Never Made
Except for, like, most of them actually were…
By Jeremy Azevedo
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It took me ages to get around to finishing this book, which has physically been through hell in a remarkable parallel to the stories contained within… |
…This book has been lost, found, forgotten (due to the recent purchase of an Xbox 360), dropped into a toilet at a cabin in Big Bear, left outside to dry, been run over, gone camping, been sexually harassed by an older book on MySpace, and found out that it was adopted. Nevertheless, I proudly soldiered on so that I could pass along my opinion to the three or four of you out there that actually still read books. So without further ado, please enjoy the long awaited review of “The Greatest Sci-Fi Movies never Made”!
Originally published in 2002, David Hughes’ recently revised book, “The Greatest Sci-Fi Movies Never Made” is an exhaustively researched and immensely fascinating look into just how inept the studio system really is. Even when handed over an incredible story that really require very little embellishment, every single one of these films quickly spirals out of control, with numerous screenwriters pushing the story further and further out of context, budgets spiraling out of control, and a revolving door of star directors and actors collecting paychecks to talk about what could have been in interviews. The title of the book is a little misleading because most of these movies actually have been made by now. But it’s more about what the movies could have been than it is about incomplete projects.
A page from Kevin Smith’s lost Superman script (lovingly rendered in crayon), in which Superman saves NASCAR from a diabolical monkey and says the word “feltch” a lot.
What’s truly fascinating about some of these stories, each of which plays out like it’s own individual little spy novel, is how some of the scripts that fail have their carcasses stripped and re-purposed for other films. “Men in Black” was essentially all the best parts of “The Tourist”, minus the dark drama elements. Spielberg’s horror picture “Night Skies” became “E.T.”, of all things. “EL Topo” director Alejandro Jodorowsky’s “Dune” became David Lynch’s “Dune”. It becomes apparent to the reader how important and universal some of the themes in science fiction really are (as well as how difficult it can be to protect one’s intellectual property).
I don’t know what I enjoyed reading about more, the artistry and passion that some of these writers, directors and producers had for their projects, or the hilariously bad scripts turned in by bungling assholes that thought they could take a simple story like “Superman” (A guy comes to Earth from another planet and discovers that he has superpowers, and must learn to fit in despite this fact) or “I Am Legend” (A guy is just about the last man alive on Earth that still has his humanity intact, and must learn to retain said humanity while surviving constant attack by the outside world) and add “their own spin” on it. Here’s a newsflash for those people: If you are paying millions of dollars for the rights to an established work of fiction considered to be both timeless and brilliant, don’t f**k it up by assuming that you know better than the original author how the story should be structured or how it should be “updated” for modern audiences.
An artist’s conception of what a modern version of “Dune” would probably look like.
You don’t have to be a huge sci-fi dork or a film historian to enjoy this book; It’s entertaining enough on it’s own what with all the double-crossing, tantrum fits, barely constrained passive aggressiveness, shit-talking and story details from rejected scripts for what would eventually become blockbuster movies like “The Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer” and “Alien Vs. Predator”. “The Greatest Sci-Fi Movies Never made” must read for anyone even marginally interested with sci-fi, fantasy and comic book movies (which is just about everybody).
i wish a movie like what described above hit the theaters
September 24th, 2008 at 3:57 pm