Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site ucla-cs.ARPA Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!harvard!talcott!panda!genrad!decvax!tektronix!hplabs!sdcrdcf!trwrb!trwrba!cepu!ucla-cs!srt From: srt@ucla-cs.UUCP Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers Subject: Re: your film fantasies Message-ID: <6481@ucla-cs.ARPA> Date: Fri, 2-Aug-85 01:37:21 EDT Article-I.D.: ucla-cs.6481 Posted: Fri Aug 2 01:37:21 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 12-Aug-85 01:01:53 EDT References: <2802@topaz.ARPA> <377@ucdavis.UUCP> Reply-To: srt@ucla-cs.UUCP (Scott Turner) Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department Lines: 26 In article <377@ucdavis.UUCP> ccrdave@ucdavis.UUCP (Lord Kahless) writes: > >Picture a really beautiful mating flight scene, or the hatching >scene, or flaming thread ... > Personally I feel that this is exactly the kind of scene that DOESN'T work in an sf movie. People are very sensitive to visual imagery and when presented with a filmaker's vision of some scene that is completely orthogonal to real experience, they almost always find some part of the scene objectionable. In a movie like Bladerunner, on the other hand, the filmaker and the viewer share a common base to extrapolate from, and so the visual imagery is much more satisfying (of course, Bladerunner did this the best that its ever been done). I think you'll notice that good fantasy authors almost never lavish great detail on describing the completely unnatural elements of their stories. Instead, they tend to "hint" at the images and let the reader's imagination fill in the rest in a way that is pleasing to the reader. Unfortunately, filmakers don't have the same leeway. Different but the same. That's the ticket for SF films. Scott R. Turner ARPA: (now) srt@UCLA-LOCUS.ARPA (soon) srt@LOCUS.UCLA.EDU UUCP: ...!{cepu,ihnp4,trwspp,ucbvax}!ucla-cs!srt SPUDNET: ...eye%srt@russet.spud