SAHARA - the screenwriters knew what to cut, for once
Vance P. Frickey
can unreservedly recommend it as an action flick.
It is NOT faithful to the original Clive Cussler novel of the same name, but
this is a "good thing," since Mr. Cussler is a great author of potboilers
but somewhat less than a master of clean plots. This is as it should be,
since a Cussler book can be a great thing to recuperate from surgery or fly
transatlantic with, precisely because of his convoluted plots. And Cussler
has his devotees (including me) but few of us would, hand on Bible, swear to
his mastery of the art of writing riveting dialogue (the atheists, perhaps).
In this NG, there was a discussion earlier about movies that were actual
improvements over the books on which they were based. I think that "The
Puppet Masters" is an example of this in the RAH canon (I mean, come ON,
don't tell me that the dialogue in the novel is better than in the movie).
Axiomatically, a screen adaptation of a potboiler is an improvement over the
original novel in terms of plot and dialogue.
The exception that really DOES prove (in the common mis-interpretation of
the expression) that rule is "Raise the Titanic!" which is, unfortunately,
all too faithful to the original novel. That turkey's lack of luster in all
categories (except, perhaps, for the deal Cussler was able to make for movie
rights, because the book was a best-seller for a LONG time) may account for
the long hiatus - 25 years, since 1980 - since the next feature screen
adaptation of a Cussler novel.
Cussler had much better luck with his nonfiction TV series "The Sea Hunters"
(from 2002 or thereabouts). Then again, Cussler is the real deal - he's put
a lot of his book royalties into finding wrecks - not with, perhaps, Bob
Ballard's record, but think about how many millions more dollars' funding
Ballard has had for things like, frex, finding the Titanic, and the vast
amount of taxpayer-funded experience Ballard's had on things like finding
lost nuclear-powered subs and his civilian gig at Woods Hole Oceanographic
Institution. Cussler's done good.
I hope Sahara makes a billion bucks for its investors - presumably including
Clive Cussler himself, who is listed as "executive producer," because it was
a real kick to watch. Even Angelina Jolie puts in a good job on this one -
and McConaughey takes the curse off of the main character, "Dirk Pitt."
Richard Jordan, who was cast for Pitt in "Raise the Titanic!" failed to
impress me or anyone else I've discussed his performance in the film with.
William Macy was great as Adm. Sandecker, and the guy who played Al Giordino
was probably the best-cast actor in the whole film.
But the screenwriter (Thomas Dean Donnelly) deserves the most credit for the
deft surgery he performed on the novel "Sahara" on its way to film. Whole
chunks of the novel's plot were lopped off with no loss whatever to the
film - on the contrary, these guys knew exactly what they were doing in
deciding what to bring to the screen and what to spare the viewer. And
Clive Cussler deserves credit for letting Donnelly cut - speaking as
someone's who written professionally from time to time myself (never with
anything close to Cussler's success, more's the pity), I understand that
being edited is never fun. I respect his choice to defer to a great
screenwriter.
A very good flick, one that I would pay theater prices (matinee prices,
anyway) to see again on the large screen. I can't say that about very many
films - maybe "A Bridge Too Far," or the "Star Wars" movies, work that
demands a huge screen and pro-quality sound reproduction. This little puppy
is going to be the impetus for a lot of home theater installations when it
goes to DVD.
Not great art, just a great movie. When I want to see great art, I change
channels to one of my two local PBS affiliates - but there are still things
Hollywood does much, much better than either the BBC or Merchant and Ivory,
and this is one of them.
--
Vance P. Frickey
vfri...@ricochet.com
"There is an uncomfortable similarity between Damocles, who had everything
but security, and the West today. The main difference is that Damocles could
see the sword that threatened him and the thin thread that restrained it,
while today both sword and thread seem unreal to all too many."
Herman Kahn, On Thermonuclear War.
Motherthing
>
> A very good flick, one that I would pay theater prices (matinee prices,
> anyway) to see again on the large screen. I can't say that about very many
> films - maybe "A Bridge Too Far," or the "Star Wars" movies, work that
> demands a huge screen and pro-quality sound reproduction. This little puppy
> is going to be the impetus for a lot of home theater installations when it
> goes to DVD.
>
> Not great art, just a great movie. When I want to see great art, I change
> channels to one of my two local PBS affiliates - but there are still things
> Hollywood does much, much better than either the BBC or Merchant and Ivory,
> and this is one of them.
>
Wow! A fellow "A Bridge Too Far" fan! It was one of the first DVDs I
bought once we got the machine. I introduced it to Rusty(the military
fiction fan) and he loved it, too.
Motherthing
Denny Wheeler
<vfri...@ricochet.com> wrote:
>And Cussler
>has his devotees (including me) but few of us would, hand on Bible, swear to
>his mastery of the art of writing riveting dialogue (the atheists, perhaps).
Some of us *would* swear to the lack of proofing in Cussler's books.
(though I must admit that such is all too often the case in recent
publishing. NOT, though, anything from Baen)
I think Sahara is about the last Cussler I read; suspension of
disbelief was getting overstretched, I think.
(I've read all of 'em up through that one)
-denny-
--
"...our dignity, our free institutions and the peace and
welfare of this and coming generations of Americans will be
secure only as we cling to the watchword of true patriotism:
'Our country--when right to be kept right; when wrong to be put
right.'" - Carl Schurz, in 1899
Vance P. Frickey
"Denny Wheeler" <den...@TANSTAAFL.zipcon.net.INVALID> wrote in message
news:aidt7153tf38f9tc7...@4ax.com...
> On Sun, 8 May 2005 18:28:37 -0600, "Vance P. Frickey"
> <vfri...@ricochet.com> wrote:
>
>>And Cussler
>>has his devotees (including me) but few of us would, hand on Bible, swear
>>to
>>his mastery of the art of writing riveting dialogue (the atheists,
>>perhaps).
>
> Some of us *would* swear to the lack of proofing in Cussler's books.
> (though I must admit that such is all too often the case in recent
> publishing. NOT, though, anything from Baen)
>
> I think Sahara is about the last Cussler I read; suspension of
> disbelief was getting overstretched, I think.
> (I've read all of 'em up through that one)
(Nods emphatically)
SPOILER WARNING for those who have not yet read Sahara (the novel)
The whole "mine" branch of the plot could have been pruned off of the novel
with little or no violence to the plot.
And the idea of UN forces interceding forcefully and effectually on the side
of Good since the Korean War (the Fort Foureau battle scene) was almost
Monty Python-esque in its surreality.
CC could have cut straight to letting the US Army Rangers kick ass for all
of me. Putting anything more forceful than a couple of companies of Fijian
reservists with assault rifles, delivered by civilian air, in Kofi Annan's
control strikes me as a very, very bad idea. But that's just me :-)
VPF
jeanette
What put me over was how the problem of regrets over not having children
was so nicely resolved without the messiness of diapers, discipline, or
paying for college. Besides riling the feminist in me, I became fed up
with the unmourned body count and constant impossible coincidences.
However, I turned the book over to my husband (we have very different
tastes in entertainment), and he has found Cussler great commute-time
reading.
Speaking of impossible coincidences and too many words, I just finished
Crichton's STATE OF FEAR. I get his point but the book is not a
graceful message.
Jeanette--wanting a new Heinlein
Vance P. Frickey
"jeanette" <wo...@webtv.net> wrote in message
news:28702-427...@storefull-3112.bay.webtv.net...
Crichton's books seldom are when he mounts his soapbox and decides to send a
message. And he hit rock-bottom that way. I make the depressing assumption
that State of Fear is as bad as Rising Sun, which is saying something BAD.
Weirdly, when Crichton decides to send a message in a nonfiction book, he
usually does so very well and very entertainingly. I've worn out three
copies of his Five Patients, and I still recommend it to people who want a
very short, understandable introduction to how modern medicine works today -
it was written in 1970 and apart from relatively recent developments such as
HMOs, is still dead-on regarding the business of healing.
It's only when he runs short of pocket change and decides to write a
thrill-ride like the Jurassic Park franchise and eschews serious
message-sending (I mean, no one really stays up worrying that a Bill Gates
figure is going to try to resurrect theropods using crappy DNA samples, do
they?), Andromeda Strain (I guess I just validated my wonk ID, calling that
one a thriller), Eaters of the Dead, or Congo that he really entertains.
VPF
lal_truckee
> I think that "The
> Puppet Masters" is an example of this in the RAH canon (I mean, come ON,
> don't tell me that the dialogue in the novel is better than in the movie).
The dialogue in the novel is better than in the movie. Really. Read the
book again.
Vance P. Frickey
"lal_truckee" <lal_t...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:%yBfe.14756$J12....@newssvr14.news.prodigy.com...
How about "as good?" _The Puppet Masters_ is one of those books I keep
wearing out because I read it often for pleasure, and I can quote large
sections of it from even my war surplus-bought, unreliable memory. But the
dialogue is dated, as is inevitable - it's an old book.
The screenwriters in tPM kept the good stuff while deleting references to
things like "hep cats" on the radio of "Sam's" vehicle, the catfight between
Mary and Sam's nurse, and swipes at how the Russians wouldn't have noticed
if they HAD been infected by Parasites (which was funny and probably true
during the Sovietschina, but by the time the movie was shot had been
overtaken by events).
But your point is well-taken - the screenwriters added very little that was
an improvement on RAH's original prose, just pruned the stuff that would
have had the audience going "Huh?" while capturing the essence of the book.
I still think it was better done that way than a BBC-style, slavish,
page-for-page rendition of the original text to screen - the sort that makes
things like "The Forsyte Saga" seem so much like 12 weeks of root canal
surgery. Speaking of which, I saw the Beeb's "Lucky Jim" last year and was
astonished to see they actually trimmed some of Kingsley Amis' prose in
pursuit of a funnier movie. They succeeded, too, if you like British
comedy, and I do. YMMV.
VPF
Dr. Rufo
Vance P. Frickey wrote:
< snip >
> I still think it was better done that way than a BBC-style, slavish,
> page-for-page rendition of the original text to screen - the sort that makes
> things like "The Forsyte Saga" seem so much like 12 weeks of root canal
> surgery. Speaking of which, I saw the Beeb's "Lucky Jim" last year and was
> astonished to see they actually trimmed some of Kingsley Amis' prose in
> pursuit of a funnier movie. They succeeded, too, if you like British
> comedy, and I do. YMMV.
The Forsyte Saga was broadcast on PBS beginning in 1969 and is one
of the fond memories of my childhood. It was made by the BBC in
black and white and was one of the "reasons" that Masterpiece
Theatre became such a successful franchise for public broadcasting.
Eric Porter, Nyree Dawn Porter, Susan Hampshire, Kenneth More others
who participated in that ur-Masterpiece raised Galsworthy to the
level of Dickens -- at least for the 26 episodes. It was soap opera.
It was melodrama. It was wonderful. But it was not until I had read
the Saga that I realized that those folks hadn't just "done good
work" -- they had made magic! The same folks did yeoman's service in
many other offerings shown on PBS which I also remember fondly,
notably "The First Churchills."
The newer version had nothing to compare it to the earlier. Calling
it "12 weeks of root canal surgery" is demeaning to root canal work
which is productive-though-painful. It was more like "banging your
head on the wall" in that the real point of appreciation is when you
stop. I must confess, however, to having watched only the first two
episodes.
Pax,
Rufe
Nuclear Waste
"Vance P. Frickey" <vfri...@ricochet.com> wrote in message news:FdSdnX0pHK_...@forethought.net...
Chrichton has always struck me as a person who engenders all that is wrong with
sci-fi. Even when his science bears some resemblence to reality, he manages to
screw it up with his Luddite fear of technology. I have never been able to finish
one of his books, as the cheap bindings tend to allow the pages to fly all over the
room after I have thrown the book at the wall.
NW
Vance P. Frickey
"Dr. Rufo" <bay...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:0ZLfe.11063$HL2....@newsread3.news.pas.earthlink.net...
Sorry, but I tried watching the original (rebroadcast) Forsyte Saga in the
1970s and just couldn't get into the story. And I have followed other BBC
series which did entertain - their police procedurals are great, as is the
series (name escapes me) centered around a sergeant in the Royal Army during
the Napoleonic Wars whose unit kept on getting the "interesting" details.
Beautiful thing about TVs is they have channel selectors - chacun a son
gout.
Felicitations,
VPF
Howard Berkowitz
<vfri...@ricochet.com> wrote:
> CC could have cut straight to letting the US Army Rangers kick ass for
> all
> of me. Putting anything more forceful than a couple of companies of
> Fijian
> reservists with assault rifles, delivered by civilian air, in Kofi
> Annan's
> control strikes me as a very, very bad idea. But that's just me :-)
>
I've seen a few Fijians that might not need a rifle to be the equivalent
of a tank.
Big_Fella
"Howard Berkowitz" <h...@gettcomm.com> wrote in message
news:hcb-99AEF8.1...@newsgroups.comcast.net...
I knew an Islander once, who had a punch on him not unlike being run over by
a tank. And built like a brick out-house.
:-<)
Puppet_Sock
[snip]
> In this NG, there was a discussion earlier about movies that were
actual
> improvements over the books on which they were based. I think that
"The
> Puppet Masters" is an example of this in the RAH canon (I mean, come
ON,
> don't tell me that the dialogue in the novel is better than in the
movie).
Well, I gotta say, the I didn't like what they did in the movie
treatment of that book one tiny bit. There were *MAJOR* plot
items that were simply removed, and wall-papered over in a
very clumsy fashion. And they were needed. The two that come
to mind at the top of my list are: Why we needed the female
hero character (from the book, she had an unusual history
that told us how to fight the slugs), and the details of the
interview and how the head of the secret org got his best
agent to agree to submit to it. You see, those two together
showed so much about the character of the head of the secret
org. He was smart and thought long term, so held onto the
female agent for years, with the idea of what was to happen.
And he was prepared to use his best agent, who happened to
be his son, in whatever way was necessary. Even use him up.
Sure, some of the slang has changed, and that could easily have
been updated. And references to various dictatorships in the
world would have to be updated. But it was drastically changed
from the book in many many important ways. And that sucked.
Socks
Vance P. Frickey
"Puppet_Sock" <puppe...@hotmail.com> wrote in
message
news:1116442468.4...@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
Well, whatcha gonna do? :-)
The people who backed "Raise the Titanic!" as a
movie lost their shirts, IIRC, because the
screenwriters kept too much of the novel in the
screenplay. Cussler doesn't translate well
verbatim to the silver screen, and Raise the
Titanic (the movie) was a yawner. I was terribly
disappointed in several aspects of THAT movie,
particularly that they cast Richard Jordan, who
didn't come off as very dynamic, as Dirk Pitt.
Yaaaawwwnnn.
If Sahara had been transferred verbatim from novel
to screenplay, it
(a) would have been four hours long (and it ran
longer than usual for a recent movie as it was)
(b) would have lost the viewers (who are not
necessarily avid readers or gifted with long
attention spans) who would valiantly try to follow
the mine subplot and the Sandecker getting help
from the UN and the spy agency subplot, and the
siege of Fort Foureau, and... if you can sell all
of that to a producer, you will be a rich man -
for exactly ONE movie. Then you will be very
lonely.
Remember, twenty-five years passed from the last
Cussler movie to this one. Coincidence? I don't
think so.
(c) wouldn't have sold many repeat viewings - and
I think Sahara has the potential to do that.
There's a reason that the BBC makes Parliament
charge people a couple hundred dollars a year to
own a TV - if they had to get some of their
screenplays (ESPECIALLY the ones that are a
word-for-word rendition of a novel) past a
producer who has to make money on the product -
well... the British viewing public isn't really
more erudite or fascinated by eighteenth-century
drama than ours is. They're mainly into soccer or
rugby (pardon me, football or football) or
Schwartzenegger. If the Beeb could hire Der
Arnold to do one of those four-month serials of
theirs, they could probably fund the National
Health Service from sales of TV licenses.
Probably wouldn't be a bad idea if the Tories
sounded him out about standing for office
somewhere, cause nobody they have now has a prayer
against Tony Blair or his anointed successor.
And when the BBC get their hands on something
worth watching, like "The Committments," they play
it until God Himself wouldn't watch it again.
Then they show "Cold Sassy Tree" or some
depressing crap like that - all the stuff that
rolls out of Hollywood, and THAT's what they
show - or the movie about the sinking of the USS
Indianapolis, where the big guys shoved the weak
and small guys into the drink to be shark food and
the Navy threw the Captain to the wolves after the
rescue (after they declared the ship's ETA in port
a top secret because of the spare A-bomb it was
supposedly hauling back to the States, which gave
the sailors time to marinate, literally) - a real
feel-good movie. After three months of stuff like
that, I was drinking the English under the table.
Getting totally blind, especially on English beer
(it's a lot better than most of ours) is a LOT
more fun than watching the Beeb. Pity I can't do
that anymore.
Now, Cussler could have sold a verbatim treatment
of the novel as a MINISERIES - but the big bucks
are in movies, which have merchandising tie-ins
(including a new edition of the novel with
graphics from the movie on the cover and the
tasteful legend "Now a Major Motion Picture!" on
both front and back covers), action figures, candy
bars, underarm deodorant, royalties from DVD and
videotape release, and residuals from cable, and
eventually that "Television Broadcast Premiere!"
VPF