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Mar 11 10 4:56 PM
Mar 11 10 6:01 PM
Mar 12 10 11:29 PM
Amentep wrote: Didn't Issac Asimov change some things in his novelization of Fantastic Voyage so the science worked better, including altering the end?
To start, the film assumes that matter is continuous. Asimov knew they'd be dealing with molecules and atoms. He noted that you can't reduce a human to microscopic size by just using fewer atoms, as the mini-people wouldn't have enough brain cells for human intelligence. So, in order to tell the story, he assumed that somehow the atoms themselves were reduced in size.Now, this caused some new problems. E.g., how can the reduced people breathe normal sized oxygen molecules? You will recall that they sucked up an air supply with a snorkel from the patient's lungs. Asimov finds an explanation that almost works.Asimov explains that he often offers a semi-plausible rationale and then has the action take over so that no one will notice any remaining impossibilities. (A good science fiction writer knows when to ease off the science for the sake of the fiction.) He gets to do that a whole lot in the novelization. There are issues with surface tension (even a powerful sub couldn't crack a drop of plasma, or water, on that scale), and communication (how does the mini-sub send and receive radio waves of standard amplitude?)Isaac wanted to change the details of the ending. He refused to let the Hollywood people talk him out of it. Y'see, even though the miniaturized submarine (with the villainous Donald Pleasance inside) it gets engulfed by the white corpuscle, the atoms are still there, and will re-expand to normal size according to the rules set at the outset. Ergo, the patient has been cured of his cranial bloodclot, but is soon to have matter from an entire submarine popping out of his skull. Not good. But Dr. A. has an answer for that.He says that the science was particularly bad when the antibodies attacked Raquel Welch in her skintight diving suit, but that he still could see the value in the scene. Good fellow!
If you want to read more, check out his essay. I'll try to get a reference to it.
Mar 12 10 11:43 PM
I found it.
The essay in question was "The Incredible Shrinking People," first published in The Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy, April 1969. It's reprinted in the 1970 Asimov collection entitled The Solar System and Back. Well worth locating.
Mar 13 10 5:40 PM
Mar 13 10 7:47 PM
Mar 14 10 7:37 PM
Aug 13 10 8:26 PM
The Werewolf Versus the Vampire Woman by Arthur N. Scarm was quite different from the Naschy film.
Aug 13 10 11:14 PM
Aug 14 10 1:40 AM
Grant wrote: The Battle For The Planet Of The Apes novelization has that connection to the first two films that's been mentioned so often, that was left out of the movie version.
Aug 14 10 7:31 PM
Aug 15 10 9:52 AM
Aug 15 10 10:29 AM
Aug 15 10 4:28 PM
evilskippy wrote: A lot of time the author was given a draft of the script which was later changed during filming. I recently read THE DARK which definitely wasn't written after the movie was filmed. Without giving too much away the movie opted for a sci fi explanation which caused many of the flimed scenes to have a WTF feeling. The book stayed with the supernatural line which made the above mentioned scenes more plausible (if that word can be used).CONQUEST OF THE PLANET OF THE APES uses the bleaker ending than the move settles for.THE DARK KNIGHT spent the first third of the book concentrating on Scarecrow and Bruce Wayne's obssession with Harvey Dent. The movie was much better.I've been picking up as many of these movie tie in novelizations as possible lately. They are a lot of fun especially with some of the westerns that I haven't seen yet such as The Scalphunters, Alvarez Kelly and others.
Aug 15 10 5:50 PM
Grant wrote: Speaking of westerns, I asked this on another thread, but do you know if there's ever been a book of the satirical western Waterhole No. 3? (It's at least a relatively famous - and infamous - one, so I've always wondered.)
Aug 18 10 11:22 AM
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