[QuickTidal]

HoosierDaddy, on 28 April 2017 - 04:59 AM, said:

D, on 28 April 2017 - 04:04 AM, said:

I was really hoping for a Sanjay Bhansali-style Bollywood adaptation of this, but I guess this is a good second choice, too.

Why?

Please describe what that description means other than something completely alien to Glen Cook's depiction.

HoosierDaddy, on 28 April 2017 - 05:16 AM, said:

That was an actual question. I have no idea what that statement meant other than "Bollywood" which is not that much more information.

I'm not sure how this touched such a nerve. It was an honest comment/question on HD's part.


Amph, exactly what part of HD's query pissed you off to the degree that you lashed out like you did?

I don't think that if someone doesn't know much about Bollywood films (and I mean, there are a fair amount of people who've never seen one, let alone know the filmography of a specific creator...you can't expect everyone to be versed in global film industries and their intricacies), that asking how an adaptation of one would work/fit with Cook's series in that vein is a query that is in any way disrespectful of the industry in question. He simply asked Why?

Do you feel D'rek unable to qualify her statement as to how a Bollywood version not only might look, but might work with Cook's series?

I would assume I'd get the same question if I proposed...say a "Josei" version of The Black Company, and offered no qualification for that statement. I don't expect everyone to be versed in what that Japanese term means, and how it would be applied to a film completely out of its typical milieu of story.

TL;DR: I don't think HD was meaning any offence, he was just curious how or why D'rek would qualify that statement, from the POV of what HD has seen/knows of Bollywood as an industry.

[HoosierDaddy]

I think it was the "serious" portion that might have done it? I don't know.

Frankly I'd like any version of Black Company done well.

That being said: I have my own 30% of posts of dumbass stuff so I'm well aware I can be stupid.

edit: 30% might be wildly under reporting

This post has been edited by HoosierDaddy: 28 April 2017 - 07:56 PM

[D'rek]

Well jeez, I don't know what to say now.

[Aptorian]

Clearly, you owe us all an apology after what you did.

[Whisperzzzzzzz]

I think Sanjay Bhansali is the one who should be apologizing for not being more known amongst Western audiences. How dare they not be a household name in a foreign (to them) culture!

[Aptorian]

This is a side tangent but given the size of their markets, I wonder when (not if) we will start to see Chinese and Indian media being pushed in Western cinemas and TV?

From what I can tell from the few Bollywood productions I have seen here and there, like on Youtube, Bollywood has a ton of potential. A lot of it is over the top, bombastic, funny and often high quality. It reminds me of the kind of 70s films you'd find in the movie rental, like old karate films, spaghetti westerns, Terrence Hill and Bud Spencer, Police Academy, etc. just with a better budget or better special effects.

[Traveller]

I don't know that I'd like a tv version at all.

I love the books. I don't know if it's the cover art on my copies or just the writing style, but these books and characters have such a distinct, dark, heavy other-worldly feel to them that I know I'll feel underwhelmed by pretty much any depiction on screen.

I'd rather see an animated version tbh - crows and spears and banners, and drawn characters made from the sparse descriptions in the book, over a dumbed down for tv (which it will be; Cook is the king of letting the reader find their own way) diluted version in HD with no character and a bunch of GoTs comparisons.

It IS undoubtedly a good thing that something like Black Company has been considered for tv - I just fear that anything short of giving it the full treatment it deserves will put off any future investment in the likes of Stover or Erikson, for example.

This post has been edited by Traveller: 28 April 2017 - 07:28 PM

[HoosierDaddy]

D, on 28 April 2017 - 06:12 PM, said:

Well jeez, I don't know what to say now.

Easy! How would it work?

[worry]

[HoosierDaddy]

I so love 2Pac.

[Whisperzzzzzzz]

Apt, on 28 April 2017 - 07:26 PM, said:

This is a side tangent but given the size of their markets, I wonder when (not if) we will start to see Chinese and Indian media being pushed in Western cinemas and TV?

From what I can tell from the few Bollywood productions I have seen here and there, like on Youtube, Bollywood has a ton of potential. A lot of it is over the top, bombastic, funny and often high quality. It reminds me of the kind of 70s films you'd find in the movie rental, like old karate films, spaghetti westerns, Terrence Hill and Bud Spencer, Police Academy, etc. just with a better budget or better special effects.

My guess is that the powers that be think the US isn't literate/patient enough for subtitles, xenogenesis and would be too distracted by dubs not matching up perfectly.

EDIT: 'and' -> 'xenogenesis' is a great auto-correct. Too much Butler.

This post has been edited by Whisperzzzzzzz: 28 April 2017 - 08:57 PM

[amphibian]

This is what I'm talking specifically about:

HoosierDaddy, on 28 April 2017 - 04:59 AM, said:

D, on 28 April 2017 - 04:04 AM, said:

I was really hoping for a Sanjay Bhansali-style Bollywood adaptation of this, but I guess this is a good second choice, too.

Why?

Please describe what that description means other than something completely alien to Glen Cook's depiction.

It's D'rek's idea. I think it's​ a very unconventional approach that could work for the Books of the South, but it's not alien to Cook or the books. Cook went way out of his way to make the Dejagore sections link heavily to South Asian culture and traditions, of which Bollywood is now part. That's part of my culture too.

Bhansali's budgets and production design are within reach for a TV show. It's oddly reasonable, if not likely due to this being a US based production.

You were a jerk about questioning this. I know D'rek can speak up for herself and I don't claim to speak for her, but I don't like the approach you took here.

[amphibian]

Apt, on 28 April 2017 - 07:26 PM, said:

This is a side tangent but given the size of their markets, I wonder when (not if) we will start to see Chinese and Indian media being pushed in Western cinemas and TV?

From what I can tell from the few Bollywood productions I have seen here and there, like on Youtube, Bollywood has a ton of potential. A lot of it is over the top, bombastic, funny and often high quality. It reminds me of the kind of 70s films you'd find in the movie rental, like old karate films, spaghetti westerns, Terrence Hill and Bud Spencer, Police Academy, etc. just with a better budget or better special effects.

This is a complicated question, but native South Asian productions mostly have storylines similar to Western stuff in the 1960s and 1970s. There's a ton of soap opera things, light comedy, and then variety show fluff. The editing, camera work etc are all modern, but the stories and the general themes are 30 to 50 years behind Western shows.

Part of this is the education level of the mass audience over there. There's also many more people for whom the primary languages are not Hindi. Really complicated to build something that both the South Asians will like and the Western audience will like.

That being said, I think actors doing things like the later career shift of Priyanka Chopra to US TV after a Bollywood career will happen more and more. The actresses in particular are more skilled than they show in movies and are already pros in working with heavy production schedules.

[Whisperzzzzzzz]

EDIT: I heavily rewrote this post from my initial one-liner, so I deleted the original and am reposting it.

amphibian, on 28 April 2017 - 10:13 PM, said:

This is what I'm talking specifically about:

HoosierDaddy, on 28 April 2017 - 04:59 AM, said:

D, on 28 April 2017 - 04:04 AM, said:

I was really hoping for a Sanjay Bhansali-style Bollywood adaptation of this, but I guess this is a good second choice, too.

Why?

Please describe what that description means other than something completely alien to Glen Cook's depiction.

It's D'rek's idea. I think it's​ a very unconventional approach that could work for the Books of the South, but it's not alien to Cook or the books. Cook went way out of his way to make the Dejagore sections link heavily to South Asian culture and traditions, of which Bollywood is now part. That's part of my culture too.

Bhansali's budgets and production design are within reach for a TV show. It's oddly reasonable, if not likely due to this being a US based production.

You were a jerk about questioning this. I know D'rek can speak up for herself and I don't claim to speak for her, but I don't like the approach you took here.

I know that curiosity killed the cat, but I wasn't aware that curiosity (or ignorance) made one a jerk. I guess all children are jerks (they are, but I'd just always assumed it was for other reasons).

Would you tell a person from India to fuck off because they hadn't seen any films by Steven Spielberg? Or what about a person from Iceland because they hadn't seen a film by Feng Xiaogang? Would you feel the same way if a Pakistani person assumed that all Hollywood films were big explosionfests with guns and giant robots because all they'd ever seen publicized were Michael Bay films?

It's one thing to be uninformed and intolerant, and it's even worse to be informed and intolerant, but there's little wrong with being uninformed and tolerant (as long as one is willing to become informed when the opportunity arises).

I apologize for being glib, but I just believe it's better to assume that questions are sincere and answer them as if they are. That way, at least, I'm not the asshole and, maybe, the questioner will learn something. If they choose to troll and not learn anything, then I haven't lost anything. And, maybe someone else will even get some benefit from my answer.


"Every question is a cry to understand the world." — Carl Sagan

"Goblin is a Poof." — One-Eye's nose magic



----

On that note, I'm still not sure why you or D'rek think Bhansali would be a good director for the Black Company series, other than 1) he's South Asian and 2) he can work with a low budget. What about his style meshes with the Black Company books? Does he have experience weaving a narrative with many characters from the unreliable POV of only one? Has any of his other work successfully contained such a stark world as that described in the books? Does he have experience with battles and magic portrayed seriously with weight and not a hint of the usual tongue-in-cheek invulnerability that Bollywood action films are known for in the US?

I want to know

This post has been edited by Whisperzzzzzzz: 28 April 2017 - 11:39 PM

[worry]

I dunno. It's easy to read HD's initial question as hostile (to the idea, not D'rek) and dismissive, rather than (or even in addition to) curious -- and that's how it read to me too (i.e. "that's a dumb idea, but I'll give you a shot to explain yourself") -- so in that light amph's reaction makes sense as balancing HD's overreaction to a pretty innocuous D'rek post. On the other hand, you could read HD's post with way more curiosity and way less hostility than that -- but even then it's the dismissive element that got under amph's skin, and that might still be there even in a softer tone, but probably would have garnered a "don't be so quick to dismiss it out of hand, and here's why..." response. Who knows? Moods change at the drop of a dime. This is why I propose that we should start varying our text colors to match our tones to avoid misunderstand: black = neutral, red = angry, blue = friendly, green = horny, white = evil, and so on.

[HoosierDaddy]

amphibian, on 28 April 2017 - 10:13 PM, said:

This is what I'm talking specifically about:

HoosierDaddy, on 28 April 2017 - 04:59 AM, said:

D, on 28 April 2017 - 04:04 AM, said:

I was really hoping for a Sanjay Bhansali-style Bollywood adaptation of this, but I guess this is a good second choice, too.

Why?

Please describe what that description means other than something completely alien to Glen Cook's depiction.

It's D'rek's idea. I think it's​ a very unconventional approach that could work for the Books of the South, but it's not alien to Cook or the books. Cook went way out of his way to make the Dejagore sections link heavily to South Asian culture and traditions, of which Bollywood is now part. That's part of my culture too.

Bhansali's budgets and production design are within reach for a TV show. It's oddly reasonable, if not likely due to this being a US based production.

You were a jerk about questioning this. I know D'rek can speak up for herself and I don't claim to speak for her, but I don't like the approach you took here.

Are you for real?

I guess I'll never ask questions about anything else ever again for fear of upsetting someone.

Instead I'll live in ignorance of everything because asking questions is a fucking disgrace.

You do realize you are talking about books fucking 7-12 and not the originals? You are being a huge, unnecessary asshole.

[HoosierDaddy]

worry, on 28 April 2017 - 11:41 PM, said:

I dunno. It's easy to read HD's initial question as hostile (to the idea, not D'rek) and dismissive, rather than (or even in addition to) curious -- and that's how it read to me too (i.e. "that's a dumb idea, but I'll give you a shot to explain yourself") -- so in that light amph's reaction makes sense as balancing HD's overreaction to a pretty innocuous D'rek post. On the other hand, you could read HD's post with way more curiosity and way less hostility than that -- but even then it's the dismissive element that got under amph's skin, and that might still be there even in a softer tone, but probably would have garnered a "don't be so quick to dismiss it out of hand, and here's why..." response. Who knows? Moods change at the drop of a dime. This is why I propose that we should start varying our text colors to match our tones to avoid misunderstand: black = neutral, red = angry, blue = friendly, green = horny, white = evil, and so on.

There was nothing hostile. There is now. Stop.

[HoosierDaddy]

Whatever. I'm fucking done. I'm asking for ban.

[D'rek]

When I said "totally hoping" I'm super kidding. The odds of that happening are astronomical. But it would also be really cool and interesting.

Also, I said "Sanjay Bhansali-style", not literally Bhansali directing. I myself haven't seen enough Bhansali movies to actually judge what a Bhansali-directed Black Company would or wouldn't be like. I just know some general trends of his and from the bajillion clips I've seen of all the movies I haven't seen I think he has some great cinematography/imagery/composition.

Also also, I want to make it clear that *I* wasn't offended/upset/etc by any of the replies!

But on to the meat of the suggestion:

I may be totally out to lunch on this one, as I have definitely not seen many Bollywood movies at all, but I kinda feel like the Bollywood blockbuster movies trend more towards allowing a reasonably disjoint narrative. Sometimes it might just be because of "rule of cool", but in any case I feel like something like Bajirao Mastani is able to have more of an unreliable narrator/plot effect where things don't always have to line up 100% or there can be gaps that the audience is left to fill in, while in contrast something like GoT feels the absolute and utter need to directly explain to the audience every single step of its plot. The latter... I just don't feel like it will work for the Black Company. Part of what makes the Black Company books so thrilling is that they are more like a series of windows then a continuous thread, but I just don't see Hollywod producers letting that happen.

I did also have in mind when posting that that the setting (and themes?) of the Books of the South takes a lot of inspiration from southern-Asian cultures/history, and it would certainly be cool to see such settings crafted by an actual southern-Asian creative team, whereas I feel like a western studio will more likely end up with something that looks a lot like what we've already seen before in GoT, LotR, etc. Those aren't the same as the first books, of course, but it would be cool to have some obviously-different set design and filming locations to set this series apart.

Lastly, the whole reason I even had Bhansali in mind to post that is because one of the dance+song scenes from Bajirao Mastani was trending on imgur at the time. And that got me thinking about the (fight) choreography and filming of recent western fantasy movies/TV, and the styles, and such. There are a few things that I don't think recent western fantasy movies/TV have been very good at, that Bhansali or his contemporaries might actually be better off and that would be good, or even very important, in adapting the Black Company to screen. One of them is having lots of foreground extras/tertiary characters in big scenes and letting the camera back off enough to show them so the scene looks big and grand, while the main characters are still easily the focus - I'm sure you can all think of some GoT scenes where an "army" felt like it was just three main/secondary characters and a couple dozen guys 50 feet behind them. A second one is mixing gritty, grounded, human characters with giant larger-than-life heroes, which I feel in most recent western fantasy the larger-than-life characters end up feeling very watered down and unimpressive - but Black Company *needs* to have a huge contrast between, say, Mugen, One Eye, The Limper, and The Lady... and there are scenes where those three might all be in the same room!

Anyways, here's some awesome choreographed military dancing and singing that isn't quite in the Black Company tone ... though they do certainly have the sense of brotherhood I would want to be seen in any Black Company adaptation

[Abyss]

MODGOD NOTICE OF... OF... OF... SOMETHING... SERIOUS WTF JUST HAPPENED UPTHREAD? ...seriously the chain of overreactions, misunderstandings, and attacks I just read was fucking ridiculous. Everyone mad at someone take a damn breath and go back to this otherwise interesting discussion. CARRY ON.