Elric Saga - Tolkienesque? Blasphemy!!!

[Dirt]

http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/Movi...eut/index.html

Burroughesque perhaps. Howardesque perhaps. Leiberesque maybe.

Michael Moorcock couldn't stand Lord of the Rings. His books couldn't be more different than Tolkien's.

I hope it gets made. I hope it has Corum in it.

Is Edgar Winter available for the part?

Keannu Reeves IS Elric...

Originally Posted by Dirt

http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/Movies/02/24/film.elric.reut/index.html

Burroughesque perhaps. Howardesque perhaps. Leiberesque maybe.

Michael Moorcock couldn't stand Lord of the Rings. His books couldn't be more different than Tolkien's.

I hope it gets made. I hope it has Corum in it.

Check the headline of the article. The reporter was apparently incapable of spelling "Tolkien" correctly. It's safe to assume he's not an expert in this kind of fiction.

I don't know how much I like the idea of an Elric movie, and I think the window of opportunity for it has passed. It would have been better in the late 90's, for all those whiny goth kids, since Elric (the character) is, himself, a whiny goth kid.

I imagine that if the movies did come to pass, they'd probably try to at least make references to the other Eternal Champions, and maybe even include an abbreviated version of the Vanishing Tower story with Erekose and Corum. But the movies would probably be about Elric, mostly.

Has anyone seen the Jerry Cornelius movie that was made in the early '70s?

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0070289

Originally Posted by Peter Principle

Has anyone seen the Jerry Cornelius movie that was made in the early '70s?

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0070289

Holy cow, I had no idea this existed. Thanks for the info, I'll have to check that out.

[Miramon]

A Jerry Cornelius movie! The only thing cooler than that would be a Jerry Cornell movie.

I'm afraid I like Jerry Cornell much better than Cornelius, though the first Jerry Cornelius book was quite good. Some of the others are just way too fraught with angst, ennui, and other modern forms of uninteresting psychological and existential distress that they lose all interest for me though. A few of Moorcock's other books on related Cornelian characters are not bad, but in general Moorcock's "modern fantasy" stories seem to be very variable in quality as regards my taste at least. I did like one recent book set in a twisted version of the US South suffering from typical Moorcock-world damage that I read not too long ago, but for some reason I can't remember the title.

Anyway, Moorcock is really very little like any other swords and sorcery writer that I can think of. Noting like Leiber, Howard, etc. Maybe he's a little like M. John Harrison, another new wave avant garde-ish British writer who did some sort-of swords and sorcery stuff a while back, and who I believe is writing SF again after a longish hiatus.

[Sparky]

Ugh. They'll probably cast Ben Affleck as Elric, wearing the ill-fitting "Storm" wig Halle Berry wore in X-Men.

Originally Posted by Miramon

A few of Moorcock's other books on related Cornelian characters are not bad, but in general Moorcock's "modern fantasy" stories seem to be very variable in quality as regards my taste at least.

They seemed weird to everyone at the time because Cornelius and the gamblers of Fate (or whatever they're called) were arguably the earliest form of cyberpunk fiction ever produced.

Originally Posted by Sparky

Ugh. They'll probably cast Ben Affleck as Elric, wearing the ill-fitting "Storm" wig Halle Berry wore in X-Men.

You know, the first person I thought about was Viggo Mortenson from Lord of the Rings (just because he might be typecast by now), but Elric is supposed to be very young, at least in the early books. Mortenson can at least talk the fantasy talk (like how he pronounces "Mordor" in the cool, scary, weird elf way).

[Miramon]

I wouldn't call those first four Cornelius novels cyberpunk. I mean let's face it, no cyber to speak of, and it was written (I think) pre-punk-music, if that makes any difference, which it probably doesn't. But still, Jerry Cornelius is driving in his Duesenberg SJ Phaeton (man I'd like one of those) and listening to the Animals, you know.... that's somehow not exactly in line with avant-garde music anyway.

Anyway it does have some flavor of cyberpunk in some ways, I agree, but it isn't really noir-like or even slightly Chandleresque like Gibson or Williams.... Maybe the new wave had a lot of influence on later cyberpunk, though, and that is the relation of the similarity.

My objection to some of these books in the Cornelius line of novels is that the characters spend way too much time suffering from anomie and nausea and so on, and the narrative is so murky at times it's hard to tell where people are or what they or doing, much less why. However, others of these books and stories are IMO nevertheless quite good.