My new favourites for good movies to be made from AH novels are...

[Melvin Loh]

1945 by Robert Conroy
THE MAN WITH THE IRON HEART by HT (I actually found this quite interesting, though somewhat implausible that the Werewolves under Heydrich always have the jump on the allied occupiers)

in addition to my previous faves of DISASTER AT D-DAY by Peter Tsouras & K IS FOR KILLING by Daniel Easterman

[Scipio]

Like so many other Turtledove fans, I would love to see Jake Featherston on the big screen.

Either that or Ruled Britannia.

[Polish Eagle]

So you don't want to see guys with World War II Weapons fight off Aliens? You don't want to see Nazis vs. Lizards?

I'd like to see a Sci-fi or HBO version of the first part of Worldwar.

[catboy637]

That woud do well, mthinks.
Though I could see The Darkness as a Harry Potter type triology.

[Scifibug]

Poul Anderson's 'Operation Chaos' and 'Operation Luna'

[Umbric Man]

Ruled Britannia's base premise would be pretty good.

Maybe In the Presence of Mine Enemies? Certainly would be top material if you can work it into a drama or suspense film.

[Scipio]

Originally Posted by Polish Eagle

So you don't want to see guys with World War II Weapons fight off Aliens? You don't want to see Nazis vs. Lizards?

I'd like to see a Sci-fi or HBO version of the first part of Worldwar.

Oh no, I would definitely love to see the Race kicking arse and blowing stuff to hell and gone (that sentence would have to be in the Movies of course).
And seeing the British fight back an alien invasion would be a sight to see on the big screen.

[Euroman26]

Originally Posted by Scipio

Oh no, I would definitely love to see the Race kicking arse and blowing stuff to hell and gone (that sentence would have to be in the Movies of course).
And seeing the British fight back an alien invasion would be a sight to see on the big screen.

If it was battlestar galatica style budget then yes a tv series on Syfy (Remember thats the name from now).

Chris Cooper could be a great Featherston in my opionion. I am sure he would be great at during the hatefull raspy voice which HT says Featherston has.

Morgan Freeman would be a great Scipio and Cincinnatus Driver I see Danny Glover in that role. As Clarance D. Potter I see Gary Sinise (Remember his role as Harry Trumann?)

Flora Blackford could be played be if she wanted to it Sally Field.

[Emperor Norton I]

Anything where Turtledove doesn't Conserva-wank* something is good screen material.

Originally Posted by Euroman26

If it was battlestar galatica style budget then yes a tv series on Syfy (Remember thats the name from now).

To quote Linkara, "Because Poor Literacy is Cool"


*Evil Kennedy causing Communism to prevail, a bunch of disorganized and beaten Nazi's managing to pull of an insurrection and the US withdrawing at a poor attempt to compare a necessary and classical war like WW2 to a war of choice and one fought by unconventional means, cavemen over-worrying about a natural global climate shift (which would in reality happen slowly over the coarse of centuries or perhaps more rather than the short time Turtledove portrays) as a allusion to global warming, etc.

[catboy637]

Trutledove is conservative? Since when?

[zoomar]

I also don't get the Turtledove = conserviwank comment. I tend to find his stuff refreshingly apolitical despite the obvious and deliberate parallels he draws between his fictional AH and events in real history.

[Mr Stereo1]

Temeraire or David Drake's 'Foriegn Legions', the Napoleonic wars with Dragons and roman space legions... now that's worth watching. It's a shame the following's too small to get a film made though...

[Enigmajones]

Originally Posted by Mr Stereo1

Temeraire or David Drake's 'Foriegn Legions', the Napoleonic wars with Dragons and roman space legions... now that's worth watching. It's a shame the following's too small to get a film made though...

If that stuff counts then without a doubt I go for either Emberverse or the Sky People/Crimson Kings

[Emperor Norton I]

Originally Posted by catboy637

Trutledove is conservative? Since when?

Originally Posted by zoomar

I also don't get the Turtledove = conserviwank comment. I tend to find his stuff refreshingly apolitical despite the obvious and deliberate parallels he draws between his fictional AH and events in real history.

Search enough stories in Turtledove wikia and you'll make a connection, and you have the aforementioned examples. He doesn't drench every story in conservative things, but he does do a few that draw attention to such a thought.

[Count Dearborn]

Originally Posted by Mr Stereo1

Temeraire or David Drake's 'Foriegn Legions', the Napoleonic wars with Dragons and roman space legions... now that's worth watching. It's a shame the following's too small to get a film made though...

Peter Jackson, of LOTR fame, brought the movie rights.

[zoomar]

Realistically, for an AH story or novel to be sufficiently understandable within a 2-hour movie, and for that film to be financially successful (which is the only reason most movies are produced), the following things are probably necessary:

(1) The original novel must be very familiar and well-liked by a large audience. This almost requires it to have been written by a mainstream or popular author. There are fairly few of these out there.

(2) It would have to be directed by a major director or feature high-profile talent - this might partially offset the need to use a mainstream source.

(3) It would probably have to feature a fairly familiar alternate time line understandable or interesting to a broad segment of the international public, yet divergent enough that the differences are noticable. I suspect this almost requires a 20th century PoD, althouigh their could be possible exceptions if one of the factors above were in play.

(4) The story needs to have a strong narrative drive which can be resolved one 2-hour sitting

(5) I suspect that it would like have to feature some form of time-travel or ISOT featuring regular people from our timeline.

With that said...

A Peter Jackson Film

The Proteus Operation
From a future world under threat of Nazi domination, travelers journey to 1941to change the course of their History! Their exploits uncover a tangled web of space-time conspiracies leading to any number of possible futures, only one of which will lead to success!

Based on the novel by James P. Hogan

[Mike Stearns]

I'm surprised that nobody has said 1632.It would probably work better as a TV show than a movie, I think. You wouldn't need particularly elaborate sets, but at the same time, you still have the possibility of big, epic battles and the general premise is inventive enough that you won't have too much trouble drawing people in.

[Mr Stereo1]

Really to compress an Alternate History novel down into the two hours you'd have to stay close to the protagonists, if you went off explaning the macro plot all the time it wouldn't fit into the timeframe. So really, unless the books are pretty focused then the film wouldn't be recognisable. That's probably one of the reasons why the World War timeline and many others haven't been adapted, they couldn't fit in that many characters, and if they only had one or two of the characters most of the plot would be ignored.

[Sergio Van Lukenstein]

Could Bring the Jubilee be made into a good film? It's got a great premise,(*SPOILERS*) which is that a man in an ACW Confederate-victory TL goes to a scientist-hippie commune, uses a steampunk time machine to go back in time to Gettysburg, and ends up screwing up Gettysburg for the South and causing the OTL Northern victory to happen. Is the stuff that happens before the time travel interesting enough to have in a movie, though? Would you have to change the plot significantly to have it translate well to film?

[Sergio Van Lukenstein]

Originally Posted by Emperor Norton I

Search enough stories in Turtledove wikia and you'll make a connection, and you have the aforementioned examples. He doesn't drench every story in conservative things, but he does do a few that draw attention to such a thought.

We discussed Turtledove's political leanings in a different thread a couple months ago. Someone said that he's a moderate Democrat. Based on the somewhat favorable, yet non-utopian portrayal of socialism in TL-191, I could see that.