Bryan Singer to Direct Moon Is a Harsh Mistress Adaptation; Story to Get Dumb New Title
According to The Wrap

Bryan Singer, of X-Men and The Usual Suspects fame, plans to direct a film based on The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, Robert Heinlein's novel of an anarcho-libertarian revolution on the moon. But according to The Wrap, the movie won't actually be called The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress:
Bryan Singer has come on board to direct the adaptation to be titled "Uprising," an individual with knowledge of the project told The Wrap.
In a studio somewhere, an executive stares at a script. "That title is too evocative," he thinks to himself. "How can we make it more generic?"
[Hat tip: Justin Ptak]
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The Brass Cannon
Michael Bay to take over when Singer becomes unavailable. In space no one can hear you explode.
In a Michael Bay movie they can.
Thanks to the Chinese box office, MIAHM is going to get the Ender's Game blue and orange explosionfest treatment. So sad.
Bryan Singer has come on board to direct the adaptation to be titled "Uprising,"
Uprising
Well, could be worse, I suppose. As long as they don't try to remove too much of the anarcho-libertarian-ness from it.
You could very easily twist it to make it into an enviromentalist parable. Water running out and all that. And then, the lunar rebels are kind of like terrorists right, lobbing asteroids at random cities.
Just make the lunar authority some sort of corporate private prison entity run by evil billionare brothers and your done.
And the revolutionaries will be a bunch of commies.
Communal farmers. With free love.
So I take it you've seen the screenplay already? I only ask because that's probably a spot on prediction of how htey'll fuck it up.
In this new motion picture based loosely on the 1966 science fiction novel by American writer Robert A. Heinlein, radical libertarians, funded by the Koch Brothers, build a moon base about one kilometer from a colony jointly created by the United States, the European Union, and China. They then proceed to leave every one alone and try to open trade with the other colony.
Deeply disturbed by this development, a group of fearless progressives, go to the newly elected transgender president of the United States and ask her, umm him.. and ask to be sent on a mission to stop the libertarians from spreading anarchy and hate on the moon.
I'm running out of ideas, needz moar coffee...
Thanks, Hazel.
Deeply disturbed by this development, a group of fearless progressives, go to the newly elected transgender president of the United States and ask her, umm him.. and ask to be sent on a mission to stop the libertarians from spreading anarchy iand hate on the moon raping mother luna to death for profit.
"In a world... where Kock is everything..."
Shit I misspelled my own joke.
We'll just say that Kock, pronouned 'Cock' is the name of the new rare moon element that the libertarians are raping for their masters, the Koch Brothers. It allows old men to have sex like they were 20 again for hours, without any of the side effects of Viagra.
It allows old men to have non-explicitly consensual drunken sex like they were 20 again for hours, without any of the side effects of Viagra.
FTFY. Remember, these moon libertarians are pure EVUL, so naturally they have to also be "rapey".
"Hold its motherfuckin' mare!"
Well, yeah. I didn't say there weren't tons of ways they could ruin it. Though libertarian themes do sneak into movies often enough. Despite their policy preferences and the people they vote for, a lot of left-liberals really do believe that they are into individual freedom and fighting the powers that be and all that.
Not to worry, they will remove it all.
I suppose they think ot might be confused for a gender swapped sequel to "50 Shades of Grey".
I interpret this as an indication that they aren't planning to be remotely faithful to the source material. You don't change the title of an iconic book to something else unless you've deviated so far for the story that you can't credibly claim it's the same story anymore.
It's a fresh new take on the story! Spoiler alert:Libertarians are the bad guys.
Starship Troopers?
You know someone made a book out of that movie? Added a bunch of unnecessary stuff, though.
History and Moral Philosophy? Who needs it.
History and Moral Philosophy? Who needs it.
Especially when you can leave all that shit out and portray Heinlein's fictional future society as Nazis.
"Heinlein was a libertartisn, he wrote a science fiction book where society had turned all Nazi-like, therefore all libertarians are Nazis."
Apparently Verhoeven never even read the whole book, he just ripped out elements of it and threw them into a world largely based on his World War 2 experiences.
It is pretty funny that 'here's a society with conscription and the draft would never happen' turns into 'this is a book about fascism' to so many people.
Verhohen got a treatment of the synopsis from an intern while she was kneeling under his desk giving him a blow job.
Yep sounds like they'll destroy another Heinlein classic. Who is running his estate?
The estate has little control once the rights are sold. Ask John Varley. What they did to his Millennium, one of the great time travel novels of all time, was appalling.
Sinve it is apparently unlibertarian to think intellectual property is a valid concept, ehat does ut matter who controls the estate?
^^^Zing!
Good one.
Someone who likes money?
Movies always fuck up books. That's just how it works.
It'd be funny if they cast a bunch of white people to play the characters and it's libertarians who complain about Hollywood whitewashing the racially diverse cast of characters Heinlein envisioned.
I wonder how they'll handle Wyoming Knott turning into a black woman.
Actually it would be awesome if they could find some mixed-race woman, make her look whiter at the beginning and then blacker later. There are plenty of light-skinned black woman who bleach their hair and use straightener.
I think there is a simpler explanation for the title. The original is too long, so when people write about it they won't write out the whole title.
Changing the story a lot seems likely too. They did that with Starship Troopers, but the name was nice and snappy, so they didn't change it.
That's not really what happened. They started making a similar but unrelated movie, found out about ST, and incorporated the names and title. As someone mentioned, Verhoeven never even read the book.
This would be more like taking the name of a completely unrelated book and sticking it onto a movie made from a book with a non-marquee friendly name, like Bladerunner being slapped onto Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.
I'm still waiting for the big screen adaptation of Stranger In A Strange Land. It's a natural - lots of sex and nudity and tattooed tits!
/makes a note to pull the book out of the bookcase tonight.
You have an illustrated copy?? Wow, can I buy it?
HBO
To be fair, if the movie is in early production it is very common to give it a simple, generic name before changing it during filming or post-production.
In any case, Hollywood has a hard-on for making the villains in sci-fi movies evil corporations (see District 9, Elysium, Snowpiercer, etc) rather than government, so yeah, I'm guessing the penal colony is privatized.
Yes it will be a for-profit entity, raping Luna's precious water for money, and the rebels will propose sharing the water equally. There will be a "right to water and air" movement.
None of that horrid throwing people out the airlock if they don't pay back back the air they borrowed stuff.
If they really want to fuck up the movie they should hire the piece of shit screenwriter who RUINED House of Cards this season to make point about gay rights that 90% of audience already agrees with. That "writer" could purge every ounce of liberty from the book.
Oh man, it definitely is going to jettison the libertarian themes. According to the article the studio is rejecting the script originally written by Tim Minnear.
For those who don't know, Tim Minnear is the screenwriter who gave Firefly most of its libertarian flavor.
That sucks.
According to the article the studio is rejecting the script originally written by Tim Minnear.
*Scratches this off list of movies to see.*
His script even downplayed it. It wasn't bad, but was libertarian elite.
S/elite/lite/
Damn phone autocorrect.
On Twitter, Roderick Long suggests the title Bad Moon Uprising.
CCR might sue them. How about Harsh Moon?
Sounds like a frat prank.
The 2 things that we all already know for sure about this film are:
A corporation will play the bad guy.
The entire theme will be about environmental issues.
Nah, it's Singer, there will be a strong allegory about homosexuality.
Mike will be a transexual. Remember how he becomes "Michelle" for Wyoming?
Anyone else get a bad feeling about this? I seriously doubt they'll leave any trace of the libertarian plhilosophical influences. They'll probably change it to a "people's revolution" over free healthcare or some shit.
OT: Is the formatting of the pages on reason today fucked up for everyone else, or just me? The H&R page looks normal, but everything else is all fucked up.
I am sure some stidio exec read about having to pay for the air you breathe lest you be airlocked and had a fainting spell that was a. The heroes and b. The heroes thought that is how the world is supposed to work.
That's no Moon...
I hope they add some kind of amusing alien character. I felt that was an obvious shortcoming in the novel.
Weesa gonna be microaggressed?
Wait wait wait. I changed my mind. Mike should be a funny robot.
Bleep bloop! Whoooooooooooooooaaaaa! *heads spins around, crashes into wall, sparks fly*
VOMIT
(That's a link, in case it doesn't show up orange.)
This is going to be terrible. Everyone knows that, right?
I still want a ringworld movie, even though it will suck
With CGI around, it can finally be done. I'd love to see a Kzin or Puppeteer on screen.
But it's a 40 year old book and doesn't have a built-in nerd audience like comic book movies have.
I would prefer Known Space and Ringworld were made into a HBO series.
More likely to get the time and decent script. As a series, ideas and dialogue would get as much attention as the special effects.
Or the Sci-Fi network after I change the name back.
As much as I agree, the entire Man-Kzin Wars series is just sooo ripe for a series of movies.
But only if they are done well by people who understand the genre.
I'm looking forward to this just because it's not another Philip K. Dick novel. Nothing against the guy or his writing, but sometimes it seems he's the only classic science fiction author Hollywood ever heard of.
You know it's going to be good when they go for the most generic, market-tested title imaginable.
I agree with most views here, changing the name is a good indicator they'll mutilate the story. But they didnt even change the name of Starship Troopers, so maybe they'll do the reverse!
I know they didnt make SST to be faithful to the book, but that movie would of been much better if theykept the mini-nuke armed power armor
""That title is too evocative," he thinks to himself. "How can we make it more generic?""
ESCAPE FROM PLANET KOCH
Honestly I am glad they are changing the name. That way when they do butcher it the general public won't have any association between this movie and the original work.
Unlike with Starship Troopers where people use the movie to justify the claim the book promotes fascism
They were claiming that before the movie.
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Well, it worked so well for A Princess of Mars, right?
The scenery, the aliens, all that stuff was spot on super.
Then they had to trash the story, toss out the atmosphere plant, insert the Therns, rip off Greg Bear's mobile cities from Strength of Stones and fold it all into an environmentalist screed.
A fair amount of the anti-government content of Hunger Games was kept in the movie, or so I'm told. I've seen two of the films but I can't stomach the shitty writing of the books.
I like it best when adapt'ns aren't too close & don't use the same titles or let it be known explicitly what they are adapt'ns of, & challenge you to figure out that they are. Like the way Lost adapted "The Lost Special" (& other Doyliana), Department S, Illuminatus!, Watchmen (itself an unstated adapt'n of "The Lost Special"), The Life & Loves of a She-Devil, Holy Blood, Holy Grail, Seconds, & some other stuff. Like O Brother, Where Art Thou? of The Odyssey.