This time we discuss the 1981 Caldecott-winning children’s book Jumanji, by Chris Van Allsburg, adapted into the 1995 Robin Williams movie of the same name, and expanded into the new Jumanji franchise started by Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle.

Rankings!:

• Colin: 1995 movie, 2017 movie, book
• James: 2017 movie, 1995 movie, book
• Seth: 2017 movie, 1995 movie, book

This month, we keep things close to home, which makes sense given that last month we were quite far from home. We go small like we’ve never gone before, diving into a local adaptation of R.U.R., or Rossum’s Universal Robots, by Karel Čapek.

It’s not necessary to have gone to our local theater for the new adaptation, as it’s really quite close to the original. The 1920 play is worth reading, only takes a couple of hours, but it’s very much of its time. We talk director/adapter Matthew Zrebski about the changes he made and their impact on the story being told. So even if you didn’t get to see the new version, you can still enjoy the conversation and look into a creative’s mind.

Really this just gave us an excuse to talk about an extremely influential piece of SF history.

https://lakewoodtheatrecompany.csstix.com/event-details.php?e=1119

https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/karel-capek/r-u-r/paul-selver_nigel-playfair

We had a fun time recording live at WorldCon with a few select friends in the audience, talking about games and video games adapted into movies. And with a bonus quiz from listener and fellow podcaster Andy Parry.

We discuss (briefly) Battleship, Doom, and Clue, and also mention a number of other game to movie adaptations.

Thanks to Lori, Kevin, Damo, Andy, Ivor, Tim, and Luke for attending and participating in the discussion!

Andy’s podcast! (I guested to talk about a book by Hugo Gernsback):

https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/andy-parry/

Ink to Film podcast! (Similar to what we do, they just do it better):

https://www.inktofilm.com/

This time we picked up a very hard to find story, “A Situation of Gravity,” by Samuel W. Taylor, which was adapted into the 1961 movie The Absent-Minded Professor and the 1996 remake Flubber.

The story was originally published in the May 22, 1943 issue of Liberty magazine. We couldn’t find that. It was also anthologized in Taylor’s book Take My Advice, Mr. President. We also couldn’t find that. But one of our local librarians traced us down a scan of the story from the anthology. Let us know if you have an easier time finding it. If not, enjoy the episode without the reading!

Rankings!

James: Story/1996 movie/1961 movie

Colin: 1961 movie/1996 movie/Story

Seth: 1961 movie/Story/1996 movie

Let us know if you were able to find the story. It’s truly difficult to find.

Ben DeBono from The Sci-Fi Christian joins us once again to discuss a slow science fiction movie and the book that inspired it. It’s Roadside Picnic, by the Strugatsky Brothers, adapted by Andrei Tarkovsky into Stalker.

SFC episode about Ben catching up with the Criteron Collection:

http://thescifichristian.com/2023/08/episode-1107-criterion-completion/

SF 101 episode about the OMSI Science Fiction Film Festival:

https://101sf.blogspot.com/2024/04/a-festival-of-sci-fi-bonus-episode-of.html

Rankings!:

• Ben: Film/Book
• Colin: Book/Film
• James: Book/Film
• Seth: Film/Book

It’s unfortunately time to talk about the A Wrinkle In Time adaptations. We also discuss the book, of course, but I tried to pull back a bit since my fuller thoughts on the book are also covered in my Hugos There episode with Mandy Self:

https://hugospodcast.com/podcast/a-wrinkle-in-time-by-madeline-lengle-feat-mandy-self/

Rankings!

Colin/James/Seth:

• book
• very large chasm, perhaps a cloud of cosmic evil or negative energy or some BS
• 2003 movie
• 2018 movie

In this episode, we discuss the new Adam Sandler movie (okay, it came out March 1st, but it was new for us!) Spaceman, based on Spaceman of Bohemia, by Jaroslav Kalfar. It’s an interesting adaptation of an interesting book, but don’t go in looking for an action movie.

It’s not necessary to read the book to enjoy the movie, but you do miss quite a bit of background.

Rankings!

• Colin: movie/book
• James: book/movie
• Seth: book/movie

We saw Dune: Part Two, then grabbed dinner, then got together to discuss our thoughts on the second half of Villeneuve’s Dune adaptation. We all loved it and welcome any other SF adaptations he wants to do in the future.

The guys follow up their coverage of The Lightning Thief by discussing the first season of Percy Jackson and the Olympians.

Rankings:

Colin/James/Seth: book/series/a very large gap/movie

This is the first of two episodes we’ll do on The Lightning Thief. In this one, we just discuss the book and 2010 movie. We’ll get to the series next month once it’s complete.

Rankings!:

James/Colin/Seth: book/movie (duh)

A couple of links:

My blog post that I resurrected and commented on:

https://pavementpodcast.com/the-lightning-thief-movie-how-to-badly-adapt-a-book-a-case-study/

Rick Riordan’s reminisces about the movie:

https://rickriordan.com/2018/11/memories-from-my-tv-movie-experience/

A quick end of the year episode about the new Disney+ short film (40 minutes), Shepherd, based on the Frederick Forsyth novella of the same name. I believe the story is more well known by folks in Britain and former Crown Colonies than it is to American audiences; this was certainly our first experience of the story, and it’s quite delightful.

All the best holiday greetings to all of you, and I hope you have a great New Year.