NONONONONO
when are you guys going to learn??
every time this has been attempted it bombs.
you arent even following the book. Dont associate PJF with it as Im sure hes disavowed any connection with this maggot-blown corpse of a story. the books are a classic of sci-fi and your doing all in your power to ruin them.

PJF himself has been a "maggot-blown corpse" since Feb. 25th, so he's not in a position to disavow anything.

Just sayin'.

(and, once again, SciFi's captcha completely blows..)

Didn't someone already do a version of Riverworld for Sci-Fi?

Scifi already did a version of this back in 2003

I remember the 'original' SciFi mini-movie of Riverworld, and I thought it was pretty good. You should dump your money into continueing that story rather then re-do it all together just so you have a terrorism spin to it. We got rid of bush, let's get rid of all the terrorism spins!

You right logan40k this version was made in 2003 its loosely based on the series of novel I remenbered because the late kevin smith was in it for those whom dont remenber him , he played ares in Xena , young hercules and hercules the legendary journeys

I think the concept o the riverworld is strong enough to carry any kind of story, so I don't care if the specific story told will have other characters and details that were not in the books. They weren't that good anyway... You could dream up any kind of encounter of historical figures and it could happen there. It's such a ripe field for stories!
That said, I'm afraid I'm not holding my breath for this. Yes, in theory it can be great. But everything Robert Hewitt Wolfe has done so far in the SF field so far has felt hollow to me. It was never terrible, but also never actually interesting. I wish they'd given this franchise to Manny Coto.

I can't wait for this to air. Wolfe is one of the most interesting SF writers out there. I loved what he did on Andromeda (just season one was it?) and the stuff he wrote for DS9 and The 4400 rocked. Dresden Files, I could have lived without, though.

So according to this interview, Sci Fi gave specific instructions to abandon the source material.

I do not think I will bother watching this.

Too bad Wolfe clearly has not read the books, since they contain multiple (and more interesting) "viewpoint character(s) that was(are) an American(s), which isn't (are) in the books.
Sam Clemens, for one. Paul Jairus Frigate, for two. Tom Mix, for three...

I loved Wolfe's work on The Dresden Files. You'd be surprised how many people still miss that series. It was on the top ten highest selling Scifi DVDs on Amazon for the last two months. That's not bad considering it went off the air in 2007.

The only thing peeking my interest about Riverworld is the involvement of Peter Wingfield. I loved Methos on HIghlander the series. However the content does not bode well for hard core book fans.

I'm going to defend Robert Wolfe here. I know he's read the books. I've heard him in interviews discussing the books. It's not his fault things were changed. In the end he doesn't have as much control as you think. He's at the mercy of the Scifi Channel. Or should I say SyFy Channel.

He's a nice guy, he used to post all the time on the Jim Butcher forum back when us show fans actually would go over there, now we kind of drift over to privately run forums when we want to talk about The Dresden Files TV series.

I don't mind if they want to change around the viewpoint characters. That isn't fundamental to the world. What I didn't like about the original minisiries is that

1. Not everyone was reincarnated at the same time, which was really fundamental to the story and
2. They didn't bring in that nobody died permanently. They didn't talk at all about people dying and coming back.

If this new movie preserves these then I'm OK with it.

so SciFi bought the rights to a popular book they plan to ignore almost completely (of a movie they already made once).
Sounds like a winning formula to me! Do you have to have a degree in anything to make such eye-rollingly bad decisions?

Actually Halmi owns the rights to Riverworld and probably just sells them to the highest bidder, so if SyFY didn't buy it, it would probably end up on SPike or something

So once again someone SiFee this time takes a classic which is very popular and wants to make a movie of it.
And what boys and girls is the first thing they do?

You know, Say it with me,
THEY CHANGE EVERYTHING!
I can here thier voices in my head sounding like the narrator from the Six Million Dollor man. "We can make it better than it was."

They didn't ask the most fundamental question.
"Why are you F***ing up this story?"

Oh and it was a TEN million mile river.

Slavish adherence to a decades-old book is the real formula for failure. And let's recall that even Farmer both wrote, and allowed to be written by others, many stand-alone stories set on the Riverworld, with many POV characters, and many that didn't connect to the central narrative. What matters for TV is what always matters: good writing, good acting, and characters that make you want to see more. And with the way Farmer's series deteriorated into ridiculousness and unreadability in the later books, demanding a literal adaptation would be counterproductive anyway.

@Michael_gr & anybody who mentioned Robert Hewitt Wolfe
The last 2 series Manny Coto had his hands on were canceled within 1 to 2 years. He created the hit scifi show "Odyssey 5" that aired on Showtime from June 2002 - Oct. 2004, & also worked on the final season of Star trek: Enterprise (& we all know what happened to that show don't we).
And as for Robert Hewitt Wolfe, he developed "Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda" for syndication & left after about, I think 3 seasons over creative differences.

P.S. Andromeda was created back in the 70's as was "Gene Roddenberry's Earth Final Conflict", by duh the late Gene Roddenberry.

To be fair, Tinmiss, Dresden Files was actually third highest rated show on Scifi for all of 2007. So it wasn't exactly lack of interest that got it renewed. Apparently we women were 'the wrong demographic.' I don't blame him for what happened there. I blame Scifi and it's ever sexist insulting of my gender. Did you ever see their 'reasons' why they felt Battlestar Galactica relates to women? It's degrading. Meanwhile they put a hot Brit and a Broadway singer in a show about wizards and they react like 'Oh, my God! Why are women watching this!? We wanted teenage boys!' It disgusts me.

My resentment of the Scifi channel won't go away any time soon. I'll watch Riverworld for two things. Robert Wolfe's writing and Peter Wingfield's acting.

Typo = I meant to say 'didn't get it renewed' up there. I WISH it got renewed...

@Mandy
I watched a few episodes of "The Dresden Files" but it became boring very quickly for me. But everything else you said is very true, but it's ironic I loved BSG. Idk if I will watch the new Riverworld movie, I really liked the original. But I might, just to see the differences.

Oh, I never said Battlestar Galactica was bad, just the official reasoning they thought it was appealing to women. It was something to the effect of (this was not the actual wording but how it came off to me) 'We made it more emo and removed the spaceships because girls don't like spaceships.' ... Is it 1956, already?!

As for Dresden Files, to each their own. I liked it. And personally feel the last three episodes were probably the best of the lot. I particularly liked the What about Bob and Things that go Bump episodes. There was some really clever stuff in there. It was one of those shows that wasn't given a proper chance, never mind that it still lands on Amazon's top ten highest selling Scifi Channel DVDs even now two years later. And it was actually on the top ten list again for the last two months up until about three days ago. I miss that show. It was the first Urban Fantasy I had ever truly loved. The accuracy it had with supernatural and occult beliefs was amazing to say the least. You don't see research like that with Charmed.

Anyway... Scifi is very condescending to it's female viewers and also loves a good scapegoat. They're ordering these changes being made to Riverworld and they'll sic the angry book fans on Robert Wolfe and that's not right.

It might not be bad. Not a faithful adaptation but it might not be bad. I'm curious to see Methos... I mean Peter Wingfield as Burton.

Considering where the Dresden books went, and how they have evolved into some first rate contemporary fantasy mysteries, I think Sci-Fi dropped the ball big time with the series. However, I also think the show could have been done a bit better; for example, Dresden in the early books was relatively young, as compared to the portrayal in the series. I'm wondering if the Riverworld adaption will take similar short-sighted liberties with the storyline, which will in turn cause problems later...

MisterCosmic, Paul Blackthorne was thirty four when he was cast as Dresden. By the time you get to the current books he's pushing forty so he's not that far from his original source's age. It's just Paul Blackthorne has a horrible hairline.

As for Scifi, they were foolish to not renew it. Yes, they seriously dropped the ball. Sadly Scifi only had the rights for the first five or six books so there's a lot of content in the books they wouldn't have been able to touch even as the series progressed. They would have had no choice but to take liberties. I did love what they did with Bob and I wish they had a chance to bring in a show version of Thomas. Scifi makes it very clear what they WANT to sink or swim. They poorly advertised Dresden Files and some commercials even made it look like another Night Stalker Remake. I almost didn't give it a chance because of this notion. Yet today every few seconds they're shoving Warehouse 13 down our throats. Even on their list of 'Scifi and fantasy shows' to see in the up coming year. They heavily favour their own, slip in Ghosthunters and Ghosthunters International (Which is supposed to be speculative reality, not Science FICTION (unless it's all faked) or Fantasy). But when it came to the British show Being Human (which is actually really good) they described it like some badly thought out sitcom.

Now, back on Riverworld As much as I love Peter Wingfield I already see a liberty being taken here. He's climbing up there in age. He's not in his twenties or thirties. He's a little old for Burton. But since he's a good actor I'll over look it.

I hate "Ghost Hunters" & "Ghost Hunters: International" those are two of the stupidest shows on tv right now. I don't even watch SciFi Prime on Sunday - Thursday & Saturday, but I do watch SciFi Prime on Fridays but only 1 or 2 shows right now, like Primeval. I've already seen every episode c/o BBCAmerica, & soon the 2nd half of the 3rd season of Eureka.

P.S. I forgot about the wrestling shows that scifi shows on Tuesdays & anime on Mondays, both stupid also. None of them need to be on scifi.

Tinmiss, most anime actually is science fiction or fantasy and it is very, very popular. Ever been inside an FYE? Scifi's worst mistake of 1999 / 2000 was removing their anime. They only recently got it back when they realized 'Hey, this isn't just a fad after all!'

It's the reality shows and wrestling that don't belong but they won't remove them because they're 'proud' of what they get from them, never mind that they're more well suited to USA Network (owned by the same people).

A few things I'd like to point out about The Dresden Files. A)Harry's age is never given in the books, though it's implied he's somewhere around his late20s/early30s B)Jim Butcher, himself, has stated that while he disliked the first pilot, he came to like the show, even wished he'd thought of Bob-as-sorcerous-ghost rather than air-spirit, and considered the TV show a 'perfectly acceptable alternate universe' to the books. Plus it was fun, and one of SciFi's 4 highest-rated shows for that season. They really made a mistake in giving it up ....

Pete, Wolfe was in charge of Andromeda for Season One and the first half of Season Two.

In short... Skiffy *still* hasn't learned that when given a rich, vibrant, wealth of material that will practically write itself to screen-play... NOT TO SCREW WITH IT.

(also, any director/writer that claims to know what the writer of said material *meant* or *envisioned* unless actually personally knowing the writer during that creative process... is a sham and should be placed in the stocks pelted with large, squishy, foul-smelling things)

It is a shame that they're not going to use the actual story of the books. The riverworld books had a really compelling story. There's enough material there for a tv series without monkeying around with it at all. I was always more partial to the Richard Burton plot myself.

I'm always keen to see Tahmoh Peniket in anything, so I'll watch. I'm more than a little suspicious though. Did they need to wait until Phillip Hose Farmer died to make this or did it just work out that way?

"They wanted a viewpoint character that was an American, which isn't in the books"

Uh, Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), a penultimate American, is the viewpoint character for the second book, the Fabulous Riverboat.

Bet he hasn't ever read them...

Want better SF? Read a book!

OH MY GOD People... just don't get it do you..
The river world is the riverworld, you can't follow someone other than the book characters.........and you can't do the story in a few hours. here an idea, do it all c.g.i. and do a weekly series over a year or so.

sounds very interesting-thanks.

Renate Uhl

I refused to watch the 2003 movie, having learned in advance that it was completely different from the original story. The 4-hour movie being planned sounds like more of the same, and will probably serve only to do the books a great disservice. The only practical idea would be to make a planned 7-year series, spend millions on CGI, and hire Stephen Moffatt as the chief writer.

I saw the first Sci-Fi movie -- twice -- both within the last couple of years, not having ever even known about it when it ran the first time (I don't think I was a big viewer of the channel in 2003, for some reason)... Started watching with shows like "Stargate: SG1" not long after that.

At any rate, when I saw the first one, not even being aware of the novels, I thought it was pretty good (and obviously appeared to be a pilot), and wondered why it never got picked up. I'm looking forward to the new one (and hoping Laura Vandervoot's acting has improved since "Smallville." Tamhoh Penniket isn't high on most folks' list of great actors, either... I'm pretty active in a "Battlestar Gallactica" forum AND one for "Dollhouse" and it seems nobody likes him. I think he's OK, but sort of "middlin'."

At any rate, I'm glad to see it appears this show is still in the works. I'd seen something about this a while back, but just did a search at the SyFy website and it produced NO results... Had to Google it and then read the Wikipedia result and scan to the bottom of IT to find the IMBDB listing, which included a response which had a link here, lol.

I agree it's a wonderful concept that can be taken very many places if done right, and I don't think it does matter too much if you stick with the author's original characters, so long as you embody the concept and vision of the author.
Jeff

They lost me at the Female Samurai character. As long as these PC characters are forced into a story, it will fail.

I dont mind them making a series out of this but for PJK's sake people keep the fundemental elements alive. Remember The Mysterious Stranger? Keep them moving forward towards the goal of discovering the secrets of the Black Tower and I wanna see the giant! Lets see a rock and roll reunion with Morrison, Joplin, Elvis etc....there are so many stories that can be told here....Herman Goering and the Church of the Second Chance could be great bad guys for at least a couple of seasons.....first and foremost tho is that Burton should be the main character. Not some photojournalist or astronaut. Keep the faith of the books together and I guarantee you will succeed.

RHI has a habit of butchering Fantasy/SciFi novels. Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea is a perfect example. Don't get me wrong, they have made several movies/mini-series that I thought were very entertaining - TinMan was great and Alice looks promising - but most of those were original concepts as opposed to movie versions of literature.

What bothers me about RHI and other writer/director/production teams is using the title of a book when they have no intention of being faithful to the plot. Many have used Shakespeare's works as the basis for stories, but usually they rework the basic plot and give the result a new title. Or they use the same title and plot, but they change details (like the time period) to give a different flavor. But no one would dare give Macbeth a happy ending.

We all know that movie versions of literature must drop some items because of the differences in length - two hours for the typical movie, several hours for mini-series. And some items must be changed because text can do what video cannot - and vice versa. But the Lord of the Rings or the Harry Potter novels are excellant examples of how to do the job right.

I'll add one more thing before I stop ranting. There are many stories that have been brought to video that even though they vary significantly from their print versions, I was thoroughly entertained. In virtually all of these cases, however, the title was different, and the only reference was something like, "based on a novel by Philip K. Dick, Isaac Asimov, etc."

SyFy can be doing SO much better than it is, and I think this project is SUCH a great example of what I mean. It's great that they're bringing to the screen stories that otherwise would never have made it to film (or video), but PLEASE strive for excellence, don't be so quick to settle for mediocrity!

seefee and fox are the two networks where good shows go to get their chains yanked. why seefee sees the need to republish garbage like wrestling or fear factor that should be on spike instead of taking on good shows boggles my mind. the original shows only tend to be good for 2 to 3 seasons, which isn't actually bad but they cancel good shows far before their time. in all reality though, there hasn't been a good scifi show in a long time. stargate, warehouse 13 are fantasy, eureka and bsg are dramas and could easily have their plots attached to non-scifi shows, gh (a show i like and am surprised at all the flack for) is speculative reality, most of the rest is garbage...keep shows fans like and youll make more money in the end...

I'm a fan of the book and that means that, misogynistic bastard though he is, I'm also a fan of Richard Burton. Therefore, to make him an antagonist is a slap in the face. Burton the baddy? He's an antihero. I think that Wolfe's not only missed the point of the books, he's decided to urinate all over it.