http://io9.com/how-the-tv-show-of-octavia-butlers-dawn-will-stay-true-1728791278 I have one of those torn feelings. I would love to see anything written by Miss Butler come to life on the screen, but having read this series many, many times (Dawn, Imago, Adulthood Rights) I just can't imagine how this would translate to the screen. How would audiences relate to the Oankali, to the Ooloi, to their relationships with humans, which are frankly sexual?
It's important to remember that optioning a work isn't the same thing as getting it into production. Right now it looks like they have no producer, no production company and no budget. I'll reserve judgement, but if I was a producer approached with this project I would pass so fucking hard. It sounds like it would be an absolute nightmare to produce, not just for TV but for anything.
I don't know Jack, I think CGI is advanced enough for this kind of movie. I'm not impressed it's going to be a TV movie or series but I also think the TV world is shifting to NetFlix et al so maybe the flow of time makes that different as well.
But... If they remain at all true to Butler's descriptions of the Oankali, they aren't pretty. Lilith spends a number of pages in Dawn just coming to grips with the first Oankali she ever meets while in "captivity". As a counter-example, the Na'vi of Avatar (with whom sexual congress also takes place on screen) are at least arguably attractive. And the fact that males and females all have a ding-dong on the back of their heads, braided into their hair, kinda' neuters the sex act and makes it more metaphorical.
If they get this done and do it will, it will be an important moment for science fiction television. If I'd had to pick one of Butler's works to make it to the screen, I'd have guessed Kindred. These books are going to be a challenge, but I think it can be done with the proper writers and a budget that allows for it.
No, what I mean is that, as Bain talks about, it's going to be incredibly difficult to do. The CGI is one thing (one very expensive thing, and as he says there is no producer and so no budget), but the difficulty involved in carrying to plot off in a way that will get viewers is another. Bain talks about getting the characters right, and talks about hiring a bunch of artists to do that. Just that phrase sets me off. It means they don't have any artists working on it, and they are hoping they'll find some good ones. Every time Bain says, "It's going to be difficult" my producer brain says, "this is not going to make you any money." And that's essentially what a producer is concerned about. He's going to have to find someone willing to take a risk, and in a high risk project the producer is going to demand a lot of control. And usually when the producer takes a lot of control, things go very badly for the production. As it stands now this looks like a recipe for failure. Remember that Avatar was made with a $230,000,000. That's what it takes to make those CGI aliens look good.
Not sure you'll need tons of CGI. I think a lot of this can be done with conventional sets and costumes/makeup, supplemented with CGI as needed. There have been TV shows that require more in budget than I think something like this would (Battlestar Galactic and Defiance, among others).
For anyone not familiar with Butler's work who happens to read the article, the attractive black girl with the tattoos that the article is using as a header has nothing to do with the series of books in question and is not an Oankali. That picture is an interpretation of the MC for one of Butler's other works, Wild Seed.
As do I. I've looked on-line for images and fan-art, and, as stated in the article, there is in fact very little. What little I have found doesn't come close to how I imagine them.
