Tom Clancy's: The Sum of all Fears

[Richard III]

Originally posted by KaeptnOvi
if the ever make debt of honour there will propably be major changes as well: or does anyone of you believe that an airliner crash into the capitol wouldn't remind people too much of 9/11?

There's a big part of me that can't help but assume that the Debt of Honor crash into the capitol INSPIRED 9/11.

R.III

 

[Lucky]

Originally posted by Richard III
There's a big part of me that can't help but assume that the Debt of Honor crash into the capitol INSPIRED 9/11.

Yes, and the Anthrax attacks are taken from "Executive Orders".
Now we are just waiting for Russia to find HUGE amounts of Gold and Oil, just like in "The Bear and the Dragon"!

Seriously, though, the terrorists are DEFINITELY NOT waiting for Tom Clany to support them with ideas.
The original "idea" of crashing into Western buildings and monuments was already alive in the ´70s when Palestinian terrorist tried to capture airliners and wanted them to crash into the Eiffel Tower and the Tower of London.

It would be quite ironic though, seeing Taliban fighters pausing during their escape from US troops, sitting down and starting to read a Tom Clancy book!

 

[Simon Darkshade]

Originally posted by KaeptnOvi
hmm. I just hope that the movie is better than the last two. the only jack-ryan-movie that was worth anything to me was red october (and that was propably just because of connery).

and neo-nazis instead of muslim extremists?
wasn't the guy that recruited the a-bomb-engineer a former RAF or Baader Meinhoff operative? And now he's a neo-nazi. Yeah, right...Why couldn't they just leave the book as it is?

as for red storm rising: making a movie out of that book would really be a challenge.

if the ever make debt of honour there will propably be major changes as well: or does anyone of you believe that an airliner crash into the capitol wouldn't remind people too much of 9/11?

They did do Red October alright, and didn't butcher Patriot Games too badly (some may even consider the movie somewhat of an improvement of the royal fantasies in the novel...)
But they buggered Clear and Present Danger up a fair bit, killing off Dan Murray (thus taking out a future character of some note) among other things.

But even that pales in comparison to the job they've done on SOAF.
Even if Tommy boy likes it is not much of an endorsement, as his style and ability have waned somewhat since his heyday.
It simply loses the point of the film, and making Ryan a sexy youngster is foolish, and makes little sense in how he is able to get on the hotline...

Missing out Cardinal of the Kremlin was fairly inevitable, as it were an alright novel, but would not translate well to screen.
But it is essential in the construction and development of the key characters, particularly Ryan's relationship with Narmonov.

The way they have done SOAF seems to doom any hope of Debt of Honour, Executive Orders, etc going to screen.

Making a film out of Red Storm Rising would be quite difficult, as that is one book where Clancy really needed a ruthless editor to remove the endless and interminable pages of frigate and sub dialogue and non-action. It needed to draw out a bit more; when it presented wider strategic vision and operations it was enthralling, but in focus it lost a fair bit of that power.

Certainly the invasion and recapture of Iceland, the carrier battles, Operation Dreamland, and selected highlights of the battles through Fulda Gap and Alfeld would work brilliantly on film, as would the ASAT missions, and the sight of Iowa and New Jersey moving in on the Iceland coast out of the gloom.
But not the details of Chicagos run, or too much frigate escort duty.

The book was written with the purpose of telling the story of the next Battle of the Atlantic, but attrition and logistics do not get bums on seats in the cinema. But it were generally a very good book, even if paradropping Royal Marines into Iceland to help Beagle rather than SAS was a bit confusing.

 

[LaRo]

Will Thora Birch be the daughter of Ryan again?

 

[Kev]

To be honest, I haven't liked ANY of the film adaptations of Clancy's books. I just get that way when they feel the need to change the whole plot around.

Red October was tolerabe (minus the major plot changes), and I could possibly stand Alec Baldwin as Ryan. I HATED having Harrison Ford. I think that having him in the role forced the moviemakers to make him the more "heroic" character - getting into fist fights and all that jazz. Ben Affleck is just a way to try to make money on a movie by attracting his fans - the most fervent of which would probably not like the movie anyway.

Ah, I'm going to have to wait and see a movie before I read a book one of these days.

Still like Red Storm Rising the best. I'm almost glad they didn't try to make that into a movie - they would've butchered it.