# The Lions of Al-Rassan Movie



## nikolai (Jan 22, 2005)

Another! fantasy movie is in production, this one is _The Lions of Al-Rassan_ by Guy Gavriel Kay.

http://www.empireonline.co.uk/site/news/newsstory.asp?news_id=16495

Has anyone read this? I'm currently working my way through Tigana, and I'm finding it slow, full of introspection, and not particularly fantastic (though I concede the prose is well written and the central premise - slaying two sorcerers - is interesting).


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## JoeBlank (Jan 22, 2005)

This is fantastic news. _Lions_ is on my "to read" list, but I have not reached it yet. Gaming material keeps pushing my fiction selections further down the list. 

 Now I don't know whether to bump it up and get it read before the movie, or wait until after. I find that if I have not read a book before I see a movie then I enjoy the movie more, and don't nit pick as much. Of course, the movie can color my impression of the book, such as being unable to avoid picturing the actors from the movie.

 You can read our story hour discussion of _Tigana_ using the link in my sig.


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## drothgery (Jan 23, 2005)

nikolai said:
			
		

> Another! fantasy movie is in production, this one is _The Lions of Al-Rassan_ by Guy Gavriel Kay.
> 
> http://www.empireonline.co.uk/site/news/newsstory.asp?news_id=16495
> 
> Has anyone read this? I'm currently working my way through Tigana, and I'm finding it slow, full of introspection, and not particularly fantastic (though I concede the prose is well written and the central premise - slaying two sorcerers - is interesting).




My general commentary on Kay is that his prose is often so good that you tend to ignore how utterly stupid his supposedly brilliant protagonists act at times.


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## Look_a_Unicorn (Jan 23, 2005)

Awesome- I love that book
(and most of G.G.Kay's stuff)

A bit worried that the movie won't be "true" to the book- but then I remembered that movies never are, and can't be because it's an entirely different medium 

So now I just hope that I enjoy it.


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## Prince of Happiness (Jan 24, 2005)

Awwww hell, I'm gonna be all over this!

And for Tigana, keep reading...it gets absolutely...awesome.


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## Aulayan (Jan 24, 2005)

I loved the book, but there is so much worry over the movie.  Things'll have to be cut, and I have a feeling that they'll make Ammar into a token villain instead of what he is in the books...

So my suggestion to those of you who are wondering if you should wait or not, read the book first.  The movie, if it's bad, can kill the interest in ever reading the book.  If the movie is good, then there's less to fear, of course.  I'm just pessimistic by nature.


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## Wombat (Jan 24, 2005)

**shudder**

Oh, let it be right!

This is such a fantastic book, but I am not sure if it will translate as well to the screen (I have seen perfectly wonderful books mangled on the way...).  

I shall remain hopeful, at least until I see the first trailer


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## Turanil (Jan 24, 2005)

> Based on a bestseller by Guy Gavriel Kay, the story follows a Christian soldier, a (female) Jewish doctor and a Muslim poet and warrior while the Reconquista rages around them.



 Sounds like a typical D&D party to me!


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## FraserRonald (Jan 25, 2005)

drothgery said:
			
		

> My general commentary on Kay is that his prose is often so good that you tend to ignore how utterly stupid his supposedly brilliant protagonists act at times.




Do you mean how they act like real people? Very troubling.


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## Warrior Poet (Jan 25, 2005)

nikolai said:
			
		

> The Lions of Al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay.




I wish they wouldn't.

And I say that as someone who feels like Jackson did a terrific job translating _The Lord of the Rings_ to the screen, films about which I was initially very, very dubious.

Warrior Poet


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## Yuan-Ti (Jan 25, 2005)

This could be a good movie -- but yeah, let's keep in mind that it will be a film adaptation. If you go into thinking it has to be like the book realize first that it will be probably a 2 hour movie. You simply cannot capture more than the essence of a good, long novel in a 2 hour movie. 

I wonder how it will be received. It's not historical (a recreated Spain, yes, but unless they change it to Lions of Spain, people will scratch their heads and wonder...). It's not fantasy, really -- IIRC, there is either no magic, or so little one could question whether it really exists at all. 

But it has the elements to make a good movie. 

As a side note, every time I read something about Green Ronin's Blue Rose RPG (self-styled as a 'romantic fantasy RPG'), Lions of Al-Rassan leaps to my mind as a great setting for it. Or Tigana, for that matter.


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## Lalato (Jan 26, 2005)

Just finished this book a couple of weeks ago.  I enjoyed it very much and I think it might make an interesting movie, but I can also see where it could all go horribly wrong.

As for Guy Gavriel Kay... this was the first book I've read by him.  I think the voice he used in this story sometimes got in the way of the story, but despite that I enjoyed the book and the story.

--sam


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## Zaukrie (Jan 26, 2005)

Interesting. While I can't recommend his books highly enough, and neither can my wife whose not a huge fantasy buff, I think translating his books to movies will be difficult. The challenge is similar to the challenge of translating Dune. So much of the book depends on hearing what the characters are thinking, or at least seeing them in character building but not necessarily plot moving scenes. It took several tries to get Dune close to a good movie, and that was done on Sci-Fi in a 4 or 5 hour movie.

No matter what, read his books. Not much magic and fantasy, but great books that could be great long movies or mini series, if they can figure out how to do them.


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## Lord Pendragon (Jan 26, 2005)

One of the key problems with translating _Lions_ to the big screen is that there's no real villain in the series.  It's a book of protagonists, and the only antagonist is Circumstance.  Not only that, but they're going to have to cut out most of the subplots to provide any depth to the ones they keep, and the novel really is greater than the sum of its parts...

I suppose all I can hope for at this point is that they manage to convey the melancholy destiny of the man who killed the last caliph of Al-Rassan...


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## Stone Angel (Jan 27, 2005)

What makes this book so good Don't give me a website give me some insight and opinions. How does it traslate or correlate with othe fantasy movies....I am incredibly curious and after I finish my current read I just might take this up.


The Seraph of Earth and Stone


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## Yuan-Ti (Jan 29, 2005)

Stone Angel said:
			
		

> What makes this book so good Don't give me a website give me some insight and opinions. How does it traslate or correlate with othe fantasy movies....I am incredibly curious and after I finish my current read I just might take this up.




As someone else said, what makes the book unique is that there are really no antagonists. Two of the main characters are often at odds with each other due to their circumstances but neither is really a bad guy. It's hard to explain, now that I try. You would have to tell me what else you read for me to give you any example that correlates with it. Fwiw, Lions is probably Kay's most accessible book given that it is a stand-alone and relatively short. Try it. You might like it. 

And Kay's writing is very good, almost poetic at times. After all, he was hired by the Tolkien estate to complete the Silmarillion -- probably his greatest claim to fame, except few people seem to know about it.


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## Lord Pendragon (Jan 29, 2005)

Stone Angel said:
			
		

> What makes this book so good Don't give me a website give me some insight and opinions. How does it traslate or correlate with othe fantasy movies....I am incredibly curious and after I finish my current read I just might take this up.



The book has a very poignant atmosphere.  It's set in a country that no longer has kings, but merely lordlings claiming power.  There's an air of loss about it.  That something that was once great has been destroyed forever.  The central characters of the book come from different cultures and backgrounds, and their countries are on the brink of war.  Though they admire and respect each other (and love, in some cases), they are also torn by loyalty to their respective nations.

Imagine if you will a novel about a British general, an American philosopher/inventor, and a French nurse set during the American Revolution.  In another lifetime they might have been the best of friends.  But their countries' conflicts will force them to choose sides.  There's no villain, unless war and politics can be considered villains.  In tne end, you have a lot of likeable people forced into conflict with each other due to circumstances behind their control.

Also, I wouldn't really consider _The Lions of Al-Rassan_ fantasy in the traditional sense.  It's more like Historical Fiction, with an emphasis on the fiction.


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## Stone Angel (Jan 31, 2005)

OMG I have not been able to put this book down! I would hate to see hollywood butcher this one but I would love to see it come to life. Thank you!

The Seraph of Earth and Stone


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## JoeGKushner (Jan 31, 2005)

Prince of Happiness said:
			
		

> Awwww hell, I'm gonna be all over this!
> 
> And for Tigana, keep reading...it gets absolutely...awesome.




Well, now I'll have to go back and try again. The original poster go farther than I did apparently because all I saw was slow......prose.


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