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Comment by the_biot | Hacker News Reader

As much as I love "Songs of Distant Earth", I suspect a Hollywood version of it would amount to "giant lobsters vs space marines", whereas in the book they're a minor sideshow.

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I tend to agree. I've always thought it would work well as a TV show in the more heady days of streaming (let's say 2012 - 2020) when networks and studios where it still felt like they had some room to take more risk. It's more towards the end of the last TV "golden age" but an adaptation like something like Apple's take on "Tales from the Loop". Not brash or loud or too formulaic but somehow still got made

I loved "Tales From the Loop", and wished they'd made more. It has a kind of atmospheric sensibility that sticks (with me, at least) long after the details of the plot are forgotten. That's appropriate, I guess, for something based on a portfolio of paintings. It's a hidden gem that I enjoy recommending.

Yes! Amazing show, one of my favourite shows of the last decade or two. I think what really does it for me is that they really bring the audience into the world itself. I think that's partly because there's no need to always be pushing the plot forward, which I think is a bugbear of mine of newer shows now. There's something to letting things just breathe and tales from the loop really excels at that.

The Phillip Glass soundtrack particularly elevates it too.

So basically Avatar just without all the Smurfs huh?

It would be surely minced thru to fit all the standard of the industry - and that's the fear I'm having while craving for screen adaptations of books today.

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