Arthur C. Clarke on DVD: Odysseys and More

Popular British science fiction author and fully engaged futurist Arthur C. Clarke died Wednesday in his adopted home of Sri Lanka, after a long struggle with debilitating post-polio syndrome. He was 90. (His New York Times obituary is here.)

For those of us who grew up reading Clarke's science fiction short stories and novels, as well as his copious works of nonfiction covering a radiant spectrum of topics from space travel to ocean ecology, the Earth has just shifted a little in its orbit.

More than 30 novels and a dozen short story collections made him one of the most prolific and lauded Grand Old Masters throughout science fiction's formative decades. So it's surprising how few of his works have been adapted for the screen. Arguments tend to favor the point that his fiction was, by and large, "unfilmable" with its unencompassable scales and visionary scope, as well as its ability to infuse hard-as-rivets science with a mystical cosmic awe that cameras just aren't built to capture.

Of course, the most well known example of that reverent wonder is the film he is best remembered for, his collaboration with Stanley Kubrick on 2001: A Space Odyssey, now regarded as one of the great film achievements of the 20th century. For years the movie grapevine murmured about an adaptation of Clarke's transhumanist masterpiece Childhood's End, but the project apparently never made it far past the "let's do lunch" phase. (In 1997 the BBC produced a two-hour radio dramatization of the novel, which was probably the wiser course.)

So DVDs representing his work are few but, like intelligent life, worth seeking out. A DVD commemoration of Sir Arthur (he was knighted in 1998) does present a comfortable number of strong options. The earliest reaches back 56 years to the young days of science fiction TV, while the latest, more than 30 years later, is another TV adaptation. And in a couple of years we'll have on DVD (or whatever replaces it by then) a potential big-screen blockbuster now in pre-production.

Here's a list of favorites that are readily available:

Tales of Tomorrow - Collection One (Image Entertainment)
In 1951, years before The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits, TV's first science fiction anthology series, Tales of Tomorrow, premiered on ABC. Among its 85 half-hour broadcasts was an adaptation of Clarke's short story "All the Time in the World." It co-stars Jack Warden, who abets a lowlife crook employed by a time-traveler from the future, the job being to rescue priceless art treasures from imminent nuclear annihilation. My review of this 2004 release is at DVD Journal.

2001: A Space Odyssey
What more needs to be said? As cinema it displays Kubrick's fingerprints more than Clarke's, but this revolutionary masterwork wouldn't exist without Clarke's deep-think contributions and (rare in the movies) dedication to scientific plausibility. Kubrick approached Clarke in 1964, and after four years of collaboration they received a joint Academy Award nomination for their work on the 2001 screenplay. Clarke's novel of 2001, written alongside the screenplay, adds nuts and bolts to the lysergic "ultimate trip" Kubrick presented on the screen. The best home video edition so far was released by Warner last October on DVD, HD-DVD, and Blu-ray. I can testify that with the Blu-ray edition on a big home-theater screen, you no longer need the drugs.

2010: The Year We Make Contact
This 1984 movie was directed by Peter Hyams and based somewhat loosely on Clarke's novel 2010: Odyssey Two. Clarke also played the "Man on Park Bench" we see sitting in front of the White House early in the film. Starring Roy Scheider, John Lithgow, Helen Mirren, and Bob Balaban -- along with Keir Dullea returning as the super-alienized Dave Bowman, and Douglas Rain again providing the voice of the rebooted HAL 9000 -- 2010 is such a straightforward mainstream science fiction-mystery-thriller that it's hardly a "sequel" to Kubrick's 2001 at all. The two films occupy parallel but distinct universes. But unlike its predecessor, this one's a full-on Arthur C. Clarke film. On its own terms it's pretty terrific, the visual effects are impressive (and scientifically accurate), and the only dated element is a plot contrivance added for the screenplay: the Cold War hostilities that are threatening to ignite a U.S.-Soviet World War III back on Earth; that is, until the planet Jupiter goes kablooey.

The Twilight Zone - Season 1 (1985 - 1986) (Image Entertainment)
In 1985, the revamped version of TV's The Twilight Zone (a.k.a. The New Twilight Zone) adapted Clarke's Hugo Award-winning short story "The Star." Fritz Weaver stars as a Jesuit priest on an interstellar mission. He experiences a crisis of faith when he confronts the remains of a dead civilization's sun, the exploded star that once appeared over Bethlehem. The episode was broadcast on December 20, 1985 for the Christmas season. It was directed by Gerd Oswald (Star Trek, The Outer Limits).

As for the future, currently in pre-production is a movie version of Clarke's award-winning 1972 novel Rendezvous with Rama. David Fincher (Se7en, Fight Club, Zodiac) is directing the film, which stars Morgan Freeman. According to IMDb, the movie is slated for release in 2009.

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