Science Fiction Trivia

[spud42]

War of the Worlds ? was on radio 1938 long before the first film...
but does it count as it wasnt a series but a single 1 hour broadcast?

[Cmdr James]

1938 is before 1950, so it also doesnt count.

To be honest I spent a few hours last night looking online for radio sci fi and trying to find some that has been made into cinema and its very limited.

There was a bit of scifi radio before 1950 (war of the worlds is probably the best known radio scifi) but in the time frame we are looking at its mostly books adapted for radio, and there has often been both tv AND film before radio.

I hesitate to say that there is not a valid answer somewhere out there, not least Im sure there have been university radio stations that have broadcast student scifi and media students will have no doubt made film from plenty of examples over the years. But if we talk about "proper" film I am starting to doubt if there are 5 examples.

Brave New World could fit? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New ... daptations First radio version 1956 and a "television film" in 1980 with the first tv series in 2020. of course thats only valid if we accept that a "television film" is a movie and not tv. And even then, I dont think anyone would really say its radio scifi adapted for film, its a book adapted to both.

Maybe a quick sanity check, @RockDoctor,are you sure there are 5 such examples?

[spud42]

hang on. the question was scifi radio that went to film BEFORE tv. thats exactly what war of the worlds did with orson wells 1938 radio.

how about 5 radio SF series that have gone directly to film without passing through a TV adaptation first.

[Disembodied]

hang on. the question was scifi radio that went to film BEFORE tv. thats exactly what war of the worlds did with orson wells 1938 radio.

how about 5 radio SF series that have gone directly to film without passing through a TV adaptation first.

Yes, but the only qualifying answers have to date from after 1950:

Oh, I guess we'll have to rule out the pre-TV programmes too - things like Buck Rodgers (I guess - before my time). Say, pre-1950?

I'd be really surprised if there were five examples. Radio drama (pretty niche, especially post-1950) -> movie adaptation (big-budget, at least compared to TV) would be a pretty unusual route. There might be a book or two that have been adapted for radio before being made into a film, but I've not been able to think of any.

[ffutures]

I read the question as ruling out stuff before 1950, since there wasn't usually the option of TV between radio and film. It has to be stuff where the possibility exists.

[RockDoctor]

Maybe a quick sanity check, @RockDoctor,are you sure there are 5 such examples?

No, I'm not sure there are 5 such examples.
The criterion I was looking at was "relative cost" : A film production is a lot more expensive then TV, which itself is a lot more expensive than radio. At least, so I understand.
So, going from radio to film without going through a TV stage would be a considerable escalation in risk. Though since people routinely go from script direct to movie, it's obviously a do-able transition.

The 1950 limit was about there not being the intermediate cost option of a TV production before then. Though I'm not so sure how the relative costs of TV production pre-video and (say) stage production would have compared. And for that matter, thinking back to the discussed example of Well's WoTW, I'm not so clear on how the costs of a radio "staging" would have compared to a TV or stage "staging". Lose the costs of the set, but add the costs of a sound-effects person. No half-coconuts for the horses in space though.

It wasn't a well thought out idea.

[ffutures]

does it count though?
original was radio ==> film ==> tv
according to your timeline it went film ==> radio ==> tv

Sorry, first radio Day of the Triffids was 1957, not 1967, so the order was right. I just typed it wrong.

[spud42]

does it count though?
original was radio ==> film ==> tv
according to your timeline it went film ==> radio ==> tv

Sorry, first radio Day of the Triffids was 1957, not 1967, so the order was right. I just typed it wrong.

sweet i thought as much..

[RockDoctor]

Shall we try something different, with a simpler criterion?

Name five SF creatures with an odd number of limbs/ tentacles pseudopoda etc.
For example, in one universe I can think of two distinct species with 5-fold symmetry and a third species with three-fold symmetry on a mirror plane, while a different author has a short story which has a (very different) 5-fold symmetry.
I'm failing to think of any universe with life forms with a 7-fold symmetry. There's a MBP waiting for someone to collect.

[ffutures]

The ice ants of Titan are three-legged, about three inches tall, in Stanley G. Weinbaum's short story Flight on Titan (1935)

http://www.forgottenfutures.com/game/ff ... /titan.htm

My version of them, for my Forgotten Futures RPG

[Nite Owl]

The movie ARRIVAL features aliens who are called Heptapods for their seven limb, radially symmetrical appearance. The two primary Heptapods in the movie are nicknamed Abbott and Costello.

[spud42]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierson%2 ... ron%20Star.

Larry Niven Ringworld et al.... Pierson Puppeteers

[Disembodied]

The Idirans, from Iain M. Banks's Consider Phlebas, have three legs and two arms (actually they have a vestigial third arm, which forms a chest-flap … but whether this counts as a limb, I don't know).

[RockDoctor]

The ice ants of Titan are three-legged, about three inches tall, in Stanley G. Weinbaum's short story Flight on Titan (1935)

One, and not the tripods I was thinking of.

The movie ARRIVAL features aliens who are called Heptapods for their seven limb, radially symmetrical appearance.

Hmmm, do we see enough of their bodies to get their symmetry? Their "hands" have a heptadactyl appearence - but the same can be said of some humans and cats. But IIRC the bodies are indistinct tall structures in the fog - I don't recall any mention of counting their limbs.
Any Arrival fans out there with a script or quote?
We (we're all humans here, aren't we?) typically have pentadactyl hands (though some of the earliest land tetrapods had a heptadactyl pes and ocatadactyl manus, IIRC - which caused a lot of confusion when they were dug up), but our overall symmetry is of a four-limb creature - hence "tetrapod". Two homologous "girdles" with two limbs each, hung at each end of a beam.

• I've realised there's an ambiguity in the way that several genera of primates have developed prehensile tails which are approaching a limb in both strength and manipulation effect. Nobody has played that possible MBP, so I'll rule out prehensile tails as a limb.

I'll call this a miss, and a MBP. If someone can produce "canon" about the aliens actually being seven-limbed rather than seven-digited, you can do a try on the conversion. (I may not have my rugby terminology right. Or is it Ultra-Tennis?)

Larry Niven Ringworld et al.... Pierson Puppeteers

The most unsuccessful restauranters of Known Space come trotting in on two half-coconuts and a spearpoint to take third place, with a stewards enquiry ongoing on the second place.
(EDIT) Also occupying the podium from known space are the swamp-dwelling Jotoki who had the really bad idea of employing the Kzinti as bodyguard/ mercenary troops in the non-canon "Man-Kzin Wars" extension of Known Space, and the marine Gw'oth in the "Worlds" series of canon books ; both had pentameric symmetry. While we're in Known Space, you could make an argument that the fusiform ("spindle-shaped", politely ; "slug-like" otherwise) Frumious bandersnatch has only one foot.

The Idirans, from Iain M. Banks's Consider Phlebas, have three legs and two arms (actually they have a vestigial third arm, which forms a chest-flap … but whether this counts as a limb, I don't know).

Hmmm, interesting evo-devo points in there. But tripod footing is good enough. If the arm is vestigial, then the anatomy is still showing a basic tripod symmetry in the same way that the single-toed limb of the modern horse is still structured on the tetrapod's pentadactyl limb (with caveats above).
Four (and a steward's enquiry on second).

There's still an MBP on the table for the example I was thinking of which hasn't been mentioned.
I'm going to mention (and so exclude) the Monopods which appeared on various mediæval maps and travel guides. People who wrote about them thought they were reporting the truth, not writing fiction.

[Disembodied]

The movie ARRIVAL features aliens who are called Heptapods for their seven limb, radially symmetrical appearance.

Hmmm, do we see enough of their bodies to get their symmetry? Their "hands" have a heptadactyl appearence - but the same can be said of some humans and cats. But IIRC the bodies are indistinct tall structures in the fog - I don't recall any mention of counting their limbs.
Any Arrival fans out there with a script or quote?

This is a description of the aliens from the Ted Chiang short story "Story of Your Life", which the movie Arrival is based on:

It looked like a barrel suspended at the intersection of seven limbs. It was radially symmetric, and any of its limbs could serve as an arm or a leg. The one in front of me was walking around on four legs, three non-adjacent arms curled up at its sides. Gary called them 'heptapods.'