The Evolution of Science Fiction discussion

Some insights into the film here: https://cinephiliabeyond.org/escape-n...

The novelization by Mike McQuay is one of my favorite action novels as well.

Interesting article. It's one of my favorites, too. I was pretty stunned at seeing Kurt Russel playing Snake. I knew him from the Mickey Mouse Club, The Computer Who Wore Tennis Shoes, & other Disney roles. I was less surprised at Ernest Borgnine even though he was McHale from the sitcom McHale's Navy to me. I'd seen him play other characters in westerns & war movies. (He was great in The Dirty Dozen.) They didn't mention Adrienne Barbeau, though. She certainly had her own qualities that added to the film.

Escape from New York by Mike McQuay for the links.

I watched Kurt in the Disney stuff too. He mentioned this and playing Elvis, which I can also recall. He did a great job as E and had intensity, which carries over to Escape, as we know now.

And definitely about Adrienne Barbeau.

I read this book and saw the movie on the big screen when it came out in 1981 at the tender age of 17. I don't recall which came first, the book or the movie, but I suspect I read the book first. Nor do I even remember the plot all that well. I do remember liking the book more because it held together better. I remember being disappointed in the movie, feeling like I needed a shower when I emerged from the theater. Was there something really unlikable in the protagonist?

Not that I recall. He’s the same Snake Plissken as the book. I do agree the book was more complete as it had a back story and impressions from Snake himself that the movie did not.

I'm almost positive I read the book way after the movie. I thought it was a novelization. I liked them both.

The book was a novelization. Like most novelizations then, it came out a month or two before the movie. I just checked. May for the novel; July for the film. I see there was some cannibalism in the movie. Seventeen might have been a bit young for seeing this.

That reminds me. It's easy to miss the tattoo on the knuckles of one of the cannibals in the sewer system in the movie, but the novel makes a point of it. IIRC, it is 'Hawk', the son of the warden, who asked Snake to look for his son while he's in there. I think that part gets cut out of the movie on the TV fairly often.

I never saw the movie until last year and I was pleasantly surprised. The sets and effect were pretty good. Parts look like modern video games.

I just found from wiki-P that that scenes that look like computer animated wire-frames, are actually physical miniature models: "The effects crew filmed the miniature model set of New York City they used for other scenes under black light, with reflective tape placed along every edge of the model buildings. Only the tape is visible and appears to be a 3D wireframe animation."

Someday I might take a crack at script writing. This one reads quick, like the other material.

https://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Escape-...