Not only working on Dune 2, it’s now reported Denis Villeneuve will also be directing a film version of Arthur C Clarke’s seminal Rendezvous With Rama. If you’re a fan of a certain vintage of science fiction, this is big news. Rama is one of those novels you always wanted to be filmed, but weren’t sure could be.
What’s Rendezvous With Rama about?
If you don’t know, I’ve grabbed this from the wiki entry:
…first published in 1973. Set in the 2130s, the story involves a 50-by-20-kilometre (31 by 12 mi) cylindrical alien starship that enters the Solar System. The story is told from the point of view of a group of human explorers who intercept the ship in an attempt to unlock its mysteries. The novel won both the Hugo and Nebula awards upon its release, and is regarded as one of the cornerstones in Clarke’s bibliography.
While I’ve read the follow-on novels (which in my view get less impressive as they progress), Rendezvous With Rama is, for me, up there with Gateway as a great, great novel. While I’m sure a modern treatment will bring more to the characterisations (it will be fifty plus years old when the film arrives), the strength of Rama is the mystery. We never know what’s really going on as the explorers try to make sense of this vast alien artefact passing through the Solar System.
Something to look forward to, perhaps 2023/4?
Symmetry Junction 
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