Trying a new Ray Bradbury game here.
Make your case for which short story should be made into the definitive Ray Bradbury story. Why would you choose it, how would you make it? (as if you are pitching it to your cast, crew, producers, studio - whomever)

I cannot fully play the game, because I don't feel like composing an elaborate reply, but there's a story in Golden Apples of the Sun about a night watchman at a movie lot who rebuilds sets that are torn down during the day, and eventually convinces a studio executive to really look at the world he's created, a place where there is peace because the whole world is connected and mixed together.

I think it's the ultimate Ray story because it best expresses the duality I read in all his stories, of isolation and connection, the need for an independent vision balanced with the need for human touch.

Plus, it would be a cheap film to make because you can use all existing sets and don't have to hide cameras, etc.

;-) DZ

If I had to pick one it would be "Pillar of Fire". The metaphor of the dead man being more fully alive than the human beings around him is devastating. That he is also the last hope of humanity's imagination and that this seems to be the only reason for him coming back to life is palpable. I'd have Sam Raimi direct it and at this stage in the game, I think I'd try and get Ian McKellan to play the central role. The guy he runs into at the end who discovers his identity I'd like to see either Jeffrey Wright or Christian Bale do that. Maybe Liev Schreiber. It would look like a horror/noir film but unfold like a chase. The audience would need to identify totally the protagonist would be fun because not only he, technically, a zombie but a murderous one at that. You have to find a way to sell that this is the savior of the soul of humanity.

Your posts bring me to point of realizing that I need to reread everything I have read of Ray's. For example I read Pillar of Fire many years ago but have forgotten the main points of the story.

I did read Death Is A Lonely Business twice and thoroughly enjoyed it. I think I will go for Graveyards For Lunatics and Let's All Kill Constance next. I loved those novels. But when I asked Ray about subsequent novels with those recurring characters he said that he wasn't going to be doing any and I guess that I can understand why not. It has to be a lot of work in plot and character development, continued story line, etc. And with Ray's health situation, it might be just too much at the present time, but how I have loved those books.