[X] My Assistant

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I'm not all that enthusiastic about the Sci-Fi Channel's adaptations. Ever see the mess they made out of "Riverworld"?

Yeah, I just cited them as the most likely source of potential interest. Actually, anyone in the movie industry might well be much better. Thinking of asking Emily to contact Steven Spielberg, who's on the TPS executive committee...this could be viewed as a community outreach effort.

[helvick]

I'm not all that enthusiastic about the Sci-Fi Channel's adaptations. Ever see the mess they made out of "Riverworld"?

Sometimes good stuff comes out - the problem is that with Sci-fi the success rate is a bit on the low side. That said Battlestar Galactica's resurrection\transformation shows that some passion, determination and 21st century special effects can make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.
I still think that good literary SciFi presents a major challenge - Special effects alone cannot overcome all of the challenges presented by some of the conceits that allow stories like Vinge's "A Deepness in the Sky" (Cuddly alien spider babies) and Iain M Banks "The Player of Games" (The Imperial game's vast multi sensory premise) to work. Likewise I think that "The Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy" movie was always destined to be a pale shadow of the original radio play.

But I'd love to see someone try all the same and pale shadow or not I like THHGTTG movie.

[edstrick]

I've always thought that Gerry Anderson and associates really honestly tried, but had a classical case of hollywood (brit's version) utter cluelessness and unclueability of how to do Science Fiction, and the difference between Science Fiction and SciFi.

Hollywood types think "if it looks kewl, do it". SF writers take an unrealistic assumption (or pre-realistic assumption) and run with it, treating the results with essential realism. Spielberg has almost always done SciFi. "Gross <sic> Encounters of the Third Kind" is typical scifi. His "Minority Report" is the hardest, most internally consistent Science Fiction he's done.

The original BattleStar Galaxative <sic> was typical lame derivitive hollywood scifi, while the new BattleStar is grittily realistic in it's assumptions and plotting.

I've long thought you could take the skeletal IDEA "Space 1899" <sic> (1899 was about the level of the Anderson's and their scriptwriters knowledge of astronomy) and do one hell of a good Science Fiction series based on the idea.

Imagine.. 2049. US, Russian/European, Chinese bases on the moon, competing, somewhat cooperating. An international Post-Einsteinian field physics laboratory being finished to test high-power dark-energy physics based science. They fire up the first run of the experiment and... <insert gobs of special effects here>... the Earth is gone....the SUN is gone.... low orbit lunar spacecraft are still in orbit.. (the field volume was that big)... and a globular cluster is taking up the sky from horizon to 45 deg elevation.

Uhoh....

What happened?... How do they survive with the supply lines from Earth cut... (things are only partly self-sustaining.) Can they COOPERATE well enough to survive! Can they repair the experiment hardware and do it again without trashing stuff.. can they learn how to navigate with it.. can they get home... If so.. the galaxy is open.

Take the barebones assumption and you could have one hell of a good series. If -- big if -- you know what you're doing.

[Stu]

Ahhh, what might have been...

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Heh, heh, heh...Stu, you're just having way too much fun with your new toy...

Ed, I like your thinking, and maybe the new BG is a harbinger of things to come. I actually haven't seen it yet, but you're not the first person to tell me it's good...guess I gotta check it out!

Still, I sure wish we could find someone influential and science-savvy enough in the movie industry to make the classics live on the big (or small!) screen. Can you imagine a mini-series of Heinlein's "juvenile" novels? I mentioned Red Planet before...I want to see Willis bouncing around the edge of a canal exactly as Clifford Geary first drew him in that wonderful, wonderous novel....same general idea goes for The Star Beast, Time for the Stars, Citizen of the Galaxy, Between Planets , etc...

And one step further. How about The Stars My Destination, Way Station and all the other seminal, now almost forgotten, novels that produced the generation that put us on the Moon? I am certain that faithful movie versions of these works would light a small but significant number of youngsters on fire...the critical members of the generation that can put us on Mars & beyond.

[Stu]

maybe the new BG is a harbinger of things to come. I actually haven't seen it yet, but you're not the first person to tell me it's good...guess I gotta check it out!

I have to be honest, sometimes I've been left quite stunned by an episode of BG, I keep thinking "They're going to wake up soon and realise this is TOO good - too well written, too well acted, too well plotted and with far too exciting special effects - and either cancel it outright or dumb it down by adding a cute mop-haired kid and a daggit bot dog or something...

BG is, IMHO, one of the finest TV series of recent years, that it happens to have a SF theme is neither here nor there. It's on my very short Must See list, with WEST WING and GARTH MARENGHI'S DARK PLACE...

There was talk some years ago of James Cameron making a tv version of Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars series, but it never happened, which is either a) a shame, because it could have been a stunning achievement if done right, a martian version of "Lord of The Rings", or a blessing, because Cameron might have given into temptation and slathered on the schmaltz and added extra romance, drama, peril and angst... TITANIC in space... ((shudder))

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Wow... ...that's a pretty strong endorsement, Stu! Now I know I have to check it out...are DVDs available yet?

[helvick]

It's on my very short Must See list, with WEST WING and GARTH MARENGHI'S DARK PLACE...

Dark Place is very good but I reckon it's quite a niche series - I don't know of too many people who get it when they see it. And you forgot to mention THE CLANGERS.
I'd also add Firefly to that.

TITANIC in space... ((shudder))

Actually that's what I'm really afraid of - someone will take a classic and turn it into something awful. I had a particularly bad experience with Stephen Spielberg's AI. The short story by Brian Aldiss it was based on ("Supertoys last all summer long") was alright but I got hooked into the precurser game (The Beast) that was developed as an experiment in viral marketing for it and turned into one of the first really large scale Alternate Reality Games. The game was an astonishing experience of collective intelligence and interactive media with some inspired content from the writers\developers. As a result I expected that the film would be excellent. As it turns out it was woeful and particularly bad when compared with the fantastic story line and exposition of the same universe that unfolded in the game.

[Stu]

And you forgot to mention THE CLANGERS.

Didn't want to overdo it; my Clangers fan credentials were established when I suggested the name "Soup Dragon" for that feature on the farside of Victoria... which seems to have stuck, at least here on UMSF, yaaaaayyy!!! :-)

Firefly - truly superb, with enough smart-ass quotations to last a sci-fi fan a lifetime

I'd like to speak up here for the grossly under-rated "Space: Above and Beyond". Who can forget the sight of a fighter falling into a black hole to the sounds of Johnny Cash... or Shane (sigh!!!) Vansen grabbing some fear-frozen grunt by the collar and hauling him into a crater for cover, as Chiggy shells exploded nearby... wonderful memories!!!

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Anybody know if these newer British series are available on DVD in the US? You guys are whetting my appetite, but not sure if I can find them here.

[Stu]

Anybody know if these newer British series are available on DVD in the US? You guys are whetting my appetite, but not sure if I can find them here.

"SPACE: ABOVE AND BEYOND" was a US series... made by the same guys behind the X-Files I think... just Google it and you should find a cd box set for sale somewhere... VERY cool spaceships!

[dilo]

Ahhh, what might have been...

Nice montage, Stu!
I recently saw first season of new Battlestar Galactica and my impression is dual: story and characters are well designed and I liked director's technique but, overall, there is a very dark mood and I didn't like some aspect which make it very similar to a every-day fiction or even a soap (intrigues, sex, etc) that could be funny but take me far from SF as I know... Clearly, the new BG is VEEERY different from original series and is a product of our time.
I repeat, the age when you see for the first time a film or a series is very important because if you are a teenager you are less critical and more open, so you will receive a strong imprint from it. For me, this happened with UFO, Space1999 and, at the end, Star Wars; now I see very well all the weaknesses of each one, but I'm still loving them!

[Stu]

I repeat, the age when you see for the first time a film or a series is very important because if you are a teenager you are less critical and more open, so you will receive a strong imprint from it.

I know exactly what you mean. I recently bought the video of the pilot of "V", which made a HUGE impression on me when it aired on TV back during the last Ice Age... I remember how at the time it seemed like the best TV series EVER, with STUNNING special effects, creepy aliens and a really epic feel about it. (Ugh! That girl just had an alien baby!!!) Couldn't wait to put the tape in and enjoy it all over again...

(sound of tape winding back after watching....)

Hmmm... not quite as good as I remember it! Matte lines around the alien ships so thick they could have been drawn with a marker pen... acting more wooden even than on the original BG... alien make up so bad it looked like it was moulded out of green modelling clay... about as scientifically accurate as an episode of Button Moon...

... but still kind of cool! I mean, those saucers looked huge, and gave us Independance Day farther down the line, and it hung together, just about. I still couldn't figure out why the aliens wore full human disguises onboard their own ships even after the occupation... ;-) But hey, I can forgive any series with a villainess as evil and leery as big-80s-haired Diana, who I had a serious crush on at the time.

Okay, so she ate mice. No-one's perfect...

[edstrick]

I missed picking up a used DVD boxed set of the entire Space, Above and Beyond (really didn't see the series due to working evenings). For the Brit crew here... Don't forget that Dr. Who has grown up. A Dr. Who episode didn't get a best "Dramatic Short form" Hugo award this year for nothing.
"Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form:
Doctor Who "The Empty Child" & "The Doctor Dances" Written, Steven Moffat. Directed, James Hawes. (BBC Wales/BBC1) "

[dilo]

Just revieved "Dragon's domain" (pretty scary, now I recall! ) and "Mission of the Darians". The latter is another of the last episodes of first (memorable) season and, apart very intriguing females figures, at the beginning there is a huge spaceship capturing the Eagle... So i made a couple of nice anaglyph from the sequence:

And look at this dialog, it recall me something from a far, far away galaxy:
KOENIG: Alan, there's fifty miles of ship, keep trying.
CARTER: We're being drawn into the ship. All Eagle systerns are smothered.