Redoing SCI-FI shows, or original concepts?

[Darkone]

Hi there my friends may I ask this particularly question?

Do you like the fact that there seems to be a recycling of of 70's and 80's sci-fi shows of late?

Battlestar Galatica , Bionic woman, Now Knight Rider, and and future STAR WARS television show. A friend of mine who does set construction (30 years now) some of the shows he worked on Simon & Simon, Seinfeld, ER, Winds of War, Magnum, a few movies told me that theres a chance that "Buck Rogers" and "V" is in the talks right now, and I have to ask is this GOOD for television and SCI-FI in general?
And don't get me started with the MOVIES; I am a Legend, early production of both "the Day the Earth stood still", as well as "when Worlds Collide".
And Hollywood wonders why were turning off the television and not going to movies!


What ever happen to Original IDEAS or story's for the function of SCI-FI?
For years I've heard there were chances of producing "THE DRAGONS OF PURN", the "WATCHMEN", "Horner Harrington", "CYBERPUNK" "War of Light & Darkness" but instead of original thinking we get a remake of "KNIGHT STALKER" does anyone other then me, think HOLLYWOOD, is scraping the bottom of the Barrel?

My Deepest darkest wish if there going to continue with this way of thought process is they REDO "SPACE ABOVE AND BEYOND" you see folks even I'm a hypocrite in this matter!

[TheGreatRaja]

creativity has been beaten out of hollywood by the search for $$$

[bbzwbbzw]

Originally Posted by TheGreatRaja

creativity has been beaten out of hollywood by the search for $$$

Totally agree. I wish we would get original stuff, but it seems that we will be beaten over the head with retreads. Although in my opinion Buck Rodgers gets a free pass as it is over 50 years old.

But I can also see the studios side of this; a LOTR or similar sci-fi film project costs a significant amount of money, and the studios almost have to be guaranteed a return on such a large investment. So which is safer, something original or something with a built in fan base? But I also think it depends on what you consider science fiction. If we expand it beyond the 'spaceships and aliens' milieu, don't movies like 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' and 'The Prestige' (both of which I dug BTW) qualify as science fiction? Heck, I'm one of the dozen people who liked 'The Fountain' (although I didn't understand it at all).

So to summarize, I think science fiction is alive and well, but space opera is currently repetitive and boring. Personally you can keep your sci-fi epic and give me a multi-million dollar version of the 'Flashman' books. I'd brick all over myself if that ever happened.

[ClaysGhost]

I'm going to be cynical and say that it's probably an honest reflection of the market. We all praise originality, but what we seem to reliably put our hands in our pockets for is banality.

[homerpalooza67]

Some of these remakes aint' bad, but everyone likes creativity. Look at Star Wars. Studio Execs said it would never work, and George Lucas put it out anyway. He wasn't a complete nobody, but at the time (Post THX) he was still pretty new at the job.
He insisted on doing it his way, and ended up spawning a multi-billion dollar franchise. If something is good enough, it will attract attention, and earn its pay. If its bad, then it will die an ignominious death at the box office. Even book adaptations will work, all you need to do is discover what books are popular enough to start a TV show or movie based on it. I would watch Honor Harrington, if it ever made it to the big (or small) screen. And I would love to see a movie-series based on Mutineers Moon (i've said that already )

[al3d]

they are redoing everything over and over because Writers, like moore and the likes, are'nt secure enough to risk something original now a days.

[biotech]

Well look what happens when they put original shows on.

Firefly, cancelled midway through 1st season
Journeyman, cancelled by the backdoor method of the network simply letting the option to buy new episodes lapse.
Farscape and SG1, told they had two more years to do their final arcing stories, then cut off half way through both.

It dosnt surprise me that networks want to remake shows that were hits before, they are a known concept, with years worth of scripts and ideas to simply redo, without having to put in the effort and challange of coming up with something new.

[Northern_Mind]

I thought everybody knew that redoing stuff is the new originality...

[homerpalooza67]

Firefly wasn't exactly given a chance. They had somewhat decent ratings, if i remember, but fox insisted that a 2 hour pilot without significant action would have killed any audience. Had they aired the show in the right order, it probably would have picked up the momentum needed for success.

I was a little disappointed that there were no movies after serenity, it was one hell of a movie...

As Far as originality, Heroes is pretty original, obviously inspired by comics such as X-Men and the like, and managed to get off two seasons before the writers strike cut production.

[chrono]

Originally Posted by al3d

they are redoing everything over and over because Writers, like moore and the likes, are'nt secure enough to risk something original now a days.

You know I'd agree, but the writer's aren't the only ones to blame in HW. And the audience isn't innocent either! It goes from the producer right down to the person watching the show. Hell we've seen great examples of great scripts getting killed by poor acting and bad scripts made awesome with incredible acting.

It's all going back to what it once was Talent and Timing. The Right People in the Right Place at the Right Time.

Besides after a few hundred books read you can usually see the plot coming for miles away, and once you do your enjoyments over....


@homer, heroes was your basic copycat from at least 3 different sources (X-Men, Rising Stars, and 4400) and only worked because LOST & the 4400 showed the producers an OLD, OLD (b&w cowboys & indians) winning formula: The Cliffhanger. But even then it was very copy/paste and have ALOT of padding that basically blew-up season 2 by the 4th show.