What SciFi Should Get the Reboot Treatment Next? 922
Not long ago Wired ran their own list of which SciFi (not SyFy!) shows were in need of another go 'round in this era of the reboot. Well, it looks like many fans had their own opinions resulting in another list of reboots including everything from Firefly (please?) to The Outer Limits. Which SciFi stories could use the breath of life, and which ones might actually succeed it getting it?
Reboot should get a Reboot! (Score:5, Insightful)
Reboot should get a Reboot!
That was a great cartoon.
Maybe C.O.P.S too! Fighting crime in a future time!
Why Firefly? (Score:5, Insightful)
The only thing I'd change is the dumbass execs that cancelled it before its time.
How about something new? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd rather see the nice old b&w Twilight Zones, grainy old BSG, the 1 or 2 seasons of Firefly, than ALL NEW DISNEY PIXAR TWILIGHT ZONE 3D ON ICE !!eleventy!!!
Lets get some NEW stuff - the enjoyment from the show should come from the plot/characters/message rather than the latest special effects or rehashes of To Serve Man.
The Matrix and Highlander (Score:2, Insightful)
How about none? (Score:5, Insightful)
How about none? There's a million* SF ideas out there that have never gone much beyond the printed word. Why do we have to keep rebooting old franchises? How about turning the Vorkosigan saga into a miniseries? Or something by Cory Doctorow or Charlie Stross, if you want to be a little more up-to-the-minute? How about a miniseries based on Hyperion, or A Deepness in the Sky?
Or even just forget about things that have already been written -- commission Doctorow or Stross (or someone) to create a TV miniseries based on new SF material.
* Not precisely 1 million.
Twilight zone (Score:5, Insightful)
There are too many sci-fi stories out there that need to hit the screen before we get reboots of old ones. Where is? Ender's Game, Antares Dawn, Startide Rising, Fire in the Deep, Armor?
I'd love to see Ender's Game in 3d. "The enemy's gate is down..." and our orientation would switch appropriately....
Re:Twilight zone (Score:5, Insightful)
Where the hell is Asimov's Foundation series? Where is Zelazny's Lord of Light? We have well over a century of science and speculative fiction that has barely, if ever been touched, and yet all anyone can ask for is retreads of Star Trek.
Re:How about something new? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How about none? (Score:3, Insightful)
Max Headroom (Score:5, Insightful)
How about Honey I Shrunk the Kids? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd love to see that done with darker, grittier feel.
Ringworld (Score:3, Insightful)
CC.
Is This What They Mean By "Mash-Up Culture"? (Score:2, Insightful)
The mind boggles: We are reading an article about another article about which TV Shows should be re-done. Is there not one self-respecting Creator of Original Stuff left? Is this why Young People Today are so angry about the length of copyright?
Re:what? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Twilight zone (Score:4, Insightful)
Have you read the Foundation series as an adult? It's not really very good. There are certainly some good ideas but the writing is trapped in the 1950s. It seems really awkward in places and overall (in my opinion) it hasn't aged well. It's nice to have classics in whatever genre but don't live in the past. There is a lot of fine writing now.
The movie and TV business is risky and they want to minimise their losses so they rehash what has worked in the past.
How about Rebooting Reboot? (Score:3, Insightful)
Bob the guardian, his girlfriend Dot and the great villains Megabyte and Hexadecimal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReBoot
Actually it looks like they are reviving it already, so -asked and answered as they say.
-I'm just sayin'
Re:How about something new? (Score:1, Insightful)
Lets get some NEW stuff - the enjoyment from the show should come from the plot/characters/message rather than the latest special effects or rehashes of To Serve Man.
There's no new stuff. Everything new is the well forgotten old.
Why Firefly? Here's why... (Score:4, Insightful)
That and un-kill Wash and Sheppard Book.
Oh, and get rid of the whole Miranda bullshit. The people who ply the lanes of space would neither "overlook" nor "forget" an entire main planet over the course of less than 20 years. Nor could such a thing be hidden as, outer-most or not, it would show up on everybody's orbital computations as a huge perturbation in their plots. Let alone one ten-year-old with binoculars.
Oh yea, and drop that whole "all the planets orbiting one sun" nonsense since it isn't workable. Miranda would have been frozen ice-ball _or_ the "inner planets" would be molten slag.
Don't get me wrong, I loved the show. The movie needs to be declared out-of-cannon before the series would be workable.
I could have come up with a better "reason for the reavers" in my sleep. The original one from the series (mental erosion from facing the emptiness of space etc) was good enough. Hell, the movie contradicted the series directly. If the Pax caused reaverdom, the the episode where the one guy got tortured and became a reaver himself woudln't have worked unless the reavers carry a supply of the otherwise secret Pax around and deliberately pre-expose potential recruits to it before deciding who to kill, rape, and eat (in that order, if you're really lucky).
So yea, it needs a reboot.
Re:Blakes 7 (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How about something new? (Score:5, Insightful)
Rather than remake something, or have some ignorant Hollywood producer create some new but clichéd and/or stupid story, why not go look to the great science fiction writers and put them on the screen (suitably updated)? Now that special effects are no longer any sort of obstacle, how about something based on Cordwainer Smith's stories of the Underpeople? E.E. Smith's classic Lensman series? Why not a TV series based on Pohl's Heechee stories? Maybe an Iain Banks novel, as someone mentioned above. How about Heinlein? Asimov? Charles Stross? Larry Niven? Keith Laumer's Retief (sort of a tongue-in-cheek James Bond-ish diplomat dealing with various troublesome alien species) could be huge, and there are enough stories for a dozen films. Any sf fan could list more.
It's annoying when all Hollywood seems to consider is remakes, "original" stories that aren't often good science fiction, and maybe things by Philip Dick. There are literally hundreds of great sf stories that could make fine films and TV series.
Re:How about none? (Score:3, Insightful)
Can I get a Snow Crash movie or mini-series here?
Re:Twilight zone (Score:5, Insightful)
I reread it about seven years ago, and enjoyed it as much as I did when I was first read it at 15. Yes, some of the ideas are caught in the "atomic age" notions of the period, but the main plot line, of a Foundation preserving technology in a fading empire, and of a Second Foundation of psychics, along with an extraordinary antagonist like the Mule, well, that's a damned good set of stories. Modernize it a bit, and you're on your way.
Star Wars (Score:5, Insightful)
Starwars. Episodes 1, 2 and 3 especially.
Re:Depends on how the "reboot" is done. (Score:3, Insightful)
Star Blazers (Score:2, Insightful)
Used to race home from school to watch this. I wanted them to fire the wave motion gun in every episode. :-)
http://www.starblazers.com
Re:Maybe (Score:2, Insightful)
There are no more Original Ideas, there are only rehashes of existing ideas, set in places nobody has imagined before.
This is why I liked Avatar. The plot was a rehash of a couple other movies, done on some alien world.
Of course, the geeks who didn't like the movie because it was "too spiritual" or failed on some Physics law or whatever, entirely miss the point.
Avatar did for me in my mid 40's what Star Wars did for me in my teens, it was awesome spectacle to watch. And looking at StarWars today, it seems kind of cheesy, and the plot was, as many have already mentioned, a rehash of other works, just set in an alien "galaxy".
If you want original, stop watching movies, you'll only be disappointed.
Re:Is This What They Mean By "Mash-Up Culture"? (Score:4, Insightful)
New doesn't always mean good. There are things like the original Battlestar Galactics, where the premise had a lot of potential, but the execution was terrible. Then there are things like Babylon 5, where the setting left a huge amount of unexplored scope. There's nothing wrong with taking a good idea from a poor execution, and producing something good from it, and there's nothing wrong with expanding existing good shows (although not like B5 Crusade). There's no reason to abandon good ideas just because they aren't new or original.
That doesn't mean that original ideas are bad, and that you shouldn't create them, but some people consider the reimagined version of The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet to be one of the greatest works of English literature, so you shouldn't discount recycled ideas.
Starship Troopers (Score:3, Insightful)
Do it for the Lieutenant!
Re:The Matrix and Highlander (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Blakes 7 (Score:5, Insightful)
The actors who played Avon, Vila and Blake were great actors, the rest were mediocre. Orac and Zen were also acted superbly for being machines. Oh and you cannot forget Servelan. She played hot sexy strong in a way I haven't seen yet the only person come close was the visitor leader in V the new series.
The thing is most of the crew needs to be made up with criminals both political prisoners and otherwise. They need not be acted like they are feral animals, the original show did a good job at that, they need the "Violent Offender with Neurochip suppression" otherwise known as Gan. The team needs to be made up of a group of amoral people led by a complete Idealist (Blake). Of course in the original series when Blake left, he took their morals with it and it become a power play between all of the amoralistic bastards left in the crew, save Cally and Dayna. Though season 3 and 4 were fun as well!
Re:Why Firefly? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Why Firefly? (Score:3, Insightful)
90% of the planets have an environment remarkably like Vancouver, WA, and a sum total of 500 human inhabitants makes sense to you? At least it's consistent, I guess. But if you're saying FireFly's mythos is sub-standard to SG1, I think you have to do a lot better than that.
And btw: it is not really ever very clear that all of FF's planets orbit the same star. I think Joss left it purposely vague, 'cause he didn't want FTL but wanted more room to explore than a single solar system would allow. I have much less gripe with that than every environment in FF resembling So Cal a little too much.
A similar writing style- Harry Harrison (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:How about none? (Score:5, Insightful)
Cory Doctorow? Really? Stross is a solid, workmanlike writer, but Doctorow? He's a hack. I could name a half dozen current Science Fiction writers better than Doctorow and Stross combined. Greg Bear. Stephen Baxter. John Barnes. Iain Banks. Peter Hamilton. Greg Egan. And that's just current authors, off the top of my head.
Re:Why Firefly? (Score:5, Insightful)
The part that needs to be eliminated in the reboot is the movie. I want to see a series that includes Wash and Sheppard Book.
Maybe some things in the movie didn't fit the way they should have, but I don't think that the death of Wash and Book are among these. Were they likable characters? Yes. Are you supposed to be sad that they died? Yes.
Firefly is primarily a story about Mal and his journey. At the beginning of the series he is battle-hardened and stoic while being burdened with Brown Coats' loss to the Core Planets. He is very much a closed-off person and the only glimpses we see of his humanity are his feelings for the ship and a strange sense of loyalty to his crew. He never gives any further explanation to why he protects them other than that they are his crew. There is a common theme throughout the series dealing with the stalled relationship between Mal and Inara due mainly to Mal's inability to open himself emotionally.
The events of the movie bring Mal's humanity back. The uncovering of the atrocities performed by the Core Planets government gives Mal a sense of purpose outside what we saw in the series which was to simply stay alive and flying. The deaths of Wash and Book uncover the real reason that Mal was so protective of his crew and this is alluded to in the last lines of the movie. Mal explains to River that the secret to captaining a ship is love. He protected his crew because he loved them and he is finally able to admit it, but it cost the lives of two good friends for him to realize it. Just previous to this scene Mal expresses to Inara that he would like it if she stayed on the ship, a tacit admission of his feelings for her.
If you don't like the movie because two good characters died, then you are selling the writing short. They died for a reason so that the main protagonist can undergo a change in character. If you felt sad that they died then the writers did their job of good writing.
Re:Why Firefly? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think the solar system in Firefly is very plausible.
It's not, but neither is FTL travel. To have people traveling between star systems in any reasonable time (i.e., not generation ships or suspended animation taking decades or centuries), you MUST have FTL. But FTL is theoretically impossible with our current understanding of physics, so the idea of a convenient star system with dozens of planets and hundreds of moons able to be terraformed to some extent, and conveniently having nearly earth-normal gravity, is a workable plot device to avoid the overused plot device that is FTL.
As a counterexample, look at the new Battlestar. They had FTL in the form of "jump drive", but it was really out of place, because all the rest of their technology was really not that much advanced from our own: nuclear-propelled Viper ships, machine guns just like our own, nuclear missiles for shooting at planets or enemy ships, seriously low-tech computers, etc. However, because of the nature of Battlestar's story, FTL was an absolute requirement.
The other thing which both shows seem to have which is out-of-place is artificial gravity. But it's nearly impossible to make a TV series that doesn't have artificial gravity (Avatar had a brief scene at the beginning with zero-g, but that was a half-billion dollar movie).
Any imagining of the future is always going to have things which require a suspension of disbelief, because there are going to be things which are necessary plot devices because of reality constraints or budget constraints, and also because we have little idea what technologies will be possible in the future (or else we'd have already invented them).
UFO - No Question (Score:5, Insightful)
I imagine most of you have never seen this excellent British SF Series but you should. Despite those elements which date it horribly, it was still far far ahead of its time. This was my favorite show as a kid without doubt and in many ways its still an excellent show and aged well. It deserves a reboot if anything does.
However, it needs to be redone by the British, not Americans, or at least a co-production. Letting American writers and producers loose with it would ruin the show I think - it had an air of understatement that American TV shows and Audiences seem unable to maintain. A US production would be totally over the top and I think that would be a mistake.
By far the best show in the entire list - and amazingly ignored in all the comments I read.
Re:Why Firefly? Here's why... (Score:4, Insightful)
Agreed, un-kill Wash and Shepard Book. Although, honestly, a 7 year run could take place in the intervening year between the end of the series and movie.
Yeah, I gotta disagree with this one. I don't want a series where nobody can die (and wanting to undo their dramatically significant deaths suggests this desire). Especially in the "movie is still canon, and this happens before it, so you know exactly who is still alive and when," sense. That would be the worst.
Not sure a sane genius class River would improve a continued show any.
Yeah I have to agree with you there.
I'm going to be honest here. While it is truly a shame that the series was cut short, I think it's best left alone outside of some supplementary filler like the comics and whatnot. I don't think you could just hop right back in and recapture the magic. Hell, I even have a sneaking suspicious that in some ways the short run of the series was a godsend, since the end result is that pretty much every episode is a home run. But that's only a suspicion... If I had a time machine and a Fox-exec-calibrated-clue-stick, I'd go back and ensure that it wasn't taken off the air.
But barring that? Let's just let Firefly stand on its own.
She was publicly known to be a failure, and even the mangnitude of the failure was known. The nature of the failure was the only unknown.
And nobody cared to find out, because to do so you had to go through Reaver territory.
Re:Slashdot (Score:2, Insightful)
The whole "Evil Bill" thing got old too. Perhaps we could make a new enemy?
You're right. Hating Microsoft is like hating the Ottoman Empire or Prussia today. They're irrelevant. The real threat today is Larry and Sergie.
Re:Starship Troopers (Score:3, Insightful)
Come on, the book was about two things:
1. The politics
2. The powered armour
Just because both those things were missing from the movie... oh, wait, I see your point now.
Re:How about none? (Score:3, Insightful)
Worse than talk, supposedly they are planning on making a single movie out of both Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion [wikipedia.org]. There are at least 6 or 7 tales told in those two books, each one would almost be capable of filling 2 hours.
I think the only way the Hyperion Cantos could make out of book form would be a long-running serial. Something with a really decent production team, that allowed each character time to build up the story.
Of course, one major problem with that is these stories are fairly depressing. Especially the 5 framed stories in Hyperion. Nothing good happens to anyone, really.*
(And then they are apparently planning on making a single movie out of Illium and Olympos, probably two of the most confusing [and amazing] stories I have ever read. I truly don't understand how that book could be made into a movie.)
-----
* I just received Hyperion and Fall for Christmas, and I'm currently re-reading Fall of Hyperion. I had completely forgotten how the end of the first book just hangs there!
Re:Blakes 7 (Score:5, Insightful)
> Originally, robin Hood stole, but did it with style.
> The whole protect the poor thing is probably a disney thing.
I have read several Robin Hood books from the early 19th Century and the "robs from the rich and gives to the poor" trope was firmly established then. Disney is not responsible for EVERY non-cynical idea in the world.
Personally, I just assumed that it was obvious, tactically, just as it was later obvious to Mao in the Little Red Book. If you pay back some of your take to help the "poor" or disenfranchised (aka peasantry, in Mao), they cover for you against those who only take (landlords or their agents)(even if you only pay a few pennies of the pounds that you take). This idea also occurred to the Medellin and Cali Cartels in Columbia.
Re:Blakes 7 (Score:1, Insightful)
You mean Farscape?
Re:Depends on how the "reboot" is done. (Score:4, Insightful)
Had they stuck with the Trek story, and had the Temporal Integrity Commission go back and set things right, again, great movie.
No, that would have been awful, because it would have meant we're stuck with the forty years of canon that has been bogging the series down so badly. The series was toppling under its own weight, but trekkies wouldn't let go of a single scrap of that history. Such that their opinion of any Star Trek media is based almost entirely on how well it sticks to that history to a tee. Ugh.
Splitting off the timeline, freeing the series from that history while simultaneously respecting it, was the best thing that could have happened to Trek. And if doing that means going against Trek's standard temporal theory where time is linear and the Time Cops come around and "fix" it whenever someone mucks with it, then so be it. Actually, expunging that piece of Trek canon was in and of itself a great move by itself. Because when your sci-fi series shares the same theory of time travel as a Van Damme movie, that's a hint that your theory is dumb.
Thank God JJ Abrams came along and saved the series from the Trekkies.