What if Ron Moore did Buck Rogers in the twenty-fifth century?

What do you think a revamped series of Buck Rogers would be like if done by Ron Moore?

 

Hmmm. Interesting idea.

I'd expect a lot more angst from Buck - missing his friends and family, mourning not only them but the world and times he knew.

I imagine that the technology would be something like that in BSG - no lasers or phasers, weapons more like hi-tech guns and cannons.

In the first season of the Gil Gerard series, there were some interesting ideas that were never followed up on - the wastelands on Earth and people living out there. Expect a lot more like this. I think you'd also see more about how 25th Century Earth was still struggling to come to terms with the devastation caused by previous wars and in trying to find new sources of food or energy.

Ideas like Col Deering being an ace fighter pilot, carrying the same rank and doing the same job as well as a man would be right at home with Ron.

Finally - Twiki would be nowhere in sight.

 

I don't know what a Moore version would be like, but technically speaking we've already had a Rockne O'Bannon version.

I'm not sure how I feel about the current series and its intentional 1930's look. I realize it's an homage to the original comic, but I guess I'm too used to the Gil Gerard series. And for all the shit that show gets flung at it, I enjoyed it very much. Gerard himself pushed for more serious storylines, IIRC.

Also I am glad that both Gerard (who is MUCH healthier these days, God bless 'im) and Erin Gray are in the new series. After all these years, Erin's still got it.

 

Current Series? What'd I miss?

 

Suffering and shakycam.

 

There was a Buck Rogers webseries in development a couple years back from the folks who do the unauthorized Star Trek: Phase II fan series. But it seems to have fallen through, or at least is on indefinite hold. They were supposed to begin airing in 2010, but nothing's materialized.


As for the original question, of course Buck Rogers has been around as a character since 1928, and there were books, comics, a movie serial, and a '50s TV series before the Gil Gerard series came along. So there's no reason to think a new adaptation of Buck Rogers would be based specifically on the 1979 TV version, which, let's face it, was pretty lame.

I'd be all for a new version of Buck, but I don't think we need more of BSG's relentless cynicism and "grittiness." True, it's often set in a postapocalyptic or dictator-ruled future, but I think it needs to be somewhat optimistic, since Buck is a classic hero figure. I wouldn't want to stereotype Moore as only being capable of one thing, but I don't see him as a default choice for a project like this.

 

The original Buck Rogers had the Han as the Big Bads invading white America. Just as Moore's BattleStar Galactica was a 9/11 series, a Moore Buck Rogers would be about the Chinese "menace" that requires the repositioning of US military forces. Of course there would be something specifically stated about how the Big Bads weren't really the Chinese but everything that actually matters to the plots, characterizations and themes would say otherwise.

The Moore version would also emphasize the existence of traitors and the powers of subversion. It would with shocking boldness respectfully address American patriotism and religious values instead of the cliche black-and-white savage assaults that infest your television sets. The need for genocide would be raised but to be rejected, reluctantly, though the question of whether this was the right choice would be bravely asked. (But not answered.)

The Chinese, er, Han, would be motivated solely by personal inadequacies or neuroses or psychoses and there would be no political or economic issues addressed. Pretty much all controversial questions would be left unanswered, but the premises of the show would make other opinions impossible.
The background of the show would make no sense because there would be no concern with confronting real issues of society, politics, economy or technology. But it would be perfectly clear that the heroes are US.

The critics would love it.

 

Killer Kane would probably be more a Godfather styled figure mixed with Donald Trump. Col. Deeriing would be more of a mentor to Buck than a romantic partner. Religion might take more of a center stage and Huer might be something of a religious scientist. Buck might be more of a ladies man and be considered something of a savage.

 

"Meet the new Sarah "Buck" Rogers in this months issues of EW"

 

I've toyed with a couple of ideas for a Buck Rogers remake. Actually, I've toyed with ideas for Buck Rogers and Space 1999.

One Buck Rogers concept I considered featured a female "Buck" (LOL) and a Col. William Deering.

The other concept stayed completely within Sol star system. Humanity is spread out from Mercury to the Oort Cloud, with the bulk of civilization from Mars inward. That provides plenty of locations without theorizing on any FTL possibilities. The Draconians are a religious cult that have formed as a result of Earth detecting a signal from a star in the the Draconis constellation. The signal is artificial but, as of now, untranslatable. Ardala is the leader of a human rebellion/resistance group that live among the asteroids and outer system moons.

More realism and less 80s camp, but not nearly as dark, gritty and depressing as some people thought nuBSG was.

 

I would hope he wouldn't repeat the same tropes he used in BSG and do something different.

 

There actually was a Buck Rogers relaunch in just such a setting, developed by TSR in the late '80s for an RPG and a series of 10 novels:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_Rogers_XXVC

And I don't see any need to reuse the concept of the Draconians, which were specifically an element of the Gil Gerard series, not an intrinsic part of the Buck Rogers universe. Lots of the original Buck Rogers comic strips featured antagonists from Mars, Jupiter, or other Solar System planets, while the 1939 serial's villain, Killer Kane, was basically a "super-racketeer" from Earth. (The original novel and early comics were unfortunately rather more racist, with Han Chinese or Mongols as the villains.) So one could easily do an authentic version of Buck Rogers set in the Solar System with no need to bring in any interstellar elements or local analogues thereof.

 

^ I never thought the Draconians were aliens anyway. I always just thought they were another breakaway human colony.

 

Either way, the point is that they don't need to be included, since they aren't an intrinsic part of the Buck Rogers universe, just an invention of that one mediocre TV adaptation of it, like Twiki was. I'm pretty sure Ardala is unique to the '79 series as well.

 

Conversely, it could easily be said that they don't necessarily need to be excluded.

There are multiple source materials to draw from at this point, all of them featuring equally hokey/corny/dumb elements at one point or another. That doesn't necessarily mean those elements would turn out the same way if reconceived under a different treatment.

Except for Twiki. Nothing can save Twiki.

 

I think I liked Twiki more than Buddy from the Buck Ragers serial though, still Twiki was from an era of robotic dogs like Muffett and K9.

I liked the idea of the computer council in the pilot though, it'd be nice if that idea had been explored a bit more.

 

That's true, and I'm not saying one can't draw on elements from multiple adaptations. It just seems to me that there's an unfortunate tendency on many people's part to assume that the 1979 TV series was the original or only incarnation of Buck Rogers, and that it represents the default for what Buck Rogers is. I just want to make it clear that the character and his world were already half a century old when that show came along, and that there has been at least one other major reinvention of the series since then, in the TSR games and books. So there's a much larger tradition to draw on than one piece of disco-era cheese.

 

But I like Twiki. He was funny.

 

The best thing about Twiki was that he inspired K-10, KIT-9, and COCKA-3.