And yeah, just how boring would that be? Television today is all serialised and separate story episodes are a thing of the past! The special effects are all CGI, no more beautiful model work which is why shows like this were that good! If they start again from scratch then some of the characters will be altered to the point of frustration while it will take four episodes in before the moon departs from the earth and we'll have hours of stuff that would fit better in a soap opera than a sci-fi action show!!! Martin Landau, Barry Morse are no longer with us so if they go for a continuation there are going to be none of the original cast in the show at all with hours of the main actress going on about how her Father was Commander Koenig and stuff and we'll get hours of how they grow crops in the moonbase and recycle everything! The original BSG was miles better than the remake and this will be the same I'm sure! Why don't they go out and come up with something of a more original idea? JB
Well, there's no accounting for taste and if you liked the original more the reboot I'm sure no amount of words could make you change your idea. Moreover, the two shows are so different (other than the similar premise) that a real comparison can be difficult. But I have to say your opinion is not a really widely shared one...
The remake was a celebration of the US making war in the middle east and Asia I've always thought while the original was a reworking of the Israelites fleeing from their homeland and seeking refuge from constant persecution, only instead of Egyptians it was a race of mechanical monsters called Cylons! The Lorne Greene series was masterfully created using the best possible model work even if it was reused infinitum and showing the fleet's long and labourious trip across the stars and galaxies with their enemy in pursuit while the remake was pop! and we're somewhere else ! Plus the Cylons were actors in metal suits rather than CGI and actors replaying each other fifty times over! You may be right about everyone preferring the remake but I've found quite a few sites on the net which prefer the first version rather than the second! JB
Would you mind elaborating on this point? I believe this is the first time I see someone calling the new series a "celebration". I'm really curious.
Well I was discussing the two shows with a friend a few years back and that was the conclusion we both came to! The humans were all dressed like American soldiers would be while on the ground and the way they discussed things concerning the Cylon occupation of Caprica was very much like the objectives of the forces fighting at the time! And just how do you pronounce Tamoh anyway? JB
Worse, Space 2999999 or whatever might be Earth-centric, very much sappy soap opera as you'd mentioned (what happened to adventure and action and exploring some unknowns and to draw us into their world?), where everyone in the area of the planet that can see it looks up and sees the moon get splodied out of the orbit and then everyone spazzes out and there are floods and famine and big destruction. In which case give us "All That Glisters" and the rest of season 2's horrible hijinks remastered in glorious 16K instead, and for real futureproofing. The original BSG (1978) was cheesy and hokey in spots, and cliche of course, but it did feel more like a proper epic exodus. Despite losing its way halfway through, I'm not convinced the only reason the show was axed was because the ratings for the money spent were "insufficient". The ratings were good, especially for sci-fi given the era. I still laugh over the retcon between BSG's theatrical movie and TV premiere, but Colicos is a marvelous actor and makes villainy seem more natural and engaging. Was quite good in TOS's episode too as Kor. I won't mention season 2 (Galactica 1980) much as that feels like a big mishandled mess, of which only "The Return of Starbuck" had any strength as a story and the Halloween episode (which is the genesis of "Human Cylon", a fairly great idea for the context of G1980) squanders every morsel of idea put to it. But hey, it's a kid show with Wolfman Jack howling with more corn than on fifty sets' worth of Hee-Haw... can't scare the 9 year-olds to the makeshift bathroom in their pants, now can we... Moore's version gets a number of things right in the TV show (let's ignore the awful pilot but I'm happy they made an actual show because of the ratings regardless), though halfway into season 2 it starts to falter and never exactly recovers, despite Richard Hatch stealing the show with his newly introduced character. Where am I going with this? The need to make Cylons a human creation a la Dr Frankenstein's monster turning on its creator wasn't necessary. The allegory of "big scary monster" was suitable and even with the cheese, there's something about what the 1978 BSG's premiere about trapping the surviving humans to eat them all (glorified spider web allegory but to a more literal level) is still pretty frightening. The modelwork for late-70s TV is impressive, thanks to the influence of Star Wars beyond the Big Screen experience. It made BSG more iconic in a way, but only superficially. The episodes I've rewatched remain good because of the characterization and plot. Lorne Greene was inspired casting... actually, the whole cast was chosen rather well. Hatch and Benedict make a terrific double-act, as do Greene and Carter.
My favorite character in TOS was Boomer. Apollo and Starbuck were too archetypal for me - the straight-laced guy and the scoundrel - echoing shades of Luke Skywalker and Han Solo, but depicted more as peers. Boomer was just this normal guy who served as the balance between the two - the Everyman who was put in weird circumstances but never breaking loyalty with his friends and quietly helping them come out the other side. Flight Sergeant Jolly was also along those lines, but sadly didn't get as much exposure.
I see this thread veering off-course just like the Moon in Space:1999. The most important question here is what the odds are that this reboot will actually happen. There have been several attempts on the parts of those who participated in the original shows to bring them back in a manner they wanted. This includes Richard Hatch who had written novels and had his own idea of how to continue TOS BSG, or Paul Darrow who tried for a long time to continue Blake's 7. So I see this as just another effort like that and people shouldn't get their hopes up.
Very few, because, putting aside the gimmick of using a moon as a spaceship, the core is just people having strange adventures in space. And this is been done to death.
The moon wasn't a spaceship as such but a base where they had lived and it careered through the stars! The spaceships were the Eagles which transported the Alphans from the moon to the unknown planet it seemed to pass by every couple of shows! JB
As a fan of both shows it's pretty obvious that the writers of Space 1999 ripped off a major amount of Trek storylines! They changed things here and there of course but the similarities are too big to just cast it off as coincidence I think! JB
Was that the show with Jonathan 'Dr.Smith' Harris as Isaac Gampu and Rik something or other? I think James Doohan appeared in it as well but I'm not sure as it's years since I've seen it! JB
I wouldn't say "very few" because pretty much all preexisting IP has been or will be rebooted. Gerry Anderson properties have seen some activity of late like Thunderbirds. It's possible. But I think the odds of it being done in a way an old fan might appreciate are nil, so Brian Johnson's old-school model designs are a non-starter.
Well, by definition, the point of doing a new version of a property is to attract a new audience. The old audience already has their version. It's certainly possible to do a version that satisfies both old and new audiences, but one should never assume that the pre-existing audience is the primary or exclusive target of a new version.
Close - Doohan appeared in Jason of Star Command which followed after Space Academy finished up. Jason re-used the planetoid location of the Academy (taking place in "a secret section of the Space Academy"} and also used some of the same sets and costumes, and a modified version of the Seeker spacecraft model from Space Academy.
The connection was hardly ever followed up on, though, since it was really just a way to save money by reusing the sets and stuff. Although one guest star from an SA episode did show up in JOSC once. If I could reboot the shows, I'd do it the other way around -- have the Academy be a section (not secret) of Star Command. That would make more sense, as Star Command would be what the Academy was training people for. Anyway, Space Academy did have two Trek veterans in its regular cast -- Pamelyn Ferdin and Brian Tochi, who'd both been in "And the Children Shall Lead." Tochi would later appear in ST:TNG.