Glen A. Larson: your opinion(s) of him & his work?
- Thread starter Aquehonga
- Start date
Most of Larson's shows were pretty light popcorn fluff, even by 70s and 80s standards. And true, many of his series were rips off of other successful movies of the time, but this has always been true with network television.
I do strongly disagree that BSG was a rip off of Star Wars though. This has been heavily documented and even went to court, and it is clear Larson's idea of Galactica pre-dates SW ( it was originally called Adam's Ark).
I think Larson's best work was definitely in the 70s, his shows tended to have more substance. Quincey ME was a great drama, dealing with many controversial hot topics of the day. McCloud was a great mystery series, though it was clearly inspired by Eastwoods Coogan's Bluff. Magnum PI one of the best detective series ever, but he was only moderately involved with that series inception. In fact, it brings up an interesting question, how directly involved in most of his series....? As I pointed out with Buck Rogers, Larson was only involved in the pilot movie while first season was run by his showrunners.
Battlestar Galactica is by far my favorite Larson creation. In many ways, it was a series well ahead of its time, using story conventions that we now take for granted but were relatively uncommon for network shows in the 1970s, particularly in terms of using continuing story lines.
Since Knight Rider in the mid-80s, I can not think of a truly successful hit series Larson has created....?????
I do strongly disagree that BSG was a rip off of Star Wars though. This has been heavily documented and even went to court, and it is clear Larson's idea of Galactica pre-dates SW ( it was originally called Adam's Ark).
I think Larson's best work was definitely in the 70s, his shows tended to have more substance. Quincey ME was a great drama, dealing with many controversial hot topics of the day. McCloud was a great mystery series, though it was clearly inspired by Eastwoods Coogan's Bluff. Magnum PI one of the best detective series ever, but he was only moderately involved with that series inception. In fact, it brings up an interesting question, how directly involved in most of his series....? As I pointed out with Buck Rogers, Larson was only involved in the pilot movie while first season was run by his showrunners.
Battlestar Galactica is by far my favorite Larson creation. In many ways, it was a series well ahead of its time, using story conventions that we now take for granted but were relatively uncommon for network shows in the 1970s, particularly in terms of using continuing story lines.
Since Knight Rider in the mid-80s, I can not think of a truly successful hit series Larson has created....?????
MeanJoePhaser
Admiral
Court rulings aren't good enough for some people.
When you get down to it, Star Wars itself was a rip-off, too, as was Indiana Jones and countless other well-loved films and t.v. shows.
I suspect the Viper/Raider dogfights would not have happened the way they did without the influence of Star Wars. Nothing before Star Wars really did that in the space realm (at least outside of anime like Yamato).
I suppose that is true. Also, the special effects for BSG were done my Dyska, the same guy who did them for SW, thus the similarities.
What can I say? I'm a "Knight Rider" fan. I'm registered with KnightRiderOnline.com, own four CDs of score from the show (soon to increase to five), and keep hoping a TV series or film faithful to the series ideas and reality will happen.
Until you pointed that out, I never knew that was the case. In my defence, KR didn't arrive on this side of the pond until about 1984, IIRC. Certainly, it was after the BT movie, possibly even after the series.Regardless of the Star Wars v BSG court case and whether GAL already had the idea, I don't think anyone could deny that the Vipers look like X-Wings, that the dogfights were remarkably similar (not really surprising with John Dykstra's involvement in each), that the Cylons looked and sounded not dissimilar to Darth Vader or that Apollo and Starbuck bore a resemblance to Luke and Han (especially Han & Starbuck). The show even had a cute robot dog - a mix of R2D2 and Chewie?
But at the end of the day, as has also been pointed out, SW borrowed from many other movies, as did Raiders. So, fair play to Mr Larson for being a prolific follower of trends - even as a kid, I was aware that his name on the credits generally meant this would be the sort of show that interested me. But I don't think his shows will stand the test of time the way Buffy, Babylon 5 or the X-Files will or have stood the test of time like Star Trek or others.
From what I can remember, I liked Knight Rider pretty well.
I've not really seen anything else he's done.
I LOVED nuBSG and last night, I gave Hulu a whirl and watched the first 45 minutes of the original Battlestar Galactica. It was neat seeing the fleet of battlestars gathered together for the Armistice ceremony, but after seeing the surprise nuking of the colonies/shipyards in nuBSG, it was kind of underwhelming seeing the Raiders lasering the colonies. I will admit, the special effects were pretty good for the time period, and for being TV.
But, I was a bit thrown off hearing familiar names being used with unfamiliar faces. The first time Apollo referred to Starbuck and it was some dude smoking a cigar threw me for a second, and I definitely like James Callis' Dr. Gaius Baltar better than the moustache-twirling John Colicos, even though I like the actor.
I don't know. I guess I'm going to have to give some of his other shows a try. Especially Buck Rogers.
I've not really seen anything else he's done.
I LOVED nuBSG and last night, I gave Hulu a whirl and watched the first 45 minutes of the original Battlestar Galactica. It was neat seeing the fleet of battlestars gathered together for the Armistice ceremony, but after seeing the surprise nuking of the colonies/shipyards in nuBSG, it was kind of underwhelming seeing the Raiders lasering the colonies. I will admit, the special effects were pretty good for the time period, and for being TV.
But, I was a bit thrown off hearing familiar names being used with unfamiliar faces. The first time Apollo referred to Starbuck and it was some dude smoking a cigar threw me for a second, and I definitely like James Callis' Dr. Gaius Baltar better than the moustache-twirling John Colicos, even though I like the actor.
I don't know. I guess I'm going to have to give some of his other shows a try. Especially Buck Rogers.
Wow what drek. They all need to be rebooted. Well BSG and Buck Rogers were (the latter as Farscape) and Knight Rider just wasn't booted hard enough. 
Did Kor ever guest-star on nuBSG? Should've played nuBSG's Baltar's pops
John Colicos died in 2000, three years before the miniseries aired.
Did Kor ever guest-star on nuBSG? Should've played nuBSG's Baltar's pops
John Colicos died in 2000, three years before the miniseries aired.
That's terrible.
I didn't know that.
That's a real shame. I thought John Colicos was still alive.
ST, & SFF, lost an icon then.
He was great as the Original Count Baltar on BSG's TOS.
Iconic as Kor on TOS.
he replayed Kor on DS9.
Larson is God. The Man created a major chunk of the show I watched when I was a kid. I'd vote for Knight Rider, but Manimal is a show I remembered loved to death for 24-25 years between viewings, before I found the complete series for download on my 30th Birthday.
Glenn A Larson, Stephen J Cannell, "Sit Ubu Sit"... I miss the fucking 80's, so sue me
.
Glenn A Larson, Stephen J Cannell, "Sit Ubu Sit"... I miss the fucking 80's, so sue me
.
Larson? For the most part, a hack. At best, with old BSG, he had some good ideas and created goofy fun. But for the most part, a drek producing hack.
No creator is going to use the words "rip off", but neither Spielberg nor Lucas make any secrets about the inspiration behind SW and IJ. Most dramatic ideas have already been thought up over the past several thousand years, it's up to today's artists to create new twists and angles to examine the same old themes and stories. Some artists create an homage to the original, some take great lengths to distinguish new from old, and some really do simply steal, not much different than ripping the credits from an original work and slapping their own name on it. Lucas and Spielberg fall into that first category: they were legitimately inspired by and care for the original material and wanted to (in their own very different ways) pay tribute to those old works by making something of their own in the same vein.
Larson stole some, created some, paid tribute to some. He even recycled his own ideas once he ran out of ways to recycle others. Once you're making shit like Highwayman and Team Knight Rider, it's pretty obvious your career is nearing the end of it's potential.
Quincy is good example how television has changed. Same basic ideals as CSI but without the blood n cuts - which couldn't be shown in the 70s (and when it comes down to it - I think Quincy is the much better of the two).
Not to mention featuring Oscar Madison, vet of the TZ, "12 Angry Men", & 100's of other TV shows, plays & films
The actor who played Speed was also on Quincy, M.E.
. Don't know his name
Did Felix Unger ever guest-appear on Quincy ala Spock on TJ Hooker, Al on ENT, & other like examples?
MeanJoePhaser
Admiral
All you are doing is conveying your prejudice for "artists" like Lucas and Speilberg and against Larson. One man's work of art is another's piece of trash.
All you're doing is conveying your inability to be confrontational outside of TNZ. I think 4 out of 6 SW movies aren't very good and that the latest IJ movie is a piece of shit I will never watch again. I think Lucas has become more enamoured with the technology behind making movies than making good movies. I loved Knight Rider and Buck Rogers and Quincy. I'm basing my opinion on what I've read and seen from 2nd and 3rd party sources about the three of them and specific projects they worked on. When speaking of Lucas and Spielberg I was only referring to the original SW and IJ trilogies, and you'll note that I mentioned Larson had an entire range of work. Are you going to claim his work didn't vary from excellent to steaming pile of "quick buck, me too" TV? You're reading too much into what I said.