Believe it.............Can't believe anyone could prefer the new BSG over the old to be honest?
JB
Irwin Allen's (LIS) Thoughts On Star Trek?
- Thread starter Ensign Ricky
- Start date
Yes, I understood that this was what you meant, and I agree.
Seems weird that seasons were thirty episodes a year back then and then twenty six soon after before winding down to a twenty two shows in the nineties and thirteen these days (if you're lucky) what happened to all that money invested into the TV series, considering there's no model work anymore and it's all CGI? I can't imagine people staying tuned for eight months of the year on a particular show in this day and age!
JB
JB
The reduction in the number of episodes per season began when it was realized that audiences were more willing to watch reruns than TV execs had thought. It was also necessary as production costs went up for various reasons.
Even CGI isn't cheap, especially if you want it good. Good CGI requires very talented people working hard for a fair amount of time, and that labor and skill are what's being paid for, not to mention the massive amounts of computer processing time involved.
Plus, of course, visual effects are just one part of the cost of a production. Sets and costumes and the like have needed to get more realistic, detailed, and sophisticated as the image quality of televisions has improved. Productions have grown more elaborate, from the stagey, studio-bound productions of early TV to the mini-movies we have today. Actor salaries have gone up. The number of producers and executive producers has ballooned, and they all get a cut. More and more crew members have gotten a bigger piece of the pie through union negotiations over the decades. The costs of location shooting, equipment and prop rental, and other logistical issues have increased over time, especially in Hollywood, which is why so many productions have relocated to cities like Vancouver and Toronto.
Reportedly, Allen cast African American Don Marshall in Land of the Giants (ABC, 1968-70) to "make a point" as Star Trek had with Nichelle Nichols. If true, that means Allen was paying some attention to TOS, and believed his series were lacking in the diversity department.
Can't believe anyone could prefer the new BSG over the old to be honest?
JB
Och, come on. An original isn't better than a derivative by default, and a remake isn't automatically worse than the original.
Allow people to enjoy fantastic effects over 70s plastic ships propped on a stick, and hard-edged serialised drama over "Let's have another Viper fight".
Well, that's hardly fair. The original BSG's effects were by many of the same people who'd just done Star Wars the previous year (plus Andrew Probert a year before he worked on ST:TMP), so they were beyond anything that had been done on television up to that point. Aside from the repetitive reuse of stock shots, they still hold up well today.
Remakes of The Day the Earth Stood Still, War of the Worlds, The Magnificent Seven, Halloween and Texas Chainsaw Massacre say hello, then return the shame pit they occupy.
That worn out exaggeration does not apply to the original BSG, but I've noticed well-budgeted modern productions use CG that do not hold up to one screening before the cartoon effect sets in.
Well I loved the original show but found the remake to be too modernistic with it's 9/11 style of story telling! Plus at the end we get the impression that the Galacticans were the earthlings all along and there never was a thirteenth colony unlike the original series where we got Galactica 1980 to end th..he umm..series!
JB
3:10 To Yuma, The Front Page, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Wizard of Oz, Ocean's Eleven, To Be Or Not To Be, You've Got Mail wave.
The Maltese Falcon couldn't make it due to all the accolades it has received, but it sent a nice telegram.
Seven Samurai says hello...
Yeah, The Magnificent Seven was inspired by it, but I am willing to bet the list of bad remakes could stretch from one end of the country to the other, while the great side would not cross a town.
We could line the country with pretty good versions of A Christmas Carol alone.
Why couldn't he have noticed the much better rated I Spy and Mission: Impossible which had black LEADS instead of Trek with its single lone background character?
Last edited:
As a kid growing up in NY, the very first TV show that resonated me was "Dark Shadows" when I was about 5 years old in 1969. By about 1971, I was a huge "Lost in Space" fan and enjoyed that every afternoon after school. I was even so very fortunate to have gotten a brand new "Lost in Space" robot which I'm amazed about it now...that my Mom bought for me from a nice toy shop in 1971, a good 3 years after LIS was cancelled. A year or two after that I discovered "Star Trek" and my life was changed forever. I can remember the first episode I ever watched "The Naked Time" and I just dove into my love of "Star Trek".
One thing that I just recently learned from watching a wonderful interview with Jonathan Harris over
at www.emmytvlegends.org, was that the LIS episodes were filmed over a 3 day production schedule and "Star Trek" took 5 1/2 to 6 days to film for the most part. I think that speaks volumes to why "Lost in Space" is what it is and "Star Trek" holds up so well. I'm not saying that "Lost in Space" is a bad series. Not at all. It is a very unique series and mainly because of the contributions of Jonathan Harris, Billy Mumy and Bobby May/Dick Tufeld as the Robot....it is forever endearing and charming in its own 60's, psychedelic fun way.
Irwin Allen was all about pumping out product and keeping on schedule and saving money. His legendary reputation for being cheap and reusing "monsters" and as Howard Stern is fond of saying "seeing Will and Dr. Smith getting chased around by a guy wearing a spaghetti strainer". It is the only TV show in history that I know of where one actor (Jonathan Harris) was allowed to re-write all of his dialogue and basically improvise what was going to happen on the spot. He was Larry David before there was a Larry David.
So I doubt Irwin Allen cared about "Star Trek" and Gene and his team seemed like "Star Trek" snobs looking down on LIS which was just such a different animal...it is unfair to compare the two since they are sure....both set in space...but both shows are aiming to do different things....LIS to do family oriented action adventure shows and for "Star Trek" to be the 1st adult oriented science fiction non anthology series. Both succeeded at what they set out to do. Sadly "Star Trek"'s 3rd season saw the production team stripped of much needed funding and the scripts became, for the most part, only slightly better than the worst of "Lost in Space".
One thing that I just recently learned from watching a wonderful interview with Jonathan Harris over
at www.emmytvlegends.org, was that the LIS episodes were filmed over a 3 day production schedule and "Star Trek" took 5 1/2 to 6 days to film for the most part. I think that speaks volumes to why "Lost in Space" is what it is and "Star Trek" holds up so well. I'm not saying that "Lost in Space" is a bad series. Not at all. It is a very unique series and mainly because of the contributions of Jonathan Harris, Billy Mumy and Bobby May/Dick Tufeld as the Robot....it is forever endearing and charming in its own 60's, psychedelic fun way.
Irwin Allen was all about pumping out product and keeping on schedule and saving money. His legendary reputation for being cheap and reusing "monsters" and as Howard Stern is fond of saying "seeing Will and Dr. Smith getting chased around by a guy wearing a spaghetti strainer". It is the only TV show in history that I know of where one actor (Jonathan Harris) was allowed to re-write all of his dialogue and basically improvise what was going to happen on the spot. He was Larry David before there was a Larry David.
So I doubt Irwin Allen cared about "Star Trek" and Gene and his team seemed like "Star Trek" snobs looking down on LIS which was just such a different animal...it is unfair to compare the two since they are sure....both set in space...but both shows are aiming to do different things....LIS to do family oriented action adventure shows and for "Star Trek" to be the 1st adult oriented science fiction non anthology series. Both succeeded at what they set out to do. Sadly "Star Trek"'s 3rd season saw the production team stripped of much needed funding and the scripts became, for the most part, only slightly better than the worst of "Lost in Space".
Similar threads
