Is Space Academy any good?
- Thread starter Yevetha
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Well, it's very cheesy in a lot of ways, but it's also fun in a lot of ways. I was rather fond of it as a kid. It starred Jonathan Harris (Dr. Smith from Lost in Space) as the Academy commander, and two of its cast members (Pamelyn Ferdin and Brian Tochi) appeared together in TOS: "And the Children Shall Lead." It's an adventure series of the very wholesome sort you got in the '70s, especially from Filmation, with the heroes never using violence but instead solving problems with ingenuity and compassion and various superpowers. And it featured that well-intentioned but somewhat embarrassing kind of multiculturalism where yes, there's an Asian guy in the cast, but his entire personality is that he knows martial arts.
The production values are perhaps the most interesting thing about the show. It came out just after Star Wars wrapped production, so Filmation was able to grab up some of the production staffers from that film, so the sets have a very Star Wars-y kind of look to them, and the miniature FX of the Academy asteroid, spaceships, and such are very impressive in a micro-budget sort of way -- actually produced entirely in-camera through multiple exposures, a very ingenious approach. The music is also very good.
Space Academy is also notable for spinning off the probably better-known Jason of Star Command, which is set in the same universe, with Star Command being a "secret section" of the Space Academy (because it saved money to let them reuse the same sets, miniatures, costumes, etc.), but tells a different kind of story, more in the vein of classic adventure serials; the first season is actually structured like an old-time movie serial, made up of sixteen 15-minute episodes with cliffhanger endings, and is notable for featuring James Doohan as the commander. Craig Littler played Jason, who was basically modeled on Han Solo if Han Solo had been a wholesome sitcom dad, and career heavy Sid Haig played the evil Dragos, his archnemesis. It's a lot of fun, though the second season is better. It has more sophisticated visual effects than Space Academy, with bluescreen mattes for the ship shots, but they actually look worse in some ways than the simpler in-camera FX of SA; they have more movement and versatility but are much more obviously pieced together from separate images.
The production values are perhaps the most interesting thing about the show. It came out just after Star Wars wrapped production, so Filmation was able to grab up some of the production staffers from that film, so the sets have a very Star Wars-y kind of look to them, and the miniature FX of the Academy asteroid, spaceships, and such are very impressive in a micro-budget sort of way -- actually produced entirely in-camera through multiple exposures, a very ingenious approach. The music is also very good.
Space Academy is also notable for spinning off the probably better-known Jason of Star Command, which is set in the same universe, with Star Command being a "secret section" of the Space Academy (because it saved money to let them reuse the same sets, miniatures, costumes, etc.), but tells a different kind of story, more in the vein of classic adventure serials; the first season is actually structured like an old-time movie serial, made up of sixteen 15-minute episodes with cliffhanger endings, and is notable for featuring James Doohan as the commander. Craig Littler played Jason, who was basically modeled on Han Solo if Han Solo had been a wholesome sitcom dad, and career heavy Sid Haig played the evil Dragos, his archnemesis. It's a lot of fun, though the second season is better. It has more sophisticated visual effects than Space Academy, with bluescreen mattes for the ship shots, but they actually look worse in some ways than the simpler in-camera FX of SA; they have more movement and versatility but are much more obviously pieced together from separate images.
This sentence made me lol. Funny, but I understand perfectly what it means.
I have to check this out. Jason and the Star Command sounds like a great thing to reboot to the movies (for J.J). Space Precinct was also pretty good in the '80's, Alan Brennert was the head writer on that show. Pretty nifty. It took me by surprise. I never heard of it or knew of it's existance 'till I started seeing it rerun at like two in the morning. I never saw it again.
One other thing to remember about Space Academy. While live-action shows on Saturday morning weren't unheard of back in the mid-1970s - we'd had things like Isis and Shazam - it was still primarily the domain of low-budgeted cartoons for the most part. Cheesy or not, it was still considered quite the thing to have an actual spaceship-based live action sci-fi series (starring Dr. Smith from Lost in Space, yet!) on Saturday morning. And in fact - someone correct me if I'm misremembering - I think in 1977 it was the only space-based SF series on the American airwaves. Galactica didn't come along until 1978 and Buck Rogers in 1979. The sitcom Quark might have been on around this time, though.
Alex
Alex
Both Space Academy and Jason of Star Command are a lot of fun. But you need to remember the audience they were aimed at and the limitations (technical and finacial) the two shows were made under.
I would love to see these shows re-booted or sequeled or revived or whatever. I think that a live-action space-based series would be a good thing to have again on Saturday mornings. Just update the science involved and sneak a bit of educatuon into the mix...
Note to whomever has the rights to SA and JoSC - I have some really great ideas (IMHO) for a continution series! Would hate to just waste them as fanfic on my hard-drive. Call me!
I would love to see these shows re-booted or sequeled or revived or whatever. I think that a live-action space-based series would be a good thing to have again on Saturday mornings. Just update the science involved and sneak a bit of educatuon into the mix...
Note to whomever has the rights to SA and JoSC - I have some really great ideas (IMHO) for a continution series! Would hate to just waste them as fanfic on my hard-drive. Call me!
I enjoyed Space Academy/Jason Of Star Command as a boy in the '70s. Both series were aired exclusively on Saturday Morning television between 1977 to 1980 [SA 1977-78, JOSC 1978-80]. They were aimed successfully at the children viewers.
Here are some links to information on this series and it's sequel series Jason Of Star Command:
http://www.snowcrest.net/fox/SA/index.html
http://www.angelfire.com/tv2/spaceacademy/home.html
http://www.angelfire.com/tv2/starcommand/home.html
http://www.70slivekidvid.com/main.htm
Here are some links to information on this series and it's sequel series Jason Of Star Command:
http://www.snowcrest.net/fox/SA/index.html
http://www.angelfire.com/tv2/spaceacademy/home.html
http://www.angelfire.com/tv2/starcommand/home.html
http://www.70slivekidvid.com/main.htm
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Space 1999 would have been on.
Someone has done some really nice blueprint posters of the Seeker from SA: http://www.smallartworks.ca/PS/OtherKits/SeekerPage/PosterPage.html
That looks like some real top-notch artwork. It's nice to see something so reletively obscure as a Saturday-morning TV spaceship from the '70s get this sort of treatment.
That looks like some real top-notch artwork. It's nice to see something so reletively obscure as a Saturday-morning TV spaceship from the '70s get this sort of treatment.
Yes, but only in reruns...1999 ended in the spring of '77, while SA debuted in the fall.
I have fond memories of SA/JoSC. Both were fun shows, and as it always seems with SatAM genre shows (at least during this period), more entertaining than what often got greenlit for primetime.
To help tempt you into at least sampling it, here's the intro. Pretty sweet for it's time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUPK2OPp91E&feature=related
Can you not put more effort into your thread topics? Such short, simplistic topics with posts of of little to no content doesn't help the forum or your own case for that matter.
Infraction for spamming. Comments to PM
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Getting super pedantic here but online sources say otherwise.
That descriptive text contains the same error that seems to show up in all the reference sources, claiming the show is "set in 3732." We don't know that, and in fact it seems very unlikely. Jonathan Harris's narration in the main titles says that the Space Academy was "founded in the star year 3732." For one thing, there's no reason to think the show is set in the same year the Academy was founded. If anything, it seems to be a well-established institution -- and there's one episode where a derelict ship from a thousand years before happens to look exactly like the Academy (in order to save money on sets), which suggests that the show could be set a millennium after the Academy's founding. And for another thing, it stands to reason that something called "the star year 3732" would not be the same as the Gregorian year 3732 CE (or AD). The nomenclature suggests that the Academy was founded 3,732 "star years" into humanity's starfaring age, which could be counted from 1957 (Sputnik) or 1969 (Apollo 11) or possibly some future date when humanity finally colonizes space or develops an interstellar drive. Not to mention that we can't assume a "star year" is equal in length to one revolution of Earth around the Sun.
So there's really no way of knowing when Space Academy takes place, but it's very probably much, much later in time than 3732 CE.
And that implicit far-far-future setting is part of what's cool about SA conceptually. Because basically what it's showing us, in its own simplified way, is a transhuman far future in which humanity has evolved/been engineered with special abilities and the entire population apparently resides in space habitats. Throw in the sentient AIs, and it's kind of reminiscent of Iain M. Banks's Culture. As an original/tie-in SF author, I would love to do a full-on Space Academy/Star Command reboot that would flesh out those implied aspects of the universe.
Well, there doesn't seem to have been much of an overlap, just a couple of episodes' worth in Space: 1999's case.
I'd read that if it was available. I'd really love to see that world again somewhere, somehow.
Why not go ahead and write your ideas without it explicitly being Space Academy/Star Command? I seem to to recall folks who have taken things written specifically for one franchise or another, and re-making them into their own worlds. See David Gerrold and the evoloution of his book Starhunt (which morphed into Star Wolf, which also incorporated stuff originally intended to be used somewhere else), for example. Although a bonafide ressurection of Space Academy/Star Command would really excite my inner 16-year-old quite a bit.
I don't think it'd be kosher to do that if I didn't have the rights to the property. If I want to explore those ideas, I can easily do them in my own original universe(s) rather than trying to imitate something else. What Gerrold did with Star Wolf isn't the same thing, because that's all based on ideas he conceived himself while working on TNG and a failed series premise of his own. He was getting his own concepts out in a different format, not just copying a show he had no personal connection to.
And trust me, pro editors don't look kindly on "original" SF that's just fanfic with the names changed. That's the stuff of amateurs. SA/JoSC is obscure enough that they might not recognize it, but it would be unprofessional and dishonest of me to copy it and try to pass it off as my own.
RH Wolfe is approaching this subject and you can bet his sweep will be much wider than nessessary. Look out below, another hungry franchise is coming looking to devour any and all things similar in it's path.
I was not meaning to suggest you rip-off SA at all. And if you look at the evoloution of Starhunt specifically, it began as a story proposal for TOS. That story proposal became the genesis of both Starhunt as well as Gerrold's Trek novel The Galactic Whirlpool.
I said it badly, but I did mean to suggest you develop your ideas in your own original universe(s). Apologies for the misunderstanding.
As well they should. And, again, I did not intend to suggest such. I am apparantly not communicating well (or effectively) this afternoon. Mea culpa.
This sentence made me lol. Funny, but I understand perfectly what it means.
I was just watching Jason on youtube and this description is pretty good.
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