Star Trek is hardly a part of the British pop culture. Doctor Who was continually on the air though around the world prior to the revival unlike the more modern shows which have diappeared not long after they left the air.
Netflix developing 'Lost in Space' remake!
- Thread starter Karzak
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Star Trek is hardly a part of the British pop culture. Doctor Who was continually on the air though around the world prior to the revival unlike the more modern shows which have diappeared not long after they left the air.
^Far be it from me to contradict what a person from Ohio knows about British pop culture...but I'm going to anyway because you're flat wrong.
Star Trek has always been rattling around, even if people don't actually watch the show.
Which is really what we're talking about here. Not how many fans something has, but how far it's influence extends *outside* of fandom.
I'm sure Doctor Who may have been popular in the states in the 70's and has had a much bigger resurgence of late, but in the interim I dare say it fell out of general awareness outside of a niche/cult following.
That never happened over here, it was simply too ingrained. Same for Star War & Star Trek.
Star Trek has always been rattling around, even if people don't actually watch the show.
Which is really what we're talking about here. Not how many fans something has, but how far it's influence extends *outside* of fandom.
I'm sure Doctor Who may have been popular in the states in the 70's and has had a much bigger resurgence of late, but in the interim I dare say it fell out of general awareness outside of a niche/cult following.
That never happened over here, it was simply too ingrained. Same for Star War & Star Trek.
Yes, you should correct yourself there was a British owner of a site called Sadgeezer, you might not be aware of him but he's the one who said Star Trek wasn't as big over ther as it is here, he as very clear about it too. And really back in the late '80s early '90s Star Trek was everywhere here and it influenced medicine, science and engineering. PEople for decades also became doctors, engineers and scientists bacause of their love of Star Trek.
Doctor Who is in reality still something of a cult hit oever here, but it's been widely known about around world for far longer than it was here.
Oh, DOCTOR WHO is way more than a cult thing in the USA these days, to the extent that I'm often amazed at how mainstream it's become. Forget fandom and the SF community. DOCTOR WHO routinely shows up on the cover of mainstream magazines like ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY and TV GUIDE, is frequently covered in mainstream newspapers like USA TODAY or THE NEW YORK POST. You can find tons of WHO merchandise at Barnes & Noble and other retail outlets besides your neighborhood comic book shop, etc.
Yeah, back in the 70s and 80s, WHO was this obscure British thing that ran on PBS and was largely unknown outside fandom. But now if the Doctor gets a new Companion, it's covered by all the entertainment news sites, not just discussed on, say, Trek bulletins boards or whatever.
Oh, DOCTOR WHO is way more than a cult thing in the USA these days, to the extent that I'm often amazed at how mainstream it's become. Forget fandom and the SF community. DOCTOR WHO routinely shows up on the cover of mainstream magazines like ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY and TV GUIDE, is frequently covered in mainstream newspapers like USA TODAY or THE NEW YORK POST. You can find tons of WHO merchandise at Barnes & Noble and other retail outlets besides your neighborhood comic book shop, etc.
Yeah, back in the 70s and 80s, WHO was this obscure British thing that ran on PBS and was largely unknown outside fandom. But now if the Doctor gets a new Companion, it's covered by all the entertainment news sites, not just discussed on, say, Trek bulletins boards or whatever.
Yeah it funny though that whenever a Doctor appears on the Simpsons or Futurama it's always Tom Baker's Doctor. And Doctor Who books came out in a flood while the show was off the air. But the show is still only shown on a niche cable channel. And the magazine covers are hardly routine, usually only during a regeneration.
And if anything Phil Morris' world wide search for Doctor Who should prove how much of a world wide hit the show is. We just got into the show after Star Wars came out.
Why the hell should I care what he thinks? I live here. I think I'd know if I was in a country where Star Trek was some obscure thing that only fans have heard of. If you don't believe me, fine. You're welcome to come over here, grab some random person off the street and say to them "do the words 'Beam me up Scotty' mean anything to you?" Odds are, they will, even if they never watched a single episode.
This is what we're talkign about here: cultural awareness. You don't have to be a fan of something, or have even watched it to be aware of it.
I've never sat down and watched Citizen Kane, but I know the significance of "Rosebud". I've never read the complete works of Shakespeare, but I could probably come up with dozens of quote from plays I've never read, not seen adaptations of. Until a few years ago, I'd never watched 'Casablanca' but when I did, I realised just how much of it'd I was aware of though being referenced in other things, without my ever knowing the source.
Some things pervade pop-culture and stay there for decades, even centuries. Others fade almost as soon as it's over.
I promise you, over here, Star Trek is one of the former and has been since the late 60's.
One Brit says Star Trek is a culture icon and one doesn't and you tell I should've listened to him, when there's equally no reason listen to you. A fan of Star Trek would know the words "Beam me up Scotty" was never uttered on the TV show and a fan would have some knowledge of Shakespeare, Dickens, Melville and Milton since they were all quoted on the show. But then Star Trek is a franchise, more than just one series.
Culturelly speaking though the first moon landing coming not long after Star Trek's cancelation kind of means a bit more culturely here than a mere TV show. Knowing about a TV and knowing some lines and scenes from it is one thing, but Star Trek is linked a large number of things iin our culture. Like I said it's the inspiration for epople to become doctors, engineers, scientists and astronauts. Dr. Mae Johnson was inspired to become an astronaut because of Star Trek and she even appeared on TNG.
I live in Ireland and have known many people who live in the UK, and I don't think that's true at all. The series essentially made the Sky corporation in the 90s (along with the Simpsons) the must-have TV thing of the period. Conversely I didn't know anyone with even a passing knowledge of Who before 2005 or so. This is obviously information heavily skewed towards my generation, but Next Generation in particular was quite well known (and the original series was frequently re-aired on the BBC, which was really the only time I watched the BBC as a kid.)
I might've mistyped things or things got misunderstood, but basically he was trying to tell me that Star Trek wasn't as important overthere as it is here. Truthfully though there's a difference between knowing a TV show and letting it affect your life.
As for Doctor Who, one of the reasons I've read for the purge in the '70s was that they felt that Doctor Who had outlived it's life in snydication around the world, this was prior to Star Wars and Tom Baker though. While the revival made Doctor Who big again it was hard to watch the show legally since the show aired long after the seasons were over.
This is one of the problems I hae with things like Netflix, it'll promote more illegal dowloading and group showings. But that's just my opinion.
Not eveybody has Netflix or Amazon or Streaming, it's easier for some to get it for free if people really care that much to see it. I can't imagine people who want to see a show will pay for it if they get it for free. And there's something like 16 new shows coming out on Netflix alone.
Nobody watched Galactica. Even Enterprise with it's declining ratings regularly avged much higher viewership than NuBSG.
RAMA
It must have been hard to.
I am a Lost In Space fan, but I know that it does not belong with the two great franchises Star Trek and Star Wars. Just as I am a Space:1999 fan too and it does not belong either.
Indeed, it would be hard to keep a straight face at that spokesman's fantasy-soaked statement.
Of any older properties, only Planet of the Apes was a true, third great SF franchise, as it instantly spawned a massive fanbase, aggressive studio support with film sequels & TV series, certainly set the merchandising model of success later picked up by Star Wars, and managed to have a catchphrase ("Go Ape!") temporarily enter the lexicon.
So, contrary to that spokesman's laughable statement, if any property earned that third throne of great sci-fi franchises, Lost in Space was not the property by any stretch of the imagination.
That doesn't make any sense to me - in fact, the Netflix model aggressively offers an alternative to illegal downloading. Say you are, like me, an Irish fan of Better Call Saul - is there really a point to pirating the latest episode, even if I'm okay with that morally, because Netflix will have the episode up within hours of its US premiere regardless?
A slightly different situation from say, Breaking Bad, which ceased airing on TV here after its second season - with DVDs of the third, fourth and the first half of the fifth only becoming available in 2012. It took Netflix picking up the show and treating it as they now do Saul to essentially evaporate the incentive for piracy.
There are people who will never pirate, but the less incentive one has to pirate, the smaller the group of pirates will be, and simulcast models similar to how Netflix handles the shows it licenses are one of the surest ways to combat it.
It must have been hard to.
I am a Lost In Space fan, but I know that it does not belong with the two great franchises Star Trek and Star Wars. Just as I am a Space:1999 fan too and it does not belong either.
Indeed, it would be hard to keep a straight face at that spokesman's fantasy-soaked statement.
Of any older properties, only Planet of the Apes was a true, third great SF franchise, as it instantly spawned a massive fanbase, aggressive studio support with film sequels & TV series, certainly set the merchandising model of success later picked up by Star Wars, and managed to have a catchphrase ("Go Ape!") temporarily enter the lexicon.
So, contrary to that spokesman's laughable statement, if any property earned that third throne of great sci-fi franchises, Lost in Space was not the property by any stretch of the imagination.
'Planet of the Apes' is an interesting case as it has clearly stayed at least somewhat in the cultural zeitgeist since the original movie came out. However, it's really only that first movie that made the impact. The sequels and other spin-off materials remain obscure to all but genre fans. For that reason, I tend to class it in a similar category as 'Highlander'.
Yes, it's had the odd revival over the years, but people forgot about the Burton revival almost as soon as the credits rolled (and deservedly so) and while the new Serkis movies are shockingly *very* good and have enjoyed some well earned success, I'm not seeing anything like the cultural impact the franchise once had.
I suspect most of that is down to a lack of merchandising support, since the films are slanted to the more mature action movie going audience than the more family friendly adventure demographic that the original seemed to find itself in.
Ironic considering the original movie was the first (pre-dating even Star Wars) notable for the media and merchandising blitz that came along with the movie.
Where exactly did I say this? I'm fairly certain I was making exactly the opposite argument.
That's funny, people were downloading shows like Babylon 5, Farscape and even Doctor Who when the shows were either in reruns with new eps. shown overseas or in Doctor Who's they just hadn't made they're way over here yet.
Oh, I think "Planet of the Apes" trumps "Highlander" by several orders of magnitude. Even if the original APES sequels may have blurred in the public consciousness over the years (much as, to be honest, the original ten STAR TREK movies have), POTA was a much bigger deal, then and now, than "Highlander" ever was. And the original film with Charlton Heston is a bona fide classic that remains lodged in the world's memory.
The bit with the Statue of Liberty? That's practically up there with "Rosebud" or the last scene of "Casablanca" when it comes to classic movie endings. And, as noted, the new APES movies are quite good and thriving at the box office.
(Did I mention that the original movie, scripted by Rod Serling, is probably my all-time favorite SF movie?)
P.S. I just signed a contract to write a story for an upcoming APES anthology, which is another sign that the franchise is still a going concern these days.
The bit with the Statue of Liberty? That's practically up there with "Rosebud" or the last scene of "Casablanca" when it comes to classic movie endings. And, as noted, the new APES movies are quite good and thriving at the box office.
(Did I mention that the original movie, scripted by Rod Serling, is probably my all-time favorite SF movie?)
P.S. I just signed a contract to write a story for an upcoming APES anthology, which is another sign that the franchise is still a going concern these days.
I didn't realize we were talking about cultural awareness. I thought were talking about just general size, and success. In that case I think the RDM BSG might put that one at least a bit ahead of Firefly, Farscape, B5, and Stargate. When it was on the air BSG got tons of attention from all sorts of media, both geek culture and regular. Now it's definitely not at the same level of Trek or Wars, but people will at least be more aware of it than the others. At this point most average people have probably never even heard of B5, Farscape, or Firefly while there's a better chance the mainstream attention will at least have brought BSG to their attention even if they never watched it.
The original Planet of the Apes is one of the all-time classic movies, and there have been a lot of media spin-offs, some good and some bad, but it's not a cultural powerhouse like Star Trek, Doctor Who, and Star Wars.
Congrats. That's a cool idea for an anthology-- reminds me of that War of the Worlds: Global Dispatches anthology that came out a few years ago. Will the stories be set in the original Apes timeline, or is that just left up to the author?
