Sci-fi movies/shows that should be remade

[Gepard]

^Definitely agree, with one additional point: avoid the original's almost painfully pedestrian directorial style, and do something that fits better with 2001. I'm not saying it should ape Kubrick's style, but it should have some flair of its own and not do the textbook 2-shot/over-the-shoulder/close-up/reverse angle/repeat thing that Hyams used in every scene.

 

[Rii]

The American public, and the worldwide public, do not need to have it reinforced that there is still an overpopulation problem.

I'm sure reality will suffice to reinforce that over the coming decades. Overpopulation will be the defining global narrative for everyone alive today. That there's little which can be done about it or that the more distant future looks rather rosier is neither here nor there.

Not that the underlying problem is totally solved (carriage capacity versus bourgeois aspirations), but people were made aware of it, made so aware of it that they don't realize that growth rates are collapsing globally, and in some cases have collapsed completely, with population retreat. Overpopulation became their paradigm, even though underpopulation is a threat in some places (Russia, Japan, Europe, but not to the same degree in America--yet)

Underpopulation? What is that, exactly? Have there been some radical revisions to environmental and resource models that I'm unaware of suggesting that the planet can support even its current population - to say nothing of the several billion more who'll be floating around by the turn of the century - over the long-term at current western levels of consumption? Was the world 'underpopulated' less than a century ago when Man consisted of fewer than 2 billion people?

 

[Rii]

it's simply a matter of distribution. Just take all the surplus Chinese and Indians and put them in the middle of Australia, which is damn near empty!

Most of the continent is damn near empty because it's damn near uninhabitable, and Australia is already one of the few western nations expected to record a significant increase in population - fueled largely by immigration from Asia - over the next century, with official projections through 2100 ranging up to 60m people (current: 22m). Thanks, though.

In any case, one look at Japan demonstrates that raw land area is not something people require very much of.

 

[stj]

Europe and the US are not in danger of being underpopulated. Immigration can take up the slack. The "problem" is that the solution threatens the whiteness of the respective countries. Nor is Japan threatened by "underpopulation." Immigration could be a solution but there too, the solution is rejected as undermining the preferred ethnicity, save in Japan's case, it isn't white. Japan was allied with Germany for good reason and the government hasn't reformed nearly as much as some would have you believe.

Unequal gender ratios, with vastly more males than females, will lower long term population growth because female reproductive capacity is the bottleneck. The notion that it takes the eternal feminine to civilize the male is nonsense.

The notion that underpopulation is a demographic crisis because the smaller youthful age cohort could not support the swollen ranks of the retired is incorrect. If youthful labor were scarcer, the wages should rise. The higher wages then support the older generation. But wage levels are persistently too low.

A successful economic system would be one in which people can support themselves and their families, which includes both older and younger members. The persistent inability of capitalist economies to satisfy such basic requirements of humanity is a glaring proof of their failure.

Underpopulation would be inability to find sufficient labor to maintain physical production. The classic solution has been immigration. The only reason to reject this solution is one form of racism or another.

Overpopulation is when an economic system stresses the physical environment to the point it diminishes the carrying capacity. Some primitive economies can be overpopulated, one infamous example being Rwanda/Burundi (the fundamental cause of the massacres) or Haiti (the fundamental cause of the political instability.) But most overpopulation occurs in the wealthy states of US and Europe, which are the ones stressing the world ecosystem.

 

[Rii]

^ In the case of the US there's no slack for immigration to pick up. You can thank social attitudes towards sex education and contraception for that. Check out the gulf in teenage pregnancy rates between the United States and, say, South Korea. There are Sub-Saharan Africa -> Scandinavia metrics that are closer than that.

As for the 'who's going to pay for my retirement?' thing, that's just forever shifting the burden to the next generation in any case. Under that model every generation has to be larger than the one before it so as to effectively provide for them at a later date, carrying capacity be damned. Dumb.

 

[stj]

^ In the case of the US there's no slack for immigration to pick up. You can thank social attitudes towards sex education and contraception for that. Check out the gulf in teenage pregnancy rates between the United States and, say, South Korea. There are Sub-Saharan Africa -> Scandinavia metrics that are closer than that.

As for the 'who's going to pay for my retirement?' thing, that's just forever shifting the burden to the next generation in any case. Under that model every generation has to be larger than the one before it so as to effectively provide for them at a later date, carrying capacity be damned. Dumb.

The generation young enough to be working always has to provide the material goods to support the retired workers. You can talk about saving but no one eats money. The model tacitly assumes that the workers in the next generation will be getting a smaller share of national income. The real dumbness is thinking that profits have to increase, regardless of carrying capacity. People have a right to live, thinking the economic system should provide the means to make a living is rational.

The US situation is completely irrational. The economy has been deindustrializing for decades. However, I live in a state with backward social attitudes but those white trash people aren't reproducing in hordes. Population persistently declines, and not just from emigration. The same backward attitudes, combined with deindustrialization have kept immigration from reaching significant levels outside the medical profession.

 

[Rii]

^ Sorry, I'll try again.

The notion that underpopulation is a demographic crisis because the smaller youthful age cohort could not support the swollen ranks of the retired is incorrect.

I meant that regardless of whether it's correct or not, it's a bad idea for folks to use this as a rallying cry against 'underpopulation' or somesuch nonsense. If society needs a TFR >2.1 (i.e. replacement level) for the young to provide for the old, then each generation has to be larger than the one before it ad infinitum. And obviously, at some point, the wheels are going to fall off that particular train.

And it's a damned good thing the TFR is trending down across the globe. If you take global fertility rates as they stood in 2000, ignore all other factors, and extrapolate out to the time of The Next Generation, you wind up with a global population in excess of 100 trillion (yes, trillion) people.

 

[stj]

^^^I see what you meant. Alas, I think many of the people crying underpopulation in Europe are thinking of race/enthnicity/culture/religion/etc. And that kind of underpopulation problem is immune to rational argument.

 

[Jetfire]

Kyle XY

Actually not remade...just given a 4th season...on ABC...not ABC Family...hell give it a 4th season on The CW.

 

[Lonemagpie]

I usually say The Black Hole, cos I always had the ambition of scripting it, but since they're actually now doing that remake (not with me!) I dunno...

At The Earth's Core, maybe, or Horror Express. Again, cos I'd love to write them.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

I don't know whether to laugh or cry that one of the first things I'd do with an AI loaded with the appropriate rendering software is to remake bloody Star Wars. The downfall of franchises, popular culture reduced to millions of fan-creators vivisecting their favorite old stories with effectively professional polish, rebuilding cultural icons into idiosyncratic vanity pieces, studded with pornography, made just right for their narrowband tastes, and delivered to faintly interested audiences of tens of close friends, sometimes whole scores! It might be cool.

Fanfic on steroids. Sign me up.

In the case of Star Wars, this phenomenon is already pretty well advanced. Just keep going.

 

[Andrew_Kearley]

I think that it would be interesting if Space: 1999 was remade. The disaster on the moon would need a more believable cause.

Do you mean more mundane? Unfathomable, dispassionate alien intelligences interfering in the destiny of man - there's a huge idea I'd be sorry to see go.

I can't think of a show that needs to be remade less than Space: 1999. They've already fucked it up once with that disastrous second series re-boot.

I didn't say anything about making it more mundane. I am also not talking about getting rid of interference from aliens. What I was talking about was having the moon blown out of orbit by exploding nuclear waste. I loved the show but even as a kid that accident didn't seem very believable.

Thanks for the clarification. The problem is, as I see it, anything that's going to shift the Moon out of its orbit is going to be pretty unbelievable if you don't factor in the interference of superior alien intelligences and/or the forces of destiny. On the other hand, if as I believe it's the presence of the rogue planet Meta that's the catalyst for the explosion, the implication being that Meta has been targeted into our solar system by the alien powers - I suppose you could have Meta colliding with the Moon and knocking it out of its orbit. That would work, probably, and keep the original concept more or less intact. You might have to make Meta a lot smaller, to avoid actually destroying the Moon in the collision - say a smallish asteroid. The original's nuclear explosion was, I guess, responding to the environmental concerns of the time it was written.

 

[Admiral_Young]

Up until I few months ago I would have said "Judge Dredd". I think a revamped "X-Men" animated series would be in order...still pissed they canceled "Wolverine and the X-Men" just as they were on the verge of giving us AOA.