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Why does DIsney hate "Earth Star Voyager"?

If the show had gone to series, I wonder what kind of stories they would have done. The ship was travelling at sub light speeds toward a planet that was only a few light years away. There's not a lot out there, so what could they have done from week to week? The pilot had the crew visit a habitable outpost that might have been a terraformed moon or asteroid, I don't remember, so I suppose they could have had more of those for a while. I could also see them adding a mutant threat similar to the Reavers on Firefly to pad the show. And what about an end point? Given the duration of the mission, they wouldn't have had one within the series' run without some sort of deus ex machina. Then again, this was the 80s, so I don't think an end point was as big a consideration as building something they could milk for a while.

They had a Borg-styled threat and the main Peter Donat was still out there, so there some set ups for a possible series.
 
I had never heard of this. Looking it up, the miniseries was shot in Canada. I wonder if this was a co-production between Disney and a Canadian network. It would explain why Disney has not released it if they don't have sole rights. Maybe they don't own it at all. They could have just been airing it in the US.
 
I had never heard of this. Looking it up, the miniseries was shot in Canada. I wonder if this was a co-production between Disney and a Canadian network. It would explain why Disney has not released it if they don't have sole rights. Maybe they don't own it at all. They could have just been airing it in the US.

No, not according to IMDb. It was a production of Walt Disney Television and the LA-based Marstar Productions and distributed by the ABC Television Network. It's just one of the many, many US productions that are filmed in Vancouver to save money.
 
If it took the projected 26 years to reach their destination, they would be getting there in 2 years. In terms of the actors ages.
 
I saw Earth Star Voyager in 1988 along with my family and we all loved it. They should bring it back as sort of an introduction and then make it about Demeter is my opinion with all of these people grown up and about how man has settled on this new planet and more exploration of space. It was not a bunch of Wesley's at all. This show is nothing like the Next Generation or Star Trek in any way shape or form. I have been looking for it for years. I had it somewhere on VHS because I taped it when it first appeared on Disney. I'm not sure why they don't put it on DVD but it could be a rights issue and maybe they don't want to take the chance that no one will buy it. Anyone that wasn't at least in elementary school by that time probably would have never heard of it. The other thing they could do is update it and release it again and see what happens. Perhaps make it more sophisticated for the times. I watched it today through YouTube and liked it as much as I did when it first aired.
 
This is how Disney operates. It's why we don't have the final episodes of Gargoyles on DVD; it's why we still don't have all of the Marvel animation stuff on DVD; it's why we never had a classic Power Rangers release while Disney owned the property. Disney gives up on home video *very* easily; it's not their priority beyond milking their classic animated features (and not even all of them - a Treasure Planet bluray is pretty much a pipe dream).
I'm quite shocked that they haven't released the Aladdin, Little Mermaid, and Timon & Bumbaa TV series on DVD. I used to love them when I was a kid, and I would like to watch them again someday, just for nostalgia's sake if nothing else.
Disney gives up on home video *very* easily; it's not their priority beyond milking their classic animated features (and not even all of them - a Treasure Planet bluray is pretty much a pipe dream).

There's other shows that would gave been / may even still be viable too, especially back when their 'parent' movie was still pretty current - Tarzan, Timon and Pumbaa, Hercules, Little Mermaid, Buzz Lightyear, Lilo and Stitch / Stitch, Tron Uprising....

It seems strange that they don't see that there's a market for them, that or don't care !
 
They need to shut up and take our money. :D
Well, in my case they did - in the two years since this thread started, all three movies that I wanted (Treasure Planet, Atlantis: The Lost Empire, and Lilo & Stitch) have found their way onto my shelf on Blu-ray. :D
 
All three are also in HD on Netflix. I've watched Atlantis and Treasure Planet, but haven't gotten around to L&S yet, but I've already seen it several times so I'm not is as big of a hurry there. They actually got a ton of the Disney movies on Netflix now. They haven't added Little Mermaid, Aladdin or Lion King, which are probably my big three that I used to love, but haven't seen in ages.
 
I have strong memories of watching Earth*Star Voyager when it originally aired, and assumed at the time that it was (or was going to be) a new series...until that turned out not to be the case. :(

I've been meaning to go back and rewatch it for a while, so it would be nice to have an official release (hey, it was good enough for Flight of the Navigator!) and not have to track it down by other means.
 
Okay, so I went back and rewatched this by other means anyway...

Wow, is this ever Eighties. :p

It just seems filled with tropes associated with the concerns of the latter part of that decade: acid rain, the "junk belt" around the Earth, computer whiz kids (I'm surprised none of them were also in a wheelchair), Mad Max ripoffs, and of course, an abundance of the Westminster Typeface, just in case you ever doubted it was The Future.

And, umm, Oliver North gets namechecked.

I'm sure the inconsistent travel speeds and fudged science would also drive Christopher nuts...

I found the worldbuilding way more abrupt than I remembered or would expect in a more modern production--the ship launches on its 26-year mission in the first half hour! Nowadays, the entire first half would probably be devoted to establishing the characters and why they were on the ship (along with what prompted the mission in the first place), with the launch only happening as the climax to Part One.

Sad as it is for me to admit, I can see why this didn't go to series. The ship rather conveniently encounters many remnants of humanity, given its premise--something I don't think could be sustained for many episodes.
 
While I loath to continue a zombie thread, the entire pilot is up on YouTube.

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I remember enjoying the miniseries a great deal.

Took me years to track down The Osiris Chronicles on DVD. That's interesting too, particularly for the visual design. A number of Star Trek artists worked on it.

Star Command had a decent script but lousy production values and (mostly) dull cast.
 
"Earth Star Voyager" was a pilot for a Disney series proposal in 1988 that was to be a competitor of Next Gen. The pilot was aired as a Disney Sunday Night Movie, but not taken to series.

Over the years, the project has developed a cult following, and fans are constantly asking about a DVD release. Disney won't even admit that there are fans asking, let alone fess up to what several were told when they were able to talk to people at the studio. They were told in effect that it will NEVER be released, and that the only way they will ever see it again is as a bootleg video.

Why would Disney leave money on the table like this? What do they have against their own project and it's fans? It would be a simple thing to do to put the project up on BoD (Burn on Demand) status.

Why does Disney seem to hate "Earth Star Voyager"?

This isn't the only thing that The Mouse has done that's been ignored by them; Kim Possible, The Weekenders, Recess, and a couple other live action and animated shows have been left by the wayside as far as being on DVD (or as in the case of my favorite Kim Possible a movie continuation is concerned.)

It's possible that the movie wasn't popular enough for it to be put on DVD in pressed or burned on demand formats, which is why you won't be seeing it on DVD (or rerun on the Disney Channel.) That does happen with older shows, and it's something that one has to get used to when asking for said shows to be on DVD (remember, no demand, no supply.) Unfortunately for you and other fans, it's a common sense business practice, as DVD's aren't cassettes, and it costs more to put movies and TV shows on DVD's than it does to put them on cassettes.

One of the bootleg DVD dealers at Shore Leave had Song of the South last weekend, and I was very tempted. Disney would turn a profit on SotS easily -- there are people who would buy it simply out of curiosity -- but they fear the hit they would take because it's not a "safe" release.

Actually, Disney fears creating a big fat disaster that would result of this being put on DVD, especially concerning recent events in the black community and the concern of the black community that black people and other minorities aren't being represented faithfully on TV or in the movies.

EDIT: Why the frack didn't the makers of this show take design inspiration from Blade Runner and make the city scenes look like the ones from that movie? They could have also cut down on the large amount of Westminster font use.
 
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Maybe I've missed a post somewhere and someone has remarked on this, but given that it was made for TV in the late 1980s, is it possible that it was edited on video and there simply isn't anything resembling a DVD quality master copy?
 
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