Hey, look! He's got a five-year arc in mind. Anyone want to lay bets that it involves a bunch of folks doing one job for a year or two, then stumbling upon a much BIGGER problem from the past they have to take care of instead? You know, sorta like B5 / Crusade / LOTR / Jeremiah?
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
Hey everybody, I have the best idea in the world and it'll rock, rock, ROCK!!
Nevermind.
OK. Well... I'm all for an awesome Trek series. And it doesn't surprise me one bit that "political considerations" were involved. I've seen that before even in the tiny little places I've worked. "We know it's an awesome idea, but we can't disturb the delicate genius. We know we're wussies."
posted
Well, this would make the whole Battlestar Galactica original series vs. new series thing look like a fight between handicapped pigeons.
Sounds good.
I find it a bit odd though. I've always thought that the way Star Trek and Star Wars used to dominate mass science fiction was unhealthy and now that they've both essentially gone down, we have a lot more room for more interesting stuff like BSG, Firefly, SG1/SGA, and whatever comes up.
Now that its finally down, why try to prop up its corpse? Leave room for the newcomers I say.
Registered: Mar 1999
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They still have that upcoming TV series, after all. Then it'll go down.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
You seem to have escaped seeing the last two films.
Actually, snark and TV rumors aside, Star Wars really will be "down" in the sense that it will be done, at least as a visual phenomenon.
But I'm not so sure about this notion that hugely popular stories absorb attention space like this. It seems to me that one could make the claim that the opposite is true, that having a breakout hit allows smaller shows with similar themes to get their foot in the door, as it were.
How would we be able to judge which hypothesis is more accurate?
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Well, look at the first Matrix movie: it paved the way for a score of abyssimally bad knock-offs. Visually, if not story-wise.
I thin there may be some fresh ideas to rise from SW/ST in that new film/TV writers will either attempt to capture what once made them fan-favorites or will do all they can to make their work not resemble SW/ST.
Who knows? Mabye we'll start to see faithful adaptations of sci-fi novels brought to the screen.
Probably not though: just look at I, Robot or the upcoming "re-imagineing" of War of The Worlds (which might be good, but definitely not Wells' book).
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
*shrug* There's probably some truth in both viewpoints. A mass market hit can spawn imitators while simultaneously supressing anything that is truly unique.
posted
Thus are we reminded what an egotistical asshole JMS is.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
Adding the Harlan Ellison factor into this only highlights the irony further.
Ellison wrote TOS: "City on the Edge of Forever." Roddenberry made, in Ellison's opinion, signifigant changes to the script because Ellison had a drug dealer among the Enterprise crew and that went against Roddenberry's vision of the future.
Roddenberry may have wanted to explore "The Human Condition," but he didn't want to use humans in that metaphoric exploration. So much better to have the AOTW be the racist or dealer.
Roddenberry felt by the 23rd century humanity would have evolved beyond the base, animalistic nature they exhibit today.
Ellison was never too favorable toward Roddenberry or Star Trek after that.
Flash forward 30 years and Ellison is buddy-buddy with JMS because JMS IS willing to use humans to explore "The Human Condition." Ellison was a consultant on B--5 and even appeared on an episode.
Now JMS is saying that he's the man that can best pick up on Roddenberry's original vision?
That's rich.
Now, I'll admit that JMS would do a great job and I've said that Star Trek needs to follow his example in telling a good story.
Still, don't try to feed us a line. Tell us how it really is. Trek is a major franchise and JMS wants to try his and at that phenomenal franchise.
It's got nothing to do with being true to Roddenberry's vision.
Heck, even Ellison cashed in on Trek's success. He released his original TOS script for "City on the Edge of Forever" in a book that also detailed his dealings with Trek at that time. He had to have been counting on the number of Trek fans wanting to buy that book.
Guess everyone's a little ironic.
Registered: Feb 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Jason Abbadon: Thus are we reminded what an egotistical asshole JMS is.
I wouldn't go that far. He's certainly a pain in the arse, there's no two ways about that, but then I've heard that said of Roddenberry and Lucas too. If the man was a push-over would he have been able to maintain control over B5 for the full 5 years? The thing is that in my eyes, disqualifies him from being an egotist is that from what I've read/seen/heard in his own words leads me to think that he knows this about himself (who do you think he based Garibaldi on?) and seams to have a sense of humour about it. To my mind, while he's not always the most diplomatic of people, at least you know where you stand with him and he's never come off as being dishonest or phoney, which is a rare thing, especially in show business. As for his idea to reboot Trek, I'd be interested to see what he has in mind, it certainly can't be much worse than the majority of Voyager & Enterprise and (if I'm really cruel,) to a certain extent DS9 aswell. However from his last post it looks like trek is on a hiatus for at least two years anyway, it's all rather moot.
posted
I've never got that argument. "Hey, I'm a bitch but at least I know it, which makes everything okay." Surely it makes him worse, since he acknowledges that he's a twat but doesn't try to change.
And as to him being like Garibalidi, I swear that if "addictive personality" was written any more times at The Lurker's Guide the universe would explode.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
I suppose I have to be sympathetic, since I'm an unbairable git myself. Personality is something most people are stuck with and it's probably one of the hardest things about yourself to change.
As for Garibalidi, I never saw him as having an "addictive personality". To me he was always an insufferable, obsessive compulsive, pain in the arse. I live in squaddie central so I see that kind of person all the time. One of my old bosses was a WO2 and I swear he was so much like Garibalidi it was scary.
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