speaking of rehashing old ideas.... guess who's coming to the planet? [Archive] - Audio & Video Forums

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Kam
07-28-2009, 09:30 AM
So... I've been catching up on the comic-con news and came across this lil "gem":

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Ya know, just doesn't have the impact for me without Marc Singer running around.

Worf101
07-28-2009, 02:48 PM
One of my fave TV moments was from the original miniseries. A boy is writing a "V" of resistance on a wall. An old Jewish Holocaust survivor comes up to him and say's

"No boy, you do it like this,."

He then proceeds to paint a large "V" for victory on the wall over a Vistor Poster vaguely reminiscent of Nazi posters. Great moment. I hold little hope of such moments here.

Da Worfster

canuckle
07-29-2009, 10:36 PM
Why oh why must the entertainment industry do silly things like this? The original miniseries was absolutely brilliant with a number of perfect actors for the parts (Marc Singer, Jane Badler, Faye Grant). This clearly looks just like a retread with new special effects and some Firefly alumni shoved in that will suck and die off quickly. I'd rather have them rebroadcast the original... or The Final Battle... or even the original TV series.

kexodusc
07-30-2009, 04:05 AM
Well, color me optimistic, but I don't think this is going to be a total write-off. Doesn't look too bad.

I have the original series on DVD, and as great as it was (scary as hell when you're a kid watching it) I think there's a lot of room for improvement.

If it flops, well, odds are it replaces something else even worse, so there's absolutely no downside here, but for all we know it could be the next Star Trek TNG or Battlestar Galactica reboot, so I will reserve judgement and give it a chance.

Auricauricle
07-30-2009, 07:04 AM
That is, really, the sad thing about American television. With some notable exceptions, it's so much rehash of the old stuff or old stuff redux.

Just how many ways can you make peanut butter?

3LB
08-05-2009, 07:59 AM
I think I'll have to wait and put off comment until then. I was one of those people who said it was a bad idea to reboot BSG and scoffed at the idea of casting a female as Starbuck, or Edward James Olmos as Adama - EJO absolutely owns the role now; he conveys more world weariness in one glance than most actors can muster with a page of dialog. Katee Sackhoff, the woman who plays Starbuck has made the role one of the most interesting female characters in memory (I guess she also deserves props for not changing her name).

The writing and acting is stellar. Its easily one the top ten TV dramas of all time.


But hasn't Peter Jackson already scooped 'V' by coming out with his own version of it in the form of Distric 9 ?

Groundbeef
08-10-2009, 06:51 AM
That is, really, the sad thing about American television. With some notable exceptions, it's so much rehash of the old stuff or old stuff redux.

Just how many ways can you make peanut butter?

Really? Is there anything "original" anymore anyways? In some way everything is an extension of a Shakespeare.

3LB
08-10-2009, 09:34 AM
What kills me is how many movies are coming out that are based on mediocre TV shows. You'd think the glut of TV show based movies like Mod Squad, Get Smart, Flintstones, The Beverly Hillbillies, Bewitched, et al, which were just terrible, would stave off any more from being made, but here we have more and more coming out; sitcoms, sci-fi, ****ty cartoons (Scooby Doo, Transformers, Speed Racer, GI Joe)...you name it.

I read an article about Peter Jackson's District 9 and he said it was a low budget film (by today's standards) 50 million dollars. Meaning the majority of that budget went into special effects. We'll see.

nightflier
08-10-2009, 03:17 PM
Well, I think it shows promise because the original had an interesting storyline. For all the young'uns who didn't grow up watching V, this will be a new series with all the wow-factor of Heroes (another concept that's been done & redone so many times and still succeeded). Granted, V's story line isn't that new anymore either, but it is for younger audiences, which is probably what ABC is after.

What is not so appealing is the list of B (& C?) actors who make up the cast, many of whom contributed to the flopping of their previous shows. There's Bailey (Wolf) from Party of Five, who is such a sappy actor that he almost single-handledly drained all the life out The Nine. Then there's Juliet (Mitchell) from Lost, who despite her good looks just can't seem to do anything but put people to sleep. Then there's Tom Baldwin (Gretsch) from The 4400, who we're now supposed to believe is a priest? Sorry, some roles just don't fit - and that's another show that went downhill after just one promising season. And I didn't even get to all the side-actors from Smallville, but pretty soon you have another show with a decent story-line marred by mediocre acting.

On the other hand there will be some eye candy that the show can hang it's hopes on. Not just SciFi special effects either, but also some pretty faces like Vandervoort, Benedicto, and Chesnut (for the ladies). There's a lot of young actors on the list too, so that also makes me guess that a younger audience is what they're shooting for.

By the way, Peter Jackson still has my respect after the three LOTR movies, which despite the cutesy-factor, still ranks up there as the greatest trilogy ever put on film, if not only because of the special effects, but also in keeping to an original story-line which even the most die-hard Tolkien aficionados could respect. Granted, King Kong wasn't as impressive, but it still set new standards for special effects. With that kind of pedigree, I am very much intrigued by what District 9 will bring to the screen. Quite possibly a more entertaining 2-hours than all of the reborn V may well be.

3LB
08-10-2009, 09:53 PM
Then there's Tom Baldwin (Gretsch) from The 4400... that's another show that went downhill after just one promising season.

It sure did - its like someone came up with this great premise (a premise Heroes gleefully ripped off) and at least one season of great writing, but then couldn't figure out where to go with it as though they never thought of an ending. It just spun its wheels, which is what I thought V did in its first run. Same with a lot of TV shows. I think a TV show's writers should have only a 4 or 5 year plan as to how they'll end a show, especially a seriel episodic show where future episodes are impacted by previous ones (excluding Bruckheimer and Abrams who don't understand what I'm referring to anyway).

Auricauricle
08-11-2009, 05:15 AM
Really? Is there anything "original" anymore anyways? In some way everything is an extension of a Shakespeare.

'Tis a point, alas, but a point nevertheless....Have you ever read Naked is the Best Disguise: The Death and Resurrection of Sherlock Holmes? It proposes all literature as allegorical. So if not Shakespeare, how 'bout Aesop? If not Joyce, how about Chaucer?

3LB
08-11-2009, 06:47 AM
Not suggesting that recycling old ideas is a new thing; John Wayne was in how many different versions of Rio Bravo? They did two versions of Cleopatra by the '60s. But recycling TV shows as movies is as recent as the last two decades. Sometimes it works (The Fugitive) but most of the time it rarely seems they got past the "hey, here's an idea" stage. Recycling old ideas for movies is no different than doing a 'cover' in music.

Hollywood fergits to follow one simple rule...don't suck. How can they have access to all that wealth and all that writing talent, and still come up with such lame looking efforts? It never surprises me when a marginally engaging TV show makes for a marginally engaging movie...garbage in, garbage out.

Auricauricle
08-11-2009, 09:57 AM
Mebbe Hollywood just panders to the masses' insatiable taste for the banal....(Ducks)

nightflier
08-11-2009, 11:12 AM
Isn't all music plagiarized too? Well maybe not plagiarized, but certainly "sampled." Wonder what Bach would have done if he had access to Acid Pro?