Space: 1999 returning to TV?
They've been rebooted, re-imagined and uncut, but now Space 1999 is getting its own on-screen revival next to sci-fi classics Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek and Star Wars. ITV Studios America and HDFilms are reported to be developing Space: 2099, a "contemporary re-imagination" of the Saturday morning staple from the Gerry and …
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Nice timing
Space 2099 will nicely flesh out Noot Gingrich's presidential election manifesto.
Saw the headline, didn't read the comments...
I want!!
I loved Pyjamas in Space. I just hope they don't goof it
Seriously - never go back
A lesson I learned in my late teens when revisiting the enormous 'cave in the desert' of childhood memories, which turned out to be a small depression in a shallow sandstone bank.
I would like to see a proper remake of Thunderbirds or UFO before Space 1999, but would take anything actually, especially if Lord Gerry is involved!!
UFO is one of the best Sci-fi series ever made. Some of the plots are awesome. I know there is a movie allegedly in production, but I will believe when it's released.
As a Sherlock fan, I was pleasantly surprised recently to discover that his Mum is the actress who played Col Virginia Lake in UFO. She was quite hot in it (sorry Benedict!)
Oh, and yea - a Blakes 7 remake is overdue, but have you listened to the audio adventures - very good!
I also watched several episodes of UFO a couple of years ago.
I had to make sure I wasn't watching the same episode over and over (I wasnt) as each one had roughly the same plot.
Which is -
Stryker sits pensive in his office/bunker, annoyed over some office politics. Meanwhile moonbase picks up three inbound UFOs. Interceptors launched to intercept. Two are destroyed and the third damaged, crashes on earth and has to be located. Meanwhile Stryker deals with office politics.
And repeat.........
Not the most exciting show I've ever seen.
There was supposed to be a comic...
"I know there is a movie allegedly in production,"
...by Misc! Mayhem, but it never materialised. Shame as the preview panels that I saw of it were pretty nifty.
UFO
Going back to it isn't entirely brilliant. There's still the lovely Gabrielle Drake, the UFOs still make that fabulous noise and the SHADOmobiles are ace - but why is it shot like a porn movie?
UFO update
There's a new film in progress. Seems to be stalled, though. :-(
http://ufo-themovie.com/shado/
remake of Thunderbirds
Just keep Jonathan Frakes away from it, he's alreadt shit all over thunderbirds once.
Frakes' fault?
Was it really? Personally, I'd have blamed the lousy script, wooden acting, outrageous liberties and non-descript brothers. Frakes may have done the best he could with these things but... hmmm...
Dept Homeland Security at the ready
The eagle toys came with very realistic little metal cargo pods with a nuclear symbol on them.
All through the 80s there would be news stories of somebody digging one up in the garden and a big police/army/bomb disposal alert
Apologies for the cynicism
The original had a certain atmospheric charm, and the low budget didn't stop it being occasionally terrifying. Any new 1999 is likely to conform the the 2012 rules of UK TV drama. It's difficult to see how a new show can avoid being slow, over-long, soapy, with twitchy camera work, dodgy CGI and an overpowering urge to make men look stupid in every scene.
Go for it!!!
I hope the designs are not altered too much. So folks have taken upon themselves to do a visual refresh of the original episodes and in my mind the sample results I viewed were quite successful. Except for computer interfaces, much of everything seen in the show stands the test of time (like 2001). Although, arguably, the com-lock seems dimished next to a Galaxy S.
Not holding my breath
Considering the poor remakes/reboots etc that have come out recently - Battlestar Galactica, Knight Rider, The Prisoner, Hawaii 5-0 and the Thunderbirds film - I'm not expecting much.
Moving it to 2099...
...will at least give a bit more of time for there to actually /be/ a moonbase. Although to be truly plausible it'd have to be filmed in Chinese.
re: filmed in chinese
No, but how about a British/Chinese Partnership?
The one gripe I had about the show was the Eagles... Not the ships themselves, but the sheer NUMBER of them! They always seemed to lose at least one per episode, one time nearly a dozen! But they always seemed to have an unlimited supply of them, maybe the remake will include a tour of the onsite Eagle production facility, surely it'd dwarf the rest of the base!
(All kidding aside, the show was great for its time, any remake'll play hell living up to the nostalgia!)
Thumbs up icon for all the memories.
I'm not trying the neural-computer interface. Didn't end well.
I stopped reading at "contemporary re-imagination"
see title
Why bovver?
Didn't like it then, no reason to think a reboot would be worth the effort. The premise was ludicrous, the adventures badly scripted like most of Anderson's post Thunderbirds efforts. According to one of the original writers it was under heavy pressure from US execs and Maya was basically forced on them. Of course having mutilated the concept the execs moved on to more fun things and the show died.
Didn't SKY...
get some of the rights to "Blake's 7" a few years ago??
I remember they were trying to get something off of the ground, but it stalled at tender for script stage or something like that.
Poor Maya...
Such an appalling role for an actress... If she did anything at all apart from looking strangely sexy, it was an animal that got the credit.
I seem to remember an interview in which she said that she so wanted the part she'd said "who do I have to sleep with to get it?".
While playing the part, she joked "who do I have to sleep with so I can get out of this contract?"
The ships:
http://www.google.com/search?q=space+1999+eagle&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=Kde&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=to41T7aEA4PUiAKXuKSvCg&ved=0CEMQsAQ&biw=1600&bih=878
Check this out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5EFwhtxPko
It looks like an updated launch sequence...AWESOME!
And this:
http://www.space1999.net/eagle/
ALSO makes me warm and fuzzy.
I hope the bell bottoms and swanky action/transitional music comes back, too:
"jeonk-jeo-joe..... chk-chkchk ... jeonk-jeo-joe..... chk-chkchk"
Is it bad that I was born over 10 years after this series ended and yet I still had the theme tune in my head *immediately* after seeing the headline?
Check this 55-lbs model out:
http://www.fxmodels.com/space1999.shtml
DAMN! i wish it were practical to build Eagle Transporters and use them here on Earth.
Does anyone think they'd be fantastic to use on the Moon, or even Mars for terrestrial and orbital duties?
It would be cool/kewl if such craft could be banners for international cooperation in, say, the next 25 years or sooner.
OVER-ACTING Guest Star???
I still remember that episode where the 3 aliens had to return to their ship, and that selfish ambassador insisted on going back with them.
But, they didn't have time to recalibrate the Plexiglas/wooden hibernation box for him. When the actor was WAY WAY WAY into character, he startled the shit out of the actress who was supposed to be "in suspended animation."
His over-acting ruckus made her rise up 90 degrees and she immediately flopped back down. The director probably yelled "GOD DAMMIT, ThE CAMERA'S ROLLING! LIE YOUR ARSE FLAT RIGHT NOW!" But, film being as expensive as was/is kept them from re-shooting that take. So, it was in the DVD I borrowed from the library. Classic!
ah!
Just dusted off a copy of that episode ('Earthbound' with Christopher Lee!), and you're right! I was so busy watching Roy Dotrice having a meltdown, I hadn't noticed the Kaldorian sitting up and looking round.
In fairness to Roy's character, if you'd just found out you were going to be stuck in a perspex box for 75 years, you might be somewhat agitated too.
Reboots
Lets hope it doesnt turn into eastenders in space like most reboots tend to do.
I dont care about characters personal lives (st ar trek tng im looking at you), i want to see space battles, explosions and planets being wiped of all life. Not the captains emotional troubles coming to terms with the birth of his son or somesuch flannel.
Season 1 of original was great, season 2 not so much
The first season of the original Space: 1999 has the better theme tune and was also quite dark (and therefore more thoughtful in general). Season 2 had mostly "monsters of the week" and quite a jokey tone (especially Tony's bad homebrew beer efforts), but did have Catherine Schell as eye candy to compensate.
A mix of the two seasons would have been ideal, but I fear the remake might go the way of The Bionic Woman remake (poor writing and do everything in the pilot episode leaving not much for later episodes). You've also got to remember that at the time, Space:1999 was one of the most expensive TV shows to make and its special effects - considering there were was no CGI at the time - were on a par with the Star Wars movie. Even with CGI today, you're not going to break any new ground with them (Babylon 5 and the BG remake have pretty well done it all w.r.t. TV CGI).
The Space:1999 remake could survive if they go the BG remake route - turn it into a gritty space thriller and perhaps concentrate on relationships a bit more than the original Space:1999 did, However, BG was one of the few TV sci-fi remakes to actually be better than the original and I don't think the Space:1999 remake will be because - unlike the original BG - the original Space:1999 was actually pretty good sci-fi TV.
Always
I had thought that Martin Landau would always and forever be Rollin Head (from Mission Impossible) no matter what other roles - including that of Commander John Koenig in Space: 1999 - that he might take.
Farscape = Blakes 7 = we need more of this.
S:1999? Well, I guess a good remake could be done by Matt Stone & Trey Parker - at least this time you would see the strings, and they might not be holding up just the plot!
Blakes 7 - NO, no remakes - Paul Darrow IS Avon - what we need is What Happened After The Gun Shots.
Servalan has a kid (Tarrent's - of course!) and the Federation still kicks arse & takes names... Servalan's kid goes bad girl, meets an old, cynical hermit who through some devious hacking and the use of a certain grumpy cubical computer has located a craft known as DSV3... cue a small but violent and well-spoken revolution! Oh, and we finally want Avon to hook up with Servalan, they were hot for each other! (Paul Darrow's comment about that - 'Oh yes, Avon wanted her alright, but he is smart enough to know he would be dead in a day!' or something along those lines)
BBC: use my plot ideas, JUST BLOODY MAKE IT!
And yes, Farscape was based on Blakes 7, the entire production team were all B7 fans too - they were also a fun bunch of people to hang out with - a big Hello! to all Farscape Mafia members out there!
Now THAT'd be neat...
... and I wonder how they'd imagine a Pierson's Puppeteers would look like?
News story of the week.
Considering the huge number of posts on here, this has to be the most exciting thing to happen for a long time.
2099? Nice idea....
Gerry must be rubbing his hands in royalty glee.
Awesome!
I remember watching this show religiously as a kid. I'm thrilled that someone is taking the lead on this one... I can't wait!
I wonder who Maya will be played by :-)
It wasn't just me
"actor Martin Landau, who no matter how many grown-up roles he takes with Woody Allen or Tim Burton will, forever, be John Koenig"
Amen!
I was attempting to re-watch the originals recently but gave up after a few episodes; too much woo-woo mumbo-jumbo superstition instead of real SF stories, but yes the Eagles etc. were awesome and the title sequence is possibly the best of any TV series.
Stainless steel rat
Or "The Long Arm of Gil Hamilton"
Either serias of books would make for a better SF series than a reboot of Space 1999.
I loved it as a kid; Seen some re-runs not so long ago...
I pity my poor parents who had to sit through that crap
Blakes 7 is back!
Big Finish have got the original cast back to produce a series of audio books (better than nothing I suppose).
I don't see the point of this one
I stopped seeing the point of the original (aged 7) when I realised the moon would have to be travelling FTL to be arriving at a different planet each week (same reason I didn't get how the Millennium Falcon made it to Cloud City without Hyperdrive in The Empire Strikes Back).
Id's
I could never work out why they needed photo id's - especially Maya!
Completely gone off SciFi TV series since BSG
The ending was just awful. 10k people get to 'new earth', 3 guys stand around and say "what shall we do with this technology, the likes of which we've barely got, I know, lets sling it all in the sun", and the rest stand around nodding.
It would have been better if the bloody cylons had won and killed everyone.
It’ll go the same way as the UFO film
Meanwhile, I want one of these: www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHU7-0NMXbs
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