Slashdot Mirror
Battlestar Galactica Creator Glen A. Larson Dead At 77
schwit1 writes Glen A. Larson, the wildly successful television writer-producer whose enviable track record includes 'Six Million Dollar Man', Quincy M.E., Magnum, P.I., Battlestar Galactica, Knight Rider and The Fall Guy, has died. He was 77.
From the article: Battlestar Galactica lasted just one season on ABC from 1978-79, yet the show had an astronomical impact. Starring Lorne Greene and Richard Hatch as leaders of a homeless fleet wandering through space, featuring special effects supervised by Star Wars’ John Dykstra and influenced by Larson’s Mormon beliefs, Battlestar premiered as a top 10 show and finished the year in the top 25. But it was axed after 24 episodes because, Larson said, each episode cost “well over” $1 million.
Nice spelling there, bub.
Seriously, a basic typo on the title of a news make it to the front page ? I'm all for giving /. a chance wrt. the poor quality of article and the associated criticizes, but this is pushing it a bit far...
Somehow, I doubt that the poster meant "Creato" in the italian sense, being the past tense of for Cresco, or to "produce, create, bring forth"...
Thirty four characters live here.
That's probably the downfall of the show, scifi ages so quickly. Probably why Lucas kept futzing with his own creation after release.
And those are 70s shows. Even something like late-80s/early-90s TNG sucks and not just from the 1960s-ish storylines. Just the lighting and everything is terrible and the effects, especially that Q-web.
We're going to think 90s shows are safe, until our kids, weaned on 8k and occulus rift 4.0 (8k, 3d, and who knows what else) shoot down our illusions and tell us how shit even 1080p looks.
Slashdot Editing: Dead At 0.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
it seems like more and more old people are dying in hang gliding accidents these days.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Like yahren. And felgercarb,
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B...
Part of his legacy is the LED "scanning" back and forth light display used in the Cylon "Eye" and KITT/KARR forward sensor arrays are now referred to as "Larson Scanners". Even though a bit dated, they still look cool when used in the right context.
I believe that one stylistic mistake made with both Knight Rider 2000 and the Knight Rider television series reboot was the use of the wrong type of car for KITT to use as a base platform. When the new TV series was on it's way I always pictured a blue LED Larson Scanner on a 2003 series Trans AM. I even thought about putting one together for myself, before the gas price crunch hit in the early 2000s. to misquote Douglas Adams: "Though his TV series', the 1980s and the Pontiac Trans Am are all history, It is comforting to reflect that they are all in some small way commemorated by the fact that EvilMadScientist Laboratories sells a Larson scanner kit you can build." (Just don't put one on a Ford Mustang or a Station wagon, because it screams "DON'T DATE ME!")
http://shop.evilmadscientist.com/productsmenu/tinykitlist/152-scanner?qh=YToxOntpOjA7czo2OiJsYXJzb24iO30%3D
Pillor me if you want, but every show this man touched eventually got cancelled or became garbage.
Er, that'd cover the majority of American TV shows then. Either they get cancelled if they're not successful (*), or they're driven into the ground long after their optimal lifespan if they *are* successful.
(*) Or too expensive to produce even if successful- either in the first place (a la Battlestar Galactica) or after a number of years (due to increases in actor wages and general staffing costs; AFAIK the latter tend to increase over time due to agreements regarding established staff).
Doing my rock'n'roll duty for the title.
Pillor me if you want, but every show this man touched eventually got cancelled or became garbage. Long live Glen Larson!!!
Isn't that every show that isn't still on the air?
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
this is seriously sad news. I grew up on Glen A. Larson shows. Particularly BSG (two words: Laurette Spang. With her almost entirely off-the-shoulder wardrobe) and Knight Rider (it was the car. And the hot, hot Bonnie and April).
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
The original Battlestar Galactica really pissed me off. It started as a theatrical-release movie and I went to see it. Then later, they announce a Battlestar Galactica TV show. Hey, cool. And what was episode 1 of the TV show? The fucking movie!!
RA and GAL. RIP to both of 'em. :(
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
way beyond the Red Line into uncharted space. His work will not be forgotten.
SO SAY WE ALL!
and i will miss him.
Grew up on, and enjoyed a lot of his shows -- BUT I always found the religious aspect of both BSGs (the original and reboot) a bit weird and distracting. I guess knowing now about his Mormonism it makes sense, and he's certainly allowed to write what he wants -- but the heavy handed religiosity really felt shoehorned in a futuristic show imo.
'The unexamined life is not worth living' - Socrates
You've got that backwards. It started on TV, then they wanted to capitalize on it popularity and made a movie version of it and put it in theaters.
Personally, I am repelled by Mormonism. I will leave it at that because my intent is not to discuss a religious cult. Feel free to plug-in any other belief system and any other TV or movie show title to suit your own bigotries/preferences/tastes/beliefs.
I enjoyed the original BSG back when it originally aired. It was, at that time, the best special effects to ever hit TV and with a network and budget that provided a large cast, bit sets, and famous actors. Yeah, the writing was hit-and-miss as was some of the acting, but compared toeverything else on TV??? not really so bad. Some characters were good, others not, some actors did better than others with the material they were given. Same thing with UFO, Space 1999, and Trek. Let's face it: in Trek there were better episodes (city on the edge of forever) while others stank (space hippies, anyone?). If you enjoy science fiction then you have to live with two basic facts: [1] the entertainment industry is NOT populated with SciFi people and does not "get it", so they will ruin everything to some degree saving money by dropping plot elements, trying to broaden demographics with wunderkind characters (wesley? boxee? will robinson?) and babes (wilma deering, maya, athena, etc), and [2] few episodes will be written by serious scifi authors. If you like the scifi genre and you want to get it from pop culture, you're gonna have to accept it watered-down and very flawed so you're either gonna get angry and frustrated or learn to take it for what it is.
The thing I find truly dissapointing is NOT the flaws in Hollywood's presentation of scifi, but rather the more-recent development that so many people seem to want to hate any piece or art or literature becuase they disagree with some aspect of the beliefs of the creator of the work. I would find Hemingway to be a drunken lout, but I can enjoy his books. I would not embrace picasso's world view, but I can enjoy his art. As I indicated earlier, I reject Mormonism, but could enjoy BSG. I found many of Rodeberry's views to be ignorant and foolish, but I can enjoy Trek. I simply do not comprehend the warped idea that if you disagree with Larson you must dislike BSG, or if you think Rodenberry was a troll, you must reject Trek, or if you disagree with Orson Scott Card you must boycott Enders Game, etc. Whatever became of of all that "open-mindedness" and "tolerance for other viewpoints" people used to insist on? EVERY creator of a work has personal views and NONE completelty avoid letting those views seep into their work; this is human and unavoidable. If creators of works all stripped their particular beliefs and world views from their works, those works would be bland and would never inspire thought/debate/conversation/re-examination/introspection. Literature and Art USED to be the very forums where humanity went to examine life and existence from many perspectives particularly those perspectives foreign to them. We used to call this being "educated" and "elightened".
"What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly - that is the first law of nature." - Voltaire
"I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it." - Voltaire
It's because you didn't pay your Slashdot bill. So shuddup!
Table-ized A.I.
I remember watching the episodes though got bored watching the same approaches and barrel rolls of colonial fighters. I remember seeing the racks of Tektronix test equipment. Front panels of that gear was real "space age" (though trying to find power switch the o-scopes was always a challenge, other controls were easy). I wonder if the company got extra business with so much of the gear "advertised."
When they did the remake, I found it amusing the only Battlestar that survived massive Cylon attack was Galactica because it was an old vintage ship (captained by an old guy with old school military thinking) with PDP-11 computers, Tektronix gear, Mocom-70 communications systems, etc. stuff that lack network systems so they were not hacked.
Getting back to Larson, I wonder what other ideas he had that never made it to the TV? Maybe they will find some story ideas, probably much better than typical remakes of decades old genres.
mfwright@batnet.com
Which is mostly a testament to how freakin' desperate we were for SF on the little screen in 1978.
Wasn't the same thing true of the Buck Rogers (the one with Gil Gerard, Erin Gray et al)?
Bark less. Wag more.
Is that Dirk did seem to come around, because Katie Sackoff's character was one of the few decent ones in the whole BSG reboot.
I love the photo of Dirk and Katie smoking cigars in a Starbucks coffee shop. (Kudos to the manager who was smart enough to bend the rules and say, for this....we'll allow smoking.)
Should be a Chevy Camaro. Black or Midnight blue. And I'll go with your blue scannar.
Yes it was however in the case of Buck Rogers the movie did come out in theaters prior to the television series showing up. It was always intended to be the pilot for a new TV series though. I imagine they worked that trick out from their previous experience with Battlestar Galactica but executed it better the second go round.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
I found out while watching BSG (new series, not the old). It definitely explains a lot. In fact, really.... the new series is sci fi human origins story for mormons. You know the whole "all our old myths are really just forgotton lore of an ancient civilization sort.
That said, I really liked about 90% of the series and really hated the that very aspect of the story. Loved the journey, hated where they were going and what they did with it in the end; far to "God in the Machine" for me.
Its one of those ones I tell people to watch the entire series up to the last episode, then just imagine that everyone dies in a huge jump accident....it just works better.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
What really gets me is the wardrobe and fashion. Star-trek was pretty much out-of-era. There were lots of weird outfits, but the uniforms weren't really tied to any era (and they weren't weird spandex space-suits either). Hairstyles were also not quite so era based, except for a few characters. The old BSG also seem very... blonde.
No, that's every show that isn't still on the air (cancelled) and every show that is (garbage).
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Polygamy has been practiced pretty much everywhere at some point. I would say it probably came into the Mormon faith as reactionary conservatism. Reactionaries twist history and mythology and try to "recreate" a past that never existed. Or rather than one "that never existed", one "that only ever existed for the minority", because they base the whole thing on the behaviour of kings. The classic example is the European cultural idea that women working is "new". Women have always worked in every culture. The only women that didn't work in Europe were queens, princesses and titled ladies.
Now, as for "muslims", well, I think what you're talking about is "Middle Eastern countries", many of which invented royal lines out of nowhere when they were freed from European imperial rule. It's not islam that's to blame, it's reactionary conservatism.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Sortof. Released as a movie, but with the intention of creating a TV series from it.
Here's the trippy movie intro that you never saw on the TV series: Buck Rogers movie intro
Battlestar Galactica lasted just one season on ABC from 1978-79
We all want to forget Galactica '80, but it did happen. I don't remember much about it, because I was a kid then, other than Starbuck walking around in a white uniform. But I also remember that Cracked magazine had done a Galactica spoof a few months before, where at the end they find Earth and it's the 20th century. I was both shocked and amused that the TV people actually went and did that for real.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
Ok, but I'm not sure that it's an insult then. If his shows became garbage, that implies they had a period during which they were not garbage preceding the garbage period. In other words, a period existed, however briefly, when they were not garbage. Frankly, that is a pretty good record for anyone in the television business.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!