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Amazon Developing TV Series Based On Galaxy Quest
An anonymous reader writes: Entertainment Weekly reports that Amazon Studios is developing a TV show based on Galaxy Quest, the 1999 film that parodied classic sci-fi shows like Star Trek. In the movie, actors for a Trek-like show were conscripted by real aliens to help run a starship and negotiate peace with a mortal enemy. The actors had no idea what to do, of course, and ended up getting help from the most rabid fans of their show. The new TV show is still in early stages of development. It's unlikely that the original Galaxy Quest cast will return — it starred Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman, and Sam Rockwell, to name a few. However, several important members of the production crew will return: "The film's co-writer Robert Gordon will pen the script and executive produce the pilot. The film's director Dean Parisot will direct and executive produce. And executive producers Mark Johnson and Melissa Bernstein are on board as well." The show is a ways off, yet — they haven't even been greenlit for a pilot episode — but it'd be a welcome addition to today's sci-fi TV offerings
But will it be another Stargate or Logan's Run? Sometimes a good idea can be spread too thinly.
Blank until
While I do remember seeing the movie, I never felt it was something special. The idea is okay, but really stupid in the long run, guess we'll see if they can pull this off.
Be seeing you...
"By Grabthar's Hammer, we live to tell the tale..."
The idea behind Galaxy Quest was really neat for a single story. The problem with doing a series that way is that after an episode or two, it will necessarily just devolve into the bad Trek clone the movie was parodying. Voyager had the same problem. They set up this neat twist with mortal enemies forced to work together on the same ship to survive, but then once the pilot was over they were all chummy (because the fundamental survival problem was still there), and the rest of the run it became just another Trek TOS clone.
I can see two good ways out of this:
Way 1: Don't resolve the main plot in the pilot. Basically, they'd need to stretch the entire move out over a 3-5 season arc, more like Babylon-5 than like Trek. A lot of modern shows are doing this. The only issue is that it tends to make the series feel really slow and boring if you don't throw some other little things in there to resolve. There's only so much foreplay a guy will sit through...
Way 2: This time, take a writer with them. An actor playing a writer, I mean. Someone to think up the silly resolutions (like the stuff that TNG always had Wesley do). So every week the "writer" would have to think up a new ridiculous way to get everyone out of the latest pickle. After all, it was really the writers who thought up the BS resolutions that made Galaxy Quest (OK, Trek) so silly. There's probably enough silly kinds of SF plot devices to parody that you could get a good two or three seasons out of it.
This was my thought, especially it they made it as much a parody of Star Trek as the movie was of the cast and culture.
The same actions, characters and tropes that movie is poking fun of, turn out first heroic then triumphant by the end.
They really become heroes they were playing on a show, they save the world, help out friendly aliens, redeem their fans AND they get a revival of their show.
I doubt that the same effect can be achieved with a lesser (cheaper) cast and as a running gag over a season or more.
Sam Rockwell alone already used up most of those jokes.
While being awesome and ultimately - heroic.
Trying to copy Rickman on the other hand... simply won't work.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
See my second paragraph:
Galaxy Quest had a great mix of comedy, parody, character development, and heroism as well as some classic sci-fi elements. It's one of the first works that was respectful to the sci-fi genre without taking itself too seriously.
That acknowledged all that you were saying and the key word is mix. BTW, I saw GQ in a theater, and I own a copy, so I may understand it better than you seem to think I do.
So, where does the series go? Ignore the movie and spread the movie across five seasons and the characters achieve their final growth by the series finale? Or, do you start the series where the movie ended? So, will it just become another serious Star Trek like series without much humor. Or, will it try to blend the best of both?
I think you lept to the conclusion that it's laugh track jokes or nothing. How about more subtle humor blended directly into a serious plot point?
For example, in B5, the station breaks away from the Earth Alliance. They can no longer be resupplied. So, Ivanova gathers together a bunch of smugglers/black marketeers in a conference room. Ivanova: "I know in the past we've had our differences. You tried to bring in contraband and we've had to come down on you. Sorry about the shoulder, Jaxos". She then goes on to explain how smuggling in useful stuff will benefit both the station and them. So, they agree to an alliance. Solves the plot point of how B5's supply chain was fixed, with a little humor thrown in.
Now that the main characters of the Protector have matured and are heroes, they are the anchors for the serious plots in the stories. But, you needn't drain them of their sense of humor to fit some rigid heroic vision. GQ, in addition to everything else, was more broadly comedic. Why toss away one of its strengths? Because the main characters have matured, you can move the broader comedy to infrequent recurring characters in subplots.
And, if you want to talk about the injustice of something, sometimes the most effective weapon is humor/comedy/irony/mockery of it (e.g. an officious bureaucrat).
Like a good neighbor, fsck is there