Not exactly science fiction, but the movie version of the wonderfully weird british TV series THE AVENGERS tanked and deserved it. I guess that the lesson here is, if fans of the series turned up their noses at Linda Thorsen after Diana Rigg left, doing a movie version much later with yet another Emma Peel is already doomed. Add to that the different back story for Mrs. Peel, and the was no chance. I did enjoy the voice cameo of Patrick McKnee (sp?) and Sean Connery as the suitably strange baddie, but it was not enough. Another case of depending on nostalgia for tickets and disappointing it.
"The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion" Arthur C. Clarke
--- On Thu, 1/15/09, Dennis Fischer <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
From: Dennis Fischer <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: [SF-LIT] Boldly (and Badly) Going Where STAR TREK Has Gone Before
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Thursday, January 15, 2009, 4:28 PM
John Scalzi - Boldly (and Badly) Going Where Star Trek Has Gone Before
The hype around the upcoming Star Trek reboot this May is having a paradoxical
effect on me; that is, it's making me think back almost fondly on the
original series, with its plywood sets and velour costumes, and William
Shatner's famously intoned head-swiveling staccato lines. It all seems so
innocent, you know? And now look at it: Big and expensive and brilliantly
designed to suck Trek fans and everyone else on the planet into the movie
theaters.
I'm also reminded that for every Star Trek -- that is, every science
fiction television show that has successfully made the leap to film -- there are
a dozen or so Lost in Spaces that have crashed and burned in the transition. But
Hollywood doesn't seem inclined to stop trying (note the upcoming and
existentially terrifying Land of the Lost movie starring Will Ferrell). So as a
cautionary tale to film executives and potential audiences, allow me to reheat
some of scifi's worst television to silver screen leaps, and what lessons
they might offer us.
Lost in Space (1998)
On paper, this one had everything going for it: Oscar-winner William Hurt as
the distant patriarch of the Robinson family; cult hero Gary Oldman as the
Robinson family frenemy Dr. Smith; hot TV-actor-of-the-moment Matt LeBlanc, and
just plain hot Heather Graham; and a spec-fic friendly writer and director team
(Akiva Goldsman and Stephen Hopkins, respectively) all doing their part to fluff
up a beloved '60s series. In the real world, William Hurt's anodyne,
mumbly stylings were so wrong for the movie that even he knew it. Oldman's
Smith was creepy, not campy and -- for better or worse -- signaled the respected
actor's new willingness to descend into occasional hackery. Matt LeBlanc
reminded us all why TV loves him, and Goldsman and Hopkins showed us that if
they ever watched the pleasant, homely TV series, they didn't understand
what actually made it popular.
Lesson: Don't just get great talent to turn a TV series into a movie -- get
the right talent.
X-Files: I Want to Believe (2008)
Once upon a time, there was a television series called The X-Files, and
audiences loved watching its two principles, Mulder and Scully, lurk about the
Canadian woods (which were pretending to be American woods) looking for aliens
and demons and satanists and conspiracies. They even made a movie while the TV
series still ran, and it was popular too because audiences couldn't really
get enough of it. But then Mulder left and the series got goofy, and the
audiences who loved X-Files turned their attention to Buffy and Battlestar
Galactica and Lost and Heroes. Some years after the series ended, the X-Files
people said, "Look! We made a movie!" and all the audiences who used
to love them said, "What? You again? We're too busy with our new
obsessions to be nostalgic for you," and turned away. And the X-Files
people cried in their empty theaters and were sad.
Lesson: Make a movie when your series is hot, or when your audience is
nostalgic for it. The time in the middle when they don't care about it is to
be avoided at all costs.
Serenity (2005)
Speaking of fans, I've just marked myself for death among the
"Browncoats" for suggesting that Serenity, based on the TV series
Firefly, might somehow have been a miserable failure. The Browncoats love their
favorite series with a passionate fervor that is usually reserved only for
religious icons or the Green Bay Packers, and will not brook the idea that the
series and the movie based on it were popular flops, even though the show
didn't last a single full season and the movie had a terrible $10 million
opening weekend. "Well, Fox didn't know what to do with the
series!" they'll exclaim. "Universal didn't market the movie
correctly! It did great on DVD!" Yes, yes. I know, Browncoats. Come here,
have a hug. Would you like a tissue? No, that's okay, you can keep it.
Lesson: It's great to have loud, passionate fans of a series, but
they're only worth $10 million in opening weekend box office. Also, making a
movie out of a TV series no one but hardcore fans saw? Not a recipe for popular
success.
Have any other lessons from failed TV-series-turned-movies you would like to
add? Do you think Star Trek followed these lessons, or is it on its way to
becoming a new one? Please, share your wisdom.
Winner of the Hugo Award and the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer,
John Scalzi is the author of The Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Moviesand the novels Old
Man's Warand Zoe's Tale. He's also the editor of METAtropolis,an
audiobook anthology on Audible.com. His column appears every Thursday.
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