Why do they always do this?

[Yaddo42]

I heard Ben Jones on RIck and Bubba's awful radio show (kind of against my will) a few months ago plugging some Dukes fan festival he's involved with. He seems to have found a nice cottage industry for himself as the keeper of the flame for Dukes fandom.

The cameos by original cast-members from "Cape Fear" was actually even more clever since the actors "switched sides" in the remake. Mitchum was a cop sympathic to Nolte's character who advocated less than legal methods to get rid of Cady. And Gregory Peck and Martin Balsam played a lawyer and judge, respectively, who were on Cady's side and turned the tables on Nolte's character by making him out to be the bad guy who was out to get De Niro's character.

The director for the Dukes movie appears to be Jay Chandrasekhar, kind of the lead member of the comedy group "Broken Lizard". He also directed their films "Super Troopers" and "Club Dread", and a good number of sitcom episodes. Could be a good sign, considering their style of comedy. Just dreading if they have a Balladeer, that they might get an idiot like Toby Keith to do it. He's obnoxious enough as it is.

As a side note, maybe the release of a Dukes movie will get "Moon Runners" released on DVD, since it's the B-Movie that led to the TV series in the first place. Ben Jones even had a part in it as a federal agent.

[AndyC]

Yaddo42 wrote:
> He also directed their films "Super Troopers"
> and "Club Dread", and a good number of sitcom episodes.

That doesn't exactly fill me with confidence. When I heard about the cast, that's about the calibre of comedy I expected.

[Yaddo42]

I liked "Super Troopers" (low expectations, and the comedic bits were better than the attempts at plot, I liked it better than I thought I would), haven't seen "Club Dread" yet. The sitcom directing credits included "Arrested Development", "Undeclared", and "Andy Richter Controls the Universe", all good shows that were clever and not just dumb typical three-camera sitcom fodder. So I think he has potential for more clever material. Plus, it 's a Dukes of Hazzard movie, I'm not expecting all-time comedy gold like "Blazing Saddles". Then again he also directed for the show "Oliver Beene", a really awful and stupid edgier "Wonder Years" rip-off.

I saw the Broken Lizard guys on ESPN2's "Cold Pizza", probably when "Club Dread" came out. I wasn't real impressed with them trying to be funny on the fly and riffing on questions asked of them. And he definitely came across as the leader and the "brains" of the bunch. I know, not exactly high praise, but he seemed to be the one in the bunch headed for bigger things.

[kakihara]

I thought that - in the early 90s - a tv movie was made with the original actors. They didn't fit in the General! And Daisy was still wearing the same hotpants after 20 years or so. Imagine...

[Fearless Freep]

Why do I keep expecting someone to mention Richard Hatch?

[Yaddo42]

He fits, he's another actor who kept hanging on to an old role, especially when his career stalled. I mean he wrote some "Batlestar Galactica" novels and recognized there was a loyal core fan base, so he deserves some credit. But he also hammered away with his continuation idea and "the trailer" even though he didn't have the rights to the show. And still carried on even when it became obvious Larson and company were going to do their own new take without him, including the aborted Bryan Singer helmed version. SciFi Wire has hinted me may get a role in the new continuing series, but that seems small reward for his years of effort. The guy sounded obsessed to me.

[JohnL]

While some actors are really pushing it by wanting to play the same role in updated versions, like Adam West, I think others have a legimate complaint. For years, Billy Mumy and others tried to get a Lost in Space revival off the ground. All the surviving cast members were willing to come back and reprise their roles. From what I heard, they wanted to continue where the series left off, but do it in the style of the first season, not the goofy episodes that came later. Nobody was interested in making. Then some exec thinks that with all the remakes going around, they should remake Lost in Space, but update it and give it an all new cast. Yeah, that was a smashing success, huh? The sequel should be out any day now...

Then there's Battlestar Galactica. For years, Richard Hatch tried to drum up interest in a revival. Many of the original cast members were interested, the fans were interested. The only people not interested were the studios. Then some exec sees that there are still fans and decides, not to continue it, but to remake it using an all new cast and new ideas. It's like they said to Hatch, "Thanks for keeping fan interest alive and handing us a ready-made audience. Now get lost!"

I thought the miniseries was bloated and filled with too much soap opera. The "realistic" space battles were boring and many of the characters were annoying. Now SciFi is making it into a series. I predict it will last one season at most. Of course if it lasts more than 18 episodes, everyone will say that it was more successful than the original, while ignoring the fact that SciFi doesn't have a lot of original programs and really can't afford to leave episodes unaired once they've been filmed.

[trekgeezer]

I have to  disagree about  BSG, the original was just another 70's show only  with special effects and that's all that made it special.  Hatch might have been able to make something from it, but now he will be appearing as a recurring character on the new show.  The producers will also be using some of the mythology from the old show.

The new one is much more interesting, it is a shame that's something that can't be said about  most remakes though.

[odinn7]

What does a gay, naked, fat man have to do with Battlestar Galactica?

I loved the original series when I was a kid. Well, until they found Earth anyway. I think one of the things that made it such a "special" show was people were still high on the whole Star Wars thing and this was almost like a weekly dose of something similar.

[AndyC]

odinn7 wrote:
> What does a gay, naked, fat man have to do with Battlestar
> Galactica?

Different Richard Hatch.

[Ash]

I also kept thinking of Richard Hatch from Survivor.

I pictured him gay and naked with only a helmet on flying around battling Cylons in his starfighter.

Ewww!

[Yaddo42]

What's worse about the Bill Mumy "Lost In Space" sequel proposal is that he had great ideas, and had put more thought and care into his story idea than Irwin Allen did in pretty much anything.

I blame a big part of the failure of the film version on the annoyingly stupid script by Akiva Goldsman. Interesting start, followed by bland dialogue, lots of climbing over big fake rocks, and that stupid time bubble that burned up the rest of the film.

[odinn7]

Yeah, I know he's a different guy but Hatch from Survivor always comes to mind first when I hear that name and I was just adding stupid commentary. I think the comment Ash made was kind of funny. Picture him in place of Richard Hatch from BSG...it becomes a different show at that point.

[Fearless Freep]

I've never seen an episode of Survivor and had never heard of the guy until the last time I mentioned Hatch as the actor on BSG here a few months ago

[AndyC]

Imagine how Hatch feels. For the past couple of years, he's probably been mixed up with the gay, naked, fat guy from Survivor on a regular basis.