Speculations: Buck Rogers

[Kester Pelagius]

How many here like Buck Rogers?

Any thoughts on what you'd like to see in a remake of it?

Which would you rather see it return as a series or a movie?

Which actors would you like to see cast in a remake?

I've posted some thoughts on the subject here:
http://cosmic-cinema.blogspot.com/2009/03/speculations-buck-rogers.html

Comments welcome.

[Captain Tars Tarkas]

You know the Star Trek New Voyages people are doing a licensed Buck Rogers?  http://buckrogersbegins.com/

[meQal]

What I fear is that Adam Sandler or Will Ferrell will do a lame comedy version of Buck Rogers.
As far as the article, I doubt the author's "dream casts" would even be considered.  I would expect a movie version of Buck Rogers to have a cast of 20 somethings most people over the age of 35 never heard of before. I would expect that Gil Gerard would be given the Hollywood obligatory cameo shot as someone who the new Buck Rogers interacts with at some point.
The cryogenic suspension idea could work that was mentioned int he article but odds are it would require that it failed for the most part over the years except for the one Buck was in. Or the rest of the crew was killed off shortly after awaking leaving Buck as the lone survivor. Only problem is that the missing ship would of been looked for if we had advanced enough to use crygenic sleep for trips. Also any a ship failure that prevented the crew from waking up and throwing them off course would not return them to Earth roughly 500 years later.
Another twist that could be brought into the story could be Buck was the lone pilot of a small ship that was carrying cargo to a lunar base when he gets caught in a small wormhole which lets out into the future. Suddenly he finds himself with no way back to his time and he could exit almost in the same location he went in only 500 years later. Earth ships would respond because of his sudden appearance and want to find out how an antique looking spacecraft got there.

[akiratubo]

The only good thing about Buck Rodgers was Hawkman.  The rest of the show sucked.  I hated that little bastard Tweeky, or whatever his name was.

[Doggett]

Shouldn't this be in the Television thread.

[Derf]

Another twist that could be brought into the story could be Buck was the lone pilot of a small ship that was carrying cargo to a lunar base when he gets caught in a small wormhole which lets out into the future. Suddenly he finds himself with no way back to his time and he could exit almost in the same location he went in only 500 years later. Earth ships would respond because of his sudden appearance and want to find out how an antique looking spacecraft got there.

Yeah, but then wouldn't apes rule the Earth and humans be mute herd animals good only for scientific experiments? 

And I must vehemently disagree with akiratubo about Hawkman; he was one of the signs that the show was running out of steam. Wilma Dearing was the best thing about that show. I will, however, agree that Twiki was pretty annoying, but I'll cut him some slack since he was voiced by Mel Blanc.

[meQal]

Another twist that could be brought into the story could be Buck was the lone pilot of a small ship that was carrying cargo to a lunar base when he gets caught in a small wormhole which lets out into the future. Suddenly he finds himself with no way back to his time and he could exit almost in the same location he went in only 500 years later. Earth ships would respond because of his sudden appearance and want to find out how an antique looking spacecraft got there.

Yeah, but then wouldn't apes rule the Earth and humans be mute herd animals good only for scientific experiments? 

Yes that is possible but the cryogenic chamber route could result in crashing into dead lake on Earth ruled by apes and humans would be a mute heard good for only scientific experiments or Buck being pursued by some guy who insist on screaming, "Khan!!!" at him every so often. 

[Kester Pelagius]

Captain Tars Tarkas,

Nope.  Had no idea.  Does this mean the movie has been nixed?

doggett,

I don't know.  Would this better fit in the television sub-forum?

A movie has been announced, now apparently a web series, and while my article draws on the 80s TV series for inspiration the speculations in it aren't limited to television.  Remember Buck Rogers story was originally a novella, became a serial, had comic strips, regular comics, novelizations, et al.  I wasn't really sure where the heck to put a discussion about Buck Rogers since it's likely to touch so many bases and this seemed like the best place for it at the time.

The cryogenic suspension idea could work that was mentioned int he article but odds are it would require that it failed for the most part over the years except for the one Buck was in. Or the rest of the crew was killed off shortly after awaking leaving Buck as the lone survivor. Only problem is that the missing ship would of been looked for if we had advanced enough to use crygenic sleep for trips. Also any a ship failure that prevented the crew from waking up and throwing them off course would not return them to Earth roughly 500 years later.

Just because you go searching for something doesn't mean you will find it.  And, remember, this is space. Space is vast.  The Coast Guard often has trouble finding lost boaters, and that's when they can respond in real time.  I doubt the response to a lost space vessel will be in real time.  It might take months before the true nature/depths of the problem is realized and years before a craft can be readied to investigate.

Re: The plausibility of the ship returning exactly 500 years later.  That's what writer's call the confluence of random happenstance to create a seemingly improbable yet not entirely implausible coincidence.   

Another twist that could be brought into the story could be Buck was the lone pilot of a small ship that was carrying cargo to a lunar base when he gets caught in a small wormhole which lets out into the future.

No.  And here's the reason why:

In the serial Buck and Buddy crash in a dirigible in the mountains and through a combination of rarified gases and cold are preserved until they are found in the future.  Not sure what the story in the comics, latter day novelizations, or 50s series was but in the 80s series Buck was in Ranger 1 and the vessel passed through an comet trail or some such which, supposedly, through some magical mystical form of space osmosis, filled the cabin with rarified gases et al and Buck was frozen.  Too, according to the IMDB entry on Buck Rogers re: the original novella while deep underground: "Rogers, a former United States Army Air Corps officer, falls into a coma after exposure to a leaking gas and awakens in the 25th Century."

So anything other than a Rip van Winkle effect, like using a wormhole ala Farscape, to get Buck from his present to the future would be a departure from the established narrative.  Having Buck fall into a deep sleep from which he awakes in the distant future is integral to retain story integrity.

Yeah, but then wouldn't apes rule the Earth and humans be mute herd animals good only for scientific experiments? 

Speaking of Planet of the Apes one needs to tread carefully with the "re-envisioning" as Derf points out a very important fact: There's been a number of series/movies that have employed similar story tropes/formulae.

For instance Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda, a re-envisioning of his early attempts to create a post-apocalyptic series in Genesis II and Planet Earth, also used a Rip van Winkle meme.  In Adromeda Dylan Hunt was "frozen in time" at the edge of the time dilation field of a wormhole.  If I remember correctly in Genesis II/Planet Earth Dylan Hunt was involved in a NASA (?) experiment in cryogenics when WWIII caused the mountain to collapse in on the research facility, thus entombing Hunt until he was excavated/resuscitated by a Pax team.

[Ed, Ego and Superego]

I loed the old movie serials of Buck when I was wee...  Saw them on TV when I visited my grandmother. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_Rogers_(serial)
http://www.buck-rogers.com/film_serial/

The heck with that Disco-age foolishness.... I want this sort of stuff



-Ed

[lester1/2jr]

it was a cool show.  I was watching the reissues of "Jason of Star Command"  the other day and thinking I would much rather be watching this

[Jack]

I think you guys have already put ten times more thought into it than the writer probably will.  I predict meQal will be correct:  Adam Sandler and Will Farrell.  Over-the-top comedy.  Maybe Jessica Simpson as Col. Deering.